Is my screen too big for my GPU?

martin5454 · 21 Jan 2009 at 10:22

My new monitor arrived yesterday and am using it with my laptop, my laptop screen is broken so its a must not a luxury. I have been trying to use it to watch films yet I keep having issues. Am pretty sure its because the graphics card in the laptop is a Radeon mobility x1300 (128) but was hoping someone could have some tips to improve playback. I have no CPU usage issue and when I tried to benchmark my x1300 it just crashed.

The monitor is 22" 1920 x 1080

I suspected the card might have issue with a HD screen but the movies am watch are like 700mb - 1G

If anyone has any tips would be brilliant and If its just a case of the graphics card being too pecker please let my know and save me time installing drivers etc

kingy666 · 21 Jan 2009 at 12:18

You could try lowering the resolution your laptop is outputting to the monitor. It will depend how well your new monitor can handle a lower resolution as your picture may be a little blurred but its worth a try. I would try 1440 x 900 and see how it goes. But i know many people who have htpc's with cheap graphics cards and have no trouble outputting 1080P but your problem could be to do with you using a laptop and if you work the graphics card too hard then you can have heat issues with the graphics card.

Benimaru · 21 Jan 2009 at 13:41

Yea it sounds like your laptop is pretty old and I'm also assuming your trying to watch hd videos, most older laptops just can't hack hd videos, the only advice I could give is also reduced the resolution and maybe look into a program called core avc which helps view hd videos using less power. That or you could always go back to watching xvid files again.

Kennysevenfold · 21 Jan 2009 at 17:35

yeah mate im pretty sure is the graphics card, 22" monitor with high res on a 128mb graphics card.? :eek:

lol

not possible to return the monitor.? get something like a 19".?

Snakedoctor · 21 Jan 2009 at 17:42

Be good to know what the issues are tbh. Try lowering the screen resolution.

martin5454 · 21 Jan 2009 at 21:28

The issue seems to have solved its self, sorry I cant give any more information than that. I tried today and it worked fine. VLC seems to work better than WMP but the only difference is the laptop was turned off all night. Maybe because I was playing deus ex 2 just before I tried to watch a film? Maybe the GPU was just too hot?

Snakedoctor · 22 Jan 2009 at 13:27

VLC does not require additional codec packs installed and works "out of the box" for most fiem types. WMP and WMC are a different matter.

kazakore · 22 Jan 2009 at 16:26

Kennysevenfold said:
yeah mate im pretty sure is the graphics card, 22" monitor with high res on a 128mb graphics card.? lol

When you are talking pure video throughput it really doesn't matter. You can get cards with 64MB that will run dual DVI 1920x1200 just fine. Of course they are designed more for that job, not for processing like gaming cards are though.

miniyazz · 22 Jan 2009 at 23:28

kingy666 said:
I would try 1440 x 900 and see how it goes.

Well not 1440x900 anyway since it's a 16:9 ratio

maybe 1440x810?

Energize · 23 Jan 2009 at 03:18

It's not the graphics card it's the gpu, the cpu is used for video decoding, not the gpu.

miniyazz · 24 Jan 2009 at 00:33

Energize said:
It's not the graphics card it's the gpu, the cpu is used for video decoding, not the gpu.

The CPU usage wasn't an issue, apparently. Strange though, if I'm watching 1080p it normally uses up about 2.5GHz of one core.

To the OP: noob question but sure you checked the usage on the core that vlc (or whatever) was running on, rather than the whole CPU usage?
Also, assuming it is a multi-core laptop, try running it in WMP classic. I have a feeling that uses more than one core if needed.

smogsy · 24 Jan 2009 at 00:48

my macbook that use x1300 gpu with 128mb runs my 24" 1900x1200 finw on full hd vids