Looking for a good, very lightweight DVD player software
hello,
I recently got PowerDVD 4 (which is also labelled as PowerDVD-XP) build .1813 (thank you jim) really flying.
depending on what dvd (movie) I play I got a cpu-load of only 30 to 50%, playing most time at 35% in one case and other movies play at 40 to 70% cpu-load, averaging at 55%.
in other words dvd-movies now play REALLY smooth and without any hick-ups. these results I get on both win98se and win2000.
system:
asus p5a 1.03
k6-3+ at 300mhz !!!!!! (which is due to only half fsb-speed of 50mhz because of broken chip on the motherboard)
graphic card: nvidia geforce fx 5900xt
graphics driver: 52.16 (win98), 56.72 (win2000)
agp-driver + ide-driver: versions that come bundled with ali-integrated-driver-file version 1.91 (win2000)
agp-driver (win98): 1.68
ide-driver (win98): 3.56
the MOST important thing to get such low cpu-load is to ensure that
- your DVD-drive runs in DMA-mode (NOT pio-mode)
- video hardware acceleration enabled
for video hardware acceleration you have to tick the according check-box within the power-dvd program's configuration.
I recently got PowerDVD 4 (which is also labelled as PowerDVD-XP) build .1813 (thank you jim) really flying.
depending on what dvd (movie) I play I got a cpu-load of only 30 to 50%, playing most time at 35% in one case and other movies play at 40 to 70% cpu-load, averaging at 55%.
in other words dvd-movies now play REALLY smooth and without any hick-ups. these results I get on both win98se and win2000.
system:
asus p5a 1.03
k6-3+ at 300mhz !!!!!! (which is due to only half fsb-speed of 50mhz because of broken chip on the motherboard)
graphic card: nvidia geforce fx 5900xt
graphics driver: 52.16 (win98), 56.72 (win2000)
agp-driver + ide-driver: versions that come bundled with ali-integrated-driver-file version 1.91 (win2000)
agp-driver (win98): 1.68
ide-driver (win98): 3.56
the MOST important thing to get such low cpu-load is to ensure that
- your DVD-drive runs in DMA-mode (NOT pio-mode)
- video hardware acceleration enabled
for video hardware acceleration you have to tick the according check-box within the power-dvd program's configuration.
For video DVD player, nothing is more important but the VGA card.
The best video card you could use for it is an ATI one, this is for sure.
ATI cards from RAGE128 have hardware motion compensation AND IDCT (inverse discrete cosine transformation).
Other cards, including FX series have hardware motion compensation only.
With a rage 128 PCI you could see a DVD smoothly on a P200MMX.
The best video card you could use for it is an ATI one, this is for sure.
ATI cards from RAGE128 have hardware motion compensation AND IDCT (inverse discrete cosine transformation).
Other cards, including FX series have hardware motion compensation only.
With a rage 128 PCI you could see a DVD smoothly on a P200MMX.
andrej,
the so-called hardware acceleration in this context only means using "video overlay". this means, that the output is directly written into the graphics display memory area. it has nothing to do with conversion(computation) of mpeg2-stream or whatever format of the movie.
for it to work you should a) have agp-driver, directx-driver, and video-driver installed correctly and b) "tick" the check box within powerdvd.
see picture ....
also have you verified that your dvd-drive is running in DMA-mode? if it is running in PIO-mode you will never come close to 50% cpu-usage.
the so-called hardware acceleration in this context only means using "video overlay". this means, that the output is directly written into the graphics display memory area. it has nothing to do with conversion(computation) of mpeg2-stream or whatever format of the movie.
for it to work you should a) have agp-driver, directx-driver, and video-driver installed correctly and b) "tick" the check box within powerdvd.
see picture ....
also have you verified that your dvd-drive is running in DMA-mode? if it is running in PIO-mode you will never come close to 50% cpu-usage.
- Attachments
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- video acceleration powerdvd.png (53.81 KiB) Viewed 10259 times
andrej,
riva 128 pci DOES support video overlay mode!
you will find informatioin that confirms this when you google "riva 128 pci overlay mode"
for example here:
http://www.ltcom.com/page/FAQ/TV_Tuner.htm
riva 128 pci DOES support video overlay mode!
you will find informatioin that confirms this when you google "riva 128 pci overlay mode"
for example here:
http://www.ltcom.com/page/FAQ/TV_Tuner.htm
so then there is no reason why it should perform worse than the fx 5900 card I used. it does not feature idct either and I doubt powerdvd4 which was released in first half of 2002 had any idea about an fx-5900 card and its capabilities ....
HOW do you check that your dvd runs in dma mode? what tool do you use?
HOW do you check that your dvd runs in dma mode? what tool do you use?