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

nmap

8th September 2005, 06:18

I wish I could. I've had some problems in the past regarding nvidia's drivers so I won't touch leaked ones with a ten foot pole.

Since they're leaked I suspect that they may still have some of the debug options enabled, so if people report that they can't get things working it comes of no shock.

Check here: http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=7427 for some interesting results, problems, issues, etc. None of the benchmarks include the 80 series though.

plonk420

8th September 2005, 19:01

i'd bet the accelleration would be on the side of the decoder, aka nVidia DVD(/whatever) decoder...

Sirber

9th September 2005, 13:56

From MSI:
NVIDIA PureVideo™ Technology

• Three dedicated video engines
• H.264 hardware assist
• Industries most advanced video algorithms
• DVD and HDTV-ready MPEG-2 decoding up to 1920x1080p resolution
• Inverse 2:2 and 3:2 pure down
• Display gamma correction
• Microsoft® Video Mixing Renderer (VMR) supports multiple videowindows with full video quality and features in each window

plonk420

9th September 2005, 22:54

Airw0lf

11th September 2005, 06:54

yeah, the drivers can say they support it all they want, but the accelleration won't happen until the software supports/enables it. PureVideo accelleration didn't come out the moment the cards did, IIRC. it was weeks/months(?) later...

Yes that's right. The only way to get any acceleration will most likely be through PureVideo. At the moment if you have a 6-series card the nVidia PureVideo decoder does a really good job of accelerated MPEG-1/2 playback, including HDTV. I assume they will upgrade it to accomodate h.264.

I have also read that the 80 series ForceWare drivers support h.264, so hopefully the wait will not be long for an upgraded PureVideo decoder.

Does anyone know how different the PureVideo chip on the 7800 is in comparison to those on the 6800s? The nVidia website (http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html) doesn't mention h.264 in their comparison, but the chips otherwise seem to be quite similar. The 7800 will do hi-def deinterlacing better, but that's about all that's different.

I'm hoping that the new PureVideo decoder will help accelerate h.264 on the 6-series cards, at least on the 6600 or 6800 high-end ones.

Ice =A=

12th September 2005, 11:08

Airw0lf

13th September 2005, 08:51

You shouldn't compare the video processor with 6800 cards since it doesn't work on most of those cards. The 6600 series has the better (namely the working) video acecleration! :)
So it's very (!) unlikely the 6800 series cards will support any kind of new generation video acceleration!!!

You are right that nVidia had problems with PureVideo on the 6800 series, but this ONLY affects WMV9 acceleration on PCI-X. Furthermore, the "basic" 6800 and 6800 LE cards are unaffected (I can confirm this as I have one of these cards myself), but WMV9 acceleration on the GT and Ultra versions IS broken.

According to the WMV9 specs at http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html...

GeForce 6800 Ultra: SD / HD display processing including Gamma Correction and Color Space Conversion

GeForce 6800 GT: SD / HD display processing including Gamma Correction and Color Space Conversion

GeForce 6800: SD / HD hardware accelerated decode and display processing including Gamma Correction and Color Space Conversion

All other specs are the same, such as for MPEG-1/2 accelerated decode.

But I take your point that you should be very careful to see whether nVidia actually delivers the goods on their promises for h.264...

plonk420

14th September 2005, 20:19

According to the WMV9 specs at http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html...

GeForce 6800 Ultra: SD / HD display processing including Gamma Correction and Color Space Conversion

GeForce 6800 GT: SD / HD display processing including Gamma Correction and Color Space Conversion

GeForce 6800: SD / HD hardware accelerated decode and display processing including Gamma Correction and Color Space Conversion

LOL, i looked thru that list MULTIPLE times to figure out what the difference between the 6800 series and my 6600GT was... X) guess i'm pretty blind

~~edit~~ i take back that last phrase oozing over how well my 6200 decodes 1080i... i haven't really tested to see how well something like ffdshow does at decoding it >_>

nmap

15th September 2005, 06:31

the 6800 series alone, has 12 pipes, with the remaining four "software" locked. While the 6600 GT can not be unlocked. The 12 pipes are all that's there. If you've got a 6800 256MB card, you can unlock the pipes and potentially have a 6800 Ultra when you're done. :)

Edited for card accuracy. Thanks Ice.

Ice =A=

15th September 2005, 10:27

You meant 6600Gt there (not 6800GT)..

