Do the nvidia 8800GT/8800GTS512 XP drivers support Purevideo HD?

[Morte66]

Hi folks, I've just spent two hours googling this and (bizarrely) can't find a concrete answer. I'd wager it's out there, it's just hiding to spite me.

AFAICT, the VP2 engine launched with Purevideo HD driver support for Vista only and a promise that XP drivers would come out around June 07. I can't find any definitive statement that XP drivers were ever released, just some nvidia forum posts from June/July 07 saying "where are they?" I'm fairly sure suitable XP drivers were eventually released for the 8600; but it's unclear to me whether they're a unified driver and subsequent 8800GT(S512) drivers would inherit Purevideo HD support from them without mentioning it in Google-visible docs.

No 8800GT/8800GTS512 review I've read actually says in as many words that they tested VC-1 decoding with XP.

Could somebody put me out of my misery with a definitive answer? All help much appreciated.

p.s. If anybody has experience of decoding BD/HDDVD compliant VC-1 with an 8800GT and a CPU in the A64 X2 3800+ ballpark...

[DWells55]

Taken from the PureVideo HD FAQ (http://www.nvidia.com/object/purevideo_hd_faq.html#1Q4):
Q. Do the GeForce 8800 series GPUs include the same video processing capabilities as the new GeForce 8400, GeForce 8500 and GeForce 8600 GPUs?
No. The GeForce 8800 uses the previous generation of PureVideo HD. This is because the GeForce 8800 is usually paired with more powerful dual-core CPUs and our goal is to achieve balanced use of all the processing power in your machine. With the GeForce 8800, it makes sense to let these powerful CPU cores handle functions they do well. But with the lower-end GPUs, which are usually paired with less-powerful, single-core CPUs, it is better for the GPU to take on the entire video decoding and processing task and the new PureVideo HD engine has been enhanced with these chips in mind.

Given the amount of CPU usage when playing 1080P trailers on my E6750 @ 3.2GHz in my system with an 8800 GT, I'd have to agree with this.

[helms]

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/29/geforce_8800_gt/page2.html

Quote:
"In this case, where does the increase in transistors come from? First and foremost, from the PureVideo 2 integration (more on that very soon). Nvidia hasn't made the same mistake again by denying its mid/high end cards the ability to decode HD videos. However, it hasn't evolved and still doesn't decode VC-1, a deficit that's more marketing than anything else (given the small demand for VC-1 videos compared to H.264) but that appears to be a preoccupation for the chameleon. HDMI support is also integrated on the chip."

So the 8800GT does support purevideo 2. However Nvidia still doesn't support VC-1 which it didn't support with the 8600 anyway.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/12/12/geforce_8800_gts_512_mb/page14.html
Quote:
"The Pros

* Performances almost equivalent to that of the 8800 GTX for a cheaper price
* Decline in power consumption and with quiet performance.
* PureVideo 2"

The 8800gts 512mb is the same



Sorry got confused by the first post because the 2nd post is about something else entirely. He is asking if the xp drivers support decoding not whether the cards support Purevideo 2 (since they do).

[Jay Bee]

3800+ won't be enough for vc1 HDM with players other than PDVD, which has a very efficient vc-1 decoder that doesn't work with other players. It will be enough if the 8800 has the same level of vc-1 dxva as the nvidia 7 series has in XP. Can't tell you if it has or if it hasn't though.