problem with latest drivers - AIW Radeon 7500

[Jman]

using powerdvd deluxe 4.0 with windows XP and soundblaster audigy 2
platinum,
i've found that whenever i have the "use hardware accelleration" option in
powerdvd enabled, i am unable to watch dvd's, and about 2 seconds after the
dvd begins to play, my computer freezes on me, and im forced to hard reboot.
furthermore, the feature worked fine before when i had an original audigy
platinum installed (recently upgraded mine), and the AIW Radeon drivers
previously released before the current ones.

i tried it without this "hardware acceleration" in dvd playback, and it
works fine.
anyone want to tell me what this feature really does, anyway, if it works
smoothly without it?

or, if it SHOULD be performing even more smoothly, and you can help me to
enable it, please do. thanks

-JP

 

[Tom Lake]

using powerdvd deluxe 4.0 with windows XP and soundblaster audigy 2

platinum,
i've found that whenever i have the "use hardware accelleration" option in
powerdvd enabled, i am unable to watch dvd's, and about 2 seconds after the
dvd begins to play, my computer freezes on me, and im forced to hard reboot.
furthermore, the feature worked fine before when i had an original audigy
platinum installed (recently upgraded mine), and the AIW Radeon drivers
previously released before the current ones.

I had the same problem and it was cured by installing a better power supply.
Hardware acceleration doesn't make much difference on a fast machine but you
might want to try to fix the problem rather than use the workaround of
turning it off. The Audigy 2 might consume more power than the original
Audigy and, coupled with Radeon's penchant for being power-hungry, it could
be just enough to overtax your power supply. Of course if you have a 400+
watt supply, then look for another cause.

Tom Lake

 

[Jman]

400 watts is what i've got.... so i'm hoping for another reply. thx

 

[patrickp]

will i end up phoning up ATI tech support cause im having problems with
their mmc and graphics drivers after that?

-J

Depends, Jman. If I were you, I would completely uninstall the Creative and
ATi software and drivers, and PowerDVD, have a good registry clear out, and
delete all Creative and ATi files and folders on your system - also, if you
have any material left from other video or sound card installations, clear
that out. Also ensure your DirectX installation is up-to-date (unless you
have a PAL AIW or TV card, in which case stick to DX 9.0a) and that you have
Windows Media Encoder 9.0 installed, that you have DMA enabled on your
drives, that your DVD drive is the secondary master, etc.

Then reinstall: first, the ATi drivers (capture, display and Control Panel),
then the Creative drivers, then the ATi MMC segments, then PowerDVD. Be
sure to keep to the recommended order and reboot when required.

Neither ATi nor Creative uninstall routines remove anything like all the
material they should; the same goes for some other videocard and probably
sound card manufacturers - and many other hardware and software suppliers.
The result is that after changing your system round and upgrading things,
after a while, you get a lot of superfluous registry entries and files on
your system that, at best, slow things down somewhat. At worst, they can
interfere with the correct running of what you now have installed.
Personally, I use a good registry editing app like RegCleaner to make sure
my registry is clean, then delete the old files and folders, every time I
upgrade or change the drivers or software for anything that makes
significant changes to the system - like videocard and soundcard drivers.

It's possible, of course, that something else on your system is causing
this. It would be a good idea to try running PowerDVD with all other
running processes closed down, to see if that makes a difference, although,
if it doesn't, that won't really prove much. If it does make a difference,
you know then that something you had running is probably causing the
problem.

HTH patrickp