Inventive Software

15th September 2005, 11:53

Yup. The 6800GT has 16 pipes and 6 vertex units. The 6800 and 6800LE have 12 pipes and 5 vertex units, with 4 pipes and 1 vertex unit locked, or hardware masked. The 6800 and 6800LE can be unlocked, but it's a matter of cooling. The 6800 GT and 6800 Ultra have the massive heatsink because they need it!

nmap

15th September 2005, 23:23

arg Yes, thank you. *edits post*

movax

15th September 2005, 23:38

You don't know how long I've waited for my quaint Radeon 9200 to magically become a 9800 or something. :)

FFWD

20th November 2005, 23:27

Got this response from Nvidia Customer Care [nvidia@mailca.custhelp.com] :

We apologize for the long delay. Please note the following corrections for previous responses.

Technically the NVIDIA PureVideo processor is capable of H.264 processing. However, the NVIDIA PureVideo Decoder and Graphics driver software do not support H.264 at this time. Support is only provided for MPEG-2. H.264 is planned for an undisclosed date in the future.

PureVideo can accelerate the following functions for MPEG-2:

IDCT
Motion Compensation
De-interlace
Format conversion
Block removal
Post Processing

Best regards,
NVIDIA

bond

21st November 2005, 00:15

PureVideo can accelerate the following functions for MPEG-2:

IDCT
Motion Compensation
De-interlace
Format conversion
Block removal
Post Processinghm i hope they dont waste too much time on implementing "post processing", "block removal" and "de-interlacing" (what the hell is "format conversion"?) for avc...

CruNcher

21st November 2005, 02:43

@FFWD
yeah typical support answers, the only reliable way would be to ask a guy who codes on the Driver or Purevideo, that would be a reliable source about the status of the ongoing H.264 AVC acceleration progress :)
Ati was much faster then Nvidia with Windows Media Video acceleration (Ok they are in close corporation with each other no wonder that WMV also is implemented in the Video Encoding GPU stuff first) and im almost sure they will be with H.264 AVC too , also ofcourse they allready announced it and showed it to the world and also released more informations and programms for GPU Video Encoding then Nvidia did as of now :) Nvidia hides everything behind a big big "Curtain of Silence" :P

plonk420

21st November 2005, 04:05

hm i hope they dont waste too much time on implementing "post processing", "block removal" and "de-interlacing" (what the hell is "format conversion"?) for avc...

wouldn't format conversion be NTSC > PAL / PAL > NTSC?

bill_baroud

21st November 2005, 23:43

iirc from the dxva stuff, it should be some "colorspace conversions" more than tv system conversions.

charleski

22nd November 2005, 01:45

Yes, 'format conversion' will be colour-space, though HW colour-space conversion is pretty old-hat, guess they threw that in to bump up the feature-list.

From what I've read (there's a pretty comprehensive review of the PureVideo decoder on one of the big sites) the de-interlacing on the PureVideo driver is the biggest source of improvement. Everything else is a bit meh. I have it installed on an Nvidia 6800 and TBH I haven't seen a noticeable improvement, though I haven't been bothered to do a detailed frame-by-frame comparison (zzz). Then again, I haven't been decoding HD MPEGs, so I'm not putting much stress on the system.

FFWD

23rd November 2005, 00:04

I found some more news about PureVideo's H.264 acceleration :

FiringSquad interviews Scott Vouri (Nvidia) :
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/nvidia_purevideo_interview/

http://www.hardocp.com/images/articles/1119063771Y3O0GyEDBw_5_4_l.jpg

http://www.hardocp.com/images/articles/1119063771Y3O0GyEDBw_5_6_l.jpg

http://www.hardocp.com/images/articles/1099684933M3ZruXxdx8_1_3_l.gif

bond

23rd November 2005, 01:12

thx for the info

so strictly speaking it only speeds up loop and "motion compensation" of avc. not much nvidia :p

CruNcher

23rd November 2005, 01:18

http://www.ati.com/technology/H264.html

:)

Kopernikus

23rd November 2005, 09:48

but Inloop and deblocking take about half of the decoding power, so speeding this up might be interesting.

http://www.geocities.com/ykchen913/publications/EI5022-27.pdf, or the link from Cruncher.

