[xd_1771]

Need a laptop for school project to have displaying videos at up to 720p resolution on a desk. Still coming up with funds for my own Brazos netbook so I'll have to use one of my parent's. As usual mom's probably not going to let me use her laptop, so I'm stuck with my dad's. He's letting me reinstall it to Windows 7 (from Vista) for better performance. It has a Celeron M 430 @ 1.73Ghz (isn't this based on Core microarchitecture?) and Xpress 200M graphics so obviuosly no GPU accelerated video playback. I don't think this machine could ever smoothly play 720p using the Vista OS. My question is - with 7 and proper drivers and codecs etc. - will this be enough to play 720p? I think it is a yes but unsure, but for reference my second HTPC is an AMD K7-era 1.6Ghz processor machine running XP, using an old nVidia graphics card that can't accelerate anything but DVD-quality MPEG-2, that can actually play 720p MP4 files smoothly via Media Player Classic.

Thanks.

 

[mbudden]

With the hardware in my sig's laptop. I hardly am able to play 720p videos without pegging the CPU. You might not be able to, unless you're able to some how get accelerated GPU support.

I know in Chrome, before I set it to GPU assist. I couldn't watch 720p videos. But I turned it on, I'm able to just barely.

 

[xd_1771]

This is off the computer, not internet, by the way.
As I said I have been able to play 720p on an AMD K7 1.6Ghz... I'm pretty sure this is many architectures newer so I consider it a good possibility that on the latest OS it'll do 720p playback

 

[mbudden]

Quote:

Originally Posted by xd_1771;13092885
This is off the computer, not internet, by the way.
As I said I have been able to play 720p on an AMD K7 1.6Ghz... I'm pretty sure this is many architectures newer so I consider it a good possibility that on the latest OS it'll do 720p playback

I don't know... Celeron M is the mobile equivalent of Socket 478. I have desktop Celeron's that couldn't play 720p if it wanted. Maybe if I was running a non-resource hog OS like linux. Sure. But Windows 7? Doubt it.

Also you sure you will even find Windows 7 drivers for such old hardware?

 

[Domino]

It's going to be tricky. I know windows 7 helps out a lot.

I'd suggest grabbing chrome if you happen to view these videos on youtube. If not, try and force windows to put whatever you are using as a video play back to be set to high priority.

I highly doubt it would be able to play it back good. I'm guessing that puppy is going to get worse performance to an atom, which can just barely play back 720 p.

GL tho.

 

[xd_1771]

It's a Yonah, a big step ahead from Networst microarchitecture. Precursor to Core 2 Duo actually. Not a bad processor if I'm not mistaken. Should be faster clock for clock than Netburst (of course) and even K8 if I'm not mistaken, and at least twice as good as the Atom

I know of some efficient codecs that would probably play 720p much better than even google chrome (once again played off computer) i.e. CoreAVC, I'm going to have to bet on it working well once 7 is installed. The laptop itself isn't that old though, the graphics has Aero & Windows 7 support among other things.

 

[Domino]

Quote:

Originally Posted by xd_1771;13093038
It's a Yonah, a big step ahead from Networst microarchitecture. Precursor to Core 2 Duo actually. Not a bad processor if I'm not mistaken. Should be faster clock for clock than Netburst (of course) and even K8 if I'm not mistaken, and at least twice as good as the Atom

I know of some efficient codecs that would probably play 720p much better than even google chrome (once again played off computer) i.e. CoreAVC, I'm going to have to bet on it working well once 7 is installed. The laptop itself isn't that old though, the graphics has Aero & Windows 7 support among other things.

Eh, my mistake. it looks like the first generation atoms were pulling a solid 700 mflops on linx. Your celi is pulling 200 more then that. I eventually got HD playback to work on my netbook. It should work on yours.

Btw, it did require Windows 7 to pull it off tho. So you're in the right track.

 

[mbudden]

Quote:

Originally Posted by xd_1771;13093038
It's a Yonah, a big step ahead from Networst microarchitecture. Precursor to Core 2 Duo actually. Not a bad processor if I'm not mistaken. Should be faster clock for clock than Netburst (of course) and even K8 if I'm not mistaken, and at least twice as good as the Atom

I know of some efficient codecs that would probably play 720p much better than even google chrome (once again played off computer) i.e. CoreAVC, I'm going to have to bet on it working well once 7 is installed. The laptop itself isn't that old though, the graphics has Aero & Windows 7 support among other things.

I know that VLC has a GPU acceleration option. I have yet to try it though. So I don't know if that could help take SOME strain off your CPU.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Domino;13093093
Eh, my mistake. it looks like the first generation atoms were pulling a solid 700 mflops on linx. Your celi is pulling 200 more then that. I eventually got HD playback to work on my netbook. It should work on yours.

Btw, it did require Windows 7 to pull it off tho. So you're in the right track.

Really? My netbook couldn't play 720p no matter what I tried. The only time I got it to play was under a stripped down install of Ubuntu w/ VLC. Even then the Atom was pegged at almost 100%.

 

[xd_1771]

I think the VLC GPU acceleration only works if GPU supports it and on certain codecs. Similar to pretty much all media players.

I plan to use Media Player Classic with CoreAVC. Would this be the most efficient CPU playback option? Or does anyone know of better?

I'm pretty sure if a K7 1.6Ghz can play 720p then this can, but that was on XP among other things... and it wasn't perfect, stuttered if other apps were running

 

[mbudden]

I have only used VLC, I have never tried any other solutions. I'd probably run RT7Lite and make a slimmed down version of Windows 7 if I was in your shoes. Just to help things along.

 

[kaivorth]

Why ask us if your going to try it anyway?

 

[xd_1771]

Yeah I'm familiar with Windows 7 optimization. Will probably run my usual registry optimizations along with CCleaner and disabling IE and things like that. Whatever RT7Lite is I'll try it but I'll prioritize using MPC/CoreAVC first as CoreAVC is the most efficient h.264 decoder I know of.

kaivorth: Don't have Win7 and other actually installed yet. I'm just wondering if it's worth the trouble or should I get on my knees in front of my mom for her laptop (which I likely won't be allowed to use), which is a K8 x2 1.9Ghz/HD 3100
Heck if it was easier than a laptop I'd throw some desktop parts in one of my numerous small form factor cases and bring a monitor

 

[Pentium-David]

Using VLC on a Celeron M @ 1.5GHz I can play 720p fullscreen with no lag at all, on a graphics media accelerator. Yours is obviously a little faster so it should do fine. CPU usage gets no higher than 90% and this is on XP Pro. Celeron M is a downgraded Pentium M. Although I also had a Pentim M @ 1.5GHz and noticed no difference in performance from the Celeron M. They're partly based on P6 which is why they were so good. The Pentium 4 for desktops was an awesome processor but the mobile ones sucked.

 

[xd_1771]

That's great to hear. I'm pretty sure it won't be much different on Windows 7 and more recent codecs.
The Pentium 4 for desktops actually wasn't that good... stack it up against a K8 of the same generation with half the clock speed & power consumption and the P4 loses largely

 

[xd_1771]

i'm happy to report that not only does it play 720p with room to spare (70% CPU usage or so) but it also happened to be the fastest Windows 7 install yet I had ever done

Idle CPU usage is also 3% on average versus 10-13% on Vista