Graphics problems!!

[usf89]

My computer consists of:

1.8 ghz Athlon
30gig hard drive
256 megs of ram
ATI Radeon 9700 series Video Card

I have been trying to improve the graphics on my computer. I purchased a new video card, upgrading from my old generic 8 mb card to a Radeon 64 mb card w/ tv out. I don't even play games on my computer so I figured the graphics card I bought should do all I want it to do. I like to watch movies on my computer and other video files that I've downloaded. The picture is fuzzy and seems slow at times. This is how it performed with my 8mb card. What else can I do to make my video clear, I think that I have the hardware I need, but maybe I haven't set up some of the software correctly. Any help would be appreciated.

Casey

[Budfred]

Others are stronger when it comes to graphics problems, but until they get here I have some ideas. The first thing I would wonder about is what else you have running background that is using RAM to keep running. I would check out what you have in msconfig (or use Spybot if you have that, under Tools) and see what you can turn off, then try the video to see how it goes. The only things you need for sure are systray and explorer.

[gwallen4]

What is the format of the movies and videos you are watching - DVD, Mpeg4, VHS, TV tuner? And what software/hardware are you using to play them on your computer?

[usf89]

I am watching divx movies, using a divx player and my windows media player. I have only a couple divx movies right now and they don't look horrible, but not good. Everything else, avi., mpeg, etc. looks like hell. I'll try bring my system resources down, but I didn't think that would be an issue with a 64mb card.

[Budfred]

The 64meg card only reduces the drain on the CPU for video, but if your system is generally bogged down with a lot of background stuff, it will slow everything down and may be more noticeable with a graphics intensive task.

[gwallen4]

Unfortunately, even a great video card can't make a poor video look good. Mpeg1 is horrible. Mpeg2 should look pretty good, but Divx (Mpeg4), while it is a fairly good compression scheme, is not as good as Mpeg2.

Even DVD movies played on a computer don't look quite as good as the same movie on a regular TV.

[usf89]

I just upgraded to Windows XP professional and I am having trouble determining if I am using up a lot of my system resources. In windows 98 I would press control+alt+delete and get rid of the programs I didn't want, but it seems to be more confusing in windows xp. also, there is the two line graphs showing your performance, don't have a clue what those tell you. I just wondered how to do this, because the more resources I can free up, the better my video will look. Thanks for any help.

Casey

[Budfred]

This web site has all sorts of help for paring WinXP (and other Windoze) down to run lean and mean:

http://www.blackviper.com/

You can get other ideas here as well:

www.bootdisk.com