FFWD

23rd November 2005, 14:37

Yup, here's an image provided by ATi :
http://home.wanadoo.nl/mvp35/h264_hwaccel.png

So, both Nvidia's GeForce 6 & 7 series (with PureVideo) and ATi's Radeon X1x00 (with Avivo) support motion compensation and in-loop deblocking.

How about DirectX Hardware Acceleration (DXVA) for H.264? Can we expect a backport of DXVA 2.0 in Windows XP?

http://home.wanadoo.nl/mvp35/TWEN05003_WinHEC05-18.png
source : http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/8/f/98f3fe47-dfc3-4e74-92a3-088782200fe7/TWEN05003_WinHEC05.ppt

Isn't it strange that Gary Sullivan ;

a) He holds the position of video architect in the Core Media Processing Team of the Windows Digital Media division of Microsoft Corporation.
b.) At Microsoft he also designed and remains lead engineer for the DirectX(r) Video Acceleration API/DDI video decoding feature of the Microsoft Windows(r) operating system.
c.) In the JVT, he was the JVT chairman for the development of the
next-generation H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video coding standard and for the development of
its fidelity-range extensions (FRExt), and is now its co-chairman for the development of the scalable video coding (SVC) extensions.
source : http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/worksem/vica/docs/bios/S3_biochair_sullivan.pdf

Doesn’t that conflict with one and other? Microsoft has a competing HD codec (WMV9/VC-1). Is that why we have to wait for DXVA acceleration? Is it a delay tactic?

charleski

23rd November 2005, 14:42

No, I'd say it's a tactic to get people to buy Vista.

Oh, and are ATI really trying to imply that it's impossible to play HD h.264 on a current well-specced machine without some sort of extra VPU acceleration? Yeah, right...

While VPU decode acceleration will indeed be highly desireable, you have to remember that h.264 is a god-send to ATI and nVidia. They can now give the masses (who don't obsess over playing HL2 at 16x12 with all the effects) a reason to splash out several hundred dollars on a new video card. Hello advertising, meet pinch of salt.

CruNcher

23rd November 2005, 16:37

HD H.264 High Profile 1920x1080p you need at least a DualCore CPU for Realtime Playback with 5.1 AAC sound.
But you'are right i personaly would prefer to buildup a PC with a DualCore CPU to have both Encoding/Decoding Power then to buy a new GPU for now but who knows how that might change with the new GPU Encoders :P you get 3in1 with a GPU soon that nobody should forget 1. Powerfull 3D acceleration 2. Powerfull Video Decoding and maybe time will tell 3. Powerfull Video Encoding so that could shift more to GPU upgradeing then to CPU upgradeing on the Customers side, as a CPU @ the moment can only Provide 2 of those 3 features.

temporance

23rd November 2005, 17:19

Oh, and are ATI really trying to imply that it's impossible to play HD h.264 on a current well-specced machine without some sort of extra VPU acceleration? Yeah, right...

While VPU decode acceleration will indeed be highly desireable, you have to remember that h.264 is a god-send to ATI and nVidia. They can now give the masses (who don't obsess over playing HL2 at 16x12 with all the effects) a reason to splash out several hundred dollars on a new video card. Hello advertising, meet pinch of salt.

Can you really play H.264 HD on a current machine? When (approximately) was the year that new PCs had the horsepower to do this? Cf. DivX/xvid playable on a year 1999 vintage machine for SD and year 2002 machines for HD.

A new GPU might not be the magic bullet for many users: their processor / memory / buses might still not be able to support full HD decoding even if parts of the processing can be done offloaded. Of course this doesn't prevent ATI and nVidia's spin departments convincing people that they need a new "HD DVD" graphics card for HD...

FFWD

23rd November 2005, 18:05

My P4 3.0 GHz is able to playback 720p Main Profile smoothly, I get framedrops above that level.

AlexB17

23rd November 2005, 20:25

Can i smothely play 1080 content on my P4 2,6HT+GF6600GT with Pure video? Or this is impossible? I think 720 content not a problem, but 1080...

bond

23rd November 2005, 21:02

Can i smothely play 1080 content on my P4 2,6HT+GF6600GT with Pure video? Or this is impossible? I think 720 content not a problem, but 1080...did you try it without purevideo with a stream encoded with all avc settings disabled? :D

Audionut

24th November 2005, 10:00

I can play 1080 content with 5.1 aac fine.

Although it does require a prescott processor overclocked to approx 4.0ghz with high frequency low latency ram.

