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Hello.
I have an annoying problem to which I haven't found any solution yet. Any video I play on my computer (DVDs or video files of various formats and codecs, doesn't make a difference) plays in a very jerky manner. All pans and basically any movement is painful to watch, since everything looks like I'm seeing 2 frames simultaneously, and the jerkiness in most noticeable in "average speed" movement (excuse my lack of proper terminology here, I hope you know what I mean). Also, DVDs look slightly pixelated at times - I watch anime so it's rather noticeable with drawn lines.
Here are my system specs:
Mainboard: MSI K7T Turbo 2 (VIA KT133A chipset *ouch*)
RAM: 512MB SDRAM (some cheap OEM brand *ouch*)
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 1700+ (Palomino core)
Video card: Gainward GeForce4 MX420 64MB (integrated TV-out, S-Video connection to my TV)
Power Supply: Fortron 300W
IDE Primary Master: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 160GB
IDE Primary Slave: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 40GB
IDE Secondary Master: LG GSA-4160B DVD-RW
IDE Secondary Slave: LG GDR-1816B DVD-ROM
One thing I'm sure of: these problems started last autumn when I switched my OS to Windows XP Pro SP2, as I never noticed any of this jerkiness when I was using Win2000 SP4, or even way back in the Win98 days (as far as I can remember). And for certain reasons, I'm not switching back to 2000 and definitely not 98 anymore. I've been enduring this annoyance for more than long enough now so I'd like to find a solution to this soon.
The 160GB Barracuda was installed simultaneously with XP, so I never had it on my Win2000 system. The 40GB Barracuda was a slave on my Win2000 system, as well as the LG DVD-ROM. I removed them when I installed XP, but put both of them back in a few weeks ago as I have a few DVDs the LG burner refuses to play, and because it's a bit pointless to have an extra 40 gigs of HD space lying on my bookshelf.
Off the top of my head, here's how I've tried to solve this problem:
I've tried with both the 4in1 drivers (v4.43) VIA recommends for their older chipsets (I used these on Win2000) and the latest 5.07A Hyperion drivers. I've also tried with no 4in1 drivers. No difference.
I've tried both with and without the (unofficial) VIA PCI Latency Patch by George Breese (I had this installed on Win2000). No difference.
I've tried another PCI latency tweaking tool. No difference compared to normal settings.
I've tried with the NVidia drivers I used on Win2000 (66.93) as well as the latest 81.98 Forceware drivers, in combination with different 4in1 drivers. No difference. Back on Win2000 (I think) and 98 (I know), some NVidia drivers had this same problem, some didn't.
I've removed my ancient (bought in 1999) SBLive! as I've heard that it's quite a PCI bus bandwidth hog. No difference. Actually the only reason I even had it installed was that my other/preferred audio card - STAudio DSP24 Value (a semi-pro ASIO card) - had some small playback problems with PowerDVD on Win2000. This one works well on XP...
I've tried with turning ACPI (power management) both on and off in my BIOS. No difference.
I've done some BIOS tweaks as suggested both by STAudio and NVidia. No difference compared to "normal" BIOS settings.
I've tried both with having the TV-out on and off. No difference.
I've tried lowering the hardware acceleration level, as well as switching from 32-bit colours to 16-bit. No difference. I've also tried with lowering my screen resolution and refresh rate to 1024x768@60Hz. No difference compared to 1280x1024@85Hz (I can't work on a lower resolution anyway, it's just something I'm used to).
I've tried with the different rendering modes in Zoom Player - Overlay Mixer and VMR9. No difference. Also, no difference between PowerDVD XP 4.0 or PowerDVD 5.0 - and also no difference between having DVD Region+CSS Free running or not.
Maybe there's still something I've tried but I can't remember right now.
As for the source of the problem, I'm only guessing here, but I think that the combination of the KT133A chipset (which is not really a good chipset to begin with) and the cheap RAM is something XP Pro doesn't like. Why it worked fine on Win2000/98 and not on XP I have no idea. I've also noticed some strange flickerings here and there - the drive selection drop down box in Nero Express and the selected row in the Processes tab in Windows' task manager to name a few. Also the DirectDraw and Direct3D tests in the dxdiag utility cause some slight screen flickerings, even if the tests run fine.
So, any good suggestions to fix this problem? I'm almost on the verge of getting a new KT600 chipset motherboard and some DDR RAM as a last solution (I definitely don't have the money to get a new AMD64 processor and mobo and all the additional stuff I'd need to get), but whether that's a good idea or not, I guess someone here can tell me. Any other suggestions are welcome.
And lastly, thanks for reading all the way down here.
