NVIDIA AVC 264 accell in drivers - any beta/rumors for 7800GTX???

[Theliel]

PureVideo aren't only a mpeg video decoder. Is a DD and DTS decoder, and is a interface (I believe) for h264 and VC-1 hardware decoder. for H264 and VC-1 decoder we need too a H264 soft decoder that support purevideo interface. tomorrow i try some other probs, uninstall completly purevideo and try play some trailers. I'll try mov trailers too.

somes screenshot. I use:

Geforce 6600GT
latest driver 91.31 for x64
PowerDVD trial: CL264dec.ax 1.7.0.1626
Zoom player professional 5 preview 6
Source: (AVC 1920x1080) http://trailers.nerodigital.com/Disney/TheGreatestGame_HD_AVC.mp4


First, both in powerDVD:

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/5537/10ev.th.jpg (http://img521.imageshack.us/my.php?image=10ev.jpg)

http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/9990/22cz.th.jpg (http://img195.imageshack.us/my.php?image=22cz.jpg)

And work fine in ZP with personal filter seleccion: (similar to graphed):

http://img321.imageshack.us/img321/4526/33mu1.th.jpg (http://img321.imageshack.us/my.php?image=33mu1.jpg)

In ZP:

MP4 splitter: Haali
Audio: CoreAAC or Cyberlink Audio decoder
Video: Ciberlink H264/AVC decoder |With DxVA enable.

in powerDVD and ZP, CPU load is about 20-30% with hardware accell and about 80-90 with pure soft decoder

WinDVD in last version add support for purevideo decoder too (for h264 dxva). for now, don't work for me.

[JohnnyFu]

I know 3 members on a forum claiming that DXVA H264 on 6600GT AGP works and they aren't newbie.
There must be something wrong in my PC, but what?

Regards,
Jok

yes i wasnt up to date... there are a few people in nvidia.forum.com with working h.264 h/a on 6600GT AGP cards too.

[jok]

[
You need one of the 9x.xx Forcewares for the 6600 GT AGP. With 8x.xx drivers DXVA will also "work" but the image is a bit psychedelic. For me the 9x.xx drivers are buggy and instable as hell though so H264 DXVA isn't really usable for me either.

The DXVA status shown in the screenshots will only be shown while a h264 file is actually being played.

You will need to look for a reg hack for the AGP tab but making sure that fast-writes are enabled has helped me with some video problems.

EDIT: I hope you can see the attachments, it says something about "appending approval" next to them :(


I've tried these drivers: 84.21, 91.28 and 91.31
Fast write and sideband addressing are enabled.
I cannot see your attachments but PowerDVD7 show me DXVA not in use with H264 content :(

Regards,
Jok

[jok]

PureVideo aren't only a mpeg video decoder. Is a DD and DTS decoder, and is a interface (I believe) for h264 and VC-1 hardware decoder. for H264 and VC-1 decoder we need too a H264 soft decoder that support purevideo interface. tomorrow i try some other probs, uninstall completly purevideo and try play some trailers. I'll try mov trailers too.


I know that PureVideo isn't only a MPEG2 decoder but the file you liked is the PureVideo decoder and it is not useful to decode H264 content.
I'm looking forward to your tests after uninstallingwithout PureVideo decoder.

Has your 6600GT 128MB or 256MB ?

Thank you,
Jok

[Theliel]

jok, you had reason. H264 h/a is completely independent of purevideo decoder :) thank for corrections. I believed that purevideo decoder did a bridge interface for h264 contents, sorry by my error. PureVideo system, don't equal to "PureVideo decoder"

My 6600GT only have 128MB, ASUS. I don't believe that problem is graphic card.

what source you are trying? 1080? 720?

[jok]

jok, you had reason. H264 h/a is completely independent of purevideo decoder :) thank for corrections. I believed that purevideo decoder did a bridge interface for h264 contents, sorry by my error. PureVideo system, don't equal to "PureVideo decoder"

My 6600GT only have 128MB, ASUS. I don't believe that problem is graphic card.

what source you are trying? 1080? 720?