Not excatly common hardware.

Ice =A=

24th November 2005, 10:33

Can i smothely play 1080 content on my P4 2,6HT+GF6600GT with Pure video? Or this is impossible? I think 720 content not a problem, but 1080...
No you can't, since nVidia does not support acceleration with most video formats (yet), only WMV, and your predecessor allready said that his 3GHz P4 isn't fast enough...
Your PC might be fast enough for WMV videos though.

FFWD

7th January 2006, 17:02

CES 2006 : PureVideo to offer H.264 Decode Acceleration available to end users in the next 2 - 3 months (http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2665&p=2)

Looks like it's delayed badly :
http://www.hardocp.com/images/articles/1119063771Y3O0GyEDBw_5_4_l.jpg

Selur

7th January 2006, 17:14

1080p runs smooth with newest CoreAVC Decoder + ffdshow for aac->ac3 convertion. <75% CPU usage on my Athlon64bit 3500+, WinXPpro32bit. :)

bond

7th January 2006, 18:47

NVIDIA announced that all GeForce 6 and GeForce 7 GPUs will eventually (when drivers and software are available) support H.264 decode acceleration for all the way up to 1080p videos. Obviously the faster the GPU (mainly the more ALUs and the higher the clock speed), the more that can be offloaded from the CPU onto the GPU.

they have also committed to us that it will work on all GeForce 6 and 7 GPUs (AGP and PCIe).now that sounds much better than ati's stuff. if it works on the 6 series the cards are cheaper than ati's 1000 series and it will even work on old motherboards via agb :)

Isochroma

7th January 2006, 20:34

"In order to take advantage of the H.264 decode acceleration you will need two things: 1) Compliant InterVideo WinDVD, CyberLink PowerDVD or Nero software, and 2) a NVIDIA driver enabling the support."

In other words, their solution won't be generic DirectShow based but will instead work as a proprietary solution embedded inside certain commercial players. ATI of course is doing the same thing.

Ie. no mplayer or media player classic support, in fact I don't even see Windows Media Player in that list - though I guess it will be in their release 'product'. When they say Nero, they probably mean ShowTime, and even if the Nero MPEG 1/2/4/h.264 directshow decoder implements it, all versions after 6 refuse to connect to any app in a filter graph other than a select few (ie. no mplayer or media player classic unless you want to play the rename game).

Stuff like this makes me long for longhorn and hope that it will force the GPU manufacturers to support a standard OS-level non-proprietory acceleration infrastructure.

bond

7th January 2006, 20:45

"In order to take advantage of the H.264 decode acceleration you will need two things: 1) Compliant InterVideo WinDVD, CyberLink PowerDVD or Nero software, and 2) a NVIDIA driver enabling the support."

In other words, their solution won't be generic DirectShow based but will instead work as a proprietary solution embedded inside certain commercial players. ATI of course is doing the same thing.

Stuff like this makes me long for longhorn and hope that it will force the GPU manufacturers to support a standard OS-level non-proprietory acceleration infrastructure.it has to be a proprieatary solution, because there is no standardised support for avc in dxva and the like infrastructure

Ie. no mplayer or media player classic support, in fact I don't even see Windows Media Player in that listwmp is a dshow player like any other dshow player, it by itself doesnt play any file without the needed filters

so if the cyberlink/intervideo filters arent limited anyhow, they will work in any dshow player, including wmp

- though I guess it will be in their release 'product'. When they say Nero, they probably mean ShowTime, and even if the Nero MPEG 1/2/4/h.264 directshow decoder implements it, all versions after 6 refuse to connect to any app in a filter graph other than a select few (ie. no mplayer or media player classic unless you want to play the rename game).neros filters are definitely limited to only work in dshow, but thats not nvidias fault

dragongodz

9th January 2006, 11:59

just thought i would throw this in
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/01/07/nvidia_decode_h264/

travisbell

9th January 2006, 19:36

just thought i would throw this in
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/01/07/nvidia_decode_h264/

Awesome! Can't wait for this stuff to come out!

I have a question though, since the acceleration happens with the decoder (that makes sense) will the PureVideo decoder then decode x264 (.mp4, .mkv)? Or am I missing something? They talk about h.264 but isn't it slightly different than x264? Both AVC codecs I know...

