Strange HTPC Issue

[Regk]

Hi All, I have a nice little entry level HTPC in my living room consisting of an old Dell optiplex GX240 (win xp sp 3 P4 2.4GHZ, 1 GB ram, Asus Radeon AH3450 Azuntech Xplosion 7.1 sc) I have been playing 720P encoded video on here (mkv, h or x.264 i believe using MPC hc with the radeon 3450 doing all the decoding duties. while playing the video, my cpu usage is arond 20-35% tops. Now here is my issue, on my other PC I downloaded a clip this pc is a 1.8 ghz S754 semperon with 1 gb of ram, and a radeon 3650. using MP HC my cpu usage is around 60-85%, while on the HTPC with this clip it pegs at 100% and the clip is unplayable. I guess my question is, is the sempron although clocked 600MHZ slower a superior chip to the P4 for HTPC duties? or does the difference lie in the video cards? Any help would be appreciated, I would love to be able to watch all of my 720P content on the htpc!

thanks!

 

[Chapbass]

I'd probably say the video card definitely isnt hurting, but IIRC the p4 isn't too good at some multimedia programs. I'm not looking at any charts though, so I could be way off base.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

i don't think the video card accelerates anything other than mpeg-2, and then only with specific players. afaik no version of mpc does hardware decoding.

are you using the same versions and codec on both machines? btw, there are several versions of the chips you named.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Modern graphics card offer the possibility to decode partially or completely a video stream using DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA), in order to reduce CPU usage dramatically. MPC-HC includes an embedded video decoder that uses this technology, to decode x.264, H.264 and VC-1 with hardly any CPU time required.

It only works with certain video cards, although I wouldn't think there would be much difference in this between a 3450 and a 3650.

 

[Regk]

I am using the same codecs on both machines

 

[kalrith]

I'm not sure which Sempron and P4 you're using, so I just picked one of each at the speeds you mentioned. Here's a comparison between the two processors. Most of the benchmarks are back and forth showing the CPUs are very comparable. However, if you scroll down to the HD Video Playback PowerDVD 7.3, you'll see that the P4 took almost twice as long as the Sempron to play back a 60-second clip (113.01 compared to 57.88). I think that shows how much better suited the Sempron is to HD playback than the P4.

Edit: What file format and decoder are you using?

 

[Regk]

Im playing back a clip encoded in .x264, mkv using MPC HC and the CCCP codec pack. BTW, NICE car, I had a 78 Monte Carlo, Red with a white vinyl top, 305... Beautiful beautiful car!

 

[kalrith]

Hmmm...MPC HC should do it. I didn't install the CCCP codec pack. I know you're probably not using MediaPortal, but you might try the following, which is taken from daMaster's MediaPortal Install Guide on avsforum:

# MPC Video Decoder: The best, free DXVA-capable H.264/AVC/VC-1 decoder. Direct download link to version 1.2.908.0: MPC Video Decoder.

* Download the zip file to a safe location.
* Create the following folder under your Program Files: C:\Program Files\MPCVideoDecoder.
* From the zip file you downloaded extract MPCVideoDec.ax to C:\Program Files\MPCVideoDecoder.
* From the Start menu select Run and type in the following command: regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\MPCVideoDecoder\MPCVideoDec.ax". You should get a pop-up message telling you the filter/file was registered successfully. That means the decoder is installed and registered on your system.
* Now that the decoder is registered on your system it has to be configured for DXVA. Get RadLight Filter Manager here: RadLight Filter Manager. Run it, and under DirectShow Filters select "MPC - Video decoder" and hit the Property Page button. Now in MPC Video Decoder's properties, go to the Codecs tab and enable all of the check boxes, particularly "H.264/AVC (DXVA)" and "VC1 (DXVA)".

You might not have the decoder registered, set up properly, or configured for DXVA. IIRC, without DXVA it will not use hardware acceleration from your video card. That could be occurring on both PCs. You might just have one CPU with enough juice to play the files and one CPU without that ability. However, your cpu usage seems a bit high in both cases, so I don't think HA is working correctly. I certainly could be wrong though.

Edit: And thanks for the compliment on the car. It's in near-mint condition, white with white vinyl top and red interior. Unfortunately it only has the 267 in it. My wife's grandpa bought it brand new for his wife and didn't want too much power in there. Shortly after my wife's grandma passed away, her grandpa sold it to us for $2,700, which is a lot less than he could've gotten for it. He also gave us the original window sticker for the car, which is pretty cool.

 

[Regk]

I followed your directions to a T but still no luck, pegged at 100% usage

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Possibly related to your problem.

http://zachsaw.blogspot.com/20...elerated-dxva-for.html