New Video (and Sound?) Card

[Turtleggjp]

I am looking to upgrade my ATi Radeon 3450 (ASUS). I had been wanting to get a 4000 series for the 7.1 channel audio capability, but I have been looking at the GeForce cards for their CUDA interface. If I went with one of these, I would also need an HDMI sound card for the 7.1 capability, since I don't think any GeForce cards have this.

I do not plan to play any games with this (it is for my HTPC), so I'm mainly interested in the video decoding ability. Most of my video clips are made with x264 (I know how to make them DXVA compliant), but I also will occasionally play a Blu Ray disc that has been encoded with VC-1 (I don't plan on making any VC-1 videos myself).

So the question is, is it worth the extra money to get GeForce and Sound card individually so that I get the benefits of CUDA in the future, or should I just get a 4000 series Radeon since it has better video decoding (or does it)? And also, are the HDMI sound cards even out yet? I wasn't able to find any at the online stores. Thanks.

Matt

[Blue_MiSfit]

Exactly what CUDA benefits are you speaking of? ;)

No point in having a feature you don't use!

The Radeon HD 4000 series can do 7.1ch LPCM through HDMI, which is quite cool. It's not *quite* as cool as bitstreaing TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, but it's good enough for 99% of people! Other than that, you don't stand to see any improvement over your 3450. 5.1ch 640kbps Dolby Digital through S/PDIF is quite good, to be honest :D

Do you really have a 7.1ch speaker setup too? ;)

~MiSfit

[Inventive Software]

You can get a 4000 series Radeon and enjoy the audio. You can also add in a GeForce if you want the CUDA decoding from DGAVCDecodeNV too. :)

[Turtleggjp]

Exactly what CUDA benefits are you speaking of? ;)

No point in having a feature you don't use!


I noticed recently that my 3450 produces slightly softer video when playing back AVC video (DXVA) that is interlaced than CoreAVC does. I'm comparing my original MPEG2 HDTV captures with interlaced x264 versions I have made. Actually, if I enable CoreAVC's hardware de-interlacing option, the softness returns, which to me says that the video card is to blame.

I had also noticed that playing back my video camera's footage (Canon HF100, AVCHD PAFF) was softer on the 3450 than directly through the camera. I was thinking that maybe someday Media Player Classic Home Cinema would be able to use the CUDA interface to decode AVC video like DGAVCDecodeNV does, and that it would be better than going through DXVA.

So to answer that question, I don't honestly know what the benefits of CUDA are right now, but I have the feeling that in the future they might be worth having.

The Radeon HD 4000 series can do 7.1ch LPCM through HDMI, which is quite cool. It's not *quite* as cool as bitstreaing TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, but it's good enough for 99% of people! Other than that, you don't stand to see any improvement over your 3450. 5.1ch 640kbps Dolby Digital through S/PDIF is quite good, to be honest :D

I think I'm part of the 99% that are not interested in bitstreaming. I'm not sure how easy that is going to be to do anyway outside of players like PowerDVD and Arcsoft TMT. I prefer to play most of my Blu Ray movies as .MKV files, and I'm not sure if you can even put TrueHD or DTS-MA in MKV, can you? If so, I wonder how long it will be before the authors of MPC-HC will figure out how to use these sound cards to do bitstreaming. I think I'd have a better chance of bitstreaming with a popcorn hour a110. So for now, I just re-encode the TrueHD and DTS-MA tracks as FLAC, which means all I need is HDMI that can do 7.1 LPCM.

Do you really have a 7.1ch speaker setup too? ;)

Yes, right now I have a Turtle Beach (Voyetra) 7.1 card and some Creative 7.1 speakers. Not the greatest, but I plan to upgrade to a real 7.1 receiver and some nicer speakers this Christmas.

You can get a 4000 series Radeon and enjoy the audio. You can also add in a GeForce if you want the CUDA decoding from DGAVCDecodeNV too. :)

I think I would need a second x16 slot for that, wouldn't I? Sorry, but I don't have one.

Thanks guys!

Matt

[RunningSkittle]

an 8x slot, or even a 4x slot would be fine for a non gaming card. I think the last benchmarks I saw show that even the 8800 series only drop a few percentage points when going from PCIe X16 to x8

as for a sound card, I picked up an HT Omega Striker and havnt looked back. Excellent drivers that actually work with vista x64 and linux plus it uses a nice Cmedia chipset. (not to mention its not made by crappy creative)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829271001

[Turtleggjp]

an 8x slot, or even a 4x slot would be fine for a non gaming card. I think the last benchmarks I saw show that even the 8800 series only drop a few percentage points when going from PCIe X16 to x8

I only have one x16 and a few x1 slots. Can a video card even fit into a x4 slot?

as for a sound card, I picked up an HT Omega Striker and havnt looked back. Excellent drivers that actually work with vista x64 and linux plus it uses a nice Cmedia chipset. (not to mention its not made by crappy creative)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829271001

That looks like a good sound card, but with no HDMI it's really not much more than what I have now.