Thanks for anyone who help answer the rudimentary question ;)

Doom9

9th January 2006, 20:16

Just the usual marketing article. No info whatsoever on the hardware, no info how the files need to be played for hardware acceleration to come into effect, no comparison of CPU usage with and without hardware acceleration. I have a 7800GT but I'm not looking forward to anything.. my system can handle 1080p without problems, my CPU is all the hardware acceleration I need. And then there's coreAVC..

Gimpi

9th January 2006, 22:31

With the latest beta ForceWare floating around I only see "Video Accel: ModeMPEG2_A ModeMPEG2_B ModeMPEG2_C ModeMPEG2_D ModeWMV9_B ModeWMV9_A" in my DxDiag.txt save.
---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce 7800 GTX
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0091&SUBSYS_02C210DE&REV_A1
Display Memory: 256.0 MB
Current Mode: 1280 x 1024 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor Max Res: 1600,1200
Driver Name: nv4_disp.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.8310 (English)
DDI Version: 9 (or higher)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 12/7/2005 17:53:00, 3952640 bytes
WHQL Logo'd: No
WHQL Date Stamp: None
VDD: n/a
Mini VDD: nv4_mini.sys
Mini VDD Date: 12/7/2005 17:53:00, 3611168 bytes
Device Identifier: {D7B71E3E-43D1-11CF-1853-C82200C2CB35}
Vendor ID: 0x10DE
Device ID: 0x0091
SubSys ID: 0x02C210DE
Revision ID: 0x00A1
Revision ID: 0x00A1
Video Accel: ModeMPEG2_A ModeMPEG2_B ModeMPEG2_C ModeMPEG2_D ModeWMV9_B ModeWMV9_A

Ice =A=

9th January 2006, 23:24

Just don't get too enthusiastic! Don't forget how nVidia lied about WMV9 acceleration and advanced DVD/MPEG2 features! They needed MUCH longer then promised, some cards did never support that acceleration (even though they first said those cards would) and for some of those features you need to buy a DVD player software from nVidia which is as good as not available in europe...
Of course, there had been some runing demos then, too.
I just wanted to say: Be sceptical about nVidias promises!
(Btw: I'm no ATI fanboy, I have an nVidia 7800GTX myself! :))

Gimpi

9th January 2006, 23:27

Doom9

10th January 2006, 08:21

Actually, I'm under the impression that you merely need any player app that makes use of directshow filters.For realism, let's presume it's restricted to certain applications until proven otherwise. The cautous approach seems more appropriate considering what has or has not materialized in the past and considering the history of purevideo.

dragongodz

10th January 2006, 11:08

you need to buy a DVD player software from nVidia which is as good as not available in europe...
you mean like here ? ;)
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Products.asp?CatID=37&Category=Software&ThumbNails=Yes&FilterCategories=366&FilterManufacturers=70&FilterMinPrice=&FilterMaxPrice=&FilterKeywords=

Actually, I'm under the impression that you merely need any player app that makes use of directshow filters.
For realism, let's presume it's restricted to certain applications until proven otherwise.
for real realism lets look at how the mpeg2 decoding is done right now with purevideo. its a filter. that means once you have installed purevideo you can then use it to decode mpeg2 in any player such as mediaplayerclassic etc.
also lets look at intervideos mpeg4(part2) decoder since it appears they are partnering up with nvidia same as ati for decoding. intervideos decoder is also usable from any other player, such as MPC etc.

so will that be true for h264 decoding ? dont know but i would find it strange, not impossible of course, for them(both nvidia and intervideo) to strictly limit the filters to a specific program for playback. they have not in the past and there is no proof that they will in the future.

I just wanted to say: Be sceptical about nVidias promises!
of course thats always good advice and not just for nvidia. look at ati's avivo xcode for a good example aswell. sounded great until it was released and found that it doesnt even use the gpu yet, and while very fast doesnt give anywhere near good quality. so ye of course wait until there is something that people can actually evaluate before deciding how good or bad something is. :D

dragongodz

10th January 2006, 12:03

ok will throw this little bit in aswell.
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2665&p=2

the claim is
In order to prove the support was functional, NVIDIA setup a Pentium D 830 with a GeForce 6600GT and tried to play back a 1080p H.264 encoded movie. CPU utilization across both cores was basically pegged at 100% while the CPU handled the entire decode.
Enabling hardware acceleration offloaded a good hunk of the decoding task onto the Geforce 6600GT, reducing CPU utilization to around 50% or less:

