Playing 1080p with FX5500 + AMD athlon - 4 year old system

[p1tin]

Anybody having 1080p videos not playing smoothly can try these:

I have a system built 4 years before:

AMD Athlon 2400+, MSI K7N2 Delta L board with GeForce 4 MX4000 64MB 8x AGP card & 17? CRT Samsung syncmaster 793s;
Problem is that I cant play 1080p videos. so I posted my request for help here n got replies.

Anybody who is having slightly higher configuration or struggling with making 1080p videos in latest system, I think the following will Surely be of help:

For the above config (to play HD videos)I bought a DDR 256MB Nvidia FX5500 8x AGP card last week for 33$.(this was the thing available here in India, near my locality n AGP is outdated).
set AGP aperture size-256MB in BIOS; Windows XP sp2,directx 9c(dec 2007);default windows xp drivers for FX5500;
Resolution: 1024 x 768 85Hz;

with the above setup I played 1080p mkv video file in this order:

1. Played with VLC 0.9.2 release - video, audio stalls so...
2. Downloaded Zoomplayer - No mentionable results....
3. GOM player latest - Video n audio out of sync n stalls so...

4. SM player latest - decent performance...video played smoothly but audio out of sync n choppy. scoured oc forums in net and did this in SMPlayer: changed autosync from 100 to 1 (quote From SMplayer forum: when autosync is enabled, this factor is 100 by default, but setting the factor to 1 instead will do something special: the a/v sync correction algorithm will be adjusted automatically and the audio will stay in sync with the video for (almost) the entire time. At least that is what I experienced. -autosync 1" fixes the issue almost completely.
Other tips for bad HD video playback are: disable the loop filter (for HD movies anyway) and enable frame drops;

Result: Audio sync perfect but video stuttered to get in sync with audio(dunno)...so...
Still I faced problems & also did this:
5. Downloaded KM player and played 1080p - WOWWW! video played like butter smooth !..but audio went out of sync slowly over time (after a minute)..with video playing smoothly.

Problem I have now is:
with KMPlayer video is good & plays smoothly. Only I have problem with audio going out of sync n leads the video.

I request help on making this work with KM player or any other player.
I dont mind having CPU usage 100% coz..i will b watching HD videos only twice a month for about 8hrs in total.
Just want to milk the max performance from my existing config.

Also please recommend ways to oc the k7n2dela L board n processor so that I can get more CPU cycles to play HD video.
-----------------
My entire previous post on this problem:
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=31&threadid=2221040
======================================
my complete system config (just in case someone needs to suggest something):

CPU: AMD Athlon 2400+ (Thoroughbred); Socket A; L1- 64KB, L2cache- 256KB. Core speed ? 2.0GHz
Motherboard: MSI K7N2 Delta-L (model MS6570), chipset: NVidia nForce2 Ultra 400
RAM: Total: 1GBDDR (1280MB) [split across 3 slots- slot1- Hynix512MB PC2700(166MHz), Slot#2- Corsair 512MB PC3200, Slot#3 - Corsair 256MB PC3200]
Video AGP card: NVidia FX5500 (256MB DDR video memory).
Hard disk: Total 200GB = IDE HDD 120GB Seagate7200 RPM + IDE 80GB Seagate7200RPM
Display: 17? CRT Samsung syncmaster 793s
Speakers: Creative Inspire 2.1 2500
Power Supply: A local-make 400W power supply

 

[ViRGE]

The best solution would be to install a video card capable of complete decoding off-loading, such as a Radeon 3450. However I imagine that you're getting the shaft and can not acquire one for cheap in India.

You can try CoreAVC, which has phenomenally low CPU usage, but even with that you may not reach your goal. Your CPU is simply miserably slow. There is no magic bullet here with a CPU that slow.

 

[Qbah]

I'm assuming you got a FullHD TV attached to that computer or at least a 24" LCD? Otherwise what's the point of running a 1080p clip (that's 1920x1080) on a 1024x768 17" CRT?

 

[p1tin]

Yes, I am going to get a 24" LCD; Want to make sure the system plays this stuff smoothly. so will buy that LCD;

 

[VirtualLarry]

Uhm... upgrade?

