Speed of processor

[Twizzle]

I have been playing around with VCD and DIVX for a while now but have just taken the plunge and bought a DVD writer. Thanks to the guides and help I have found here it is all going very well. Three out of three so far and no coasters
However as I am now playing around with much bigger files for the DVD the encoding time is becoming more noticable. I am currently running an AthlonXP 2200 (1.8Ghz) with 512MB RAM and depending on the quality, converting from say a DIVX to DVD is taking about 3 to 4 hours with CBR.

How much faster would things get if I upped the processor and / or RAM. I was thinking about moving to a AthlonXP 3000 or similar and was wondering if this would give a marked improvement or just be a few minutes off the time?

[bugster]

Increasing the processor speed by 1.5 times will give approx 1.5 times faster encoding. Increasing the memory size will have little to no effect.

[teegee420]

Maybe you should think about using a faster encoder. Mainconcept MPEG Encoder and Cinema Craft Encoder are two of the fastest.

[mats.hogberg]

Speed encoding time is almost linear to processor performance. (As lon as you got a decent amount of RAM).
A 3000 would cut the encoding time by 36% compared to a 2200

/Mats

[flaninacupboard]

it's not that clear cut with AMD, because of the model numbering. an XP3000 is only 2.16Ghz, so not a massive improvement over a 2200, about a 20% increase. as it's pure number crunching that's important with encoding, this seems like an expensive upgrade! If you game as well the extra speed will be good (as will the larger cache) but if the system is mainly encoding i think you're better opting for a P4 system, or keeping your hand in your pocket till you can afford an A64 system.

[thor300]

Many encoders will also perform better with bigger CPU cache, your XP2200 is only 256kb L2. I have one PC with xp2100+ and 1 with xp2500+ (512kb L2) and the encoding speed differs quite more than just the higher clock speed of the XP2500. Both use VIA chipset and 512MB RAM at 333mhz, so im sure the bigger cache of the Barton makes a noticeable difference. Well, the Barton does use higher FSB clock, that will also make a difference i guess.

[Flukesy]

im a massive fan of AMD but for video encoding its quite clear that the beautiful Athlons are not the greatest or quickest if it were 3d games we were discussing then it would be a different story for faster encoding hyper thread technology is a must
if you are looking on a budget maybe overclocking of a good Athlon maybe right down your street but its not gonna be as quick as a decent P4 chip

[thor300]

Better do as teegee said, CCE is faster on a xp2200 than tmpgenc on the biggest P4. Well, i dont know which encoder you are using anyway

[Twizzle]

Im not a huge games player so I guess that the move to a pentium would be best. In reference to the Athlon64 though, surely I will have to upgrade my software / encoder to one that supports 64bit processing to take advantage and achieve any speed increase wont I?

The upgrade to the XP3000 would cost me about £90 at the moment for the chip as I have everything else at the moment. The only problem is that the equivalent P4 system upgrade will cost me a few hundred I guess! Hmmm ... what to do...

Oh and Im using TMPGEnc at the moment, although downloading the mainconcept one at the moment to try. Ill try CCE too later and compare them all

[tim6661234]

Your Athlon 2200 has a fsb of 266 so if you opt for a Barton chip you will increase you fsb (faster memory will be required) as well as increasing the processor cache.

I had the same problem with my XP2000+ but went for a different approach. I bought a Dual motherboard, did a chip mod so that its recognised as an MP, bought another XP2000+ and modded that too.

The motherboard wasn't cheap and but the chip was and I got to use everything from my current system except the motherboard.

Most video apps will multi thread and use both processors.

[redwudz]

I upgraded from a AMD 1800XP to a 2500XP Barton. Not much of a speed difference on paper, but my encoding time was cut in half. This was the result of the faster CPU, larger L2 cache, faster front side bus, Nvida chips on the motherboard and faster dual channel memory. You will have to use a MB that will work with the Barton CPU. I have a RAID0 setup for video use and 1GB ram. Increasing the RAM to 1G from 512M and using RAID0 had little or no effect on encoding speed.

[flaninacupboard]

take a peek here
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040106/athlon64_3400-19.html

the A64 is faster at encoding than the A. when a version of TMPGenc comes out that can take advantage of 64bit operations you can watch it fly

[Twizzle]

Well I have tried the different encoders. Mainconcept was much faster BUT the quality sucked (about 2 hours for a 1hr45min film as opposed to 3 1/2 hours on TMPGEnc) ! I have not played around with the settings much so I will try that again. I am half way through using CCE but so far it too is looking faster too. I need to read a few guides for both to really get to grips with them. Im still being a bit lazy and using DVD2SVCD to convert my Divx to DVD compliant MPEGs. Took 10 hours with TMPGEnc on School or Rock! Im still tempted with the XP3000 though...

What does the MB need to be compliant with the Barton?

[flaninacupboard]

google your MB or let us know what type it is.

as long as you have 333FSB you're ready to go. it just depends on the age/cost of your motherboard on that one.

I'm not familiar with DVD2SVCD, but best results/tweakability will come from avisynth. i found CCE to be at least twice the speed of TMPGenc, although then i just ended up using more passes

[Twizzle]

Ive got an MSI KT4AV http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=456
which is has 333mhz fsb capability so Im guessing it should be ok. DVD2SVCD uses avisynth along with a load of other programs and I guess is one big GUI. I think you can change loads of settings there but it does give good overall results and can use TMPGenc and CCE as the encoder.

[T ft. D]

Well I've got a 64 3400+ , and I'm more then happy with my processor... BUT the encoding part is a little bit dissapointing compared with the rest of the speeding... It's okay, but 6 hours to encode a whole film in dvd quality (with ofcourse all kinds of filters) is a little slow... Isn't it ?
So if you have money left, you deff, should do it... But don't expect a MAJOR difference in encoding !...

[flaninacupboard]

Yep, you're good to go on a 3000+

I'd say 6 hours with filters is good. when i was first making DVDs, i was looking at eight hours for a 30 min TV show with NO filters. re-encoding a DVD was even worse, we're talking 36 hours for a 90 minute movie. that was on an Athlon 650

I did an encode that took that long a few weekends ago, a 2 pass with IVTC and NR in TMPGenc, read over and written back to the network on my XP2000, not had a chance to challenge my 2600 yet

[T ft. D]

Yep, you're good to go on a 3000+

I'd say 6 hours with filters is good. when i was first making DVDs, i was looking at eight hours for a 30 min TV show with NO filters. re-encoding a DVD was even worse, we're talking 36 hours for a 90 minute movie. that was on an Athlon 650

I did an encode that took that long a few weekends ago, a 2 pass with IVTC and NR in TMPGenc, read over and written back to the network on my XP2000, not had a chance to challenge my 2600 yet

Thanks, I thought it was strange that it took so long, but it's normal right ?

[flaninacupboard]

yep. if you think something is up hit ctrl alt delete and have a look at taskmanager. tmpgenc should be gladly hogging 100% CPU usage.