Question about CPU USage during encoding

[CubDukat]

I have a 1GHZ P3 Coppermine, and I have recently upgraded to XP and 256MB of memory.

I have noticed that while I can get encoding rates of 15fps in MPEG-1 using TMPGEnc or bbMPEG, the rate drops to only 2-3fps with MPEG-2 in bbMPEG (TMPGEnc is the demoversion).

Additionally, CPU usage is pegged all the way through the encoding process.

I thought that 1GHz was more than enough power to do encoding at almost real-time in MPEG-2, but here, it doesn't seem to be enough. Would adding more memory to my system help to take some of the load off the CPU during encoding?

[BJ_M]

well you should have more memory that that running xp anyway ..

but it will not really help your encoding time much .. but what would help is switching to a P4 ,,,, help a LOT

[SLK001]

I thought that 1GHz was more than enough power to do encoding at almost real-time in MPEG-2, but here, it doesn't seem to be enough.

You'll need to double your speed to even approach real-time encoding (and maybe even more for TMPG).

Would adding more memory to my system help to take some of the load off the CPU during encoding?

Probably not. If you look at the TASK MANAGER, you will see if your memory is being taxed (it usually isn't). Encoding speed is 99% CPU speed dependent, because only it can do the discrete cosine transforms necessary to encode the video.

[rhegedus]

I've got a P4 2.53 with 1Gb of ram and I can encode VCD in real-time, but not SVCD.
Don't know where you got your expectations from, but with a 1GHz they're not 'real-world'.

Regards,

Rob

[CubDukat]

Thanx for the help.

I was hoping to avoid the CPU/MB upgrade issue, since I just upgraded to this current board in May, and I was hoping to get at least a year's worth of usage out of it before it gets retired.

As for the memory, I figured that might be a problem as well. I've read quite a few reports that say that 256MB is barely acceptable for XP; guess they were right.

[vitualis]

BTW, bbMPEG is a slow encoder... Don't expect it to have the same performance as CCE or TMPGEnc!

Regards.