I've tried with 1080p H264 Apple trailers, .ts recording and live TV from H264 sat channels (with DVBViewer Pro).
In all the cases DXVA doesn't work :(
If it is not the graphic card, then it must be my nForce 2 system.
I've written to XFX support and I'm waiting for a response.

Regards,
Jok

[Kairk]

First, a little background. I use an old 1.8 Ghz P4 for my HTPC hooked up to a 37" LCD HDTV using 1366x768 resolution. I'm waiting for the HD-DVD and Blue-Ray support on PC's to become more robust to replace the machine. I had an ATI Radeon 9700 pro in it, and just replaced it with a NVidia 6600 GT (Gigabyte Tech). This is in an AGP slot.

It just doesn't have enough power to play 1280x720 .x264 encodes at bitrates around 3500-4000kbps (it's close, it can usually play the video fine, but the audio gets out of synch), so I thought I'd try the 6600 GT to see if it could 'get me over the edge', so to speak.

I also got PowerDVD7 to get the hardware acelleration that comes with it.

PowerDVD7 ended up playing my existing x264 encodes worse than MPC with CoreAVC 1.1 (very jerky playback with hardware acceleration enabled). These were done either with the CE-Highprofile or the HQ-Slower profiles in MeGui.

I did a 2:58 test clip using using the SA-HD-DVD profile, and PowerDVD7 plays it fine, but with a lot of blocks, apparently de-blocking doesn't exist or not turned on in my configuration (I have no idea how I would turn it on) The same thing happens in MPC using the Cyberlink decoder.

I did some timing tests with CoreAVC 1.1 in MPC and PowerDVD7 on the same clip (1280x720 from a HD .TS source, SA-HD-DVD profile, 3510 kbps, no audio in an mp4 container) and noted the cpu usage reported in Task Manager (Cpu used at the end of the clip - Cpu used right before playing the clip). The results were:

CoreAvc 1.1 Standard Deblocking : 2:44
CoreAvc 1.1 Skip B-Frame Deblocking : 2:30
CoreAvc 1.1 No Deblocking : 2:06
PowerDVD7 with Hardware Acceleration : 2:09
PowerDVD7 w/out Hardware Acceleration : Unwatchable

So basically, there is no difference in my setup between using CoreAvc with no deblocking and using PowerDVD7 with hardware acceleration. Needless to say, the video suffers a lot without deblocking.

It looks like I'll have to wait for CoreAvc to add hardware acceleration. In the meantime I'll continue to use XviD for my HD encodes, which plays perfectly fine on the old P4.

[Jay Bee]

First, a little background. I use an old 1.8 Ghz P4 for my HTPC hooked up to a 37" LCD HDTV using 1366x768 resolution. I'm waiting for the HD-DVD and Blue-Ray support on PC's to become more robust to replace the machine. I had an ATI Radeon 9700 pro in it, and just replaced it with a NVidia 6600 GT (Gigabyte Tech). This is in an AGP slot.

It just doesn't have enough power to play 1280x720 .x264 encodes at bitrates around 3500-4000kbps (it's close, it can usually play the video fine, but the audio gets out of synch), so I thought I'd try the 6600 GT to see if it could 'get me over the edge', so to speak.

I also got PowerDVD7 to get the hardware acelleration that comes with it.

PowerDVD7 ended up playing my existing x264 encodes worse than MPC with CoreAVC 1.1 (very jerky playback with hardware acceleration enabled). These were done either with the CE-Highprofile or the HQ-Slower profiles in MeGui.

I did a 2:58 test clip using using the SA-HD-DVD profile, and PowerDVD7 plays it fine, but with a lot of blocks, apparently de-blocking doesn't exist or not turned on in my configuration (I have no idea how I would turn it on) The same thing happens in MPC using the Cyberlink decoder.

