Video on old PC (488Mhz 128MB Ram)

Forum thread started by vampire666 on Fri, 2009-09-18 20:33

Hi there.

I was wondering if Haiku can run *.avi files (xvid, divx, etc..) standard definition (no HD) on an old Celeron 488Mhx and 128MB of RAM (EDIT: and a Geforce4 MX440).

I tried Puppy (very small and light Linux ditro) and GeeXboX, but on this system the video is laggy and therefore can't watch anything on it.

Is Haiku faster then the OP before mentioned?

P.S. What about DVD's?

Comments

Re: Video on old PC (488Mhz 128MB Ram)

by bbarker - 2009-09-18 21:16

Have you tried VLC? I doubt it'll work for you very well but you could give it a try.

Re: Video on old PC (488Mhz 128MB Ram)

by cb88 - 2009-09-18 23:37

Well i can almost play medium res *avi on my dual PII@300Mhz so I would imagine yours would fair a bit better at video

VLC can play dvds it would be worth a try anyway.

Re: Video on old PC (488Mhz 128MB Ram)

by nonne - 2009-09-19 02:50

Celeron is a very weak processsor but it might possible still. And if it's to slow on Haiku, then you could try BeOS it's still a bit faster than Haiku on older harware.

Re: Video on old PC (488Mhz 128MB Ram)

by vampire666 - 2009-09-19 13:53

Thanks for the replies guys! I appreciate it! :)

I guess that trying is of no harm, so I'll be doing the tests one of these days and let you guys know how it went.

Thanks again! :)

Re: Video on old PC (488Mhz 128MB Ram)

by dru - 2009-09-19 21:41

In basic testing I found VLC on Haiku can run a full-screen (1024x768) video clip on my old PIII-700 (256MB RAM, GeForce 2MX PCI) while playing an MP3 via CL-Amp.

Media Player seems pretty inefficient on "older" hardware. It plays an MP3 with snaps and pops (if at all) while playing the video is pretty pointless.

Re: Video on old PC (488Mhz 128MB Ram)

by vampire666 - 2009-09-21 11:09

nonne wrote:

Celeron is a very weak processsor but it might possible still. And if it's to slow on Haiku, then you could try BeOS it's still a bit faster than Haiku on older harware.

Hi.
Anyone knows where I can find BeOS to download? It's a free operating system right?

Thanks.

Re: Video on old PC (488Mhz 128MB Ram)

by cb88 - 2009-09-21 14:36

you can find the download here http://www.haikuware.com/directory/start-download/development/app-instal...

The site that usually hosts BeOSMax seems to have ran out of bandwidth for the moment though you can still get if from haikuware.com

Burning a BeOs Image is a bit different than Haiku since the .ISO format doesn't support BFS on most platforms

use Imgburn on windows to burn the .cue and .bin file (the .cue is the one you will select to burn the bin which contains the data is used by the cue file indirectly)

or I think K3B should be able to do it on Linux

Re: Video on old PC (488Mhz 128MB Ram)

by vampire666 - 2009-09-22 11:23

Thanks cb88 for the link and the tips on how to burn the image file.

Have a nice day! :)

Re: Video on old PC (488Mhz 128MB Ram)

by vampire666 - 2009-09-23 16:39

cb88 wrote:

you can find the download here http://www.haikuware.com/directory/start-download/development/app-installation/beos-5-pe-max-edition

I'm sorry, but I have some problems and can't figure what should I burn.
I downloaded the file of the link you gave me and extracted it. These are the files in the archive:

amd_1024_r5.0.3_boot_cd.img  	1,47 MB
amd_r5.0.5_boot_cd.img 	1,47 MB
BeOS5PEMaxEditionV4b1.iso 	640,00 MB
FLOPPY MAKER call me under BeOS 	405 bytes
FLOPPY MAKER call me under DOS or Windows.BAT 	26 bytes
FLOPPY.IMG 	1,41 MB
FloppyIdeRepl.img 	1,41 MB
IDE REPL FLOPPY MAKER call me under BeOS 	412 bytes
IDE REPL FLOPPY MAKER call me under DOS or Windows.BAT 	33 bytes
intel_1024_r5.0.3_boot_cd.img 	1,47 MB
intel_r5.0.3_boot_cd.img 	1,47 MB
MaxV4b1_Amd.cue 	195 bytes
MaxV4b1_Amd.toc 	148 bytes
MaxV4b1_Amd_1024.cue 	200 bytes
MaxV4b1_Amd_1024.toc 	153 bytes
MaxV4b1_Intel.cue 	197 bytes
MaxV4b1_Intel.toc 	150 bytes
MaxV4b1_Intel_1024.cue 	202 bytes
MaxV4b1_Intel_1024.toc 	155 bytes
Rawrite.exe 	13,97 KB

