AGP Graphics card for older PC to improve YouTube?

[Ral-Clan]

Hi,

I use an older PC (single core 2.8GHz Pentium running Windows XP). It does everything great, and USED to play YouTube videos wonderfully.  But about a year ago, as Adobe started to upgrade Flash past version 10, and YouTube made some changes, suddenly, more CPU % was required to play the same 480p videos.  Sometimes, I'm forced to use 360p mode on YouTube.

The PC has an old, not great Intel Graphics chip in it, but it has an AGP slot.

I'm wondering if there is an older AGP graphics card I can pick up for cheap that would allow Flash to use the hardware acceleration feature - and therefore the GPU on the card to do video decoding instead of the motherboard GPU.

There are a lot of cheap old AGP graphics cards on eBay - some for $10 or $20 - but I suspect I would need one that decodes .h264? Not sure which old model would fit the bill, if any.

Is my thinking correct?  Anyone know of an old model with such capability.

I do NO gaming, so this would only be for YouTube and perhaps Sony Vegas work (if Sony Vegas can even use it).

Thanks

[Acill]

Try looking for a 9800XT AGP card. They are very good and support hardware encoding quite well from what I remember. I use one in my Power Mac with MOS and picked it up for a very good price.

[Rob]

Hi,

I use an older PC (single core 2.8GHz Pentium running Windows XP). It does everything great, and USED to play YouTube videos wonderfully.  But about a year ago, as Adobe started to upgrade Flash past version 10, and YouTube made some changes, suddenly, more CPU % was required to play the same 480p videos.  Sometimes, I'm forced to use 360p mode on YouTube.

The PC has an old, not great Intel Graphics chip in it, but it has an AGP slot.

I'm wondering if there is an older AGP graphics card I can pick up for cheap that would allow Flash to use the hardware acceleration feature - and therefore the GPU on the card to do video decoding instead of the motherboard GPU.

There are a lot of cheap old AGP graphics cards on eBay - some for $10 or $20 - but I suspect I would need one that decodes .h264? Not sure which old model would fit the bill, if any.

Is my thinking correct?  Anyone know of an old model with such capability.

I do NO gaming, so this would only be for YouTube and perhaps Sony Vegas work (if Sony Vegas can even use it).

Thanks

Ideally you want a card that supports UVD so HD2000 (apart from 2900) series upwards.  AGP HD2400 can be bought fairly cheap but I understand that you need to apply certain tweaks to the registry for certain files.  HD3450 might make more sense if you can find one decently priced.

[Iggy]

Ideally you want a card that supports UVD so HD2000 (apart from 2900) series upwards.  AGP HD2400 can be bought fairly cheap but I understand that you need to apply certain tweaks to the registry for certain files.  HD3450 might make more sense if you can find one decently priced.

I'd second this latter approach.
I have R300 cards all over my work area as I have been using them for MorphOS machines, but I'd going with at least an HD2000.
That gives you Direct X10.1.

At one time, I had an AGP HD3850.
That was a simply wonderful card.
The 4650 is also available as an AGP card.
And your cpu is more than powerful enough.
Until recently I was using a single core Opteron operating at 2.2 GHz and only recently upgraded to a dual core at 3.00 GHz, both were adequate.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

At one time, I had an AGP HD3850.
That was a simply wonderful card.

Second that!  Full length, 256-bit graphics card with dual DVI outputs, it requires a pretty beefy power supply, however.  I regret ever getting rid of mine, not that I had any use for it, now.

I believe Newegg still has a selection of some AGP cards.

I think that single-core chip of yours is really going to hurt you.  Try checking CPU performance while you're playing videos.  Hope at least you've maxed out your memory...

[Ral-Clan]

Second that!  Full length, 256-bit graphics card with dual DVI outputs, it requires a pretty beefy power supply, however.  I regret ever getting rid of mine, not that I had any use for it, now.

I believe Newegg still has a selection of some AGP cards.

I think that single-core chip of yours is really going to hurt you.  Try checking CPU performance while you're playing videos.  Hope at least you've maxed out your memory...

I'm pretty new to AGP graphics cards (even though I understand they are an old standard now).

First of all, since this computer is probably worth not much more than $100-150, I really don't want to spend more than that on an AGP card.  I was hoping I could pick up an obsolete one that was still good enough for YouTube acceleration for cheap.  

I have R300 cards all over my work area as I have been using them for MorphOS machines, but I'd going with at least an HD2000.
That gives you Direct X10.1.

This is a Windows XP computer, so I'm not even sure I can run anything past DirectX 9 on it.

