Divx5 Playback & CPU Usage

[pcsl999]

Divx5 Playback & CPU Usage:

My PC PIII933, 512Ram, GForce2,
play back Divx5 with Windows Media Player 6.4
during Max. Windows-size(1024x768)

Movie: 720x416, 23.976fps, no audio track

Compression Option [1]:
1pass, 2000kbps, 72keyframe,
NO-Quarter_Pixel, NO-GMC, NO-Bidirectional Encoding
CPU Usage at min. Quality Level: 22-40%
CPU Usage at mid. Quality Level: 42-66%
CPU Usage at max. Quality Level: 76-100%

Compression Option [2]:
1pass, 2000kbps, 72keyframe,
NO-Quarter_Pixel, NO-GMC, YES-Bidirectional Encoding
CPU Usage at min. Quality Level: 26-40%
CPU Usage at mid. Quality Level: 48-65%
CPU Usage at max. Quality Level: 74-100%

Compression Option [3]:
1pass, 2000kbps, 72keyframe,
NO-Quarter_Pixel, YES-GMC, NO-Bidirectional Encoding
CPU Usage at min. Quality Level: 48-64%
CPU Usage at mid. Quality Level: 64-90%
CPU Usage at max. Quality Level: 94-100% (playback frame-rate drop)

Compression Option [4]:
1pass, 2000kbps, 72keyframe,
YES-Quarter_Pixel, NO-GMC, NO-Bidirectional Encoding
CPU Usage at min. Quality Level: 30-55%
CPU Usage at mid. Quality Level: 48-82%
CPU Usage at max. Quality Level: 80-100% (playback frame-rate drop)

Compression Option [5]:
1pass, 2000kbps, 72keyframe,
YES-Quarter_Pixel, YES-GMC, YES-Bidirectional Encoding
CPU Usage at min. Quality Level: 54-88%
CPU Usage at mid. Quality Level: 74-100% (playback frame-rate drop)
CPU Usage at max. Quality Level: 100-100% (playback frame-rate drop)

Compression Option GMC & Quarter_Pixel spend more CPU resource during playback.

3.11SBC & 4.12 Divx need 30-60% CPU Usage during max. windows playback with Quality Level Max.

[jace112]

What an impressive job you did !!!
Thanks for your tests, now I do understand why I got many dropped frames with my duron 750...
Divx5 is for rich people :mad:

[SuperflyTNT]

I have had similiar problems

On two Divx 5 pro encodes with all three mpeg4 options checked and at a bitrate of just under 1000 (2 pass encode), the movies will play just fine on my Athlon XP 1500. But on my dads 600 pentium 3 and my friends 500 celeron, which both play divx 4 and divx 3.11 no problem, both of those systems would not play the divx 5 pro encodes without dropping frames and playing very slow, no matter how low i went with the playback filter.

Divx 5 pro is looking good, but this is going to limit a lot of peopleZ ability to play divx 5 pro encodes if the codec is not optimized better.

[jace112]

After the "conspiracy theories" (http://www.divx.com/divx/divx_whatsnew.php) against AMD, Divx Networks want us to buy a brand new CPU for the divx 5.0 !!! And at least a 1.2 GHz...
Another conspiracy ? :D

[Pio2001]

Strange bug here :

Asus A7V-133 mobo, ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon, Windows 98, Windows Media Player 7, 400x300 (with pink edges) DivX (just this one at hand), made with DivX 5 standard, 1200 kbps, no sound.

Duron 800

Playback CPU usage : 4 %
Pause : CPU falls to 0 %
Play : CPU jumps to 35 %
Pause/play/pause/play : 0/35/0/35 %

Exit Windows Media player : 40 % CPU usage !!

Kill all processes exept system monitor and explorer, still 40 % CPU usage.

Restart Windows : 0% CPU

Play / pause / play / pause : 3 (!)/ 0 / 35 / 0 %

Close Media player : 40 %
Open media player (clicking DivX / pause) : 0%
Close Media player : 40 %
Open media player : 0 %

Anyone else ?

[Pio2001]

Well, forget it, it's not related to DivX5, it's the same with all videos in all players.
I reinstalled the video card drivers, upgraded to Windows Media Player 7.1, but no result.
I'm left with 40 % CPU usage whatever movie I watch.

[theReal]

I found I get almost exactly the same same processor usage with DivX 5 playback than with DivX 4.12.
(Around 40% usage for max. quality of a 512x384 file, no matter what bitrate).

I've had no playback problems so far, that is on a 1400@1512 T-Bird, 512MB DDR-Ram, FSB@144, ATI Rage 7500 graphics. I'd be very angry if I had any playback problems with it ;)
However, I also had no problems watching a 640x364 divx 5 with b-frames (2-pass bitrate: 2100) on an Athlon 1000, 384MB PC133 RAM, Matrox Millennium G200. I did not look how much cpu power was used on this system, because I had no problems at all (with quality at the default setting).

[sarahjh69]

I thought DiVX 5 was using more processor to playback too.
My p3 500 had lots of problems, worked fine in DiVX 4
UNTIL I looked in the DiVX Decoder filter properties!

Looks like DiVX 5 sets the processing to the middle setting
so its doing lots of sharpening.........
Turn Quality Level to MIN (where it was in DiVX 4) and its
as good as gold.......plays the same as DiVX 4

[Excelsior]

Max details with my Athlon 1,2Ghz CPU-usage ~60%

[madcat_ninjamaster]

If Divx 5 uses the 100% CPU..would it distory the CPU if you encode something like..err...DVD films? Since you need at least an hr or 2
to encode a damn film....

What I'm trying to say..Divx 5 uses 100% of the CPU and needed to encode DVD film which takes 1/2 Hrs. If you use CPU constantly for hrs of encoding..I'm sure it will distory CPU heath.

If Divx 3 and 4 give less trouble and use less cpu usage. Why bother using DIVX 5? When now days, most people will be using broadband connection and file transfering are super fast. No point encode using DIVX 5 just because the file slightly smaller then others.

[Acaila]

@madcat_ninjamaster:

This thread is about CPU usage during playback. You can't solve that by downloading instead encoding by yourself, because you still have to watch the movie :)

And I wouldn't worry about your CPU's life expectancy, by the time it's fried it will be seriously outdated anyway and you'll want to upgrade for more speed long before that happens (unless you're seriously overclocking anyways).

[theReal]

I wouldn't watch Divx while encoding another movie on the same cpu, for the sake of both tasks.
I don't like to set the encoding task to idle priority because I had bad experiences with idle mp3-encoding in the past (crackling noises). Don't know if this is a real issue, but I better don't take the risk...

[rui]

Well, i too tried to encode a movie while watching another, and found out that i had to put the encoding task to lower priority (but not idle). If not, the playback of the other movie i was watching would loose audio and video sync.
Other than that, no problems in doing both at the same time.