minimum system requirements

[silentshadow420]

what are the minimum system requirements to encode?
i have an extra system that never worked correct when attempting to encode, this could be due to i was a very novice newbee at that time or the system was just to weak. this weekend i'm going to take another crack at it to see if it was just user error. But I want to take a pole of what is the weakest computer that you have ever encoded on with success?

thanks in advance for the participation in the pole.
p.s.
if you have any specifics please post to help fuel the understanding.

[khp]

I don't think there is any lower limit to the cpu speed needed to encode, but RAM might be a problem. On an average DVD->divx conversion, virtualdub will use close to 100MB. I have tried doing DVD->divx conversion on a 200mhz k6, with 64MB of ram, it worked but was so dreadfully slow, that it would have taken several days to complete 1 movie.

I suppose I could fireup my 66mhz 486, just to see if it would work

[Enchanter]

It's hard to comment really. I've seen a Celeron 300A trying to convert a movie into VCD. It was awfully slow at the task, but it is doing the job alright. I suppose, as khp put it, there is no mininum CPU speed for an encoding machine, although there should be sufficient RAM available before the system hits Virtual memory and subsequently runs out of hard disk space.

[silentshadow420]

thanks

thank you for your reply
so i guess ram is the most important thing.
I have a 233mhz p2 with 80 mb ram
my old trusty gateway
has a few problems but I believe it should work
have you heard that open divx is available for amiga.
now that is crazy. I didn't even think my old monitor could handle divx. i'm wondering why divx has not created better support for the lower end pc's of the world.

[johnbmx4christ]

i have 2 puters..they both have amd k-6 and 500 mhz...one has 190 mb ram, via chipset and one has 128 mb ram, sis chipset...they both work fine but as stated above they are slow....i dont care as long as they are stable and have no errors.I am building a new puter also with an amd athlon xp 1800 since amd has been good so far.

[khp]

Wohuuu..

I got divx->divx conversion to work on my 66mhz 486 (20 MB RAM), using virtualdub and divx5.0.2 standard. The speed is amazing, 25 seconds per frame.

DVD->divx conversion looks more difficult, both flask and dvd2avi refuse to cooperate.

[Enchanter]

0.04 fps. Cool.

[Heaps]

I just built a new AMD +2000 with 512 DDR 333, and was wondering if there are any tweaks for my system.

[silentshadow420]

minimum speed

i've just completed the first part of a gknot encode on my
233mhz p 2 it looks like it is working, but i'm getting only 2fps
sounds like this might be worth it, and a very long awaited benefit. I had this idea that my extra pc is just sitting around since i switched over to my new laptop. instead of just collecting dust I think i will make it my secondary encoder for the no rush movies. and from the look of it it could take up to 3-4 days to finish the encode.

thanks again for everybodies participation in this experiment.
I think if I get enough posts i might submitt a time chart of requirements (encode time vs. system resorces) to one of our beloved sites to host for curious encoders.

[benedict]

khp: There I was thinking . . .

...my 600MHz with 320 Megs of RAM was getting a little "doggy" on some of my video renderings. 25 seconds per frame? Good thing you've got another computer, huh?

Anyways, to be serious, this 83-year old lady I know bought herself a 1.1 GHz box last Christmas, used it twice, hated it, and now wants to give it to me. Now obviously I'm not going to turn that down, but I believe it only came with 128 Megs of RAM. From what you're saying, I'd better plan on dropping a 256 Meg board into the thing before I even fire it up?

[silentshadow420]

slow system

just finished my encode with the 233 p2 80 mb ram
worked. i never thought it was every going to end, but it worked.
it doesn't play back to good on it but on my other faster system it rocks. so the slower the system the longer it takes. i have only found a few programs that will not work on the system.

[khp]

Re: khp: There I was thinking . . .

Originally posted by benedict
...my 600MHz with 320 Megs of RAM was getting a little "doggy" on some of my video renderings. 25 seconds per frame? Good thing you've got another computer, huh?

Yes my 900mhz celeron, does preform slightly better Too bad I can't get a DVD->divx encoding to run on the 486, ofcause it would have taken about 50 days to convert a 2 hour movie, which I suppose is longer than win95 can be expected to run.

Originally posted by benedict

but I believe it only came with 128 Megs of RAM. From what you're saying, I'd better plan on dropping a 256 Meg board into the thing before I even fire it up?

Well I think 128 MB should be just about enough to run a DVD->divx conversion witout running into any serious swapping. Using GKnot, vdub will use about 85 MB. if you don' use the computer for anything else durring the encoding, most of the OS will get swapped out, so the 128 MB should be just about enough.

[silentshadow420]

ram

my system will flask my dvd's with very little resources
check the second to last post. i was assuming before i got my
new pc that it was system limitation with the programs used, but now i'm more advanced with my encode and have fixed all the bs newbie errors. now that those stupid errors are gone the older system works perfectly excluding the wait. almost 10-11 days per encode. so what i'm trying to say is that you can do this with a lower system, but be prepared to watch it 2 weeks later. i think i'm going to use my older system for internet dl and audio conversions. but you are correct it does rock to have multiple systems.

[benedict]

One more question . . .

...Assuming I actually do get this new computer, which one should I use as my video home base?

1) My 600 MHz, 320 Meg RAM box, or

2) My 1.1 GHz, 128 Meg RAM box.

I seem to be sensing from your previous answers that the processor power of the latter will outdo its lack of RAM. (My 256 Meg addition to my current box is PC100, so it cannot likely be moved to the newer machine.)

Just wanted to confirm this with you all because I'd like to split my workload properly between the two before I ever start installing new programs on my (hopefully) new computer. I've gotten away with probably 200 installs on my present Win98 box without much hitting the instabilities that most claim of their Win98 platforms, but I've wasted about as much time on Microsoft as I care to.

[khp]

Well it depends....

If the 1.1Ghz system constantly has to do swapping, durring the encoding process, the 600Mhz system will be much faster.

However I don't think this will be the case with 128 MB Ram. And I would think, that the 1.1Ghz box will outpreform the 600Mhz box. With all other things beeing equal, but keeping in mind that memory speed and latency is also very important factors.