Why is MPC:HC playing so slowly compared to VLC?

[Cyber Akuma]

Pentium 3 1.13ghz

1GB PC133 SDRAM

AGP Sapphire Radeon 9600PRO

Yes I know my computer is old, but the thing is these videos played just fine before!

I recently upgraded from Windows 2000 to Windows XP, my 2k install was a mess, years old, tons of junkware and glitched files, dozens of codecs, misconfigured codecs, codecs that failed to install, etc etc etc.

I did a clean install of XP, and installed realplayer alternative, quicktime alternative, the latest Media Player Classic Home Cinema, ffdshow, Haali's splitter, and Koepi's Xvid binaries (for encoding only).

Essentially, this should mean ffdshow is handling all of my MPC:HC codecs right?

And VLC uses it's internal version of the same decoder that ffdshow uses right?

Why then does VLC play videos just fine, but MPC:HC is choking on many videos that I encoded on this very system and played perfectly fine years ago? They played in MPC/MPC:HC just fine before I upgraded to XP. Any ideas what could be causing this? Or how I can try to find out what is causing it? And how I can FIX it?

I have MPC:HC set to VMR9 renderless, which is what I was using before. I found that it only plays decently if I set it to Overlay Mixer..... barely, but this disables subtitles and a slew of other features.

MPC:HC shows clear 100% cpu usage, even in overlay mixer mode, VLC uses about 33% for the same videos.

I am also using the drivers provided by Windows Update, don't know if that matters. I tried installing the drivers from ATI's site, but that caused directx8 and directx9 tests to fail in dxdiag for some reason with the error "out of memory".

I don't like VLC and it can't play some of my videos, which is why I want to use MPC:HC instead.

Also, all the videos are of various different codecs and containers, so it dosen't seem like it could be a codec problem.

Yeah, some very very low resolution and bitrate videos play ok, but anything that isn't postage stamp sized does not.

Again, I would like to stress that these videos played fine before when MPC:HC was set to VMR9 Renderless before I upgraded from Win2k to XP before you just blame it on my old system and say that there is nothing I can do.

[yxz]

mpc hc sucks /flamebait

use MPlayer

[ToneKnee]

Your system is outdated...

[GusValentine]

First install your motherboard's chipset drivers to make sure the AGP port is working at its proper speed; you need to install the latest video card drivers because the Windows update ones are always dated and too basic. Install the latest DirectX Runtimes. Install the proper sound card drivers. MPC-HC will use it's own built-in codecs by default, and they usually offer better performance than external codecs; to make it use external filters you must disable Transform filters (and disable the proper source filters to use Haali's splitter). Try not to use any audio/video processing in your filters, any enhancements/deblocking/etc. you do to your audio/video will slow down performance. Also, install the latest .NET Framework if you want to give EVR a try.

For the videos that don't play too well, right-click on the video and select Filters, check which decoders and renderers are actually being used.

[Cyber Akuma]

  yxz said:

mpc hc sucks /flamebait

use MPlayer

  Tony. said:

Your system is outdated...

cute... :rolleyes:

  Gus. said:

First install your motherboard's chipset drivers to make sure the AGP port is working at its proper speed; you need to install the latest video card drivers because the Windows update ones are always dated and too basic. Install the latest DirectX Runtimes. Install the proper sound card drivers.

I did, I went to the site of my motherboard's manufacturer and downloaded the latest (latest being 2002 or 2004 or so....) versions of their motherboard chipset and audio drivers (that was all they had), the BIOS was already at it's latest, I checked in the BIOS settings and its set to 4x speed, I also enabled Fast Writes, it was disabled by default for some reason.

Its a DFI CA64-TC.

Truth be told, their drivers page is slightly confusing, two "service packs" of drivers were listed with completely different version numbers that didn't seem to correspond to each other.

I tried installing the drivers from ATI, but like I said, those just simply broke all DirectX and 3D rendering.

I tried looking for DirectX runtimes but all I could find was a SDK "directx_aug2009_redist.exe".

  Gus. said:

to make it use external filters you must disable Transform filters (and disable the proper source filters to use Haali's splitter). Try not to use any audio/video processing in your filters, any enhancements/deblocking/etc. you do to your audio/video will slow down performance. Also, install the latest .NET Framework if you want to give EVR a try.

Wait, so you mean to tell me it was using it's internal filters all this time? But I could have sworn i've seen it switch between Koepi and ffdshow whether I enable or disable those filters in ffdshow's decoder configuration.