I did some timing tests with CoreAVC 1.1 in MPC and PowerDVD7 on the same clip (1280x720 from a HD .TS source, SA-HD-DVD profile, 3510 kbps, no audio in an mp4 container) and noted the cpu usage reported in Task Manager (Cpu used at the end of the clip - Cpu used right before playing the clip). The results were:

CoreAvc 1.1 Standard Deblocking : 2:44
CoreAvc 1.1 Skip B-Frame Deblocking : 2:30
CoreAvc 1.1 No Deblocking : 2:06
PowerDVD7 with Hardware Acceleration : 2:09
PowerDVD7 w/out Hardware Acceleration : Unwatchable

So basically, there is no difference in my setup between using CoreAvc with no deblocking and using PowerDVD7 with hardware acceleration. Needless to say, the video suffers a lot without deblocking.

It looks like I'll have to wait for CoreAvc to add hardware acceleration. In the meantime I'll continue to use XviD for my HD encodes, which plays perfectly fine on the old P4.

Have you tried a different container than mp4? I have noticed that PDVD7 doesn't deal very well with some mp4 files. I think the PDVD decoder itself should be faster on your system than CoreAVC. Unless maybe you CPU is bottlenecking both of them. And I can confirm the deblocking issue, I think Cyberlink is just disabling it to make their decoder faster.

[Theliel]

umm... PDVD7 should be a little faster if you use dxva. CoreAVC are great, and yes, I wait for dxva for CoreAVC too!!.

You can try use a combinations of filter in ZP:

You can try use Cyberlink h264/AVC decoder (with H/A enabled) + FFdshow raw video filter for deblocking. You can adjust deblocking setting in ffdshow very well.

[Kairk]

Just to be sure, I don't need to install PureVideo for the dxva acceleration to work for h264, correct?

[FFWD]

correct

[jok]

On another forum the question is explained: most probably DXVA H264 only works on SSE2 CPU because nVidia routine for DXVA H264 decoding is SSE2 optimized!
So it's entirely an nVidia fault not supporting SSE system for DXVA H264!

Regards,
Jok

[tomos]

just to check, the AMD X2's support SSE2 dont they?

[Eretria-chan]

Yes, and SSE3. The Athlon64's also support up to SSE3, but not all models.
I believe this is correct. Correct me if I am wrong.

[Suchy]

Yuo can easiely check it. Download CPU-Z (freeware, small, non-installable software) and run.

[Oline 61]

IIRC 90nm A64's support SSE3. It may only be the Venice cores though.

[JK1974]

Hi,

now I am really a bit confused.

In the last posts, people talk about DXVA H.264 acceleration while it has been stated clearly, that just DXVA 2.0 supports H.264 that will be part of Windows Vista, not XP. According to this, checking the DXVA status in PowerDVD or any other player on H.264 playback IMHO does not make any sense.

Secondly, jok stated, that most H.264 playback only works on SSE2 CPUs because of nVidia routines. I have read at http://www.computerbase.de/forum/showthread.php?t=190147&page=3 (sorry, german), that H.264 support in PowerDVD does not work because only the CL264sse2.dll supports hardware acceleration, not the CL264sse.dll. The first one requires SSE2 - and is a Cyberlink library, not a nvidia library.

Thanks for any clarification. :)

[jok]

Secondly, jok stated, that most H.264 playback only works on SSE2 CPUs because of nVidia routines. I have read at http://www.computerbase.de/forum/showthread.php?t=190147&page=3 (sorry, german), that H.264 support in PowerDVD does not work because only the CL264sse2.dll supports hardware acceleration, not the CL264sse.dll. The first one requires SSE2 - and is a Cyberlink library, not a nvidia library.


Checking the DXVA status in PowerDVD 7 does make a sense as it's a real indicator of working H264 hardware acceleration.
The question is, why does CL264sse.dll not support hardware acceleration? Perhaps because nVidia driver doesn't support hardware acceleration on SSE only CPU. XFX support told me that a new nVidia driver is required to get H264 hardware acceleration on SSE CPU.
Also with new Elecard H264 decoder DXVA doesn't work on SSE CPU.
However, today a new version of Power DVD 7 is out, let's try it!

Regards,
Jok

[JK1974]

Hi jok,

why is the DXVA status an indication if H.264 is not supported by DXVA 1.x which is being used with Windows XP and PowerDVD 7?

