Weird solution for dropped frames problem

[Zippy72]

OK I don't really understand this, but it works, so I hope somebody could shed some light on to why it does.

Basically, my sound card and vid cap card share the same IRQ (11). I'm running XP Home, so it's not that easy to re-assign an IRQ (I'm told it's impossible unless you disable that AGPI thing, which means I have to manually shut down my PC from the switch on the back).

When capping (analog) to my second HD, if I cap at 384x288, there are no frame drops. But if I increase the size to 640x480 (which is much better IMHO), the frames fall out like mad.

However, if I disable the sound card in Hardware Manager, and the re-enable it, I can cap at 640x480 with no frame drops. Weird eh?
I'm guessing that when the sound card is temporarily inactive, the TV card "takes" priority from it, so that when I re-enable the sound card, it's in kind of a second place for CPU priority.

Does that make sense, or is it complete b*ll*cks? And does anyone know an easy way I can give the TV card its own IRQ to avoid having to do this all the time? If not don't worry, it won't kill me, but I am interested

Thanks

[Zippy72]

Nobody any ideas?

[circleking]

Try switching your sound card to another PCI slot and see what happens.

[Zippy72 at home]

Thanks geezer.
It's sorted now, though in the end I re-installed the OS (it needed to be done anyway) and the card got its own IRQ automatically.
Thanks for your help, though - much appreciated.

[Fozzee]

Hi
How do u measure frame rate?
U say u lost frames per sec how do you know this???
Cheers

Fozz

[Zippy72 at home]

Fozz,
Basically when you capture with iuVCR, there is a field visible when capturing which tells you how many frames it drops. All I did was watch this.
Hope this helps

[Fozzee]

Hi
Oh right cheers. I use PowerVCR I dont think it has that option.
Thanks Anyway
Fozz