Frame rate is unacceptable

Uka5tic

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First of all hello all the forumers.

So this is my issue, I have unacceptable frame rates (I don't know if it's only this problem but frame rate at times is really really low) when playing blu rays 1080p rips (mkv's) on my system

Spec:
Pentium E5500
4Gb DDR3 1333Mhz RAM
Asrock G41MH/USB3 (Intel GMA X4500)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 250Gb
Corsair VX550
Some Random case

I think only issue with hardware could be an integrated Intel GMA X4500 VGA.
I tryed XBMC, VLC, MPC still no good playback. I was using CoreAVC 2.0 Pro codecs under Win 7 Ultimate x86. I am newbie with using HD media, maybe I am doing something wrong?

In near future I am looking forward to upgrade my old HDD first (it's very loud and it gets very hot, also quite small space and slow compared to Samsung F3) to Samsung F3 500Gb or 1Tb or maybe WD Green.
Then I am planning to trade or sell my Corsair VX550 to some less powerful and more silent (was thinking about VX450, would it be a step forward by a noise level?). My current case is just simple PC midATX case which is awkward and ugly also it tends to do really much vibrations. So, I am looking for some nice HTPC mini/microATX case.
The last - VGA. If frame rate drops are caused by VGA then I skip all upgrades mentioned above and looking for some cheap 5xxx Radeon to go with, if it's not (I am willing so)then I would wait to some HTPC 6XXX Radeons and 5xx Geforce cards to come. CPU, MB and RAM are the items I just recently purshared, so obviously I keep them and I think these are good for HTPC.

Maybe someone knows the answer to this issued? I would really appreciated for help. Thank you all.
 
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I forgot to mention that my system is hooked up with LG W2353V through DVI cable, should I try HDMI?
 
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Your CPU should be fine as I have played MKV's without problem on a machine that has had a slower CPU than yours, but your VGA card looks a little undepowered in my opinion. I would be interested though in what your CPU utilisation is when playing MKV's? I would recommend a new VGA card as a first step, however there is no need to spend too much. Any cheap and fairly modern card will do the job. I use an nvidia 8400gs and MKV's play fine for me. You shoudl be able to pick up one of these for around £30.

Changing to an HDMI cable won't make any difference it's the same signal
 
AIUI CoreAVC will only decode on the CPU with Intel IGPs so you need to look at what the load is on your CPU during playback. Under Win7 why not just use the MS DTV codecs as these will get the GPU to do the decoding and will probably help with playback
 
AIUI CoreAVC will only decode on the CPU with Intel IGPs so you need to look at what the load is on your CPU during playback. Under Win7 why not just use the MS DTV codecs as these will get the GPU to do the decoding and will probably help with playback

Thanks for you replay, but I am still messed up with the HD playback. Just freshly reinstalled OS (Win7 Ult x86 SP1) installed all the latest drivers. I just tryed to play some youtube HD (1080P) videos and they were laggy (frame rate about 5-15 FPS). Also, CPU was almost 100% loaded (both cores). Is there any solution here?
 
I just installed KMPlayer and WMC and they both pretty much solved CPU usage, which is 50-80% (now it rarely uses both cores on full loads (more than 80%)) but the playback of 1080p file is still not smoth and frame rates drop at times. Is this Intel GMA X4500 really so bad or is there some other problem due to some software issue which I don't know? Please, help me. Still, youtube 1080p videos use almost 100% CPU (both cores) and FPS is terrible.
 
It will be the Intel GMA X4500 that's the problem.

There are quite a few budget Radeon HD cards which would be fine. I just use an ATI HD 3470 with a slow CPU. If you want to bitsream surround sound you will need 5000 series or above.
 
YouTube will not get decoded by the GPU (I think only nvidia cards will handle flash?)

The x4500 is great but should handle most 1080p that meets bluray specs.

Other than youtube (which is also going to be dependant on internet speed) what type of files are you having issues with?
 
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YouTube will not get decoded by the GPU (I think only nvidia cards will handle flash?)

The x4500 is great but should handle most 1080p that meets bluray specs.

Other than youtube (which is also going to be dependant on internet speed) what type of files are you having issues with?

I played MKV's and MP4 (both 1080p). Yesterday I followed this Watching H.264 videos using DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA) - Intel ClearVideo version >> My collection of short anime reviews guide which I thought will solve my problems, unfotunately it hasn't solved any (things got even worse). MPC coudn't handle both of their 1080p MKV's files (some Anime video and "BBC - from pole to pole"), frame rate was very low and during that anime video frames were cut into white squares and the sound was disappearing from time to time. Then I played " I am legend" (1080p MP4) trailer which was far batter than those MKV's. It wasn't as smooth as I would like it to be, but otherwise watchable so far.
I think I am messing with some software settings, maybe changing to Divx decoder will solve those problems (I will try it tomorrow), I don't really know. At least I can watch 720p, still not as smooth as it should be as far as I know (personal experience when I watched it in other places). I am planning on upgrading some component quite soon. I know it definetely could be a decent card like a 5450 or so but I am really desire to change my HDD asap. It's a totally crank machine and quite hot when used for quite a while. (heat could be really an issue if I put everything into a small HTPC case). Also it's small - 250Gb.
 
My hunch is that the videos you are watching have been encoded with some settings that are preventing hardware acceleration.

I would try some of these H.264 Demo Clips | H264info.com

Also what is the frame rate of the videos? are they actually standard 23.976Hz 1080p ? What is the refresh rate you have set for the PC?
 
