FFdshow Performance with my First HTPC

FFdshow processing can be a great way to get a $300 DVD player performance on your HTPC. However, the quality of FFdshow processing depends heavily on a HTPC’s processor speed, amount of RAM, motherboard, and video card. Here are the parts in my first HTPC, which was built in early 2005.

• AMD’s Athlon 64 3500+ CPU
• ATI’s Radeon X800 Pro video card
• Asus A8V Deluxe motherboard
• 512MB DDR400 RAM (x2)

Here are the FFdshow setting I use:

The settings above resulted in approximately 60 to 70 percent CPU usage. FFdshow works from top to bottom so Blur & NR first, Sharpen second, and Resize third. If I try to do Resize second and Sharpen third, the CPU usage jumps to around 90%. If I keep the settings as is except for changing Resize’s multiple factor from 2.0 to 1.6, then I reduce my CPU’s usage to approximately 50 to 60 percent. Ideally, it would be best to double or even triple each frame and then sharpen and noise reduce the frame. However, a bigger frame equals more data which equals more processing power. If I had more processing power, I would also enable the Deinterlacing setting. When I tried, the DVD started to skip and I had over 100% CPU usage.

Stay tuned to see FFdshow’s performance using a AMD’s X2 4200+ chip that I just ordered.