Hardware advice with MCE 2005

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pwapwap

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Master Geek

#21988 12-May-2008 21:20

Hi all,

Wanting some advice for upgrading my hardware as I am getting 100% CPU usage (most often when running guide and live TV). Often due to the high CPU loads it gets unresponsive.

Currently running windows MCE 2005 on
Intel Celeron 2.4ghz
256+512 ram
3 IDE HDDs and IDE DVD burner
Hauppauge WinTV HVR 3000 card running freeview DVB-S

Should I get a TV card that will do its own mpeg2 decoding or upgrade motherboard? if ya can suggest specific models that would be wicked.

Long term goals with the system
Possibly going to freeview HD at some point and of course I will have to go vista to do with that.

Don’t particularly want to have to replace all my HDD’s at this point, or have to do regedits until I have to go Vista way.

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#130391 12-May-2008 21:28

What type of video card do you have?

The HVR3000 does MPEG2 encoding which means that your PC does the MPEG2 decoding. This is normal and how things should work.

You don't need to move to Vista to watch Freeview|HD - you can watch it fine with XP and appropiate hardware.

pwapwap

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Master Geek

#130398 12-May-2008 21:38

Sorry, I thought that I had read that it didn't. It is definitely a Hauppauge WinTV HVR 3000 Hybrid TV card.
If it is doing the decoding on the card why am I getting such high CPU use?

mentalinc

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#130459 13-May-2008 06:45

as sbiddle asked:
What graphics card do you have.
Nvidia or ATi.
Looking at the rest of your pc specs im guessing you are only going to have an AGP card.
Which means you're basically screwed.

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sbiddle

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#130467 13-May-2008 07:47

pwapwap:
Sorry, I thought that I had read that it didn't. It is definitely a Hauppauge WinTV HVR 3000 Hybrid TV card.
If it is doing the decoding on the card why am I getting such high CPU use?

That is not your video card, that's your TV card.

You TV card does MPEG2 *encoding*, it doesn't do any decoding. The video card with the help of an appropiate MPEG2 codec does the decoding of this signal.

We need to know what sort of video card you have because most will perform MPEG2 hardware decoding which takes all the load off your CPU. If you have an old onboard GFX chipset or particularly old AGP/PCI video card it may not be doing any hardware MPEG2 decoding which means your CPU is having to do all of this decoding which could be causing high CPU usage.

Have you checked task manager to see what task is using all of the CPU resources?

mcraenz

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#130471 13-May-2008 08:03

Encoding takes the analog audio/video and turns it into MPEG2 data. The computer then uses a software decoder to play this MPEG2 data back. The ideal solution is that the TV card's chip does the heavy encoding work and the computer does the (relatively) light decoding. The HVR-3000 does not have a hardware encoder which means if you're using the analog side of the card then the computer will need to do the encoding and the decoding.

On the digital side, DVB-S (satellite) is just a data stream, it's already MPEG2 data encoded by the broadcaster, the HVR-3000 just receives this data, sort of like a network card would. Now you've got the MPEG2 data the computer just has to decode (play) it.

It's the same on the DVB-T (terrestrial) side; it's just data; the difference being that the data is not encoded in MPEG2 format it's encoded in h.264AVC format. Now a very powerful computer can decode(play) this format but it's normally considered better to install a PCIe graphics card that will do this decoding work in hardware, e.g. NVIDIA 8500GT.

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pwapwap

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Master Geek

#130660 13-May-2008 18:21

sbiddle
I am running off my motherboard graphics as the only video card I have is an very old GeForce 4 MX440 SE that played havoc with my standby. Would you suggest I get a new Graphics card as mcraenz says?
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pwapwap

103 posts

Master Geek

#130663 13-May-2008 18:32

Update.

I don't have a PCIe slot but do have several PCI and one AGP slot free.

gehenna

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#130666 13-May-2008 18:39

You might want to upgrade your ram to two 512 or 1gb sticks, either way if they're identical it'll help performance but even if they're not, having an even number and up to 2gb will surely help you notice some improvements

sbiddle

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#130672 13-May-2008 19:11

What MPEG2 decoder are you using?

pwapwap

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Master Geek

#130697 13-May-2008 20:36

Not 100% on how to check.
I am using the Combined Community Codec Pack. fro my codecs.

pwapwap

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Master Geek

#131004 14-May-2008 21:44

Found my old motherboard manual today so I could check my AGP slot. Can someone please suggest a good graphics card that might help relieve my problems?

It is a 4X AGP slot. I am also limited to 2gig ram by my motherboard. If i end up buying a graphics card new I might as well grab a couple of matching 1 gigs sticks.

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#131009 14-May-2008 21:59

pwapwap: Found my old motherboard manual today so I could check my AGP slot. Can someone please suggest a good graphics card that might help relieve my problems?

It is a 4X AGP slot. I am also limited to 2gig ram by my motherboard. If i end up buying a graphics card new I might as well grab a couple of matching 1 gigs sticks.

There is nothing really left in the AGP market except for some Radeons and as many here will state you don't want to use one of those for decoding!

To be brutally honest you system is just getting a bit old for this stuff.

mentalinc

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#131010 14-May-2008 21:59

You can ignore the matching RAM stuff its not going to help you at all A because your system wont handle it and Bit doesn't really help anyone.

Re getting 2 matching sticks: lol good luck with that http://www.pricespy.co.nz/pno_4149.html even 2 x 512 is pricey http://www.pricespy.co.nz/pno_104.html

You are better off pricing up a new system: or going STB.

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pwapwap

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Master Geek

#131120 15-May-2008 21:31

I have had a looksee on pricespy for the core of a new system however I plan to keep my current HDD's and DVD drive for now.

How does this sound for a plan?

Gigabyte GA-M55SLI-S4	$185.00
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+, dual core, socket AM2, 3GHz	$197.28
2X @gig ram DDR2	$101.20
Asus Radeon AH 2400XT 256MB HTP PCI-E Graphic Card	$72.73
Total	$556.21

sbiddle

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#131122 15-May-2008 21:46

pwapwap: I have had a looksee on pricespy for the core of a new system however I plan to keep my current HDD's and DVD drive for now.

How does this sound for a plan?

Gigabyte GA-M55SLI-S4 $185.00
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+, dual core, socket AM2, 3GHz $197.28
2X @gig ram DDR2 $101.20
Asus Radeon AH 2400XT 256MB HTP PCI-E Graphic Card $72.73
Total
$556.21

Use an ATI card at your own risk - there are known issues viewing interlaced H.264, particularly with Vista. I'd recommend an NVidia 8500GT.

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