Sfor

In my case the Haali's Media Splitter (03-06-2007) works, with exception of the MPC with Haali Video renderer setting. The Haali Media Splitter 11/01/2009 does work only with the MPC (the Haali Video renderer setting works as well). Other players are unable to use it. Also some of the Haali componets started to complain about some system function missing. It could mean the end of the Windows 98 support from the Haali. By the way. The hack with the RAM disk cache file buffering gave me a better opportunity to compare the efficiency of the players. At first the BS Player free seemed to be the best one. But, when I've switched the otput from VRM 9 renderless to the system default setting, the GOM player and MPC both started to work with the same speed as the BS Player. So, it appears the system default video output setting seems to be the fastest in my case.

While playing with different players I've noticed a file is played much better the second time. Apparently, the RAM disk cache speeds things up significantly. It seems to be quite logical, since the CPU works 100% the whole time. So, to speed up just any player it is enough to start the playback with a little script: COPY /B "%1" NUL Player.exe "%1" Even the slowest GOM player received a significant boost in speed, that way. Since the computer does have 768MB of RAM, it should be enough to buffer a few hundreds megabytes of data in the disk cache. For the time beeing I made a script for every player in the "Send to" menu. It seems to be working better than I have expected. So, I'm somewhat satisfied with the result. But, I will get back to the topic, when I'll find a file my computer will not be able to handle in a proper way.

I've played a bit with the Media Player Classic. It seems there is no OSD here. I was unable to use softsubs from mkv file, as well (the MPC crashes in such a case). The Haali Video renderer function crashes the player, in my case. My GPU is too old, probably. If the MPC with Haali renderer is able to use only the full hardware decoding, it would mean a DXVA 2 graphics card is necesary. The DXVA 1 was ment for just partial stream decoding hardware acceleration, as far as I know. ----------------------------------------- I've downloaded the newest version of the Haali splitter. The setup by default disables the built in MPC Haali splitter. It fixed the problem with MPC crashing when the Haali Video renderer is selected. Since the Haali renderer works with as old graphic card as mine is, it could be possible to get the hardware acceleration with just DXVA 1 graphic card, I suppose. ------------------------------------------ And yet another side effect of the newest Haali splitter installation. The GOM player can not use the newest version. I had to enable the built in GOM MP4 filter. The BS player is in the same situation. But, I can not enable the built in codec, here.

In my case the GPU was identified as "RADEON 9000 AGP Pro (0x4966) Rev 1". There will be hardly any hardware acceleration possible, probably. Also, when I have encountered a 1280x960 video clip, it appeared the BS Player is more efficient than GOM Player (with ffdshow installed and internal filters disabled). Still I'm not fond of the BS Player, as the bacward rewind function does not work wery well, and the newest wersion refuses to work in Windows 98. In other words the BSPlayer will remain quite buggy for the Windows 98 users. It is the right time to check the Media Player Classic, apparently.

Well. I do have Ati All in Wonder 9000 (ATI RADEON 9000 AGP Pro). It does not support the DXVA as far as I know. On the other hand the Media Player Classic does seem to have an independant GPU support, unrelated to the manufacturer driver software. Still, I did not pay much attention to the MPC so far. So, I can be wrong here.

It looks like, the first problem to solve is to get a proper hardware. The Ati support for DXVA starts with the Radeon HD and Mobility Radeon HD devices. The software driver layer is called UVD (Unified Video Decoder). The NVidia support vor DXVA starts with GForce 6 series. The software driver layer is called Nvidia PureVideo. I do not know which graphic cards supporting the DXVA can be used with Windows 98. I do not know if the UVD or PureVideo can be installed in Windows 98 as well. I lost a lot of my interest in this field, because I was able to gain some performance through switching the GOM player from the built in to ffdshow H264 codec. Apparently, the built in the GOM player H264 codec implementation is significantly slower than the one from the ffdshow. Still, the CPU usage is 100% when playing 1080x720 video on single core 2.4Ghz P4. So, I'll be back to this problem, when I'll gather enough of frustration caused by choppy playback, again.

The GOM player is my favourite player. But, it seems some of it's internal video filter functions are not particulary efficient. When it comes to high video resolutions the playback is getting choppy. The BS Player Free is much more effective in such a situation, but it has it's issues and the newest version does not work on Windows 98. The GOM player does support DXVA. In theory DXVA should replace the GOM Player internal video filter and transfer some of the video related operations from CPU to GPU. However, that's where my knowledge ends.

I made some field tests with different protocol settings and the resutlts were different than expected. The speeds of the NetBeui i TCP/IP were almost exactly the same. More tests at home were giving the old results, but at some point the speed of the TCP/IP and NetBeui started to be the same. The investigation revealed the key factor was the NetBios over TCP/IP setting. With this option enabled the TCP/IP stack slows the NetBeui protocol down. It also happens when the TCP/IP is not linked to the Microsoft Networks client.

