Will a Radeon HD3650 suffice for HD video acceleration?

[AnitaPeterson]

Hi folks,

I "inherited" an older Sempron 3000+, 2 GB RAM computer, with a Radeon AIW 9800 Pro video card.

I wanted to make this a simple HTPC/light gaming machine in my guest room... but much to my surprise, the combo is totally incapable of playing even 720p - I haven't even tried 1080p...

I tried the following programs:

1) VLC - with and without "hardware decoding"
2) Splash Lite and Pro
3) Splayer
4) MPC-HC with CoreAVC.

All I get is horrible framerates, stuttering video, and interrupted audio... and I'm not even trying to output any digital sound, it's all done through 2.0 analog...

As a last resort, I found that a local computer store has Radeon HD3650 cards for something like $50...

So, I am asking y'all - would it work? Does the 3650 have sufficient GPU hardware acceleration for HD files of the avi/mkv variety?

I don't think it's worth investing any more than that - beyond $100, I'd probably be better off getting a newer CPU/mobo/RAM combo. Not that I'd need it, though - I got too many machines already. This was not supposed to be something to sink money in... So, if the 3650 is guaranteed to make the HD files work, fine; if not, I'll just donate the machine to my charity project.

Let me know what you think... and thanks in advance

 

[OS]

i have a laptop with turion x2 2.0 GHZ and HD3200 IGP, it plays 1080p videos well, atleast downsampled to the 1366x768 monitor.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

i have a laptop with turion x2 2.0 GHZ and HD3200 IGP, it plays 1080p videos well, atleast downsampled to the 1366x768 monitor.

Good to know, but you still have a much faster CPU... I'm willing to bet that Turion X2 will kick the crap out of the Sempron 3000+...

 

[AnandThenMan]

You're going to have trouble playing 1080p content, in fact I'm pretty sure you won't be able to. I have a single core Athlon64 machine with a 3850 I built from old parts, it can do 720p fine, 1080p I can't get it to run smoothly, not that I expected it to.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Don't care much for 1080p at this point; the 37-inch screen the machine's connected to is only 720p, anyway... but I do want the 720p to be flawless...

 

[toyota]

I wanted to make this a simple HTPC/light gaming machine in my guest room

I do not think that pc will adequately meet those needs. and is that a socket A or socket 754 Sempron?

 

[AnitaPeterson]

I wanted to make this a simple HTPC/light gaming machine in my guest room

I do not think that pc will adequately meet those needs. and is that a socket A or socket 754 Sempron?

It's a Socket 754. I don't think I've ever seen one of these before.
Oh, and when I talk about gaming, I'm not talking about Crysis...
I'm talking about the classic Quake/Unreal/Doom/Serious Sam series... up to, and including Quake 4 and Doom 3.

 

[toyota]

It's a Socket 754. I don't think I've ever seen one of these before.
Oh, and when I talk about gaming, I'm not talking about Crysis...
I'm talking about the classic Quake/Unreal/Doom/Serious Sam series... up to, and including Quake 4 and Doom 3.

well at least its not the old socket A. I would think you would be able to run 720 on that cpu. your cpu should not be much slower than my dads 3.0 P4 with HT and I ran 720p youtube videos just fine with room to spare. I was really shocked as I thought it would struggle.

 

[Zorander]

You can play 1080p materials on that system with the HD3650 as long as the player software can utilise the built-in UVD (e.g. MPC-HC with its built-in decoder or DXVA-enabled FFDShow).

As an example, my 1.0GHz C-50 manages playback of these materials at around 25% CPU usage with the built-in HD6250. My old system (A64 4600+ 2.4GHz w/ HD3850) could never play 1080p materials if DXVA was not engaged; your Sempron will indeed benefit with the HD3650.

Regards.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

The UVD in the 3650 is older than the one in the HD 6250; it can't accelerate online Flash videos.

 

[OS]

wow apparently that is the case;

Abode Flash 10.1 will be accelerated on notebook and desktop platforms that featuring AMD graphics, including:

ATI Radeon™ HD 4000, HD 5700 and HD 5800 series graphics
ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4000 series graphics (and higher)
ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 integrated graphics (and higher)
ATI FirePro™ V3750, V5700, V7750, V8700 and V8750 graphics accelerators (and later)




http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/Pages/amd-accelerates-flash-player-2009nov17.aspx
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2876/1

 

[blckgrffn]

Wow. I thought the 3650 could accelerate Flash...

*frowns at his 3650 AIW...*

 

[Binky]

I've run a 3450 that did 720p-1080p HD just fine, but it wasn't running on a 7-8 year old CPU! That processor is going to hold you back more than anything. Isn't that system about as powerful as a current smartphone?

Seriously, your $100 max investment is too high. You should limit your budget to $30 or less. Any $50-$60 Fry's MB/CPU combo will do what you need, probably without a dedicated video card (maybe not 1080p).