Slow x264 performance with C2D 3.16Ghz

[chamade]

Hello,

my setup is like the following:
Core2Duo @ 3.16Ghz with 2GB DDR800

PCI-E GF7600GT that connects to 2 LCDs

PCI GF5200FX that connects to my HDTV via a VGA cable

When I play x264 1080p movies on my LCD monitors it is silk smooth and CPU usage is ~35%.

When I try to play the same movie on my HDTV it plays at only 13FPS and CPU usage is maxed out at 50% (ffdshow only uses 1 core). Not even CoreAVC can play 1080P smooth on my HDTV.

Why such a difference between the 2 graphic cards? I thought ffdshow and coreavc didn't use graphic cards to process video and that a C2D@3.16Ghz would be enough to process 1080P even with a crappy video card like the GF5200FX PCI.

Any ideas?

Thanks

[Leak]

Why such a difference between the 2 graphic cards? I thought ffdshow and coreavc didn't use graphic cards to process video and that a C2D@3.16Ghz would be enough to process 1080P even with a crappy video card like the GF5200FX PCI.
Well, that's the PCI bus for you - 133 MB/sec max. Even if you used all the available bandwidth (which isn't likely), you'd only get 44 YV12 frames of 1920x1080 material over it per second, or less then 17 if it's RGB32.

And when decoding and uploading the images to the graphics card happen sequentially, it's no wonder everything chokes.

In contrast, the currently used PEG (or PCIe 16x) bus for graphics cards has a theoretical bandwidth of 5 GB/sec - that's more than plenty for HD video...

np: Distel - Arco Iris (Stadtmusik (Disc 1))

[chamade]

thanks for the answer...makes sense.
I wonder if there is anything I can do to fix this. I need the 2 LCDs connected to the 7600GT for work. If only someone made a graphics card with 3 DVI outputs.

[Leak]

thanks for the answer...makes sense.
I wonder if there is anything I can do to fix this. I need the 2 LCDs connected to the 7600GT for work. If only someone made a graphics card with 3 DVI outputs.
Well, there's some PCIe x1 graphics cards, if you got such a slot left... that's about 2 1/2 times the bandwidth of PCI...

np: RJD2 - Someday (The Third Hand)

[burfadel]

What driver are you using? Its is XP the 160.03's are now available. Skip the 160.01's though!

Or if you're using Vista, Vista x64 or XP x64 there's 158.22/.24 available also.

These fully support your 7600GT and your 5200 via a driver mod. The mod isn't really a mod by definition, its just adding the driver information for the 7600GT and 5200 to the nv4_disp.inf file which is a text file.

The Windows XP driver version of 160.03 from www.guru3d.com (http://www.guru3d.com) already has the information added to it. If you use Vista or Vista x64, y
you can download the 158.24's from there as well. If you're using XP x64, you can download the drivers from the Nvidia site and replace the inf file.

Pre-modded inf files are available from http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/drivers

They've recently had a hardware fault and are currently resolving it. Don't download the drivers there, just download the latest inf file for your operating system. Replace the inf file in the driver you download from nvidia (the latest one you can find)! It doesn't matter if the inf file is say 158.19 with 158.24 files, as its only a label. The important thing is all the actual files themselves are the same version!

When you update the nvidia drivers you should first install the generic Windows driver, restart then the new one (on both devices) or alternatively use driver cleaner, restart, and install the new driver.

Its true that the PCI bus is slow, however it should be fast enough for your playback. High-definition tv tuner cards use PCI bus no problems at all, even at high resolution! I think its purely a driver issue, especially if you are using an older driver.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Well you have to remember that HD Tuner cards handle compressed streams (20mbps at most MPEG-2 ususally). Video cards have to push out uncompressed RGB32, which is fracking huge. Any modern AGP or PCIe card has more than enough bandwidth to do 1080p, but as Leak says, PCI can only provide 133mb/s MAX bandwidth. Even if you used all that it's only ~ 1gbit. Uncompressed 1080p (in YUY2, RGB is bigger) is close to 1.5gbit.

So, unless the new drivers have some really smart, on the fly lossless compression algorithm to push HD video across the PCI bus in real time, I don't see things working :)

~Misfit

[chamade]

I do have the latest drivers, so it's not that.
Waiting for a PCI-E x1 video card to show up on eBay...these things are very rare.

[Inventive Software]

Is your board SLI'd per chance? (I.E does it have 2 PCIe x16 slots)

[chamade]

It's not..I wish.