x264 Video Runs Poorly on Vista

[homestarmy]

I had a slower system in my living room running XP MCE which played 720p x264 content in Media Center perfectly. Note that the CPU would be the limiting factor in this case as it is processor intensive to decode these files realtime.

I then upgraded the living room by moving my main computer's innards over, and before moving, that system played HD content in MCE perfectly. Then I decided to install Vista. Not only did my sound not work (tried and tried) but now x264 runs like crap and falls out of sync, etc. I thought it might be only in Media Center, but it's the same in WMP.

On all systems, I installed CCCP which takes care of everything, and I believe the video is through Haali Media splitter. Is this maybe just not a great solution for Vista? Should I try something else?

The system's specs shouldn't be the problem, but here they are the relevant ones for your information:

Athlon X2 3600+
2GB PC3200
Radeon x1650 Pro 256MB

Any hints? I'd really appreciate any help that could be given!

Realistically, I'll probably end up going back to XP MCE, but I'd like to figure this out for future reference and for until I have time to downgrade.

THAAAAAAAAAANKS!

 

[nerp]

From your specs I really think it should be able to decode decently enough without falling out of synch.

Are you sure you have the proper chipset drivers in order, etc? Vista should detect most nforce4 boards automatically. I don't know about other more recent nvidia chipsets.

 

[homestarmy]

Yeah, it's an Abit AN8 SLi, so nForce 4. I don't get it...

I don't have any splats in the device manager.

 

[n7]

Hmm, i use CCCP + MPC quite fine for all my x264 HD stuff on my Opteron 165, & that's pretty close to your X2 3600+...

(This is in Vista x86)

 

[Czar]

get coreAVC

think its called that, the best x264 codec you can get