Right. I did some research. It is possible to convert formats using an online subtitle editor at http://subtitle-horse.org/ . As a result I'm getting an .SRT file but: - the converter does not work correctly with national characters in UTF-8 format. It is necesary to convert to Windows codepage first. - the line breaks in multi line statements are not converted correctly in the .SRT - there are other export formats available, but I have no idea how to use them with the GOM player. And yet another nuisance. The newest GOM player does seem to do stupid things on screen, when displaying SRT files in the full screen mode. Every time a text ending with ".pl" is displayed the player does strange screen effect. The test example SRT subtitle file for this phenomenon: 1 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:26,500 www.clannad.wbijam.pl The problem seems to be related to Windows 98, somehow. I've failed to reproduce it on Windows 2000. ------------------------------- I've found a workaround. The problem happens when High-Quality Subtitle (VMR) output was selected in initial config screen. With the "Normal Subtitle" setting everything works as expected. ------------------------------- I've compared the settings. To be more specific the "Display on overlay surface" option is responsible for the problem. ------------------------------- The Subtitle horse save to file fuction destroys national characters. It is necesary to use the export window and clipboard, in order to get the valid SRT file data. Looks like the line breaks are working better that way, as well. But perhaps it could be browser or system related issue.

The web page video embeding with use of an external XML subtilte files is getting more polular. Just downloading the video file is not enough, now. It is necesary to download a separate XML file with subtitles, as well. Still, it appears I do not know any video player for Windows 98 able to display subtitles in this format. A sample: <tt xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2006/10/ttaf1" xmlns:tts="http://www.w3.org/2006/04/ttaf1#style"> <head></head> <body> <div> <p begin="00:00:25.0" end="00:00:26.5">A single line.</p> <p begin="00:00:29.4" end="00:00:34.6">- First line.<br />- Second line.</p> </div> </body> </tt> According to my research it looks like the Timed Text CS3 format. But, there are some small differences, as there is "dur" in place of "end" statement. So, the possible solutions would be either: - to find a proper player with ability to display subtitles in the current form - to find a converter to some more popular subtitle format - to write a converter by yourself I have little experience with various subtitle formats, software players and converters. So, I've decided to ask for some advice, first.

BSPlayer 2.x The newest version 2.50 does not seem to work on Windows 98. The installer works, but the application just stops silently, just after running. So, it looks like the 2.43 is the last version working on Windows 98. The provided link: http://www.bsplayer.com/en/bs.player/home/ does not work, any longer. The link can be replaced with: http://www.bsplayer.com/bsplayer-english/p...s/bsplayer.html I do not know where the version 2.43 could be downloaded from.

Well. After thinking again about the problem, I've realized I do not know how much time the task will take without the network involved. So, I've decided to copy all the data to the local hard drive and do the measurements again. The results were interesting, indeed: - Windows 98 - 4m 40s - Windows 2000 - 3m 50s Apparently, the application works faster with the Windows 2000 professional. It also means the windows 2000 is much slower with the networking, then expected. The differences in time between the local and remote data access: - Windows 98 with NetBeui - 20s - Windows 98 with TCP/IP - 1m 20s - Windows 2000 - 1m 40s

According to my measurements, the bindings in the Windows 2000 systems do not affect the network efficiency. The speed server is answering is practicaly the same with both TCP/IP and NetBeui protocols. So, the exclusion of some protocols from the Microsoft services does affect the network security, only.

I know nothing about the default protocol setting in the Windows 2000 professional. Please tell me where I can find this option. According to my measurements there is no significant difference in speed when using different protocols in Windows 2000. So, setting one protocol as the default one seems to be of no importance to the network efficiency in this case. I've tested all available combinations. The results were quite intersting. It seems the NetBeui is the fastest protocol on Windows 98. The TCP/IP is handled significantly slower. In case more than one protocol is binded with the Microsoft Networking, there are setups resulting with multiple times slower network response. The tests were made using the same client computer with two operating systems on it. The Ethernet connection settings were exactly the same. The only possible differences could be found in driver settings as Windows 98 and 2000 had different driver version sets installed. So, different protocol sets and network services bindings were tested with exactly the same driver settings. There is no simple file sharing in the windows 2000 professional, as far as I know. Also, a 120MB file was not pulled from the server. The whole data set does take about 0.5GB. The tested operation makes thousands of seqential reads from multiple data files. The total amout of data transmitted from the server is about 120MB. Also, the database is based on Clarion Top Speed (TPS) format. So, the server could be considered as just a plane NAS device with no SQL related software on it.

