Arch Linux

exiguous

Member

Registered: 2007-11-11

Posts: 44

DVD playback: Is it possible on this old h/w?

I am considering the purchase of a cheap DVD drive to play movies on an old PC.

Specs:

AMD Duron 600 MHz
320 MB RAM
ATI video card (Rage128, 32 MB)

This hardware is running a fairly minimal system with Fluxbox. How well would DVDs play on these specs?

I have done a little reading on this, but I wasn't totally convinced by what I read. Some feel that a 1 GHz CPU is about the minimum for smooth playback. Any thoughts?

Thanks.

lilsirecho

Veteran

Registered: 2003-10-24

Posts: 5,000

Re: DVD playback: Is it possible on this old h/w?

The DVD with rage 128 should do fine with a DVD rom.

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gradgrind

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2005-10-06

Posts: 921

Re: DVD playback: Is it possible on this old h/w?

I have also seen claims that such machines should be capable of reasonable DVD playback, and the rage 128 seems to be quite a good card, but to be really safe I would also tend to go for (at least nearly) 1GHz. I have a P3 933MHz, 128MB RAM, with i810 and that works pretty well.

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lucke

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2004-11-30

Posts: 4,018

Re: DVD playback: Is it possible on this old h/w?

I remember how in the old times I had problems playing some AVIs with proper audio sync on my PII 350 in Windows, but it all worked without a problem in Linux.

I don't know about DVD playback, but I just wanted to point out that running minimal Linux desktop might be indeed to your advantage.

Last edited by lucke (2007-12-11 12:14:13)

pelle.k

Member

From: Åre, Sweden (EU)

Registered: 2006-04-30

Posts: 667

Re: DVD playback: Is it possible on this old h/w?

Well, i run a p3 450 (128 mb ram) , with an ati rage 3d pro (8 mb ram) as my media center pc, and i can play dvds just fine. That is with 800x600 16 bit resolution, but no standard definition DVD would be above that anyway.
So, yes, you will be just fine.

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You must first see them or you will not even realize that you are not free, simply because you will not see beyond the fences.
They will represent the boundaries of your experience."
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exiguous

Member

Registered: 2007-11-11

Posts: 44

Re: DVD playback: Is it possible on this old h/w?

Thanks for the replies. I decided to pick up a DVD drive and give it a whirl. I haven't had much time to test it out, but from what I've seen so far it looks like it plays movies just fine. This is great!

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: DVD playback: Is it possible on this old h/w?

Easy! My Pentium II 300Mhz came with a DVD reader and never had a problem. ATI 3D Rage Pro again.

Last edited by iphitus (2007-12-14 09:30:27)

elliott

Member

Registered: 2006-03-07

Posts: 296

Re: DVD playback: Is it possible on this old h/w?

I can run DVD's smoothly on this 850Mhz PIII laptop with an crappy 8mb S3 Savage video card, it scales between 700-850Mhz and stays at 700 while playing.