video card role in VS9 performance

[cgd]

I've noticed some choppiness when doing varius editing functions. If I can achieve noticable gainsin in smoothness, I'll consider additional resources ( as I get more into this new game.) Be fore I get the ol'e gold card warmed up, thought I'd ask a few questions....

What influence does the videocard have when editing video in vs9? I have a middle-of-the road cards with 128 mb memory. Since I'm not a game player, video cards usually take a back seat.

Is system memory a big influence? How much memory is (really) recommended for smooth performance?

To help answer these questions, each system I have has 1gb memory, 160 gb ata133/16mb cache HD's. One is a socket T (pci-express board - memory ddr2-5400?) pentuim running at 3.9ghz and the other a socket 939 Athlon64 3500 running at 2.7ghz.

While I'm asking, which platform of mine might work better for video editing?

Thanks...

[thecoalman]

What influence does the videocard have when editing video in vs9? I have a middle-of-the road cards with 128 mb memory. Since I'm not a game player, video cards usually take a back seat.

None, middle of the road is more thya sufficient. On the ohter hand if your going to use Cool 3-D it has a large impact.

Is system memory a big influence? How much memory is (really) recommended for smooth performance?

512 is sufficient, 1 gig is superb, from my understanding anything over a gig doesn't give you much of an edge. Of course it couldn't hurt. CPU is the most important component of course if it's hobbled by other components then it won't make a difference.

To help answer these questions, each system I have has 1gb memory, 160 gb ata133/16mb cache HD's. One is a socket T (pci-express board - memory ddr2-5400?) pentuim running at 3.9ghz and the other a socket 939 Athlon64 3500 running at 2.7ghz.

If it was a comparable AthlonXP I could tell you hands down the P4 is the better choice for video editing. As for comparisons to the 64 I'm really not up to date. You could just do your own comparisons, encode a long video and time it. The trouble with trying to flat out say which is better runs into the issue of other components such as the mobo. You could have vastly different results from two computers running the same CPU with different mobos. Unless you have one chip that has overwhelming better specs it's best to do real comparisons.

[cgd]

thecoalman

Thanks! You saved me a bit of money and time (same thing.)

I planning on loading up vs9 on the second pc and give it a try but if the pc I already have vs9 loaded on (amd) happended to be the clear winner of the two, I wasn't going to bother ( another time-saver.)