 

[3DoubleD]

I agree with ViRGE, your CPU is horribly slow. I had an AMD 3500+ and even with CoreAVC I couldn't play 1080p unless I overclocked, and even then I had issues with some higher bit rate encodes. If you want to be able to play 1080p consistently I recommend you get your hands on any dual core CPU + CoreAVC. I also recommend the latest and greatest version of CoreAVC as older versions had blocking issues.

Nothing else really matters, get just enough RAM that your OS runs smooth, grab whatever video card (even integrated is fine, as long as it supports 1900x1200). I say the video card doesn't matter because unless you only download encodes with L4.1 enabled, you cannot GPU offload your movies, whereas a dual core CPU could play anything. Also, there aren't many options for H.264 acceleration running an AGP platform. The cards that do exist are horribly supported and a waste of money.

So my suggestion is to get a new motherboard (preferably one that takes DDR ram so you don't need to buy new ram), ditch the Hynix DDR166 since it's slowing down your system (768MB of ram is plenty for XP or linux), grab a dual core cpu, and figure out a cheap graphics solution (either integrated or low end discrete card with DVI, don't run a 24" monitor with VGA or you are wasting your time). I'd be looking for a socket 939 or AM2 board with whatever X2 you can get your hands on.

I'm sorry I'm bringing nothing but bad news, but hope it helps.

Good luck!

On second thought, as an alternative to upgrading your hardware, you may try just watching 720p movies instead. I have a 1600x1200 LCD and I can see the difference between 1080p and 720p, but it's small and you have to sit rather close (within ~2 feet). For a 24" monitor 1080p is noticeable between closer than 5 feet away, 3 feet being the optimal viewing distance. If you sit from 5 feet or further away, your eyes cannot tell the difference between 720p and 1080p content and a 720p movie unconverted to 1080p would do just fine. You could also consider buying a 22" monitor with a 1650x1050 resolution instead. Optimal viewing distance will probably be around 2-2.5 feet and you may not have to upgrade your hardware (you will also greatly save on hard drive space, which mysteriously disappears once you start watching HD movies...)

Check out this link for more information on the difference between 1080p and 720p. Take note in the fact that the most important aspects of picture quality are 1)contrast ratio, 2) color saturation, 3) color accuracy, 4) resolution. It might be better to get a 22" with an 8 bit (full 16.7 million color, no 6bit + dithering crap) panel with a good contrast ratio than pay out the nose for a 24" which still carry a significant premium.

http://www.carltonbale.com/2006/11/1080p-does-matter/

 

[p1tin]

3DoubleD, thanks! Thats superb info I got from you!
Thanks..others for your time!

I m now thinking of assembling a Kickass system(cpu+mb+RAM) with 500dollars (22000 Indian Rupees) (i only have this much as of now)! n giving this AMD to my parents n throwing out their PIII 'bullock cart' ;-)

what do u think about this combination:
AMD 5400+
ASUS M3A78-EMH HDMI or EH HDMI
2GB 800Mhz corsair RAM
500GB seagate SATA 16MB cache
22" LCD

OR

should I go for Intel c2d?

inputs please!

 

[coolpurplefan]

Intel just came out with the e5200. I think that may be your cheap alternative on the Intel side. It's about as powerful as a 5400+ or a 6500+ (Phenom dual core).

Those parts you picked seem OK.

EDIT: You know, if you get the new 89 watt AMD X2 6000+ at 3.1 GHz, you'll get the heatpipe cooler from what I read on newegg reviews. You'd only need a Nexus 70mm fan to improve it.

 

[3DoubleD]

Your choices look good to me. You will have absolutely no problem with 1080p with either the 5400+ or just about any Core2Duo, especially if you use CoreAVC as your video decoder. That ASUS motherboard is pretty sweet too, so you can't really go wrong with that. You can even do GPU accelerated H.264 decoding if you setup your software right (with encodes that support this features). Don't bother buying any fancy RAM either, you probably wouldn't notice the difference, so just make sure Corsair isn't charging you extra for what you could get from another well known company (like OCZ). I'm not sure what is available to you, so you will have to make your own judgment.

You could go intel and a similar board would be the ASUS P5Q-EM as recommended by Anand. However, this board is $50 more (in Canada) than the AMD board, so unless you can find a competitive product, the AMD solution may be cheaper. However, if you play video games at all and would be thinking of adding a video card later on, the intel system would certainly be better (especially if you got into overclocking (but that's another entirely different discussion).

For choosing a monitor, I'd refer to the LCD guide in this forum.

Good luck!