Mother board question- stuttering playback

[wkulecz]

The Highpoint IDE controller is IMHO nothing but trouble. Try disabling it and using a PCI IDE controller. If it works, you'll know what the problem was.

--wally.


[This message has been edited by wkulecz (edited 31 March 2001).]

[Leslie Davidson]

Hi I thought I was only the Highpoint HPT 366. I had heard that the HPT370 and up were OK. Am I mistaken? Les If so have any recomendations on Motherboards?
Leslie

[Leslie Davidson]

Mother board question- stuttering playback

Hi all, Has anyone heard about or had experience with the BX133-Raid by ABIT? I have it in with a PIII 850, 256MB RAM (corsair 133), 2 40 gig maxtor 7,200 rpm (raided together as D drive and another 40 gig maxtor on Highpoint HPT370 for C drive. We have swung out each compponent in turn trying to get rid of stuttering playback. I have done all the tweakings and tried all allowed setting combos in vcache to no avail. There are only two things which have not been replaced: the Soundblaster live MP3 and the G400-TV card. Sound is unaffected by the stutter and the stutter persists when previewed without audio. This is essentially a new system and it is screaming fast but for this stutter which is not consistent in location on subsequent playback. It sooks like there are frames of video that want to repeat themselves. These captures are straight captures and have not been edited or clipped in any way. They play back fine from the camera and show no stutters on the capture end. ( I monitor on a Trinitron as well as my computer moniter. )
The benchmarks are 18 MB/S for C and 26MB/s for D. If anyone has a clue I'd really appreciate it. The Matrox forum has been very helpful, but it's the weekend and I'd like to stay on it as it's the only time I have larger chuncks of time to work on it. Thanks Leslie

[Dr Mordrid]

The 370 is better, but still no cigar. It's throughput is still very "stuttered".

When you run DiskSpeed on and look at the graph the throughput varies by 20% or more in very short timeframes.

The Fasttraks variances are a small fraction of that and much more consistant.

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 01 April 2001).]

[Leslie Davidson]

Dr. Mordrid, Thanks for your input. I have remanded my system to "Saint Ernie" (he built it and is nearly as bald as I, I'm sure!!)
He is going to disable the Highpoint in the bios and add the Promise fast track. I hope this does the trick. If not, is it reasonalble to suspect that I need to be replacing the Matrox G400-TV card and or BoB??? If that is a reasonable next step I'm wondering if I should go to the RT2000?? I have gotten REALLY comfy with MSP and I understand that the RT comes with Adobe Premiere. Does it follow that I will have a life of misery if I try to use the MSP on the 2000? I use a D8 and take my work out ot VHS but would like to try my hand at VCD ... etc. Is there another card worthy of consideration? ( I've read about a Canopus Storm and Pinnacles DV500 which were all featured together in a recent Video Magazine.) I know Matrox in the G400 arena seems to get slammed but I have found them REALLY great to deal with. They never give up on me. And I have learned alot. I think their support speaks well for the company and I have mixed feelings about stricking out with new folks, unless there are no solutions for me there. Please comment your opinion is highly regarded!! Leslie

[CarlosW]

Hi Leslie:
I´ve posted many questions in this forum regarding motherboards, and I recall some answers about overclocking the AGP.
The Abit BX133 when running at 133 FSB raises the AGP to 89 Mhz (due to limitations of the BX chipset). Maybe it's worth trying lowering the FSB to 100 Mhz

[Dr Mordrid]

Yes, OC'ing the AGP can cause problems with some devices. Even some individual boards may be twitchy with the AGP overclocked while others of the same type will work fine.

OC'ing is a non-supported mode of operation for any video card.

MSPro is not yet supported for the RT-2000, but it does come with Premiere6 which is a huge improvement over previous builds of Premiere. Used with Win2K and set up properly it's very stable and powerful.