As for the CPU performance during YouTube: when playing YouTube videos at 480p resolution, I get about 77% to 95% CPU usage.  Might hit 100% now and then, but the video doesn't stutter, so the CPU can handle 480p.  Really, I'm actually fine with 480p. HD streaming video would just be icing on the cake. I thought that if the old AGP cards were now cheap enough on the used market, it might be a quick and easy upgrade.  It's not a critical upgrade, though...

I'd prefer not to get a card that requires its own power and has a noisy fan, if possible, as I use this computer for music recording and don't really want another fan whirring away.

UVD is a new term to me .... I guess it's time to Google....

[Iggy]

Best cheap DX9 card?
An AGP X800XT would be good.

ATI Radeon X800XT All In Wonder AGP $35 plus $10.29 shipping

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ATI-Radeon-X800-XT-AIW-all-in-wonder-102aj3830120-256-MB-GDDR3-AGP-AMD-/301040897081?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item46176f8c39

AN Nvidia 7800GS would also work.

[amiga1260]

I still use a P4@2.53 GHz with 2 GB of RAM and a Nvidia 6800 GT AGP Video card and still runs Youtube movies without a problem.

[Iggy]

I still use a P4@2.53 GHz with 2 GB of RAM and a Nvidia 6800 GT AGP Video card and still runs Youtube movies without a problem.

Nvidia 7600GTs can be had without a secondary power connector for AGP systems.
As to cards without a cooling fan, you won't find very many powerful cards set up like that.
And a video card's cooling fan is not particularly loud.

[Rob]

This is a Windows XP computer, so I'm not even sure I can run anything past DirectX 9 on it.

DirectX 10 and 11 cards operate fine under DirectX 9 on XP.  I've been using a 4670 with XP for years now.

It's better to get something newer than 9800 or X800 etc since they don't have the UVD hardware acceleration and will largely rely on the CPU so you'd probably be left in the same position with those cards.

I'd definitely recommend getting something like a 3450 or maybe 4650 depending on price.  Generally you do pay a premium for AGP versions look hard enough and you should be able to et something reasonably priced.

[vince_6]

Indeed HD3850 is the best agp card out there.
But I don't think this is a matter or gfx card.
I have noticed that single core machines cannot play yt videos well anymore.
Try to disable hardware acceleration in flash.

[Iggy]

Indeed HD3850 is the best agp card out there.
But I don't think this is a matter or gfx card.
I have noticed that single core machines cannot play yt videos well anymore.
Try to disable hardware acceleration in flash.

Yes, what pocessed me that convinced me to sell my 3850 is beyond me.
Actually, I was using a single core Opteron until recently and thathandled video fine.
Not to take too many pot shots at thr P4, but that processor never really performed all that well.

[nicholas]

A Radeon 4670 is a good AGP card, IIRC the 3850 is PCI-E only.  You should install the maximum RAM your motherboard can handle and replace your hard drive with an SSD too to get the best performance out of the machine.  Though for the amount that will all cost you could probably buy a new PC with better performance.

[soviet]

You don't need to change your video card to watch youtube videos.
Follow this guide
http://smf.rantradio.com/index.php?topic=2162.0
Works wonders im watching HD video on an athlon 1800+ ,was imposible before to watch even the lowest settings using flash player.
Give it a shot know i do the same on my high end notebook and is much better than flash you dont see the ads know.

[Ral-Clan]

I have noticed that single core machines cannot play yt videos well  anymore.Try to disable hardware acceleration in flash.

Yes!  This is what makes me angry.  Prior to the time Youtube went Hi-def, ALL 480p videos played absulutely great on my computer - using around 60% CPU.

Then they switched to allow HD videos.  My machine can't handle 1080p videos and is choppy at 720p videos.  Fine - I can accept that and throttle them down to the 480p setting.  BUT - now even playing those HD videos in 480p mode takes 75-100% of CPU.

If you can find an older video on YouTube that wasn't uploaded in HD then it will still use the older player and consumes lower CPU cycles.

It all seems to be based on a change to the YouTube player.  The older videos have a thicker looking progress bar at the bottom (lower res) and these play well.  The newer videos (all HD videos) have a thinner progress bar at the bottom and use more CPU even when throttled down to the lower 480p resolution.

So it's frustrating that CPU usage should go up for exactly the same resolution (480p).  Seems like a step backward.  My machine can just about keep up with 480p now, whereas before it could handle 480p Flash video with CPU to spare.  Mostly it plays fine, but now I hear the CPU fan whirring up to high gear, and occasionally there is stutter or the sound is delayed from the video.  Seems like Flash is getting less efficient with every version released.  Why should a newer version of Flash perform WORSE than an older version?

PS: I have disabled hardware acceleration in Flash.  It doesn't change anything in regard to CPU consumption on my machine.