[jok]

Hi jok,
why is the DXVA status an indication if H.264 is not supported by DXVA 1.x which is being used with Windows XP and PowerDVD 7?

As you can see in this topic:
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=12150

people with DXVA status "Used" get lower CPU usage enabling DXVA on Cyberlink H264 decoder.
People with a SSE CPU get "Not used" in DXVA status and CPU usage is the same enabling or not DXVA on Cyberlink H264 decoder.

Regards,
Jok

[Jay Bee]

Hi jok,

why is the DXVA status an indication if H.264 is not supported by DXVA 1.x which is being used with Windows XP and PowerDVD 7?

I don't quite understand why you would mistrust this status message? Do you really think that H264 DXVA is a big scam by Nvidia, Cyberlink, Nero etc. and in reality wont work until Vista is out?

Well come to think of it that sentence doesn't sound all that wrong considering the amount of cards that were falsely advertised to support H264 DXVA and the fact that the Cyberlink decoder skips deblocking. :p

Anyway I can assure you that it actually does work: my 2.5 Ghz Opteron 144 does BBC 1080i at about 20 fps PowerDVD does the full 50 fps with CPU to spare.

[CruNcher]

Jok ehh for me i also get not used in PowerDVD and it works over Directshow it's not really Nvidias fault more Cyberlinks :P why to use PowerDVD anyways :D i have a Athlon 64 with "faked" SSE2 and in PowerDVD also in Nero Showtime the acceleration never worked for me but directly via Directshow and VMR9 at least Cyberlinks "DXVA" works. Just read my report about Elecard/Mainconcepts Decoder http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=113833 , you see both are working ontop of Nvidias PureVideo fine and give almost the same performance.

And even if it would be a Nvidia problem i had to learn they are not very cooperative i send them a E-Mail because of the WVC1 acceleration bug in the latest Beta Drivers and i still didn't got any response from them, maybe i should try it over that Forum :P

[jok]

Jok ehh for me i also get not used in PowerDVD and it works over Directshow it's not really Nvidias fault more Cyberlinks :P why to use PowerDVD anyways :D i have a Athlon 64 with "faked" SSE2 and in PowerDVD also in Nero Showtime the acceleration never worked for me but directly via Directshow and VMR9 at least Cyberlinks "DXVA" works.

How can you state that DXVA H264 is working for you directly via Directshow? If you get the same performance enabling or disabling DXVA on Cyberlink H264 directShow filter then DXVA H264 is not working for you and PowerDVD DXVA status is correct.
I've also tried directly via directShow but there is no difference in performance enabling or disabling DXVA on Cyberlink H264 decoder.

Regards,
Jok

[JK1974]

Clearing up my questions:
It has been stated several times here in this topic that DXVA 1.x which is used on Windows XP does not support H.264. But this does not mean that there is no H.264 at all, this just means that software currently accesses the drivers directly instead of using DXVA.
My knowledge of COM is that you simply can´t add any functionality, you have to create new interfaces if you want to add new features. So if DXVA 1.x does not support methods and properties for H.264 you can´t simply add them. You have to create new interfaces and this would mean DXVA 2.0 which is said not to be available with Windows XP up to now.
IMHO, turning on HW acceleration in PowerDVD and Nero does not automatically mean that DXVA is used for H.264. Maybe portions of DXVA 1.x can be used for H.264 acceleration (e.g. color conversion etc.) while the main work is done by accessing the drivers and that´s why DXVA says that is is enabled on playback.
Nevertheless, I am going to continue reading the nzone thread. I already started yesterday before you replied, but within the next minutes, I hope to get finished and see clearer on this topic :).

[JohnnyFu]

Hi,

I have a sound delay problem playing a h.264 .ts movie (1920x1080 - bourne supremacy).
The delay is going bigger and bigger during the film . Whether if PureVideo support is active or not active. Tested with PDVD7, WMP11 and MPC.

Guess my hardware is strong enough to handle it and could not be the problem.
I traced the cpu usage using perfmon/excel during the first 10min of the film, see appendix.

Is there anyone with similar problems ?

