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Request to ones with P43GHzPrescott or Sempron/Athlon64 3000+/3200+ _and_ webcam/etc.

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  • Request to ones with P43GHzPrescott or Sempron/Athlon64 3000+/3200+ _and_ webcam/etc.

    I'm struggling now with some problem, which apparently can be resolved only by upgrading, preferably to dualcore. However dualcore is out of the question now - I prefer to direct money elsewhere.
    The cheapest high performance option available to me now is P4 3GHz from someone (Prescott, 1MB L2, S478). New Sempron or cheapest Athlon64 is second, perhaps close enough to consider one of them instead P4 (and they have big plus of giving much bigger future options...)

    However...I'm not entirelly sure such singlecore CPUs are enough. Even when CPU utilisation is around 50% on AthlonXP 1700+, it still can't do what I want - watching TV/Xvid/Divx/DVD completelly fluently while, at the same time, capturing in background video stream. Perhaps both of these tasks are just too "realtime" to handle switching between them efficiently, I don't know. But...I wonder whether singlecore CPUs with more advanced architecture, as is the case with P4 and K8, can handle this.
    So I request help in determing that from those of you that have those CPUs. Yes, whole "benchmark" is easy/quick to set up and perform, details below. No, I don't have acces to such CPUs, except to said P4...but the whole computer/OS is generally to misconfigured/fubared to give an answer (suffice to say...it failed the test; but I wouldn't say it can do standard things which it should be able to do without problem)

    Getting required software
    For capture I'm using VirtualDub, probably the most efficient and lightweight app for something like this. I "compress" captured video using Huffyuv. Basically everything at standard settings.
    When both things are installed, run VirtualDub, select File -> capture AVI, and in new window you should see preview from your webcam (if not, I guess menu "device" can help). In "video" menu set resolution to 640x480 or similar (I believe it's in video -> format, but can't check it here). From video -> compression choose huffyuv. And in video menu choose "no display", it's not needed, since VirtualDub will run in background. Also in audio menu choose some reasonable mp3 option/etc. After that choose menu Capture -> capture video, and VirtualDub should start capturing.
    And now, the true test. Run some decent quality Xvid/Divx movie (personally I use ffdshow to watch them, preferably with postprocessing and warpsharp, but that's not much of a difference, I guess). Is it, in your opinion, exactly as fluent as when you're watching it without anything in the background?

    Thanks in advance.
    Last edited by Nowhere; 30 August 2006, 04:13.

  • #2
    I've got a A643400+, I'll try this when I get home from work,
    tho I can do this on my old XP2400+ capture box

    From the description I'd say your harddrive is the bottle neck
    If there's artificial intelligence, there's bound to be some artificial stupidity.

    Jeremy Clarkson "806 brake horsepower..and that on that limp wrist faerie liquid the Americans call petrol, if you run it on the more explosive jungle juice we have in Europe you'd be getting 850 brake horsepower..."

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    • #3
      HDD - not likely IMHO; situation is practically the same when watching TV from capture card and watching Xid/Divx from HDD. Also, the stream resulting from webcam video capture isn't anything that HDD can't handle (and "freezes" don't correspond to moments of writing to HDD). And...I have actually two HDDs - it didn't matter whether for watching Xvid/writing webcam video I was using both or only one.

      Oh, and thanks...but why did you buy so fast A64?!

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      • #4
        interesting

        i'll see if i can give it a run after i get back home.
        /meow
        Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
        Asus Striker ][
        8GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800 (4x2GB)
        Asus EN8800GT 512MB x2(SLI)

        I am C4tX0r, hear me mew!

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        • #5
          I wish I had the camera necessary to test for you, but I am COMPLETELY happy with my new A64 3400+ with the free motherboard from New Egg. ($99) Of course the promotional period is probably over.
          The Internet - where men are men, women are men, and teenage girls are FBI agents!

