NetFlix Interface laggy on new system / Replacement for onboard GeForce 7050.

[Lug77]

I just got a Foxconn M7VMX mobo with a Pentium Core2 Duo from a friend to replace my old (loud and hot) P4 setup for the HTPC in the bedroom.  I’m using Media Center in Win7 (32bit by may upgrade to 64bit).  As far as the new mobo is concerned, I’m very pleased with the speed and how quite it is.  Also, it handles full sleep mode much better than my P4 did.

The one minor problem I have is the new mobo only has VGA output since it’s got the GeForce 7050 onboard.  For the most part this does decent with Live TV broadcast and NetFlix streams.  The issue I’m having is that when navigating through the NetFlix Media Center guide it’s VERY laggy.  For example, it take 5 to 10 seconds to move from one selection to the next on the queue summary section.  Once you start the stream it’s fine.

My first thought is to replace the onboard video with a cheap PCIE card.  I would use the one out of the old P4 but it’s high end AGP.  I was looking at getting this ASUS Radeon HD 5450 to see if that would fix the problem, but I’m not certain it will.

So really I have two questions.

1. Has anyone seen similar lag from the NetFlix extension?  If so, how did you fix it?

2. Is the 5450 a good cheap replacement for the 7050?  I’m trying to stay under $50 and fanless.

 

[oliverredfox]

I’ve had the same issue that interface runs poorly under MCE.  Despite having a system that overpowers it, it doesn’t handle multi-threading and likes to choke and bog down.

[Crim]

1.) I have the same issues on all my PCs and the Netflix plug in. Doesn’t matter if it’s a Quad with 4 gigs of memory and an SSD or not. It’s not just you.

2.) It’s an awsome card, I have a 5450 sitting in my HTPC.

 

[mikinho]

Can you describe the lag?  I don’t have any.

Below are some general settings to set to help prevent unnecessary delays.

1- Disable “Automatically detect settings” in IE proxy configuration

Many applications, including Netflix, will check IE proxy configuration and leaving the default auto detect setting enable can cause a delay.

2- If you internet provider performs DNS Hijacking by violating the RFC standard for DNS (NXDOMAIN) responses then opt-out or change to a 3rd party DNS server such as Google Public DNS.

Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, Rogers, etc, all use DNS hijacking and enable the “service” by default.  Same thing with OpenDNS, they do the same crap.  You can disable it in OpenDNS as well but then you lose other features.  Opt-out!  I actually do both, 1- opt-out in a small effort to show via numbers that the service is crap, and 2- use Google Public DNS.

Depending on the technology used by a CDN (GeoDNS, Anycast, Black Magic, Voodoo) uses Google Public DNS or any other shared public provider may be a bad idea as well.  Typically a CDN’s authoritative DNS hosting will feed recursive (non-autoritative) DNS services (i.e. Google Public DNS, OpenDNS, etc) with different IP address information according to the GeoIP location of the recursive DNS server.   So as a user you’ll get an IP address of the Netflix server closest to the DNS server instead of your geographic location.  This could be none issue but other times could lead to a high latency.

[oliverredfox]

Best example I can give is this:  Watching a TV series.  Get to credits, hit stop.  The video will stop fine, it’ll appear to go back out the Netflix selection area.  The Netflix interface is non-responsive (more or less) for about 10-30 seconds before I can back out and select and play the next episode in the series.

I just got a PS3 in which doesn’t have this issue and made the flawed MCE’s interface more noticible.  Video itself is plays great and never has any lag on any system in my place, just the interface.

1)  I’ll disable “automatically detect settings” but I don’t expect that to matter.

2)  My DNS is optimized via http://code.google.com/p/namebench/ and hasn’t had any issues.

[Crim]

Oh, also, the 7050 series is completely awful. They’re single channel memory chipsets which means performance is worst by 10-20% then normal; I’ve had three of them (actually, one was a 7100 that was clocked hgher) and they all could just barely playback the variety of media I have without taxing the CPU. A slight stutter here and there was normal with them using local media.

 

I would highly suggest getting a new motherboard or dropping in a 5450 to help out. I would not suggest at all using a 7000 series board.

[Lug77]

Yeah, I’ve figured that the 7050 is awful.  The idea of this setup was just a cheap upgrade from the P4 since it’s just used on occasion in the bedroom.  I ordered the 5450 and should have it in a few days, hopefully this will take care of my issues.

BTW, My main HTPC with a Phenom 9150e and my laptop with Core 2 Duo T5750 both run the Netflix MCE plugin flawlessly.  The GPU on the main HTPC is an on-board GeForce 8200 and the laptop GPU is a Radeon 3400 HD Series.

 

 

[PAPutzback]

The silverlight interface for the PC is just crappy. It lags on my 6 core gaming box the same as my HTPC with the ATIAMD 3200 and a 3ghz dual core. Yet the video plays fine.

Yet the interface is snappy on my XBOX 360 and Wii and I know the hardware in those machines is not as powerful as the PCs. 

I’ve just learned to not get impatient as mash the back button, otherwise when it catches up it starts flipping back all the way to the start screen. 

My guess is it is a silverlight coding or network issue. It seems to recache the account everytime I go back to the main netflix screen, reload my que, box covers, title suggestions. It should be able to cache that in the background.

 

[PAPutzback]

I plan on setting up the Google DNS settins when I get home. I remember trying them in the past and it has sped up loading some pages.

[oliverredfox]

I recall seeing a post on TGB a while back about uninstalling .NET and Silverlight and between controlling the order they get reinstalled/updated and choosing a specific version of Silverlight that the issue can be fixed.  I didn’t try it at the time and totally forgot to bookmark it.  But might be worth searching for that post and trying it out.

[leroys1000]

I am running netflix on an old dual core,socket 939 system.

It is running smoothly.

The new nvidia driver seems to have helped with some performance

issues through media center.

I am using an old 7900GS.

Believe it or not,this is streaming through an old wireless B

adapter card without lagging,but I have a G card coming in.

That onboard video you are using is going to be weak.

Adding a dedicated video card should help a lot.

[PAPutzback]

I am not sure which of the variables I changed but Netflix is lag free now.

I made Mikinho’s changes to the NIC to point to Google DNS servers.

I went back to using an Intel NIC instead of the onboard realtek. That fixed my bluray lag also.

And Netflix was updated just like the XBOX interface was last week. I am not sure if they did something behind the scenes but covers show up within a second of starting the app and also when I stop a stream I don’t get lag when it goes to the remove from que, resume,restart screen.

 

[skirge01]

This turned out to be an interesting thread.  While I’m not a Netflix user, I wanted to see which DNS provider would be fastest.  I was actually somewhat disappointed to find out that my provider (Cablevision) is the fastest.

[swoon]

I found the same thing with Cox.

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