Is P4 2.53 and 512Mb RAM enough?

[fray_bentos]

Hi everyone, i have had GBPVR working on several machines over time but not as the primary TV setup for quite a while. Last night my freeview (DVB-T) recorder packed up and so i have wife approval to put GBPVR in the spotlight again.

The machine that i used to use is a P4 2.53 with 512Mb RAM (DDR) and what was a decent graphics card but it is struggling with playing/recording a single program-stutters, audio/video out of sync at times (and i have a dual tuner card yet to go in) using .ts format - so is anyone else successfully using similarly old hardware for a main box?

I will spend the time re-formatting/re-installing Windows XP if it is worth it but if the hardware is simply too underpowered now then i won't waste my time. (I should say the anti-virus [f-secure] is hogging a substantial part of the resources so i suppose i could uninstall that...)

Thanks for any opinions.

[collin]

Hi everyone, i have had GBPVR working on several machines over time but not as the primary TV setup for quite a while. Last night my freeview (DVB-T) recorder packed up and so i have wife approval to put GBPVR in the spotlight again.

The machine that i used to use is a P4 2.53 with 512Mb RAM (DDR) and what was a decent graphics card but it is struggling with playing/recording a single program-stutters, audio/video out of sync at times (and i have a dual tuner card yet to go in) using .ts format - so is anyone else successfully using similarly old hardware for a main box?

I will spend the time re-formatting/re-installing Windows XP if it is worth it but if the hardware is simply too underpowered now then i won't waste my time. (I should say the anti-virus [f-secure] is hogging a substantial part of the resources so i suppose i could uninstall that...)

Thanks for any opinions.

The CPU and RAM are adequate, I up until recently ran identical spec hardware and while it wasn't the fastest thing it did the job reliably. I did not run an AV program(memory hog) and turned off all non-essential windows services/apps/startup programs, etc. That said, I didn't encode in .ts, only mpeg format, so maybe this makes a difference, I really don't know. I would also look into your video card, if it's something like the nvidia 6200 or less, despite what others have said, I really don't think this level of card is adequate and if I had known, I would have gone with something better when I built that system. FWIW I am running an nvidia 8400GS and the playback and clarity on a CRT is amazing.

[sub]

You may also want to try defragmenting the drive. A badly fragmented drive can lead to stuttering and sync issues.

[martint123]

My main box isn't far off yours - but I only use it for recording and serving remote clients.
If you have the go-ahead, have you contemplated something like NMT/PCH devices (especially if they pop up on ebay or as refurb units on popcornhours site (I recently got one from there). These offload all the playback tasks from the server and are very well integrated with gbpvr.

[HarryH3]

I have three tuners working well with far less horsepower than your system, although I record analog signals to mpeg files. See my sig. I would suggest more RAM though, as XP seems dog slow to me with that little memory. XP has needed more resources with each service pack release. My daily use PC is a 2.66 GHz P4 that shipped with XP and a whopping 128MB of memory. :eek: It's been upgraded a few times over the years and now has 1.5GB. While not blazingly fast, it does all that I require of it.

[fray_bentos]

Thanks everyone for your input, the disk is defragmenting now in the background. I have a mvp which I could use but i was worried it would put an ever greater load on the available power.

Nice to hear other people have similarly powered machines being used for gbpvr, I will considered getting some more RAM but DDR is a bit more expensive now but will probably be worth it if i can continue to use the machine and not scrap it. I've also overclocked the CPU to 2.85. I will uninstall everything on the machine that isn't required, possibly the anti-virus too as the rest of the machines on the network are protected.

I'll try the different recording formats again, i went with .ts for the multi-record option but if i put the other 2 tuners in i won't need it. Does the video decoder impact the processing power required to decode all types of recorded video or only some? Which are the more efficient? oh and the graphics card is an ATI X800Pro (probably 6 years old).

[Reddwarf]

Are you recording analog or digital or both? And how many free DDR-ram slots does the mainboard have? I'm pretty sure I have some spare DDR's lying around

[fray_bentos]

I'm recording digital tv (DVB-T) freeview in the UK. The motherboard has 3 RAM slots with 2 free, its got DDR333 (is that PC3200?) in I think. If you did have a stick lying round that would be great but you're a bit far away!

[Reddwarf]

I'll have a look in my "old parts" box, if I find some, ram is cheap to send by mail

Edit: I have two 512MB DDR-2700 and one unidentified DDR-ram piece. If you can use them, PM me your postal address and I'll throw them in the mail for free.

[fray_bentos]

Hi Reddwarf PM sent thank you.
XP will be re-installed over the weekend to get rid of all the rubbish on the machine-should improve speed.