Need that last umpfh to handle 720p.

[CycoXP]

I know my box is right on the edge of being able to handle solitare even :

Shuttle SS 51G
P4 @ 2.66GHZ
768MB DDR-333 RAM
Geforce 6200GS w/ 128MB. (AGP 4x)

This is an old workhorse that have been with me many years and that I've updated from time to time with cheap parts to keep it somewhat in the game, and now when I have a HDTV I really wanted to be able to play 720p material on it.

The thing is, most of them amazingly enough actually runs fine, like the ones with more slow moving scenes and such I don't notice any lag at all in, but with certain media and faster moving scenes it gets behind for short moments and that's the part I want to remedy if at all possible since it feels like I'm really just missing those last 2-3% to run it perfect.

So questions :

* Would I benefit of trying to overclock the graphics card?

* Any secret XBMC settings that might make it run better?

* If I go with upgrading the beast one last time, would it benefit more from more RAM or a faster processor (3GHZ P4 is what it max out on, though it can handle HT, would that make much difference?)

Any other suggestions would be dearly appreciated, sorry if posts like this is super common I'm just eager to make it run at full potential.

(My TV is FullHD but for 1080 when I feel like that is needed I'll do a complete update and get a new box).

Thanks in advance.

[james141]

Hi,

I am running an AMD Athlon XP 3200+ (clock speed just over 2000) and it plays 720p fine and it almost plays 1080p

Personally I think your setup should manage 720p a better processor would help tho.

I dont think any extra ram would help and at this point in time not worth bothering with the gfx card.

Is it defiantly the processor that is maxing out? run a 720p video with the statistics display turned on.

Also have you tried the XBMC live I get a slightly better frame rate with that compared to the windows version?

[WiSo]

Most probably the performance will get better once we have updated to the latest ffmpeg libraries. Until then only a faster CPU might help.

[james141]

Most probably the performance will get better once we have updated to the latest ffmpeg libraries. Until then only a faster CPU might help.

Is that a hint that the GFX card might be made to handle some of the work soon? :)

[WiSo]

Nope. This still depends on ffmpeg. Once ffmpeg supports GPU decoding we might have it soon too.

[Livin]

CycoXP
get a used mobo(built-in video)/cpu/ram for like $100 from HardForum or similar site... or when Fry's has a deal.

hanging on to old hardware and "upgrading" parts is not cost effective these days