system memory vs video

zigzag03

Senior member
Dec 14, 2001
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a buddy has this slick rc helo (see attached) with a go-pro cam attached, says he's trying to play back the video stream but it's choppy. hes using his laptop, a pavillion 6g-1d62nr, which specs as an a4-3305m with 4gig mem and a radeon 6480g vid adaptor capable of sharing 2 gig of sys mem.

this video is taken off an sd card and copied to his hard disk. the cam pushes 1080p hd vid, but he says he can youtube at that res, so who knows. the go-pro site says this machine should just barely manage this video at 30 fps.

wondering if dropping a second 4gig in the open slot would allow the radeon to use all of the memory it can handle, assuming that it is currently being held back, which i don't know. it seems like it should be more than capable.

also wondering if i can count on the cpu achieving its maximum without fooling around in the bios.

thanks, zz03


ooh sorry not allowed to attach, but suffice to say its a 6 rotor flying platform, perfect for what? spyin on your neighbors for a start lol
 

Topweasel

Diamond Member
Oct 19, 2000
5,437
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More memory would probably help but not for the reason's you are think. I doubt the Video card is doing anything. If it was responsible for playback I doubt you would see any issues. The HDD might also be a problem I am assuming it's a slow 5400rpm drive.
 

zigzag03

Senior member
Dec 14, 2001
405
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you are right it is indeed at 5400 rpm drive. so this is a cpu intensive process you are saying?
 

Macpc?

Junior Member
Jun 16, 2013
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Maybe you can open the Task Manager and see 'CPU usage' and 'Memory usage' when the video running.
 

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
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What format is the video, and what player is being used (and, if it's not VLC, what codecs are installed)? VLC, FI, should be able to use your video hardware for MPEG2 or h.264, and give smooth playback.
 

zigzag03

Senior member
Dec 14, 2001
405
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and in fact vlc is what the go pro website recommends for playback, and i have put that to my friend. i havn't heard back from him as to how he has made out since. and since its cheap, i think i'll get him another stick of mem anyway, can't possibly hurt... thank you all for your input.
 

nanaki333

Diamond Member
Sep 14, 2002
3,772
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i agree that it sounds more like a system memory issue. your video card is not going to use very much memory for video playback, even 1080p (at least mine never did when i was testing loads). has he looked at task manager to see if the CPU is getting hammered? the HDD is plenty unless it's a completely raw, uncompressed, 1080p video. the rpm does not matter too much, as that will just help the seek times.
 

zigzag03

Senior member
Dec 14, 2001
405
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as i said, we'll get him up to full memory, its cheap and should help the machine overall. he has determined that if he backs the video down from 1080 to 720 that it will play just fine using windows media player, but i will urge him to download vlc also. thanks again everyone
 

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
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as i said, we'll get him up to full memory, its cheap and should help the machine overall. he has determined that if he backs the video down from 1080 to 720 that it will play just fine using windows media player, but i will urge him to download vlc also. thanks again everyone
Thing is, if it's h.264, or MPEG2, (a) the CPU should be powerful enough (but, it might be a bit weak with unoptimized codecs, and who knows what Windows comes with? I haven't run WMP in years), and (b) the GPU has dedicated hardware. If Go-Pro themselves recommend using another player, that's just what he should do. WMP largely exists as a crutch. MPC-HC+LAV, or VLC, are both going to be plain better.

With only 4GB RAM, there's no good reason not to at least double it, but not using Windows Media Player should always be one of the first things to try, in these cases.