Would a Cheap Video Card Help?

[bemoore]

A little bit different kind of video card question. I'm using the family PC (Dell Dimension 2300, 1.8GHz, PVR-350) for GBPVR which is causing some recording problems. The problems are usually encountered when the PC is bogged down while browsing graphics intensive web sites, like youtube or others with animation. If the computer is bogged down when a recording starts, the entire recording is unwatchable. If it occurrs in the middle of the recording, short segments are unwatchable. Either scenario has a very negative WAF. The std video on this machine is listed as "Intel integrated AGP graphics". I don't know exactly what that is, but I'm suspecting that it means that the CPU is doing all the work. If it would help lessen the CPU loading, I'd like to add a cheap video card that can process web graphics/animations in hardware. I'm thinking that it wouldn't take much of a video card to do this but, of course, I could be wrong. Would a cheap video card, say something like this free up some cpu cycles? If not, are there any other relatively cheap options?

Thanks.

[Fatman_do]

How much memory is on the PC? The onboard memory is going to use up some of it.
64mb of on board memory isn't very much, but may be enough to lighten the load.

As far as cpu cycles, if the "hit" is from web browsing and what not, it may be from flash and java scripts running and taxing system resources that way.

[bemoore]

Thanks for quick reply.

The PC has 768 mb, and according to Dell, "Integrated AGP graphics uses a maximum of 32 MB of main memory."

So, you're saying that a video card won't improve my system resources in any useful way? If all it does if free up 32mb of physical memory, then that would be nearly useless.

[stustunz]

you may need another harddrive for recording onto(not 1 drive partitioned into 2)
at least 1gig of ram if using xp 2gig if vista
and the video card
or even better only use it for recording

[bemoore]

I'm running XP Home. I am planning on replacing the 256meg stick with another 512 meg stick, and hopefully that will allow it to operate in dual channel mode, which should speed things up some as well. The machine has an additional 250gig drive. It records fine if it's not bogged down doing something else.

[stustunz]

i would do the ram first of all its amazing how much that will make the machine better all round
you can also increase the virtual memory system right click my computer/properties/advanced
>performance/settings/advanced >>virual memory increase it to about 1G>2G
save and close

[JonnyCam]

Before you upgrade, you could try setting the recording service to run in high priority mode. There is a setting in the config.xml to do this (cannot remember what this is, just search in that file for priority - there is one for the recording service, and one for the client / mvp from memory)

It'll slow your browsing while recording, but might mean better quality recordings.

[smajor]

Before HD, I was running a P4 at 2.4GHz with only 512MB RAM.

It's only my opinion, but I think the video card will do a lot of good. You're off-loading the shared graphics memory from your 768MB and doing that juggling is always a strain on the system when you start doing a lot.

I was using a "simple" Raedon x1300 card with dual tuners, worked very well.

I don't know if you're shopping at CompuUSA because there is one near you, but if you go the Mail Order route, NewEgg.com has the x1550 for $30 (CompuUSA seems to want $80 for one).

I also recently picked up a decent nVidia 8600GT from NewEgg for $70 with a $50 rebate (just got the rebate) making that fairly nice card only $20. They always have specials and good rebates like that. (No, I don't work for them but have been a delighted customer for years and years!)

[bemoore]

Before you upgrade, you could try setting the recording service to run in high priority mode. There is a setting in the config.xml to do this (cannot remember what this is, just search in that file for priority - there is one for the recording service, and one for the client / mvp from memory)

It'll slow your browsing while recording, but might mean better quality recordings.

OK. I found this and tried it. I tested it using comskip. I set comskip to run, then scheduled a dummy recording after something recorded that I wanted. So, right after one show ended, the second one started, and so did comskip, which ran (at 100% cpu) for about 10 minutes. The 2nd show recorded perfectly. I know it's a sample size of one, but so far, so good.

Thanks for the tip.

This is great. I may be able to start using comskip for the first time.

[bemoore]

Before HD, I was running a P4 at 2.4GHz with only 512MB RAM.

It's only my opinion, but I think the video card will do a lot of good. You're off-loading the shared graphics memory from your 768MB and doing that juggling is always a strain on the system when you start doing a lot.

I was using a "simple" Raedon x1300 card with dual tuners, worked very well.

I don't know if you're shopping at CompuUSA because there is one near you, but if you go the Mail Order route, NewEgg.com has the x1550 for $30 (CompuUSA seems to want $80 for one).

I also recently picked up a decent nVidia 8600GT from NewEgg for $70 with a $50 rebate (just got the rebate) making that fairly nice card only $20. They always have specials and good rebates like that. (No, I don't work for them but have been a delighted customer for years and years!)

I was looking at CompUSA.com. The only local Comp USA closed up a couple of years ago. I'll look at NewEgg. If that card's better than the one I found for the same price, I'll definately go with NewEgg.

Thanks.