[RunningSkittle]

The ATI cards have HDMI audio pass through.

And no, it will not fit into a 4x slot, but many boards have an extra 8x slot that is the same size as an x16 slot.

[Turtleggjp]

The ATI cards have HDMI audio pass through.

Right, which is why if I go with an ATi 4000 series video card, I don't need a new sound card. I only need the HDMI sound card if I get an Nvidia card.

And no, it will not fit into a 4x slot, but many boards have an extra 8x slot that is the same size as an x16 slot.

That's what I thought, and no I don't have an extra slot. I've never had much interest in having more than one graphics card slot. While the idea of running both is intriguing, I don't think it's worth upgrading my motherboard just yet. At least I already have a 8500GT card to use if I do decide to go this way.

[burfadel]

I'd go the ATI since they're much better value for money, and also because many of the nvidia cards are currently faulty (due to a manufacturing fault) - most Geforce 9's are affected as well as many of the mobile Geforce 8's.

[Turtleggjp]

Ok, I think I'll do that then. It seems that the benefits for the ATi card are more immediate, whereas the benefits for the GeForce cards are more in the future. I'll just continue to follow the developments of MPC-HC, and if I see CUDA or bitstreaming to HDMI sound cards being supported, I'll take another look at this situation. In the meantime, an ATi 4000 card should be able to carry me just fine. After all, it's not like these cards are huge investments (my 3450 cost about $40 I think).

[DJ Bobo]

As you're not into gaming a Radeon 4550 will be a good choice: it is silent (passive cooling), cheap and has post-processing features for HD movies that don't exist in the 34x0 cards, and which will lead to a much better perceived video quality: you'll get much better deinterlacing, less noise, and overall crisper looking (gets full scores in HQV tests).

I really don't see where you would need CUDA for HD movies: there is absolutely nothing the GeForce cards can do better than the Radeon cards when it comes to HD movies. And for VC-1, everyone knows that the Radeons outperform the GeForces (less CPU load when using the Radeons)

[Turtleggjp]

As you're not into gaming a Radeon 4550 will be a good choice: it is silent (passive cooling), cheap and has post-processing features for HD movies that don't exist in the 34x0 cards, and which will lead to a much better perceived video quality: you'll get much better deinterlacing, less noise, and overall crisper looking (gets full scores in HQV tests).

Thanks for the idea. I had been watching for a 4650 card that was passively cooled, but I still haven't seen one. I see two 4550 cards now on newegg but neither one is passive. I'll keep watching though. See below about why I'm not rushed anymore...

I really don't see where you would need CUDA for HD movies: there is absolutely nothing the GeForce cards can do better than the Radeon cards when it comes to HD movies. And for VC-1, everyone knows that the Radeons outperform the GeForces (less CPU load when using the Radeons)

At this point, I don't either, except that neuron2 has his DGAVCDecodeNV program that decodes AVC video using CUDA (instead of DXVA) and I figured that maybe someday other players would do it this way too. As for VC-1, most movies I have seen are AVC, but I know that some are VC-1. Most of the time I rip HD movies, I also re-encode them to save space. I will always be using x264 for this, so that solves the VC-1 problem.

What I did today, since I had some spare time, was try out my GeForce 8500GT again. As it turns out, the only problems I had with it were it not working correctly with 1080i content from my FusionHDTV card, and stuttering on my AVCHD video camera's footage. PowerDVD 8 was able to handle the 1080i content correctly, so I knew the card was not the problem. After updating the Fusion card's software, it now works correctly there too (albeit a little unstable). As for the video camera footage, they must have fixed the problem in a driver or PowerDVD update, because it seems to play back perfectly now too. The only problem I have now is that all video seems to be a little too red. I think I read about some problem like this on these forums, and I intend to do some investigating into this next. If anyone can point me to any threads discussing this issue, I'd appreciate it.

So for right now, I'll continue to use the 8500GT, as it solves the issues I was having with my 3450 (blurring at the bottom while accelerating 1080p AVC/VC-1 content, weird distortions while playing non-accelerated <59.94 fps XviD clips). This way, I can enjoy all my new x264 encodes with acceleration, and I can wait until Christmas time to get an HDMI sound card, or a Radeon 4000 series card if I cannot find a resolution to the redness issue. Plus, with the sound card I am more likely to be able to do bitstreaming of DTS-MA and Dolby TrueHD. I know that's not really important, but it would still be cool to be able to do. Thanks again!

Matt