Using old pc with tv. What os?

[Ajelvani]

I have an old 2003 gateway 700xl.
Here are the specs:
Cpu: socket 478 pentium 4 hyperthreading at 3 ghz.
Gpu: ati 9700 pro
Ram: 2gb ecc rambus ram
Soundcard: soundblaster audigy


I currently have windows 7 32-bit professional running on this and i have it hooked up to my tv. I have lowered the display resolution to 1360 by 768 hoping to be able to play a youtube video, however its still slow. Would performance benefit if i upgraded to windows 10? What else can i do to get this working fast? Also, in the bios i have set agp aperture size to 256mb. Would performance benefit if i lowered the aperture size to 128mb or 64mb to lower ram usage?

 

[maddogchen]

performance should not increase with Windows 10. Most reviews I've seen don't show much pc performance improvement. Plus you lose out on Windows Media Center which is not available anymore on Win10.

 

[Murloc]

W10 will not increase performance significantly enough, this is probably a problem of it not being able to reproduce video at decent resolution.

Give it a try with Kodibuntu or another very light mediacenter linux distro before sending it to africa.

 

[Ajelvani]

Is their anything i can do to get this to play youtube videos? My own pc is fast with an i7 4790 and a gtx 745. I still feel like this old things got potential i don't wanna use it with windows on it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

It's old. Junk it. Buy a $50 quad-core A4-5000 "embedded" / AiO CPU/mobo/VGA mobo at Newegg and slap it in the case.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138412&ignorebbr=1

Edit: scratch that. Do you have $56, and access to newegg.com ?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883282457

Get this $55.99 Core2Duo 2.66Ghz / 2GB / Win7 refurb PC. It should play videos adequately. If for some reason it won't play 1080P that well, you can drop in a PowerColor 5450 PCI-E video card that's $10 AR every month or so.

 

[MongGrel]

I'd be surprised if Win X would even load on it myself.

Got me.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

If this is in a living room, you might consider a low end NUC or something. Theres really nothing you can do to get hardware that old working well with modern media, unfortunately.

 

[TheELF]

Get this $55.99 Core2Duo 2.66Ghz / 2GB / Win7 refurb PC. It should play videos adequately. If for some reason it won't play 1080P that well, you can drop in a PowerColor 5450 PCI-E video card that's $10 AR every month or so.

Still won't be enough for youtube.


Ajelvani get vlc or smplayer and copy/paste the youtube link and they will play it,if your p4 won't play the videos even then than it won't be able to play them no matter what you do.

Adding ?vq=hd720 to the end of the link will play the video in 720,you can change that to 1080 or lower resolution,whatever fits you.

 

[Ajelvani]

Wow seems like that machine has done its use. The only thing i can use it for would be a server to run my website as it can handle that. So i guess my best bet would be to make an apu build. Does anyone here know the best embedded graphics on market right now for the price? I believe intel iris pro 6200 is better than amd atm but the price is too high. Im looking for a 200$ build with best graphics possible. Any suggestion? Also it wont be just for video. Maybe even a bit of gaming

 

[TheELF]

You could wait for a moth and have a look if the skylake pentiums have good (enough) integrated.
APUs have good graphics compared to intel graphics but the cpu side is much weaker.
Making a celleron build right now is a very good base for adding a discrete card later on and getting a better cpu if and when you like,apus are pretty much a one time thing,no upgrade path at all for the cpu side.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Im looking for a 200$ build with best graphics possible. Any suggestion? Also it wont be just for video. Maybe even a bit of gaming

I just did a recent APU build, for $190.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2444569