Netflix CPU Usage

[stangdaman]

A friend gave me his old HTPC recently and I'm trying to get it set up. However, one thing that I've noticed is that Netflix is maxing out the CPU usage both from within WMC and the browser. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling Silver light, uninstalling and reinstalling the graphics drivers, I've tried it in IE, Chrome and the media center app, I've verified that Silverlight has hardware acceleration enabled. I'm at a bit of a loss. The system is a little old but it handles HDTV content fine and I would think it should be able to handle streaming. The system specs are as follows:

MSI k9n2gm mobo with onboard Nvidia geforce 8200 graphics
CPU: Athlon 64 X2 6000+ 3.1 GHz
Memory: 8gb 800 MHz RAM
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

[epayson85]

Silverlight does have hardware acceleration but Netflix does not currently use it. They only have hardware acceleration for HTML5. Currently only phones, windows 8 app, and 3rd party devices use their html5 feeds. When / if they switch everything to html5 its hard to say what will happen to wmc. Your option is to upgrade the processor or turn off HD.

[Mpgrimm2]

Just as a reference, I have my old HTPC in my bedroom now..

HP m7350n (circa 2004)
- Asus OEM MB/ Pentium D920 (early dual core at 2.8Ghz 800fsb)
- 4gb ddr2
- nvidia geforce (5700 i think) 1gb PciE card (maybe 512mb card)
(using VGa out to 42” 10yr old Gateway plasma Tv). I had to replace the OEM 256mb card that died a few years back.
- 500 GB sata2 drive (original one died in 2013)
- Dvd drive/burner
- Hauppauge PVR 150 NTSC pci card (OEM with PC)
- Hauppauge HVR-1600 NTSC/QAM/ATSC PCI card
(One of the tuner sets died on this one so I'm using it as a single QAM tuner)
- dlink wired Gigabit PCI card (added-on. cat6 in my house with router also)
- Win7 Home (update from vista) with MS Security Essentials for AV.
- Harmony 650 remote w/HP USB iR receiver.

I'm not having any issues recording TV (cox cable for TV/internet), watching Netflix, or watching recorded TV/ripped movies from my main HTPC with Ceton iTV4 cablecard downstairs.

Your specs are better than mine other than maybe the amount of Ram allocated for onboard video (might be your issue. Might consider a dedicated video card to offload some of the work from the cpu).
What is the speed of your NIC/router? Are you using hard line or WiFi to the router?

[stangdaman]

It's a gigabit router and it's hardwired.

I have another machine upstairs with a slower processor and less RAM (2gb RAM, and an X2 that runs at 2.2ghz) that is able to handle Netflix. It still runs at very high CPU usage but it's not maxed out. That machine has an ATI 780G mobo though so my initial thoughts on this were that the onboard 8200 isn't doing it's job. I kind of thought that a discrete video card might be the answer to this as well but I figured I'd see if anyone had similar issues with Nvidia onboard GPU not handling it. If Silverlight isn't using the hardware acceleration though that might not help. Is there any way of getting Netflix to fun html 5 in Windows 7?

[sdowney717]

onboard Nvidia geforce 8200 graphics likely the weak link.
or a driver issue.
What driver are you using? Does Nvidia still support that video card in the driver your using?

I am using a Nvidia gtx260 in win7 with 8gb ddr2 and AMD quad core 9650 in an MSI aspen MB
and it is smooth, perfect.

My MB is this one. http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/docu ... dlc=en#N55

[stangdaman]

Yeah, nvidia still supports it. It looks like the silverlight issue. Everything is running off the cpu with no help from the gpu. I ordered a discrete video card hopefully that helps. Too bad I cant run netflix in html5 on Windows 7.