Now...I have imgburn in windows xp, but I don't know what file I should select to burn.
Based on the file dimension I thought BeOS5PEMaxEditionV4b1.iso (since it's 640,00 MB), but when it seams it's not a bootable disk.
Then I saw you said I should select the cue file...but there are quite a few and I'm not sure which one I should select. (well I guess I should choose one of the ones that says Intel, since I have a Celeron, but what's the difference between these (if any):
MaxV4b1_Intel.toc 150 bytes
MaxV4b1_Intel_1024.cue 202 bytes
)

Thanks.

EDIT: Ok. Never mind...I found that the 1024 limits the system memory to 1GB (1024MB), while the other has no limit (and will crash on systems with more then 1024mb of System Ram + Video Ram). :)

Re: Video on old PC (488Mhz 128MB Ram)

by vampire666 - 2009-09-23 17:00

I burned MaxV4b1_Intel_1024.cue with imgburn but when I insert the disk it says it's not a bootable disk.

These are the files when I open the disk:

H:\>dir
 Volume in drive H is BeOS_Boot
 Volume Serial Number is BB70-36B1

 Directory of H:\

31/01/2006  09:10             2.048 boot.catalog
31/01/2006  09:10         1.474.560 r5.0.3.1024.untested.zbeosintel.r503.boot.tg
z.floppy.img
               2 File(s)      1.476.608 bytes
               0 Dir(s)               0 bytes free

I guess that Windows can't see the rest since those files are written with a filesystem windows can't recognize, but why can't I boot?

Re: Video on old PC (488Mhz 128MB Ram)

by vampire666 - 2009-09-23 22:43

Alright I sorted it out.
I don't know why, but on the computer I always use (E8500, 4GB RAM, 7800GTX etc..) it wouldn't boot, but once I put the disk in the Celeron 488Mhx it run!

Well BeOS is fantastic! I tried loading a video with the specs shown below and the video was super fluent and the cpu never maxed out!!!

I was (I still am!) completely blown away by the ability of BeOS to run xvid/divx fluently on my old Celeron! No windows/linux system was able to do so!

If it can even use the tv-out of my geforce4 440mx (s-video), I might as well resurrect this pc and use it as a small htpc! :)

I'll try Haiku soon and see how it performs and might as well use this one (if there's no big drop in performance).

Video
Format                           : MPEG-4 Visual
Format profile                   : Simple @ L3
Format settings, BVOP            : Yes
Format settings, QPel            : No
Format settings, GMC             : No warppoints
Format settings, Matrix          : Default
Muxing mode                      : Packet Bitstream
Codec ID                         : XVID
Codec ID/Hint                    : XviD
Duration                         : 1h 2min
Bit rate                         : 1 100 Kbps
Width                            : 640 pixel
Height                           : 272 pixel
Display aspect ratio             : 2.35
Frame rate                       : 23,976 fps
Resolution                       : 24 bits
Colorimetry                      : 4:2:0
Scan type                        : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)               : 0.264
Stream size                      : 494 Mb (71%)
Writing library                  : XviD 1.0.3 (UTC 2004-12-20)

Audio
Format                           : AC-3
Format/Info                      : Audio Coding 3
Codec ID                         : 2000
Duration                         : 1h 2min
Bit rate mode                    : Costant
Bit rate                         : 448 Kbps
Channel(s)                       : 6 channels
Channel positions                : Front: L C R, Surround: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                    : 48,0 KHz
Stream size                      : 201 Mb (29%)
Alignment                        : Split Audio
Interleave, duration             : 42 ms (1,00 frames)
Interleave, preload duration     : 500 ms

I'm happy! :D