I finally got around to trying out my Crystal HD in my dual Tualatin 1.4 GHz system with PCI-X slots. I'm using a noname PCIe-to-PCI adapter from China because a) I already have the Startech branded adapter in my Opteron 185 system, b) noname can accept x16 cards, while the Startech is limted to x1, and c) noname cheaper. And I figured it might be fun to try a PCIe x16 graphics card in a PCI-X 64-bit/66 MHz slot in the future.
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Unfortunately, due to the placement of the PCI-X 66 MHz slots, being next to the AGP slot, I cannot use one of the two 66 MHz slots if I am using a double wide AGP graphics card, which I am. And the other 66 MHz PCI-X slot is being consumed by the Ultra320 RAID controller. I'm left with the option to place the Crystal HD into a 33 MHz PCI-X slot, so that is what I've done.
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From my tests done using the Startech+Crystal HD on my Opteron 185 system, I've determined that the AVC1 video decoder which plays the mp4 videos from my camera and mov files from my iphone. I am using Pot Player v1.6.63262 as it was noted previously that this is the last revision to support SSE1-only processors. The Crystal HD (Broadcom) gets detected fine by the system and the drivers install without incident, however using the built-in software decoders vs. that of the Crystal HD had absolutely no effect on playback speed or CPU consumption. CPU consumption is at 100% on both processors and with both software and Broadcom hardware decoders. The software playback speed was just as lagged in software and Broadcom hardware playback modes. Sure seems like the Broadcom device isn't functioning well.
On my Opteron 185 system, CPU load drops from 100% to 28% when using the Broadcom device. Could the Tualatin be just too slow for the Broadcom decoder to work properly? Perhaps some lag getting between the PCI-X bus and the graphics card on the AGP port?
Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.