          I'm the least you could do
          If only life were as easy as you
          I'm the least you could do, oh yeah
          If only life were as easy as you
          I would still get screwed

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          • #6
            One of mine has an A64 3000+, ATI AIW X800 and an RT.X100 and can capture 720x480 Divx + OGG from either of their analog YUV inputs. In fact the only devices I've had trouble pushing analog bits through while anything else is running since the Athlon XP's came out have been USB devices, which is likely your problem.

            USB capture w/simultaneous viewing on another device is fine as long as the compression is done in the USB box/cam. USB is great for peripherals but not for streaming full-frame analog bits in real time without full use of the bus, and it can't do that on a time share.
            Last edited by Dr Mordrid; 30 August 2006, 06:33.
            Dr. Mordrid
            ----------------------------
            An elephant is a mouse built to government specifications.

            I carry a gun because I can't throw a rock 1,250 fps

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            • #7
              I have recently done a HuffYUV trial myself.
              I'm looking to encode my dvd's to HuffYUV in 1280x720 and then from that into DivX.
              I can't do it directly cos it stops on or around the 52 frame mark, whereas in 576p (1024x576) its fine. Maybe doing too much at once .? resizing et al. ?
              ANyway, this is withthe A64 X2, and i have come to the conclusion that i don't have the HDD bandwidth to do this smoothly. Especially since in 720p, 5mins equals 11Gb.
              Thats quite a few Mb/s sustained, hence the purchase of two 250Gb Sata HDD's for a RAID 1 striped config. Should get enough Mb/s to not drop any frames.

              J
              PC-1 Fractal Design Arc Mini R2, 3800X, Asus B450M-PRO mATX, 2x8GB B-die@3800C16, AMD Vega64, Seasonic 850W Gold, Black Ice Nemesis/Laing DDC/EKWB 240 Loop (VRM>CPU>GPU), Noctua Fans.
              Nas : i3/itx/2x4GB/8x4TB BTRFS/Raid6 (7 + Hotspare) Xpenology
              +++ : FSP Nano 800VA (Pi's+switch) + 1600VA (PC-1+Nas)

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              • #8
                You might just need a dedicated HDD to the video capture.
                PC-1 Fractal Design Arc Mini R2, 3800X, Asus B450M-PRO mATX, 2x8GB B-die@3800C16, AMD Vega64, Seasonic 850W Gold, Black Ice Nemesis/Laing DDC/EKWB 240 Loop (VRM>CPU>GPU), Noctua Fans.
                Nas : i3/itx/2x4GB/8x4TB BTRFS/Raid6 (7 + Hotspare) Xpenology
                +++ : FSP Nano 800VA (Pi's+switch) + 1600VA (PC-1+Nas)

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by Evildead666
                  I'm looking to encode my dvd's to HuffYUV in 1280x720 and then from that into DivX.

                  J
                  Why in the world do you want to do this?
                  If there's artificial intelligence, there's bound to be some artificial stupidity.

                  Jeremy Clarkson "806 brake horsepower..and that on that limp wrist faerie liquid the Americans call petrol, if you run it on the more explosive jungle juice we have in Europe you'd be getting 850 brake horsepower..."

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Um, because i can, and i'm trying to see if i can get better quality than EDTV extended def TV. SD is standard. 720x576 PAL.
                    ED IS Wide-PAL 1024x576
                    720p is the next step up.
                    Just trying to pre-process all i can so i can play at 720p, if the quality is up to it.
                    720p is fine at 5Mbps in DivX.

                    I only watch on my Monitor, so its just for the fun really. See if it can be done.
                    PC-1 Fractal Design Arc Mini R2, 3800X, Asus B450M-PRO mATX, 2x8GB B-die@3800C16, AMD Vega64, Seasonic 850W Gold, Black Ice Nemesis/Laing DDC/EKWB 240 Loop (VRM>CPU>GPU), Noctua Fans.
                    Nas : i3/itx/2x4GB/8x4TB BTRFS/Raid6 (7 + Hotspare) Xpenology
                    +++ : FSP Nano 800VA (Pi's+switch) + 1600VA (PC-1+Nas)

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Evildead, I already have two HDDs...besides this is capture from webcam. Few MB/s max. Also, Technoid is right...do you think that doubling the resolution of digital photos adds anything to them besides size?