OF COURSE lets wait and see how true that holds when consumers actually get to test for themselves.

and OF COURSE some people will have good enough performance from just using something like coreavc and not be interested in using this(gpu accelerated decoder) at all.

videomixer9

10th January 2006, 12:22

of course it is interesting to put the load on the gpu even with something like coreavc that enables my fx 5600 athlon xp 3000+ system to play 1080p at less than 80% cpu already and most of apples 1080 trailers with almost 50% cpu, however it would be good to see this go down to 10-30% :) ... point is that this hardware acceleration will probably lead more companies to not do good programming ... when apple presented 1080 trailers and they stuttered around I thought ... damn you need a new PC, that time the h264 acceleration by graphics hardware seemed to be nice, then libav did way more effective decoding and I thought, well you can live with stutter free 720p as your screen is only 1280x1024 anyways and it perfectly fits into this, now seeing how effective CoreAVC does the decoding I think "hell, they made a fool out of you the whole time!"

AlexeyS

11th January 2006, 13:25

What I need to install to see nVidia's AVC acceleration?

slavickas

11th January 2006, 13:49

What I need to install to see nVidia's AVC acceleration?
unreleased drivers and probably unreleased unknown player

AlexeyS

11th January 2006, 13:57

unreleased drivers and probably unreleased unknown player
So, there is still no decoder? :scared:

dragongodz

11th January 2006, 15:10

my fx 5600
of course this gpu acceleration is for 6xxx generation cards and up so not for yours. :)

point is that this hardware acceleration will probably lead more companies to not do good programming
thats a guess. if you look at something like quicktime then some companies already do bad programming. just because they can also have the option of using the gpu aswell doent automatically mean they will suddenly not bother to make their code better or faster etc. i am sure it wont suddenly make the guys at ffmpeg or coreavc stop what they are doing either.

unreleased drivers
the version mentioned is 85 so yes unreleased.

probably unreleased unknown player
huh ? how is it unknown ? to quote from earlier -
In order to take advantage of the H.264 decode acceleration you will need two things: 1) Compliant InterVideo WinDVD, CyberLink PowerDVD or Nero software, and 2) a NVIDIA driver enabling the support.
also they will may release a new version of purevideo with this enabled aswell.
but yes the versions with this are not released yet as you say.

FFWD

11th January 2006, 15:21

The Vista December CTP (buld 5270) ships with the 85.05 LDDM drivers. I don't know if H.264 acceleration already works.

It makes no sense that PureVideo will be required, because you will be using a third party decoder.

Sharktooth

11th January 2006, 16:11

Win Vista will have DirectX Video Acceleration 2.0 that enables h.264 acceleration in a common API (DXVA).
That means no "dedicated players" or "third party decoders" are needed.
Just DXVA 2.0 support ...

dragongodz

12th January 2006, 02:35

It makes no sense that PureVideo will be required, because you will be using a third party decoder.
nobody said purevideo will be required. it appears you will have a choice of what software(windvd,powerdvd etc) you buy that supports the playback. purevideo is just another decoder aswell so if you use 1 of the others then of course you wouldnt need it.
however if you have already bought purevideo and not the other programs and nvidia offer an upgrade(free or cheap, no saying they will now they are partnering of course) then it would simply be another option.

Win Vista will have DirectX Video Acceleration 2.0 that enables h.264 acceleration in a common API (DXVA).
That means no "dedicated players" or "third party decoders" are needed.
and when is vista due to be released again and for how much ? ;)

Xayd

21st January 2006, 20:04

actually i'm quite interested in this.

as far as decoders go, i find purevideo to be superior to anything from the DVD software makers and ATI, ESPECIALLY for HD content. not sure about DVD but who cares about DVD? a P3 700mhz CPU can play DVD.

and yes dragongodz i agree, there's no restriction on what you use for playback with purevideo now, which to me suggests there's no reason for them to limit it in the future, unless they wish to stop selling it and gain alot of negative press and reaction from the limited audience that purevideo has.

i'm not interested in buying a 300-400 dollar video card to play back h264. nor am I interested in buying a 200-300 dollar CPU to play back h264. if nvidia can provide a decoder that will do so on my slightly dated CPU and a 150 dollar video card more power to them.