WinXP SP2
PowerDVD 7.0.1813.0
3500+ E6 Venice @ 2700 / 245 RAM 2.5-3-3-7-1T
A8N32-SLI Deluxe - nForce 6.86
7600GT Gigabyte Silent Pipe II - Forceware 91.33 (did not tested older forceware versions).

[Theliel]

Clearing up my questions:
It has been stated several times here in this topic that DXVA 1.x which is used on Windows XP does not support H.264. But this does not mean that there is no H.264 at all, this just means that software currently accesses the drivers directly instead of using DXVA.

can be true. can be that PDVD and other access directly to driver for h264 accell instead DXVA.

JohnnyFu, can you post link to your movie for try?

with your system, i suppose the problem are in your splitter or bad AVC enconder. if you want post link or sample i can examine it

[JohnnyFu]

I would like to. But i have to cut the .ts file first, it will take a little bit time until i worked out how to do that.

Otherwise i have to upload a 9gb file and this will take one or two days, i do not really want that :)

[CruNcher]

How can you state that DXVA H264 is working for you directly via Directshow? If you get the same performance enabling or disabling DXVA on Cyberlink H264 directShow filter then DXVA H264 is not working for you and PowerDVD DXVA status is correct.
I've also tried directly via directShow but there is no difference in performance enabling or disabling DXVA on Cyberlink H264 decoder.

Regards,
Jok

Did i in anyway say that i get the same performance (or that insided PowerDVD the acceleration works) no i didn't i get accelerated performance less cpu consumption more speed, but it only works in VMR9 (Directshow) same as with WVC1 acceleration same as with Nvidias PureVideo Decoder (Mpeg-2) accelleration only works in VMR9 and if Cyberlinks PowerDVD doesn't use VMR9 it wouldn't work @ all because Nvidias driver want's VMR9 you can test this yourselve.
So the next time you test please use the Video Mixing Renderer 9 as output and you will see by magic that all the Hardware accelleration will work :) (at least for 91.33 beta that's the case), i also talked with zambelli (Microsoft Developer) about this and technicaly all renderer should work for DXVA but Nvidias Driver seems only to accept VMR9 to make use of DXVA, whyever this is the case i dunno maybe DRM issues, ask Nvidia.

and read carefully next time i wrote


Jok ehh for me i also get not used in PowerDVD and it works over Directshow


so this is an indication for me that Cyberlink did something wrong not Nvidia
and it's the same in the latest Version and the heck i don't need PowerDVD it's a useless piece of Software ok better then Intervideos stuff but still useless :P

all this here is based on examination of 91.33 beta (Forceware) on a 7600 GS (G73) behaviour as im coming from the ATI world (Catalyst) and had to adapt to Nvidia to get the best Visual Quality and Performance for me

So if some on Nvidias Forums search for answers to Acceleration problems you can link to this here and also to that
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=113324

[jok]

and read carefully next time i wrote


Your English is not so easy to read without punctuation.
I've also tried MPC with Cyberlink H264 filter and VMR9 renderer but DXVA H264 doesn't work. It's a SSE CPU problem as I've said.

Regards,
Jok

[CruNcher]

Sorry, punctuation yeah still a problem of mine.
hmm this SSE problem, ok that's something else then, as i said with my SSE,SSE2 capable CPU i also get not used inside PowerDVD and it doesn't work, but useing it from within Directshow it works. Im sorry for you about this SSE problem and indeed if that is also happening with Elecards Decoder it's Nvidias Fault and they should fix it hmm is this also happening with 91.37 Beta Forceware ?.

[JK1974]

Hi,

again some info on the question if DXVA 1.x already supports H.264. Here is the reply from Microsoft:
DXVA 1.0 was designed to be extensible enough to support new formats such as H.264. Microsoft is working with major IHVs to develop common "DXVA H.264 GUIDs" that can work for any hardware vendor implementing DXVA 1.0 and DXVA 2.0.

[JK1974]

And one additional comment:
Using PowerDVD 7 Build 1815, the DXVA switch does not have any effect on acceleration anymore. Instead, activating the "enable hardware acceleration" in the PowerDVD GUI turns H.264 acceleration on and off.