Vintage Computer Advice PII to PIII

[bentech]

So I recently had about 12 socket A motherboards in a row fail on me (darn those caps) and had to dig deep into the storage locker. Out comes the Asus P2B which is of course still reliable after all these years. I popped my PII 333 on it and it is solid. Naturally, as these rigs cost $3K back when.

The only problem is it won't play YouTube smoothly at 333Mhz. That's pretty much the only thing it won't do that I need it to do. Flash 8 is better than flash 10, but still a slideshow. CPU runs at 100%. Kind of odd as everyone runs this stuff on their phones now. Just bad programming in my opinion (adobe desktop flash player).

Asus P2B PCB Rev. 1.02 (a PIII 600 Katmai core with 512k cache is the max supported, I've checked), 512 megs PC100 SDRAM, Geforce 3 TI200, Windows XP SP3 fresh install with absolutely nothing else running.

So, would a slot one PIII 600 play YouTube at default resolution smoothly? Anyone out there using one of these?

If not, what is recommended in the $20 price range. After all, the PIII upgrade would cost less than that.

Thanks from an old timer.

 

[nonameo]

Hmmm.... I wonder if a slotket and a tualatin celeron 1.2 would work.

 

[bentech]

It might, I actually do have a slotket handy. However, I'm not certain if the particular one I have can regulate the voltage down far enough. I will check into it and report back.

 

[BoomerD]

I think in one of my boxes of "old parts," I MIGHT have a P2-400 and a P3-700 that I swapped the P2 for. Quite a performance boost at the time! Both are "slot 1" processors, so it was a simple swap for me.

shipping would probably cost more than these things are worth though...

 

[bentech]

I agree it is a nice boost, I believe I went from a PII 333 to a PIII 550 back in the day. However, I have no clue if it would be adequate to handle YouTube today even at the standard 360p. The PII certainly isn't. As mentioned, Asus states that my PCB revision can only handle a PIII 600Mhz "Katmai" core processor[1] at maximum. However, it is doubtful they are accounting for a slotket, which I still need to go diving through my 'goodies' to find.

[1]Intel part number 80525PY600512 according to Wikipedia.

 

[bentech]

All right, I found the slotket and it is a Procomp D370A version 1.0 with only a single jumper to force a 100Mhz front side bus. As there is no way to regulate the voltage, I can say with reasonable certainty that this particular slotket will not support the Tualatin. I vaguely recall experimenting with the Iwill slotket back in the day and seem to recall that, even though it did have voltage jumpers, for whatever reason did not work with the Asus P2B PCB rev. 1.02 either, but I could vary well be recalling incorrectly. It has been a while!

 

[dbcooper1]

Didn't the PIII add some multimedia instructions the PII didn't have?

 

[Maximilian]

Didn't the PIII add some multimedia instructions the PII didn't have?

It added SSE but it was half baked.

 

[aigomorla]

Yeah op, i see shipping killing you in the 20 dollars limit that you want.

A super cheap combo, of like an intel Atom with board and ram could probably run you less then 100.

And so could a used AMD X2 setup.

But in regards, i dont think there is much salvaging in your system.

The parts you would require are so old, you need to get them used.
And even then it would be difficult.

 

[bentech]

I don't mind used. I am a pretty good surplus hunter. The question remains if anyone knows if the PIII 600 can play a video on YouTube.

I recall playing DVDs smoothly in software on slower processors than that. The hardware decoder boards were only needed up to perhaps the PII 400. So, I'm not certain why Adobe can't pull it off. The videos online are not only lower resolution, but much lower bitrate as well than a commercial DVD.

 

[deimos3428]

I don't mind used. I am a pretty good surplus hunter. The question remains if anyone knows if the PIII 600 can play a video on YouTube.

Not so long ago I decommed my PIII 450. If I'm not misremembering I tried Youtube at one point and it wasn't pretty. I don't recall the resolution, unfortunately. If I can still find all the parts I'll give it a shot and let you know.

 

[bentech]

Thanks Deimos. Not sure how much of a difference the 150Mhz would make, but probably not a whole lot.

By the way, I did find that Flash Player 8 plays the videos smoother than Flash Player 10, at least on the PII system. I got it form the Macromedia archive:

http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/installers/archive/fp8_archive.zip

I used the last version (.42, I believe).

 

[VirtualLarry]

you need a 1ghz PIII to watch youtube.