There is nothing checked under postprocessing or any other field under decoder for ffdshow.

[GusValentine]

This is what you should install, I hope it's not too big for your internet connection, I always prefer installing the full offline package:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...b1-442d8712d553

Codecs can hijack Merits from other codecs, 8 is usually the highest Merit value, means that codec will be used before any other similar codec. You can't always tell for sure which codecs got the highest Merit value, so whenever you watch any video in MPC, right-click the video and check the Filters. I think QuickTime decoders are slower than others...

You mobo chipset is VIA 694T/686B:

Download version 5.24A

Download version 4.43

If you want to try these drivers try the newer one first...

If you say they play fine in VLC then it may just be a codec problem

Edited December 4, 2009 by Gus.

[Jose_49]

  yxz said:

mpc hc sucks /flamebait

use MPlayer

Best ****ing player on the all net. Download https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?act=announce&f=12&id=11 Codec Pack and run the test, you'll see an enormous difference in the video and sound quality

[Udedenkz]

EVR/VMR9/7 are not good for lagacy hardware - you should use Haali Renderer Instead - much better performance.

[Cyber Akuma]

  Gus. said:

This is what you should install, I hope it's not too big for your internet connection, I always prefer installing the full offline package:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...b1-442d8712d553

Thats the one I downloaded and installed.

  Gus. said:

Codecs can hijack Merits from other codecs, 8 is usually the highest Merit value, means that codec will be used before any other similar codec. You can't always tell for sure which codecs got the highest Merit value, so whenever you watch any video in MPC, right-click the video and check the Filters. I think QuickTime decoders are slower than others...

Hmm, I remember I used to have an app that let me see all my codecs, their merits, and even change them.... pretty sure that's half the reason my Win2k codecs were so messed up.

I don't see it mention quicktime in any of my renderers though.

[GusValentine]

I'm not saying you should start changing codec merits right now, the problem seems to be more of system and player optimization. VLC may use the same decoder libraries as MPC, but it's not that simple, you also have your splitters, renderers, and processing that may affect performance. Is VLC using the OpenGL renderer?

Anyway play your slow videos in MPC, right-click, select Filters, and take note which audio and video decoders are being used, and post them here.

Here's 2 of the tools you mean: http://www.softella.com/dsfm/index.en.htm

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/installed_codec.html

[Cyber Akuma]

  Gus. said:

Anyway play your slow videos in MPC, right-click, select Filters, and take note which audio and video decoders are being used, and post them here.

Only two options seem to change:

Default DirectSound Device

Video Mixing Render 9 (Renderless)

Audio Switcher

MPC Video Decoder

AAC Decoder

(filename)

Its almost always MPC Video Decover (does this mean MPC is ignoring me and using it's own internal decoder?) but i've seen the audui decover be replaced with MPEG-1 Decoder many times.

Dosen't seem to be a difference though.

[GusValentine]

These are all MPC's internal filters and they should offer good performance. Players always prefer their own internal filters by default, unless you disable them. MPC Video Decoder can play back both SD and HD video (Xvid/Divx/H.264)

Standard definition (SD) videos usually use Divx/Xvid for video and MP3 (MPEG-1 Layer 3) for audio, High Definition (HD) uses H.264 or VC-1 for video and AAC for audio.

For MPC to use external filters, go to Options, Internal Filters, and uncheck all the Transform Filters.

I still think the problem may lie in the video card drivers, post #6 above, I posted 2 links to the VIA chipset drivers, I think you should try version 5.x first, if they're not the right ones for your chipset then try 4.x Once the proper chipset drivers are installed, this may allow the video drivers to install and work properly.

Edited December 4, 2009 by Gus.

[Cyber Akuma]

  Gus. said:

I still think the problem may lie in the video card drivers, post #6 above, I posted 2 links to the VIA chipset drivers, I think you should try version 5.x first, if they're not the right ones for your chipset then try 4.x Once the proper chipset drivers are installed, this may allow the video drivers to install and work properly.

Would it really be safe to install chipset drivers from somebody that isn't the manufacturer of my motherboard?

[Brony]

I have some troubles with the performance of a old computer. I cleaned the fan, i checked the temperature and everything was fine. Then i checked the disk, the disk didn't show any bad sector or any related troubles. And just for fun, i checked the disk performance and i found that this disk is running at 10% of the real speed. Luckily, a simple (10 hours) low level format fixed the trouble.

Apparently, some harddisk degrade the performance according the S.M.A.R.T. values.