I just installed KMPlayer and WMC and they both pretty much solved CPU usage, which is 50-80% (now it rarely uses both cores on full loads (more than 80%)) but the playback of 1080p file is still not smoth and frame rates drop at times. Is this Intel GMA X4500 really so bad or is there some other problem due to some software issue which I don't know? Please, help me. Still, youtube 1080p videos use almost 100% CPU (both cores) and FPS is terrible.

When I am watching an MKV my CPU utilisation is between 15-20% on a couple of the cores. I do have a quad core CPU but your CPU utilisation is way to high in my opinion. Buy yourself a cheap graphics card that has hardware accelaration and I would bet that your CPU utilisation drops massively
 
When I am watching an MKV my CPU utilisation is between 15-20% on a couple of the cores. I do have a quad core CPU but your CPU utilisation is way to high in my opinion. Buy yourself a cheap graphics card that has hardware accelaration and I would bet that your CPU utilisation drops massively

There is a good chance that if the material is not being accelerated now it won't be with a new card either. So I think it is worth checking that out before spending any cash.

That said I did not realise there were two flavours of X4500. Your G41 has the less powerful one which only half-does HD video acceleration. The G45 version does the full job and IMHO would be just about ok.

So I would still suggest playing about to see what you can get working but it is likely that your only solution is to replace the graphics with a discrete card
 
My hunch is that the videos you are watching have been encoded with some settings that are preventing hardware acceleration.

I would try some of these H.264 Demo Clips | H264info.com

Also what is the frame rate of the videos? are they actually standard 23.976Hz 1080p ? What is the refresh rate you have set for the PC?

A demo file "I am legend" MP4 1080p was from the site you mentioned above. I downloaded same trailer but Blu-Ray version and it played a little better. Actually, there is a strange thing, KMPlayers plays in a quite watchable level, WMC does much worse job. That's could be some wrong settings which I used from that guide I mentioned before.
I checked propierties of the all videos and all say the same - 23.976 fps, or 23.98 there is no difference I think. My monitor set to 59Hz (do you mean about this or something else?). I will try to do a deeper search and tests when I have some free time.


P.s - sorry for my bad english, I can't always say what I am really mean to say.
 
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There is a good chance that if the material is not being accelerated now it won't be with a new card either. So I think it is worth checking that out before spending any cash.

That said I did not realise there were two flavours of X4500. Your G41 has the less powerful one which only half-does HD video acceleration. The G45 version does the full job and IMHO would be just about ok.

So I would still suggest playing about to see what you can get working but it is likely that your only solution is to replace the graphics with a discrete card

Well, a discrete card was on my upgrade list just it was somewhere in the end of the list because as far as I am currently busy with work and some other stuff I can't enjoy movies too much. It's not a big problem to upgrade a card, much bigger problem is to understand what I need, what I want and how to use a HW at it's full potentional which I am trying to do now. I liked your last post because I really think the same way. I want to understand how it works and what I need at a reasonable price. I got my CPU, MoBo and RAM for really low prices, so I am not changing them any time soon. I think on upgrading my VGA as soon as I change my HDD which is really noisy.
Again, thanks for your help I really appreciate that.
 
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An ATI 5450 is plenty good enough for HD usage and costs around £35 so it not a massive outlay
 
An ATI 5450 is plenty good enough for HD usage and costs around £35 so it not a massive outlay

Well, I got a nice offer on 5450 1Gb DDR3 (I woudn't go with 512MB DDR2) but still considering to wait 6xxx Radeons and 5xx Geforce HTPC series to come out.
 
How do 720p's play? I've had problems with true 1080p mkv's even with dual core CPU and decent ish GPU. No problem with 720p.
 
How do 720p's play? I've had problems with true 1080p mkv's even with dual core CPU and decent ish GPU. No problem with 720p.

I mostly watch NBA games on 720p MKV's and they play quite nice. By the way what's your CPU and GPU? I don't think that a E5500 paired with a nice discrete card (let's say 5450) is not able to give a nice playback on 1080p MKV's.
 
My old htpc CPU was AMD 4200 X2 (dual core, 2.2ghz) No problem with 720p, but with 1080p I got dropped frames. I'm not sure if my new 5450 is using GPU acceleration, maybe you need Power DVD 10 Ultra. I've tried MPC HC guide, GPU stays at 0% load, CPU at 25-40% for 1080p but these are not true 1080p some are a bit lower ie 900p.
 
I mostly watch NBA games on 720p MKV's and they play quite nice. By the way what's your CPU and GPU? I don't think that a E5500 paired with a nice discrete card (let's say 5450) is not able to give a nice playback on 1080p MKV's.

A single-core Atom is fine for 1080p (if encoded in a profile that can be hardware accelerated) IF you have a decent GPU or IGP - an E5500 should be more than fine.

I have no major problems playing 720p and 1080i H264 HDTV broadcast content or 1080p Blu-ray content on a Revo 3600 with a single core Atom and nVidia 9400 Ion IGP using DXVA in MC7. Sometimes a few dropped frames after FF/Rew - but generally pretty good.
 
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Thanks for everyone who replyed. I think my problem is pretty much solved. It's Intel GMA X4500 which can't fully handle 1080P.


That said I did not realise there were two flavours of X4500. Your G41 has the less powerful one which only half-does HD video acceleration. The G45 version does the full job and IMHO would be just about ok.

So I would still suggest playing about to see what you can get working but it is likely that your only solution is to replace the graphics with a discrete card

jameson_uk pretty much answered everything about it earlier, I am really appreciate him for helping me from the beginning. The differences between X4500 and X4500HD were discussed on a few forums and they also say the same - X4500 can't fully handle 1080P.
So I am looking forward to get a discrete card, maybe 5450 maybe some other. Closed. :)
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showpost.php?p=2454228&postcount=3
 
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