Can't play 720p videos in old PC

[Saket]

Hello Friends,

I have 2 old desktop PCs. I planned to fix one of them for Home theater use with my projector. The Configuration is Pentium 4 2.8 GHz. Intel CPU, 1 GB of DDR 1 (or 2?) RAM, 40 GB HDD, and onborad Intel graphics.

The problem is that when I tried playing, worked fine with normal SD video files, but whenever I tried to play 720p videos, the screen went blank & dark and the computer hangs for about a minute. When display comes back, it gets switched to the lowest resolution and lowest bit color with some error message that a driver has stopped working and all this stuff.

Please let me know, if there is a way I can use it to play HD videos? I will be trying with some driver updates tonight but not sure.

Please suggest.

Thanks,
Saket

 

[koushik]

Driver updates will most probably not do the trick. You would need a PCI graphic adapter aka Graphic card. Get a GT 430 and should suffice your requirement to make a HTPC out of your old PC.

 

[baijuxavior]

Adding a graphics card will help to play HD content, but the player interface may not be smooth due to the old cpu.

 

[Audiodoc]

The 2.8 ghz pentium 4 should be able to play 1080p even without graphics support. You need the right drivers and right softwares. Latest graphics drivers from intel support and klite mega codec pack will do. If nothing works buy a graphics card.

 

[Nishanth]

Koushik is right, you need a Graphic card. With a graphics card your system can play even 1080p content.

 

[thevortex]

Time for Linux, methinks...

Your old PC could be transformed into a productive workforce with the right O/S choice.

You will have to spend some time learning your way around the solution, but it will help you retain your PC - you may not even need to upgrade your machine.

 

[prosenjit]

imho
get a 3.5k asus o play mini.
will be cheaper fro your purpose.
however if you are interested to build a dedicated htpc.
a new cpu+motherboard+graphics card is graet idea.

 

[ukjeyaraj]

Some Motherboard/Bios allow to increase shared VGA memory size. Check if it is allowed in your case and see if it helps

 

[mowgli80]

720p videos with moderate bitrate might just be possible with raw CPU power but thats borderline. Most of Video encoding/decoding requires lot of number crunching and parallel processing which a CPU is not designed for. As others have suggested, get a decent graphic card (NVIDIA 9800 GT and above should suffice, dont buy ATI, their drivers suck) and make sure your player has hardware acceleration enabled. Also, P4 is a bit dated so check what bus is supported on the motherboeard and see that the graphic card supports it.

 

[sam9s]

@Saket, which Intel mobo do you have??

 

[gobble]

Hello Friends,

I have 2 old desktop PCs. I planned to fix one of them for Home theater use with my projector. The Configuration is Pentium 4 2.8 GHz. Intel CPU, 1 GB of DDR 1 (or 2?) RAM, 40 GB HDD, and onborad Intel graphics.

The problem is that when I tried playing, worked fine with normal SD video files, but whenever I tried to play 720p videos, the screen went blank & dark and the computer hangs for about a minute. When display comes back, it gets switched to the lowest resolution and lowest bit color with some error message that a driver has stopped working and all this stuff.

Please let me know, if there is a way I can use it to play HD videos? I will be trying with some driver updates tonight but not sure.

Please suggest.

Thanks,
Saket

Even the Intel HD3000 GPU chip was a failure and hopelessly inadequate at HD videos - even with the 2010 generation cpu's.

Consider a new mobo for HD and keep this one for non-HD related stuff.

--G0bble

 

[Saket]

My Sincere Thanks to all you friends...yes the PC is now outdated. Its about 10 yrs old and the only thing that strikes me is the 2.8 GHz CPU!

Will try to update the video drivers & install Klite codecs as suggested by Audiodoc and see if it can do the trick...if not, may be its time to upgrade or keep using my acer laptop (which is again 7 yrs old) to play 720P videos.

BTW, any Idea that how come my acer aspire 5502 laptop can play 720p flawlessly? Its just a case of better drivers or better hardware?

@Saket, which Intel mobo do you have??

It's an old HCL ezeebee. It has an OEM gigabyte mobo. The max video memory that I can allocate from the bios is 8MB.

Thanks all,
Saket

 

[sam9s]

Even the Intel HD3000 GPU chip was a failure and hopelessly inadequate at HD videos - even with the 2010 generation cpu's.

Consider a new mobo for HD and keep this one for non-HD related stuff.

--G0bble

Thats is not entirely true, I have played 720p videos when I had my P-4, as well, if there is a problem in HD playback there are always other issues, rather than the processor horsepower (Atleast pro P-4). About Intel HD 3000, Intel HD Graphics can easily play even HD 3D. There were other driver issues with it, nothing to do with inadequacy.

 

[sam9s]

My Sincere Thanks to all you friends...yes the PC is now outdated. Its about 10 yrs old and the only thing that strikes me is the 2.8 GHz CPU!

Will try to update the video drivers & install Klite codecs as suggested by Audiodoc and see if it can do the trick...if not, may be its time to upgrade or keep using my acer laptop (which is again 7 yrs old) to play 720P videos.

BTW, any Idea that how come my acer aspire 5502 laptop can play 720p flawlessly? Its just a case of better drivers or better hardware?



It's an old HCL ezeebee. It has an OEM gigabyte mobo. The max video memory that I can allocate from the bios is 8MB.

Thanks all,
Saket

P-4 in itself is not the bottleneck, the on board GPU might be, but not necessarily coz of the horsepower, there could be number of reasons, ur laptop has a dedicated GPU, Intel GMA 900 in all probability, that is one of the reasons its playing 720p easily.

Do a clear install of XP on ur Desktop, check which on board display you have, reason for me asking the mobo was of this only, if you can manage to get the model number of the unit, we can see what on board GPU it has.
Install the onboard drives on a clean install and then see.

Another option can be to get an old PCIE card, something like an nVidia 7600GT (500-800 bucks) and use it to play the content.

Regards
Sammy

 

[Saket]

Thanks Sam for the idea. Will give it a try. Will give an update however the things roll out.

Regards,
Saket

 

[mowgli80]

Another option can be to get an old PCIE card, something like a nVidia 7600GT (500-800 bucks) and use it to play the content.

I would not suggest 7600GT which has very old architecture and may not accelerate all videos. check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_PureVideo which tells you which card supports what architecture. I would suggest 3rd Gen +.

 

[baijuxavior]

We have an old celeron PC that plays 720p easily which our P4 2.8 GHz refuses to play.

 

[Saket]

We have an old celeron PC that plays 720p easily which our P4 2.8 GHz refuses to play.

Now its becoming as weird as it can get!

 

[mowgli80]

Now its becoming as weird as it can get!

Its not only about resolution but also about bitrate. You can have 1080p videos of size 900MB which will be decoded by a celeron but will have horrible video quality . You can think a 64kbps vs 320kbps mp3 quality analogy. Decent 720P movie (about 3GB in size) without hardware acceleration is diffuclt for my dual core 2.7 GHz AMD as well .

 

[sam9s]

I would not suggest 7600GT which has very old architecture and may not accelerate all videos. check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_PureVideo which tells you which card supports what architecture. I would suggest 3rd Gen +.

Even the first gen 6xxx series support pure video (code named VP1), HD videos for 7600GT is a piece of cake, please do not spread FUD if you do not know what you are suggesting.