Dr. Mordrid

[Leslie Davidson]

Hi again,
I am running it at 100 Mhz, so I guess that's not it, but thanks.
Do you know if running RT2000 and Premiere 6 with Win 98se is OK? Does it actually prefer Win2000? If I wind up trying to fix the stutter by going to the RT2000 will I fall short of desirable set up by not upgrading to W2K at the same time?
It is actually scarry to think about the ka-ching this will make ....especially in tax month. Thanks Leslie

[Dr Mordrid]

I have my RT-2000 set up to run in a multiboot rig with the following setups for beta purposes;

1. Win98SE/Premiere5.1c/RT-2000 3.0 MEGApack drivers (ignore the warnings when installing)

2. Windows2000/Premiere6/RT-2000 3.0 MEGApack drivers

Both work very nicely, but Windows2000/Premiere6 offers options and enhancements that make the upgrade worthwhile.

Examples:

The new audio mixer in Premiere6, NTFS filesystem in Win2K, better DV support in Win2K, better control over effects & filters applied to clips and the Storyboard mode in Premiere6.

In the Storyboard mode you can load in a ton of clips and then export them to the A/B timeline with a default transition of your choice (type, duration, # of overlapped frames etc.) automatically applied and the clips properly positioned. Later on you can go back and replace the default transition with whatever suits you.

This saves a ton of time when initially arranging things on the timeline.

If I were setting up a new RT-2000 system I'd definitely go with Win2K with Service Pack 1 installed and Premiere6, which is in the bundle by now.

Also I can't emphasize the motherboards importance here either. AMD chipped TBird setups, the i815 boards (now that the 3.0 drivers have taken care of its AGP limitation) and BX boards are the ones of choice.

IMHO: for max compatability the BX and other older boards (>6 months +/-) should have Win2K installed as "StandardPC" and not the default ACPI mode. They should also have the very latest system BIOS installed.

Dr. Mordrid



[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 04 April 2001).]

[wkulecz]

I don't have an RT2000 so Doc's advice about ACPI may apply if you are buying one. But in general, you want windows 2000 installed with ACPI kernel unless you think fighting IRQ conflicts as in win9x is something you also want to do in W2K. ACPI is what makes IRQ sharing work!

You will need the latest BIOS, and there are some old (<1Yr) motherboards that will never work right with ACPI kernel, most of these should be on the "blacklist" and install MPC out of the box. My advice is try ACPI first. Reformat and revert to try MPC only after ACPI has proven not to work for you.

I was down on ACPI initially as I got bit by having to reformat and re-install ACPI when my warrenty replacement motherboard lacked the options to disable ACPI in its BIOS. The potential end of "IRQ conflicts" has made me end up thinking that ACPI is a good thing.

--wally.

[Technoid]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by Dr Mordrid:
AMD chipped TBird setups, the i815 boards (now that the 3.0 drivers have taken care of its AGP limitation) and BX boards are the ones of choice.
Dr. Mordrid
</font>

What? can they do that with just a new set f drivers?
I thought that it was a delibirate hardware limitation?

[Dr Mordrid]

They did a workaround. Trust me, those video group programmers are GOOD.

Dr. Mordrid

[Leslie Davidson]

Excuse me, When I said; picking up a 400W PS "as well" I didn't mean in addition to. But to replace the 300. Sorry Leslie

[Leslie Davidson]

Hi I'm waiting on a new G400 card to see if the stutter issues end there. However now that I have replaced everything else in the system. I'm looking at going dual boot win 98 and win2K and adding a second HD to the C configuration so they can be RAIDED with the promise like the D drives. That'll give me 4 Maxtor 7,200 rpm HD's raided in pairs for the C and D. Ernie had added a better heat sink and a slot fan earlier to make sure I wasn't having excess build up, and there is space for air flow between everything now. That with the PIII 850, 512 RAM should make a hearty system. Ernie is getting a tower to house the whole shebang in so I can maintain the air flow with the additional Maxtor. My question is I have a 300W PS I don't think I have had any problem with it but Ernie suggested picking up a 400W as well. (He builds for alot of gamers so I guess has gone this route before.) Are there some brands I should avoid? Are there some that are preferred? I've read that some folks have had leaky ones that gave grief. Suggestions??? Thanks Leslie