                      @Doc, so it's something closely related to critique of USB webcams on this site. Great...why Firewire didn't really take off...time to buy iSight?
                      edit: actually I have an idea how I can easily determine if USB is the problem - I can, after all, simultaneusly watch an Xvid and record video from TV card. Not exactly what I want to do, but taxes computer comparably, I guess, except when it comes to USB...

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                      • #12
                        Ah, if its from webcam, then its most prob USB 1.1, i.e. 11Mbps max
                        If its a "real" USB 2.0 one, then it should be fine with anything you can throw at it, with 480Mbps to play with.

                        Maybe a dedicated USB 2.0 PCI Card ? if the USb bus is shared, and not independant per port, you may have a share bandwidth/voltage problem.
                        I had boot problems with my mobo at work, and it turned out to be due to the amount of external USB devices i had.. 11 or something.
                        PC-1 Fractal Design Arc Mini R2, 3800X, Asus B450M-PRO mATX, 2x8GB B-die@3800C16, AMD Vega64, Seasonic 850W Gold, Black Ice Nemesis/Laing DDC/EKWB 240 Loop (VRM>CPU>GPU), Noctua Fans.
                        Nas : i3/itx/2x4GB/8x4TB BTRFS/Raid6 (7 + Hotspare) Xpenology
                        +++ : FSP Nano 800VA (Pi's+switch) + 1600VA (PC-1+Nas)

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Bandwith of video saved to dics is actually higher than 11Mbps - most webcams work by compressing the stream they send to PC via USB, so raw video, or even huffyuv, has higher bandwith. Also...only one USB device. Anyway...it doesn't matter, I don't care about frames dropped by the webcam, as you might have noticed...


                          Really, I haven't forgotten about anything remotely obvious...and you don't forget what the problem is.

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                          • #14
                            Sorry, didn't see the link on the "problem".
                            Anyway you could just upgrade to a cheap XP 3200+ ?
                            If any S462 chips are still available, i'd go that route first, they should be pretty cheap...
                            They only seem to have 2500 or 2800 here, but at 100 bucks, its worth a try, and they will OC to 3200+ no problem on air, especially the Braton core ones.

                            It will at least double you CPU power, and might resolve your problem.
                            If not, try a dual channel memory mobo, they should also be within budget, and will still be agp.
                            PC-1 Fractal Design Arc Mini R2, 3800X, Asus B450M-PRO mATX, 2x8GB B-die@3800C16, AMD Vega64, Seasonic 850W Gold, Black Ice Nemesis/Laing DDC/EKWB 240 Loop (VRM>CPU>GPU), Noctua Fans.
                            Nas : i3/itx/2x4GB/8x4TB BTRFS/Raid6 (7 + Hotspare) Xpenology
                            +++ : FSP Nano 800VA (Pi's+switch) + 1600VA (PC-1+Nas)

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Evildead, it's cheaper to go S939, which has also lower latency (raw CPU power doesn't seem to be a problem). Also my friend tried this with Athlon XP @ 2200MHz/200MHz FSB and dual ddr - same thing.


                              And anyway...big update.

                              It is clear now that USB is/was the problem. Not only the general "shittiness" of this bus, but also Logitech drivers. I unistalled the latest ones and rewerted back to the ones supplied with Win2k3 (oddly, they're also from Logitech, not MS). Problem is practically almost gone - the computer can do what I want from it when playing movie from HDD, and there are only slight problems with TV card (instead of 50fps it outputs 48 or 49, hardly noticeable).

                              Moral of the story: if you don't desperatelly need some features or extra fps in games, use drivers supplied by Microsoft...

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