I have an annoying problem to which I haven't found any solution yet. Any video I play on my computer (DVDs or video files of various formats and codecs, doesn't make a difference) plays in a very jerky manner. All pans and basically any movement is painful to watch, since everything looks like I'm seeing 2 frames simultaneously, and the jerkiness in most noticeable in "average speed" movement (excuse my lack of proper terminology here, I hope you know what I mean). Also, DVDs look slightly pixelated at times - I watch anime so it's rather noticeable with drawn lines.
Here are my system specs:
Mainboard: MSI K7T Turbo 2 (VIA KT133A chipset *ouch*)
RAM: 512MB SDRAM (some cheap OEM brand *ouch*)
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 1700+ (Palomino core)
Video card: Gainward GeForce4 MX420 64MB (integrated TV-out, S-Video connection to my TV)
Power Supply: Fortron 300W
IDE Primary Master: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 160GB
IDE Primary Slave: Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 40GB
IDE Secondary Master: LG GSA-4160B DVD-RW
IDE Secondary Slave: LG GDR-1816B DVD-ROM
One thing I'm sure of: these problems started last autumn when I switched my OS to Windows XP Pro SP2, as I never noticed any of this jerkiness when I was using Win2000 SP4, or even way back in the Win98 days (as far as I can remember). And for certain reasons, I'm not switching back to 2000 and definitely not 98 anymore. I've been enduring this annoyance for more than long enough now so I'd like to find a solution to this soon.
The 160GB Barracuda was installed simultaneously with XP, so I never had it on my Win2000 system. The 40GB Barracuda was a slave on my Win2000 system, as well as the LG DVD-ROM. I removed them when I installed XP, but put both of them back in a few weeks ago as I have a few DVDs the LG burner refuses to play, and because it's a bit pointless to have an extra 40 gigs of HD space lying on my bookshelf.
Off the top of my head, here's how I've tried to solve this problem:
I've tried with both the 4in1 drivers (v4.43) VIA recommends for their older chipsets (I used these on Win2000) and the latest 5.07A Hyperion drivers. I've also tried with no 4in1 drivers. No difference.
I've tried both with and without the (unofficial) VIA PCI Latency Patch by George Breese (I had this installed on Win2000). No difference.
I've tried another PCI latency tweaking tool. No difference compared to normal settings.
I've tried with the NVidia drivers I used on Win2000 (66.93) as well as the latest 81.98 Forceware drivers, in combination with different 4in1 drivers. No difference. Back on Win2000 (I think) and 98 (I know), some NVidia drivers had this same problem, some didn't.
I've removed my ancient (bought in 1999) SBLive! as I've heard that it's quite a PCI bus bandwidth hog. No difference. Actually the only reason I even had it installed was that my other/preferred audio card - STAudio DSP24 Value (a semi-pro ASIO card) - had some small playback problems with PowerDVD on Win2000. This one works well on XP...
I've tried with turning ACPI (power management) both on and off in my BIOS. No difference.
I've done some BIOS tweaks as suggested both by STAudio and NVidia. No difference compared to "normal" BIOS settings.
I've tried both with having the TV-out on and off. No difference.
I've tried lowering the hardware acceleration level, as well as switching from 32-bit colours to 16-bit. No difference. I've also tried with lowering my screen resolution and refresh rate to 1024x768@60Hz. No difference compared to 1280x1024@85Hz (I can't work on a lower resolution anyway, it's just something I'm used to).
I've tried with the different rendering modes in Zoom Player - Overlay Mixer and VMR9. No difference. Also, no difference between PowerDVD XP 4.0 or PowerDVD 5.0 - and also no difference between having DVD Region+CSS Free running or not.
Maybe there's still something I've tried but I can't remember right now.
As for the source of the problem, I'm only guessing here, but I think that the combination of the KT133A chipset (which is not really a good chipset to begin with) and the cheap RAM is something XP Pro doesn't like. Why it worked fine on Win2000/98 and not on XP I have no idea. I've also noticed some strange flickerings here and there - the drive selection drop down box in Nero Express and the selected row in the Processes tab in Windows' task manager to name a few. Also the DirectDraw and Direct3D tests in the dxdiag utility cause some slight screen flickerings, even if the tests run fine.
So, any good suggestions to fix this problem? I'm almost on the verge of getting a new KT600 chipset motherboard and some DDR RAM as a last solution (I definitely don't have the money to get a new AMD64 processor and mobo and all the additional stuff I'd need to get), but whether that's a good idea or not, I guess someone here can tell me. Any other suggestions are welcome.
And lastly, thanks for reading all the way down here.
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