Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati (
More info?)
"Roger" <crosseyedpenguin@cox.net> wrote in message
news:75cAe.21543$4o.8723@fed1read06...
> J. Clarke wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> The demand is during playback, not recording. Remember also that it can
>> have three streams going simultaneously, two being recorded and one being
>> played back--even with low utilization in any one stream, that can add
>> up.
>>
>> Under MCE, I see at most 10% or so on an Athlon 2800+ during
>> single-channel
>> recording, whether HD (which comes encoded) or hardware-accelerated
>> analog. On the other hand I see 40% during HD playback on an Athlon 64
>> 3200+, using
>> the nvidia decoder. Using any other decoder I get dropouts during HD
>> playback even on the 64--it sits at 100% utilization and that's not quite
>> enough.
>>
>> The big trouble with hardware encoding is that the chips that do it are a
>> generation or so behind the non-encoding chips in terms of capture
>> quality.
>>
>
> How are you measuring the CPU utilization? I have an ATI HDTV Wonder and a
> Saphire card with an ATI 9600 chip and playing back a recorded clip I am
> getting total CPU utilization in the low 40's on an AMD XP 2200 under W/XP
> Home.
>
> I checked CPU utilization by doing a ctl-alt-delete and took the total
> from the bottom. To get this I had to pay the clip at 50% resolution
> because ctl-alt-delete does not display the pop-up window properly when
> displaying the clip full screen. I have a 1280 x 1024 monitor if that
> makes a difference.
>
> ATI docs seem to say an XP 1300 is sufficient for the HDTV Wonder, but I
> have read elsewhere that that is not enough. In my limited experience so
> far it an XP 1300 would seem to be enough. (I should add that the ATI
> software, particulary EasyLook, seems to be a bit flakey).
>
> I am trying to put together a parts list for a media PC and was thinking
> of getting the 35 watt version of the AMD Mobile 2200 while dumping the
> ATI software for W/MCE. Bad idea?
>
> Roger
Well with my AMD 1600+ machine capturing at the best possible MPEG2
settings, MMC 9.08 uses around 29% of CPU resources - only but is that its a
dual CPU machine but in task manager it shows the 2nd CPU as contributing
about two thirds as much resources as the first. Playing back that same file
only uses about 7% resources. This is NOT because the ATI card has Hardware
MPEG2 decoding - it does NOT. The card does have some features that assist
with this however and thats why way back in the pre Radeon days ATI card
equipped machines could play DVDs with much lower CPU requirements that
machines equipped with other cards.
I'm looking to build an MCE machine when finances permit and will likely go
with an Athlon 64 -certainly not a P4 anyway as I don't want a lounge heater
built in. Windows XP MCE 2005 is great only problem last time I tried was
that ONLY the tuners channels could be used as an input source on the TV -
ie you cant play your VCR back though the Composite or S-Video input as with
MMC.
Paul