Slow Response With an Old PC

[chrisv]

Thanks for the info dasi. I wonder if the 6200 will help me. I know my PC specs are close to yours but I am under the minimum requirements and wonder if this difference is what is causing me problems. I can't see how adding this video card will help my guide come up faster, although I'm sure it will help with Live TV. I can get one for about $60 CDN - not a big expense, but I wonder if I should save up the money towards a new desktop.

[ChiPPy]

I'm not sure people are reading all the available info and fixes that are posted all over the forums. I am running GBPVR on an old P3 CELERON 1GHz, 512mb ram, Emuzed MAUI-I, and a Radeon 9200se 128mb, all running on a 100MHz bus, with VMR9 Fullscreen exclusive, and everything seems to be running fine. Not flawless or super fast, but very usable. I wouldn't expect HD on this set up, but SD works very well.

I recommend people try the NVIDIA Purevideo decoders, as I found these worked the best, even on my ATI card, better than the ATI/Cyberlink codec, and even the latest Cyberlink power DVD 7 codec.

Do all the updates, fixes, tips, update your drivers, do a little reading and research, and maybe people in general can stop blaming the GBPVR software. It might not be perfect, but it does work, and work well once you tune it up. It's free and supported by the author, (very well I might add.)

[chrisv]

Chippy, who blamed the software? Can you find a line in any of my posts where I am blaming the software? All I did was pose a question, knowing very well that my PC is below the minimum requirements. In fact, I told sub that he's done a great job with the app (in one of my posts as well).

So far, my experience on this forum has been fantastic - except for your post. FYI, I have been reading non-stop for the last 2 weeks.

Thanks very much for your ridiculous comment.

[ChiPPy]

Sorry mate, my post was not directed at you specifically, and was not meant as a hit at you in particular. All I was trying to say was that with the right set up, GBPVR works very well, and can be quite rewarding. Sorry if I made it sound like I was attacking you, it was not my intention to do so, it was actually supposed to point out the fact that it can be made to work well on low spec systems as well. Again, sorry mate.

[ChiPPy]

Also, if you do chose to use the NVIDIA Purevideo codec, you might want to make sure you have a compatible sound card, like an SB Live! or Audigy, so it can make use of the hardware acceleration of those cards as well. I have found that most of my problems on my system have been related to the audio codec more than the video codec. This is mainly because for video, most of the hard work is done by the hardware MPEG-2 chips of the TV/Capture card. A lot of cheap sound cards / on-board sound, now rely on the CPU to do most of the sound processing, instead of having any real hardware processing. This puts more stress on the low end CPU, leaving less for GBPVR to work with.

[chrisv]

Apology accepted. My apologies for getting upset but it sounded like you directed your comment towards me. I am a .NET developer as well, and I know how much hard work goes into any project, and for Sub to offer this product for free is amazing. Even if something were wrong with the app (and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it) I would never blame the software, especially if it is offered for free.

As mentioned, I have been reading this forum for the last 2 weeks and have tried many of the tweaks and tips, but I still experience the same thing.

I'll keep trying...

[daniver]

I experienced the guide taking ages to appear issue on a Core 2 duo box clocked at 2.6GHz with 3GB of RAM! I'd press select the TV guide from the main menu, then there would follow 2 to 4 minutes of intense disk activity before the TV listings would finally appear. The guide would appear much faster the second time it was accessed. Quit GB-PVR and the next time it was reloaded it would be back to the 2-4 minute wait to access the guide again.

However, some combination of reinstalling, not using certain plug-ins and upgrading to the latest version seems to have fixed the issue.

[chrisv]

Daniver, I just tried accessing the guide from the main menu, and I'm experiencing exactly the same thing as you were. I tried accessing it from the menu at some point over the last couple of weeks but it never came up (over 10 minutes of waiting). Once it loads the first time, access is fast. Like you, when I close GBPVR and re-open, the same thing occurs. When viewing LiveTV, the same thing occurs.

Once the guide loads, my CPU drops to around 50%, but the video is still somewhat choppy, even using Overlay mode. I'll install the NVidia Purevideo decoder and test the results. I'll keep you guys posted.

[stustunz]

you realise overlay does not work if you are using pvrx2 even if you select it
it always uses vmr custom

so if you want to use overlay you have to open the gbpvr.exe not pvrx2.exe

on my laptop i get the delay when first opening aswell

the other thing is you can use vmr in wmp and it only uses about 50%cpu compared to 100% when vmr is used in pvrx2
so i think your machine is like my laptop just not quite up to it
pitty i guess thats what you get with flashy
save a copy of 99.12 thats what im doing cause if this doesnt get any better ill be going back i want good video playback and fast opening things over nice screens
i know im the minority and im not blamming the software
hence the reason i wont be going to vista till i have to resource hungry

[ChiPPy]

Just a thought, but could it be a virus scanner running in the background that is slowing things up? On my GBPVR machine, I do not run a virus scanner, only a firewall, mainly because, nothing but GBPVR runs on the machine. Also, see what other processes are running in the back ground that may be hogging CPU cycles. Also, have you tried emptying the EPG and building it fresh? Not much else comes to mind right now.