Older PC freeze on fast video

[FuzMic]

Hi folks

I use MPC v1.6.3.5771 (8701ded) on a recycled PC with following brief specs

Intel Pentium 4, 1816 MHz (18 x 101) effective clock 303 MHz
L1 Data Cache 8 KB, L2 Cache 256 KB
DIMM1: Micron Tech 512 MB PC2100 ECC DDR SDRAM (2.5-3-3-6 @ 133 MHz) (2.0-2-2-5 @ 100 MHz)
DIMM2: Nanya M2U51264DS88B1G-5T 512 MB PC3200 DDR SDRAM (3.0-3-3-8 @ 200 MHz) (2.5-3-3-7 @ 166 MHz)
Integrated Video Sis 650 of Memory size 32M
AC'97 Audio Controller SiS 7012

The MPC had to use "Old Video Renderer" in DirectShow Video with hardware acceleration 100%.


I played a .MP4 video with frequent fast action screen shots. I found that during fast action either the screen motion will freeze or the sound will freeze, then resume.

Is there anyway to tweat this. On a slighter faster P4 2+GHz, there is only very slight jerks. Appreciate help.

[Blue_MiSfit]

These are probably bitrate spikes in the video stream. Post the MediaInfo dump of the file?

If it is H.264, you could try using CoreAVC or similar. You're on Windows XP, right? If so, try using Overlay Mixer instead. I remember this making a big difference when I tried to play H.264 on an old Pentium III laptop. You might have to drag out an old version of MPC to make this work.

I don't know though... you might have to transcode to MPEG-2 or similar light-weight codec to make this work. If it's H.264, the other option is to buy a very inexpensive PCI GPU that can decode in hardware.

Derek

[FuzMic]

Much appreciate the help, Derek. MPC is such a versatile piece of codes so i join this forum to dig deeper into this area being a total novice here.

Of course u r right, i am using XPWin.sp3. I can't use the default Overlay Mixer as stated in my first ever post in this forum, on advice of Jan i can only use "Old Video Renderer", so yr option is no go.

See attachment on MediaInfo dump of the mp4 but not sure it is what you want.

Questions:
What to look out for in PCI GPU require to crack H.264?
By transcode, you mean convert using say AnyVideoConverter to MPG?

Cheers!!

[jmartinr]

Try VLC. It was alwas the fastest on an old computer of mine.

[petran79]

is the video 480p? If subtitles are hardcoded, the better for the performance. VLC and SMPlayer are the fastest solutions.
The best solution would be to use a patched version of SMPlayer with CoreAVC 1.1

the older the version, the faster it will be for older systems.

[FuzMic]

Thanks guys

I have solved the problem by using Avidemux 2.4 by saving it as .mkv. Avidemux will point out the H.264 issue after selecting the whole file and trying to save it as .mkv only takes a few 10's of secs; it is very fast. My old PC then play the .mkv with jerks.

Is now looking at VLC & SMPlayer as other options & see how it goes.
Will also check about 480 progressive scan (non interlace) & if subtitles hardcoded, not sure yet.

Thanks mates.

[FuzMic]

So said the experts, VLC player works perfectly with H.264 without any jerks in older integrated vga display. Will appreciate to understand the difference in this respect between MPC & VLC.

Thanks again guys.