CPU Load: MPEG-4 Playback With AC3
This benchmark provided a difficult test for all candidates: not only is the test video (Terminator) of higher resolution (720x384 rather than 576x312), but we used a version with a high quality AC3 soundtrack.
VIA EPIA / Eden 1500
It was not possible to play our test MPEG-4/AC3 video smoothly either with DivX or fddshow.
VIA EPIA / C3
The small C3 processor system was also unable to play our MPEG-4/AC3 video smoothly.
VIA EPIA-M 9000
The top model was able to play our AC3 test video smoothly with both the current DivX codec and fddshow. The latter program used less CPU processing time. MPEG decoding in hardware and the increased memory bandwidth would seem to help considerably.