BetaBoy

21st January 2006, 20:36

unreleased drivers and probably unreleased unknown player
Not if I can help it....

FFWD

24th January 2006, 14:44

InterVideo H.264 Codec Combines With NVIDIA Hardware to Accelerate High-Definition Decoding (http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20060123005286&newsLang=en)

Not if I can help it....
Is your codec going to support h/w decoding? Have you contacted nVidia about it?

BetaBoy

24th January 2006, 15:19

Yes.... (on the H/W decoding) But I cannot provide any more details at this moment.

bond

24th January 2006, 15:23

InterVideo H.264 Codec Combines With NVIDIA Hardware to Accelerate High-Definition Decoding (http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20060123005286&newsLang=en)very interesting, thx a lot!
so finally we know cyberlink will be on ati's side and intervideo on nvidia's. intervideo till now used the videosoft decoder, which only supported main profile (windvd also had problems playing .mp4 files last time it was tested on doom9)
anyone knowing if videosoft is still used by intervideo, now with the nvidia support?

but actually arent updated nvidia drivers needed with support for h.264 for making a decoder, like one from intervideo, work? if i look at the nvidia site i dont see any...

Is your codec going to support h/w decoding? Have you contacted nVidia about it? coreavc is so fast, i think it might be able to beat or be on par with the ati/nvidia accelerated decoders without being gpu supported itself :D
we tried to measure the speed of the ati acceleration but it wasnt possible with the currently available tools (haalis timecodec and elecards chegepuga) so we dont know yet how it performs compared to the hw stuff

i wonder if it will be possible to measure the decoding speed with nvidias stuff?

FFWD

24th January 2006, 15:46

but actually arent updated nvidia drivers needed with support for h.264 for making a decoder, like one from intervideo, work? if i look at the nvidia site i dont see any...You need ForceWare 85 series drivers (not available at the moment). nVidia is testing these drivers as we speak (they are already in the Vista December CTP).Availability

NVIDIA ForceWare drivers featuring the NVIDIA PureVideo H.264 decode acceleration will be available in Q1'06. For more information on NVIDIA products, visit http://www.nvidia.com.

Yes.... (on the H/W decoding) But I cannot provide any more details at this moment.Sweet!

ChronoReverse

24th January 2006, 18:20

Yes.... (on the H/W decoding) But I cannot provide any more details at this moment.

If a dshow filter that uses the h/w decoder is sold by you guys, I will be purchasing your software for sure. I just hope you take international orders online =)

Ice =A=

24th January 2006, 18:26

bond:
we tried to measure the speed of the ati acceleration but it wasnt possible with the currently available tools (haalis timecodec and elecards chegepuga) so we dont know yet how it performs compared to the hw stuff Couldn't you compare cpu utilization for at least some indication?

bond

24th January 2006, 18:39

Couldn't you compare cpu utilization for at least some indication?tell me a way to measure the average cpu utilization of a decoding process

additionally it should be easy to do, so newbies, owning such ati cards, can do it without messing the results

Ice =A=

24th January 2006, 18:46

Ok, I was just thinking of the windows taskmanager and an "approximative visual comparison"... :)
However, there seem to be a few tools for an average cpu utilization over a given time (like CPUMeter ).
Admittedly that will be difficult with different cpus and pcs in general...

bond

24th January 2006, 18:51

However, there seem to be a few tools for an average cpu utilization over a given time (like CPUMeter ).any more infos on that?

Admittedly that will be difficult with different cpus and pcs in general... its enough if one person compares coreavc vs ati/nvidia on his/her pc for getting an idea :)

bill_baroud

24th January 2006, 22:26

using the windows "perfmon" tool could give you an average cpu time over a period of time, without installing anything fancy :)

bond

24th January 2006, 22:30

using the windows "perfmon" tool could give you an average cpu time over a period of time, without installing anything fancy :)hm where do i find this?

slavickas

24th January 2006, 22:39

win->run->perfmon

Ice =A=

24th January 2006, 22:57

Sorry, I just saw that CPUMeter supports Windows98 only. Maybe Performance Monitor would do the trick, look here (http://www.windowsnetworking.com/j_helmig/wxpperfm.htm)or here (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/Axapta/COMbasic/Monitoring_Axapta/combasic_performance_monitor.asp)(however I don't know that tool, I'm just guessing it would do what we want!).

