2011-04-24, 04:03
It seems I didn't search hard enough before posting. Apologies. It seems the problem is common with this particular codec, and can be circumvented by turning off Vsync. I'm still looking for a better solution (and I can't even test the effect of vsync at the moment, so I can't be sure that's the problem) but at least I have something to go by now and know it's not the hardware 
I won't mark the thread as [solved] until I've got a working solution, and any input is still welcome
Hi,
I just upgraded my media pc so that I could play HD content. I was running an AMD athlon XP with 256MB and a newer, but cheapo, AGP card.
I searched around for what would be the minimum specs I would need. It seemed that the i3-540 should fit the bill, so I got that, and also went for an NVidia GT220. I figured that if the i3-540 should be able to decode HD by itself, then with the addition of a VDPAU graphics card, there should be absolutely no problem. I also have 4GB DDR3 RAM.
I am running xbmc live Dharma on a sataII HDD. I have VDPAU enabled in the playback settings. I was not sure which render method to use, but I had it on default and have also tried the "basic" and "advanced" shader settings.
It plays most HD stuff okay, but I have trouble with a couple of videos. One example has specs
Video
Res: 1920x1080
Codec: Microsoft Windows Media VC-1
Framerate: 24 fps
Bitrate: 14045 kbps
Audio
Codec: WMA version 9
Channels: Surround 5.1
Sample rate: 48 kHz
The playback is very jerky, literally only displaying 2 or three frames a second. I have copied the file onto the local HDD to avoid any potential network problems.
The file plays fine on two seperate computers, both with Core2duo E8400, one with 8800GT, and one with HD4870. I don't know if I just need to tweak the settings more (there aren't a huge number of settings, but I haven't tried every single combination) or if I simply didn't upgrade to a good enough system. The latter would be annoying, because I would have happily spent a small amount more to ensure that I can play anything. The thing is that the old system ALMOST played HD. On some files it would play a few seconds before going jerky. This was a substantial upgrade from such an old system, so I thought it would handle anything I could throw at it.
Anyway, any advice would be much appreciated. In the mean time I will continue to try different settings. Thanks.
I won't mark the thread as [solved] until I've got a working solution, and any input is still welcome Hi,
I just upgraded my media pc so that I could play HD content. I was running an AMD athlon XP with 256MB and a newer, but cheapo, AGP card.
I searched around for what would be the minimum specs I would need. It seemed that the i3-540 should fit the bill, so I got that, and also went for an NVidia GT220. I figured that if the i3-540 should be able to decode HD by itself, then with the addition of a VDPAU graphics card, there should be absolutely no problem. I also have 4GB DDR3 RAM.
I am running xbmc live Dharma on a sataII HDD. I have VDPAU enabled in the playback settings. I was not sure which render method to use, but I had it on default and have also tried the "basic" and "advanced" shader settings.
It plays most HD stuff okay, but I have trouble with a couple of videos. One example has specs
Video
Res: 1920x1080
Codec: Microsoft Windows Media VC-1
Framerate: 24 fps
Bitrate: 14045 kbps
Audio
Codec: WMA version 9
Channels: Surround 5.1
Sample rate: 48 kHz
The playback is very jerky, literally only displaying 2 or three frames a second. I have copied the file onto the local HDD to avoid any potential network problems.
The file plays fine on two seperate computers, both with Core2duo E8400, one with 8800GT, and one with HD4870. I don't know if I just need to tweak the settings more (there aren't a huge number of settings, but I haven't tried every single combination) or if I simply didn't upgrade to a good enough system. The latter would be annoying, because I would have happily spent a small amount more to ensure that I can play anything. The thing is that the old system ALMOST played HD. On some files it would play a few seconds before going jerky. This was a substantial upgrade from such an old system, so I thought it would handle anything I could throw at it.
Anyway, any advice would be much appreciated. In the mean time I will continue to try different settings. Thanks.
