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Video stuttering with background task, what are minimal means to overcome it?
This isn't very much about video editing, but I figure you know best how to overcome such problems...
First, specs of my machine:
- Athlon XP 1700+
- Asrock K7S8X (SiS746FX, single channel memory)
- 768MB of RAM
- Matrox G400
However archaic this computer might seem, I'm generally satisfied EXCEPT in one case. It involves two tasks at the same time. One is a background task of capturing/compressing (only to huffyuv) video from webcam, and this takes about 25% of CPU. The other is watching TV with DCscaler/WDM drivers & 3rd party app or watching some Xvid/divx movie. The CPU usage normally doesn't go over 70%, with turning of postprocessing in ffdshow (when watching movie)/using minimal quality setting in DScaler I can go below 50%.
But there's still a problem: whatever the settings, video playback isn't exactly fluent. Generally almost, but with a slight glitch every second or two... (yes, when CPU usage goes down it is better...but still not good)
And I think I tried every sensible thing when it comes to changing of configuration, but problem remains the same with different variations of codecs/software.
So...I'm guessing that even though CPU is theoretically powerfull enough, it can't for some reason use that full power, perhaps because of constant switching between two realtime tasks. Upgrade time I guess...
Main question: how do you think, what would be the absolutelly minimal specs which will be able, for sure, do what I want?
I'm guessing that any dual cpu/dual core machine would be optimal...but what about Pentium 4 with hyperthreading? Specifically, 3GHz Prescott (S478), which I can get rather cheaply from someone. Or...what about current singlecore CPUs? Would slowest available Athlon64 or Sempron (on S939 or AM2; I like that option because it's cheap now, provides upgrade path to X2 later) do the trick?
Of course perhaps I'm missing something and there's a way around this problem that doesn't require upgrading...
First, specs of my machine:
- Athlon XP 1700+
- Asrock K7S8X (SiS746FX, single channel memory)
- 768MB of RAM
- Matrox G400
However archaic this computer might seem, I'm generally satisfied EXCEPT in one case. It involves two tasks at the same time. One is a background task of capturing/compressing (only to huffyuv) video from webcam, and this takes about 25% of CPU. The other is watching TV with DCscaler/WDM drivers & 3rd party app or watching some Xvid/divx movie. The CPU usage normally doesn't go over 70%, with turning of postprocessing in ffdshow (when watching movie)/using minimal quality setting in DScaler I can go below 50%.
But there's still a problem: whatever the settings, video playback isn't exactly fluent. Generally almost, but with a slight glitch every second or two... (yes, when CPU usage goes down it is better...but still not good)
And I think I tried every sensible thing when it comes to changing of configuration, but problem remains the same with different variations of codecs/software.
So...I'm guessing that even though CPU is theoretically powerfull enough, it can't for some reason use that full power, perhaps because of constant switching between two realtime tasks. Upgrade time I guess...
Main question: how do you think, what would be the absolutelly minimal specs which will be able, for sure, do what I want?
I'm guessing that any dual cpu/dual core machine would be optimal...but what about Pentium 4 with hyperthreading? Specifically, 3GHz Prescott (S478), which I can get rather cheaply from someone. Or...what about current singlecore CPUs? Would slowest available Athlon64 or Sempron (on S939 or AM2; I like that option because it's cheap now, provides upgrade path to X2 later) do the trick?
Of course perhaps I'm missing something and there's a way around this problem that doesn't require upgrading...
); or do you mean the thing that it's single channel? (and running at 266MHz, synchronous with the FSB of CPU - I seem tothink/know from somewhere that running it like that benefits K7 slightly; and anyway I tried running it at 400MHz - no change at all)
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