So I bought this new monitor Samsung T220. I'm running DVI from it to my vid card a simple X1650 Pro AMD FX 55 2gb Ram. Now sometimes when I watch HD it seems like when the fire fights get intense it seems to slow a bit. What is causing this? What do I need more of to make it smooth?

By HD you mean HD movies, and not playing games at high resolutions presumably? Cos the X1650 will have trouble with 1680x1050.

What codecs are you using? I recommend the K-Lite Mega Codec pack.

Free-Codecs.com : Download K-Lite Codec Pack 3.9.0 FULL, K-Lite Codec Pack 3.9.0 STANDARD, K-Lite Codec Pack 3.9.0 BASIC : K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codecs and related tools

Quote: Originally Posted by Red02 So I bought this new monitor Samsung T220. I'm running DVI from it to my vid card a simple X1650 Pro AMD FX 55 2gb Ram. Now sometimes when I watch HD it seems like when the fire fights get intense it seems to slow a bit. What is causing this? What do I need more of to make it smooth?

it is your video card that is causing the problems. monitors/LCDs will not cause lag.

update your drivers and install codecs.

Its not necessarily the video card causing problems, most likely its a codec error, or at a stretch, the CPU isn't up to the task for some formats (different encoding methods make a big difference on older CPUs, especially mpeg4)

If what you are trying to play is mpeg2, then you should have no problems if the X1650s hardware acceleration is on. If its a H264 and the graphics card doesn't support H264 acceleration, you might have problems.

Reflux is right on the money with that codec link, it has everything you'll every need to play anything. Just make sure when you install you select the important things (like all the codecs, even the obscure ones and Media Player Classic).

Actually now I think about it, my mate's laptop with a Pentium M 2.13ghz has trouble playing 1080p Blu-Ray rips. It does 720p fine. I'm not sure how much CPU speed has a bearing on this; unless you're using a specific media player/decoder like CyberLink or Nvidia's PureVideo, the decoding is handled by the CPU not the video card.

First off let me say that I'm no audio/video guru and don't know much about it.

BUT, what seems strange to me is that the videos slow down only when there's alot of action going on. Unless the video was made with a codec which supports a variable bitrate, shouldn't it be the same bitrate through the entire thing and therefore no slowdowns except maybe when something not related to the video kicks in, anti-virus for example or anything similar?


P.s. could've set this up better but I'm hardly capable of holding my head up at the moment due to lack of sleep.

Quote: Originally Posted by reflux I'm not sure how much CPU speed has a bearing on this; unless you're using a specific media player/decoder like CyberLink or Nvidia's PureVideo, the decoding is handled by the CPU not the video card.

You'll struggle to play 1080p content on even a P4 Extreme Edition unless you have a video card with acceleration.

My backup rig with an Athlon XP 2000+ can play things fine because ive slapped an AGP 6600GT in there, which takes most of the load off the aging CPU.

Also, my Eee PC (Win XP) will play some of my HD stuff, because its onboard GMA900 video chip has some hardware acceleration (namely focussing on mpeg2), but most .mkvs are totally unwatchable, as is most mpeg4 content.

So, as a Pentium 4 EE will likely out perform an Athlon64 FX-55 in most video editing/encoding/rendering tasks, your FX-55 might just be causing the problem when you're watching things that require video acceleration which your X1650 Pro doesn't support.

To test this, find out what type of content your X1650 Pro helps with, then you can do some tests with different HD formats. If you find that the stuttering occurs on content types which your X1650 Pro is doing nothing to improve, then its probably your CPU.

Ya know guess I should add more info to this. Sense I just got it, all for HD I have run as been apple trailers on quick time from the apple trailers website. And it was in 1080. I need to find some more content in order to test my system out throughly.

Thanks for the advice, I have a good place to start.