Hi, Thanks in advance for reading, it's long but I tried to explain things thoroughly to get the best answers. I tried searching the site for an answer to my question but I get vastly different information/too big a variety of responses, and i don't know enough about what i'm talking about to narrow it down, so i'd just like to start a new thread. I have a 2-year old computer. It runs at 2.0 GhZ, has an NVIDIA GeForce 6100 with up to 128MB memory. I'm trying to use a new video capture device from Pinnacle I just purchased to back up my old, out of print VHS movies to DVD. The device seems to work fine, except on the first run there were quite a few dropped frames and lots of stop-go on the finished product. So i went through and scrubbed my harddrive of all the gunk on it, defragged, took stuff off the harddrive, stopped processes in startup, disconnected my net connection until it seemed to be running faster than ever. However, after finishing the burn there were still dropped frames, although not nearly as many, but still enough to ruin the output. So I set out to purchase RAM to speed up my computer. According to the official specs, my computer takes maximum 2GB 400MhZ DDR SDRAM. Already installed was one 512MB stick. Today I purchased a 1GB stick, same speed (400MhZ) but not the same manufacturer. Having a recollection of hearing that you need to install this stuff in pairs, I asked the clerk about it and he assured me it wasn't necessary. I plunked the new 1GB stick into the only other slot on the motherboard and it snapped in nicely. I booted up and checked MyComputer properties and sure enough, the total of how much RAM is installed is there. I ran Memtest and it came up with 0 errors. Hunky Dory. But I noticed no improvement in performance, so naturally I worried I wasted my cash. So I went online to do some research, and many sites tell me that you have to install DDR RAM in pairs from the exact manufacturer at the exact speed, or you won't get any increase in performance. Well, I can't think of another reason for wanting to upgrade my RAM other than to increase performance. Then others chime in and say no, no, he's wrong, it doesn't matter if you install it this way that way or the other. I need to see increased performance on my machine without having to return to the store to spend more money (I currently have one stick, the original at 512 MB in the "first" slot, and my newly purchased 1 GB from a totally different manufacturer in the other slot). So here are my questions: 1. How can I make this thing go faster with what I currently have? 2. What if I took out the original 512 MB stick and put the 1 GB stick in it's place, would that make a difference? If I did that, would I even need to put the 512 MB back in the other slot? 3. Would having two sticks at 512 MB be better than having one stick at 1GB? 4. Does the machine need a driver for RAM or not? The 'Found new Hardware' bubble in XP never showed up when i booted up, although in system properties it is reflected. Thanks in advance ! S
The Geforce 6100 and processor are the weak links in performance in that system, probably both. In order to not get any dropped frames, it's not going to be a cheap upgrade. That system could well be too old to even buy stuff for, so the number of components you need to replace will be high.
Could be, except the system requirements for the device don't say that about the processor/video card. I'm not sure how a 2-3 year old system could be too old to buy stuff for Were all CPUs and video cards used in 2006 wiped off the earth? Any ideas about the RAM?
RAM isn't that important for video editing, I've done plenty of editing on an old amd 1500ghz computer with 512mb pc2100 ram. Your drop frames isn't ram related, more than likely it's cause by Pinnacle. Is that a USB device? I know that Pinacle software is very crashprone and doesn't always produce great results. Instead of getting more ram, get a TV tuner card which has a built-in hardware encoder (hauppagauge pvr-150 is the least expensive $59.00 and produces great results, I have 3 connected in my computer AMD2800 1gb ram, and they record at the same time and never have any lost frames). The hardware mpeg encoders don't require the cpu and ram to do any of the encoding and record in real-time writing directly to the hard drive. Right now my video editing machine is a amd quad 9750 with 1gb ddr2 800 ram. I haven't encounter any drop frame problems or situations where a program requested more ram, I do alot of mpeg2 / xvid editing recording. You might also check that your USB device is running at full usb 2.0 speed. Also check and make sure that if you are using IDE drives that they are set to DMA and not PIO. And finally make sure you are using 7200 RPM hard drives. I would disregard the ram as your problem. The only reason you might need more ram is if you upgrade to Vista, then you need a minimun of 2gb. In most cases you won't notice any difference when you upgrade your ram, when I upgraded from 512mb to 1gb ram, the computer ran the same.
I just tried it again today using Nero Vision that came with Nero 9 and i got no dropped frames or stop/go annoyances (unfornately I got no sound whatsoever either) but hey at least it fixed the old problem. Picture came out beautifully with Nero, so now i'm convinced I have to be able to do this thing with what i have. Nero Vision for whatever reason has the audio menu grayed out so i can't click on it, even though it recognizes the Dazzle DVC100 and reproduces excellent picture quality. This is a trial version, (not an OEM) but nowhere in their documentation does it say you must upgrade to have sound in your capture output, so .....a codec i need perhaps? I'm puzzled.