 

[StinkyPinky]

I had to look at the dates on this to see if this had been resurrected from 2002.

 

[yottabit]

I've got a 800 mhz PIII coppermine sitting next to me I can try out and get back to you...

I'm pretty sure even that won't play 360p fullscreen though. You should be able to get away for those videos that have a 240p setting. I think with a katmai you're screwed. For a little more than $20 you may be able to get a add in PCI card that has flash acceleration, that would be your best shot.

 

[mrcmtl]

I don't think so, my 550Mhz Turion cannot play a 360p youtube video smoothly. It's watchable but definitely not comfortable.

 

[yottabit]

Apparently I forgot that there's a network driver issue with my computer and it locks up when I connect the ethernet cable. But yea, I don't think it will work. My girlfriends ~2006 celeron 1.8 ghz laptop can barely play 360p fullscreen

 

[bentech]

Thanks everyone for the responses. I did title the thread 'vintage' and I meant it. *laughs*

 

[yottabit]

Thanks everyone for the responses. I did title the thread 'vintage' and I meant it. *laughs*

Hey bentech! I thought this was intriguing enough to put in a new network card and see how the PIII 800 did on youtube. I recorded the outcome Don't mind my speech I had a couple drinks during the making of this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Aj7BCauuDY

Cliffnotes is it can do 240p and low bitrate 360p... but definitely not 360p in general. And this is a coppermine p3

This was with flash 10.1, maybe it would do better with an older version... I'd also be interested to see how it would do with a flash-accelerated gpu

 

[Gillbot]

Hop on over to the free section and make a post in the freebies thread. You'll likely find someone that has an old chip or even a combo they'd unload for the cost of shipping.

 

[bentech]

@ yottabit - thanks for making the video, I watched the whole thing - very informative. I think, as one member said above, the PIII 1.0 Ghz processor is probably going to be the sweet spot for windowed 360p which I believe is the standard YouTube presentation for most videos.

A very generous forum member is helping me out with a PIII 1.0 Ghz combo within the target budget, so I will report back at least once more to let everyone know how it goes with Flash 8 and Flash 10.1 once the parts arrive and are up and running.

 

[nenforcer]

I just upgraded my Mom's computer from a 1GHz Socket 370 Pentium 3 512MB PC133 SDRAM which was more than capable of fullscreen 360p and 480p video but she has a newer Geforce 4 MX video card.

I really think you've got a great shot at it if you upgrade both the CPU and the GPU. Does that motherboard support 1.5V AGP 4X video cards or is it stuck at 3.3V AGP 1x / 2x?

If you can get a really cheap Geforce FX 5600XT or better yet a 6600GT with some sort of Purevideo acceleration in the drivers I think you have a great shot at hardware accelerated Flash 10.1.

 

[bentech]

The Asus P2B is stuck at 1x/2x. Thus the Geforce 3 TI 200. I have an ATI 9600 SE lying around but can't use it.

The new motherboard, when it arrives, will be an CUSL2-M which I believe has 4x capability.

 

[bentech]

OK - I received and upgraded to a PIII 1 Ghz on Asus CUSL2-M. Made a nice difference from the PII. I noticed that CPU use was in the upper 90s with Flash 8. I then tried Flash 10.1 again and it reversed the previous trend and performed just a bit better than Flash 8, coming in at the upper 80s to low 90s.

DVD playback was hitting 100 and dropping a frame or two. Watchable but not great.

Basically, the system was now acceptable but not perfect. This was with the onboard Intel 815 graphics.

I decided to pop in an ATI 9600 SE video card, and wham! All good. DVD playback is now 35-45% and very smooth indeed.

Flash (YouTube 360p) is down to 65 to 90 depending on the video and noticeably smoother.

So, The PIII 1 Ghz with a somewhat decent video card (for 2D/video anyway) is the answer to my original question.

Thanks to all.

 

[bentech]

I found a 360p YouTube video that challenges this rig - it is quite a neat video too - the Blue Angels national flying team - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6tB8Lf7YoU

CPU spikes mid 90s and 100 if the mouse is moved, some dropped frames regardless.

Tried Hulu, fairly jerky, but some people with high end systems can't get Hulu playing smooth anyway.

MOST YouTube content at default presentation is watchable though!

Thought someone might find this follow-up useful if searching for rock bottom YouTube system requirements, etc.