morel power scotty

[jolassiter]

hey Im jo, and I wondering if anyone has an answer for this question

I just updated my buring computers hardware and Ive not seen any speed improvements while backing up my dvd's. I use dvd decryter and dvd shrink.

my computer is home made

asus p3v4 p3 (just upgraded from 933 to 1.266/512 cpu)
over 1 gig ram
all in wonder 64 meg video card
120 westerdigital hd
pioneer dvd a106 with firmware upgrade.
os w2k sp4

question?

my cpu durning encoding is @ 100% usage
and ram at normal useage.
under task management there are 23 programs loaded, I turn off what I can..

help
thanks jo

[lumis]

you probably wont notice a huge increase going from 933mhz to 1.26ghz.. if you went to 3ghz, you would definetly notice an increase.

aside from the cpu upgrade, nothing else will help with the transcode speeds (unless you had a tiny amount of ram)

[jolassiter]

ok what about the 100% cpu usage, is there a way to make my ram handle more of this load

[lumis]

even if you only had 256mb of ram, there would probably be no difference in encoding speed. its 99% your cpu.

[redwudz]

jolassiter, just to add to lumis's post, your computer should always show 100% CPU or close to that during an encode. That just means your encoder is using all your CPU power. If you doubled your CPU speed, you would likely still see that, it would just encode faster. More RAM won't help and unless your OS and motherboard can handle it properly, it may even slow things down.

[ROF]

I'm hoping you didn't pay money for the chip upgrade? Your board has pretty well seen it's day. You might want to consider a Socket A or even a Socket 939 Board and chip. They are relatively cheap and most Socket A's will support your RAM.

[Cobra]

ok what about the 100% cpu usage, is there a way to make my ram handle more of this load

RAM is simply memory, a place to store data whilst the CPU works with it. It doesn't do any processing by itself. Likewise, if you upgraded your video card, no difference would be made to encoding speeds - it handles video.

The CPU will always max out when you issue a task like this - it will be trying to get it done as fast as possible for you. It isn't anything to worry about, and is perfectly normal.

If you need more encoding speed, you're best off upgrading your machine to a later model. The PIII was a nice little processor, but modern architectures are more efficient. If you are looking to upgrade and are stuck between Intel and AMD, you must remember that they are different. AMDs are great for gaming and general purpose computing, but the P4 rules the roost when it comes to video encoding. See this post for more details:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1246860#1246860

Personally, I went for an AMD Athlon64 - they provide a lot of bang for your buck.

The only other option I can suggest is - and only do this if you are willing to risk your equipment - to overclock your machine. PIIIs sometimes overclock very well. If you've never heard of overclocking, it is the process of driving your equipment (most often the CPU and RAM) above their specified speeds. My processor is running at 2.41GHz when it is meant to be 2.2GHz - this is overclocked.

Anyway, hope this helps a little.

Cobra

[smearbrick1]

You only jumped about 200mhz. Not a huge leap when it comes to processing times. My last jump was from 1.4ghz to 3.4ghz... then you see a jump! The extra RAM helps, but not much. You probably get the same results with 512. Besides, your MB/CPU combo is pretty dated. The FSB speeds aren't that much (if any) of upgrade from your previous chip.