One of my clients has a problem with an application. The time necesary to generate a report takes a few minutes, at least. The idea was to replace the server with something stronger, but I decided to test a few things, first. So, I begun from comaring server efficiency with OpenFiler Linux. But, in the process I've noticed a few interesting facts. The server is Windows 2000 professional. The amount of memory is sufficient to buffer all the application data stored on the hard drive. So, the hard drive speed is not important, here. The client computer is a dual Windows 98, Windows 2000 system, so it is possible to test the speed of the same task in both systems. The application tested reads about 120MB of data in a huge amount of small read operations from the server. The first run takes about 10 minutes, when the server does not have all the data buffered in RAM. Results. Windows 98 with TCP/IP protocol only - about 6 minutes. Windows 2000 no matter what protocol is used - about 5,5 minutes. Wndows 98 with NetBeui protocol only - about 5 minutes. Windows 98 with more than just one protocol - from 6 to 21 minutes!?! It looks like, when there are more than just one protocol binded with the Microsoft Networking, Windows 98 networking can work several times slower. I'm not sure, how the default protocol setting is related to this issue. As, I was unable to find any good explanation or consistent results in this matter. The conclusions are: - The fastest setup is to bind just NetBeui with Microsoft Networking. - If the TCP/IP is necesary to use with the Microsoft Neworking, it is beter not to use the NetBeui with it. Somehow, I was unable to observe the reduced network speed when both TCP/IP and NetBeui are binded with Microsoft Networking and the default protocol is set to TCP/IP. But, there is no good proof such a combination works with full speed all the time.

According to the knowledge I've collected, the Intel Application Accelerator gives Windows 98 an ability to work with the large hard drives without a proper BIOS support and without EDSI_506.pdr patch. One of my computers with I815 chipset is correctly working with such a drive, when the BIOS does not allow to access the higher partitions under DOS. The same rule applies for Windows 2000 system, as well. In this particular case the BIOS support is faulty through cutting the hard drive size down to the 137GB. From the practical point of view the DOS does not see partitions above the 137GB limit, while working correctly with the lower placed partitions. The EDSI_506.pdr update could be replaced either with Intel Application Accelerator or with proper VIA IDE controller chipset driver. In other cases EDSI_506.pdr update is a must. Also, only the Intel Application Accelerator seems to be able to work correctly without the proper BIOS support.

The newer operating systems do have a significantly better power management abilities. So, Windows 98 is not a particulary good choice for mobile computers. I strongly doubt in it's ability to take the central stage. Personaly, I'm preferring to use Xandros when working without the power adaptor, as it seems to work longer on the battery power. I'm using Windows 98 when I do have an external power attached, or when I need to troubleshoot some ethernet network related problems.

The built in card reader is an USB device as well. It is possible to boot the system from it the same way as from other USB devices. The SD cards are treated by BIOS the same way as pen drives. So, they are mounted as hard drives, and can be partitioned. Still, the built in BIOS flash routine does not seem to be able to use it.

That's not exactly the case, as we were referring to the built in card reader. In any case it was a plane 2GB SD card, as far as I know.

Well. I did update the BIOS to 10.06, but I've encountered a few difficulties on the way. - The built in Alt-F2 update procedure does not support SD card USB devices. A pen drive is necesary. - The Alt-F2 procedure have stuck on Reading 900.ROM message. I had to power the computer down. It could be related to the fact I've used a 16GB pen drive with two partitions on it. - Everything went fine when I've used AFUDOS.EXE flash update utility. - The bios defaults had to be restored after the flash update. - It looks like the BIOS update procedure triggered the battery charging on, as well.

Looks like my log file is significantly shorter. eeectl_0.2.4_on_W98_SE_SP2.1b.zip

I think I do understand how to handle the Dependancy Walker, now. It appears the CoWaitForMultipleHandles functions is not available in the OLE32.DLL.

The Dependency Walker complains about APPHELP.DLL and USERENV.DLL files missing, after loading EeeCtl. I have no experience with the Dependency Walker. So, it will take me some time to figure out more in this case.

I've been using the Intel INF update utility 6.3.0.1007 for quite a time, already. There are no GPU drivers in it, but the chipset related drivers. A BIOS version 10.06 was released. There were some changes to CPU fan speed functions and CPU temperature related events reporting functions. Still, I had no opportunity to test it yet, as I'm working with 09.06 BIOS version. I've heard some older BIOS versions had an option to manually set fan speed and energy saving strategies. My EEE PC 900 scored a whole year of service, just recently. Still, I see no suitable replacement candidate between the new models on the market. Looks like it is the only one below 1kg with SSD and screen resolution 1024x600. I'm a bit busy with other projects, but I'll add the eeectl to the list.

Yes, I did. The DNS was not working for me, at first. But, now it is working as expected. I'm not receiving any E-Mail notifications, however.