Edit: "Performance Monitor" just happens to be "perfmon"! Man, somehow I'm slow off the mark today... ;)

bond

24th January 2006, 23:16

hm perfmon looks interesting, thx for the hint! any idea if there is an option to output some history data about the past cpu useage to a log file?

bond

25th January 2006, 01:38

i now measured the speed on an avc clip with the three different available methods:
- elecard chegepuga
- haali timecodec
- perfmon

results:
null video output:

chegepuga:
- ffdshow: 45.00 fps
- coreavc: 74.12 fps +64.71%

timecodec dfps:
- ffdshow: 44.1 fps
- coreavc: 72.5 fps +64.4%

timecodec fps:
- ffdshow: 45.4 fps
- coreavc: 74.2 fps +63.4%

perfmon:
- ffdshow: 55.584%
- coreavc: 32.066% +57.69%vmr7 video output:

timecodec dfps:
- ffdshow: 25.6 fps
- coreavc: 35.6 fps +39%

timecodec fps:
- ffdshow: 35.8 fps
- coreavc: 51.8 fps +44%

perfmon:
- ffdshow: 72.919%
- coreavc: 48.392% +66.36%so imho perfmon seems to be useable when using null renderer, decoding only

when comparing video playback there seem to be problems. any idea why?

FFWD

25th January 2006, 14:21

I found this on connect.microsoft.com :
DirectX Software Development Kit Beta program
12/1/2005 - 5/31/2006

Maybe it's useful for codec programmers to implement DXVA2.0 support.

Selur

25th January 2006, 23:05

CoreAVC +Hardwaresupport for my 6600GT would be da bomb :D

CruNcher

26th January 2006, 00:59

Usage of neither Nvidias nor Atis properiartary system would be a bomb :D so that older not supported Gpus could also benefit from it partialy ;)

AlexeyS

12th February 2006, 07:31

Are there any decoders available which can accelerate AVC video with nVidia's gpus?

FFWD

12th February 2006, 11:36

Only ATi's 1x00 series have AVC acceleration for the time being :
http://www.cyberlink.com/cinema/ati/h264_decoder/enu/index.jsp

AlexeyS

12th February 2006, 12:10

Only ATi's 1x00 series have AVC acceleration for the time being :
http://www.cyberlink.com/cinema/ati/h264_decoder/enu/index.jsp
I've already bought nVidia video card. Do you know when decoder for nVidia gpus will available?

bond

12th February 2006, 13:26

there are not even drivers available allowing h.264 acceleration on nvidia cards...

anyways cyberlink and intervideo announced that they will release decoders able to use the nvidia gpu

AlexeyS

12th February 2006, 14:34

Doom9

12th February 2006, 14:40

Did they say when this decoder will be available?some time in 2006.

bond

12th February 2006, 14:48

Did they say when this decoder will be available?i am not sure if you understood what i said: even if the decoder would be available today you wont be able to use it, as there is not driver from nvidia that allows decoders to make use of the gpu for avc

Sharktooth

13th February 2006, 08:04

Nvidia is working closely with MS to implement AVC acceleration in DXVA 2.0.
The major issue with that is DXVA 2.0 will be a Vista-only feature...
Maybe nvidia will come up with an alternative solution (like avivio) for the older windows versions or maybe MS will ship a new DirectX version (i highly doubt it).

FFWD

13th February 2006, 16:14

Microsoft plans to ship a new DirectX update (internally called DirectX 9.0L) for Windows XP. XP does not get a DXVA 2.0. Both ATi and nVidia work with third party ISV's (Nero, InterVideo, Cyberlink and CoreCodec among others) to offer accelleration for H.264/AVC content for XP users.

bond

13th February 2006, 16:41

interesting, tough this doesnt make sure that a h.264 dxva will be included there (knowing m$ wanting to push both wmv9 (meaning having no interest in supporting h.264) and vista i would assume this is not likely to be included)

FFWD

23rd February 2006, 02:01

Look at this (http://home.wanadoo.nl/mvp35/nvcinema_bda.png), a NVCinema BDA Driver is installed on Vista build 5308 (Feb CTP). Is 'BDA' Blu-ray Disc Association or Blu-ray Disc Acceleration? What's the purpose of this driver? Some secret HDCP DRM driver or an AVC Acceleration API or even something else? The installed nVidia driver is version 86.82

23rd February 2006, 03:31

Maybe it has got something to do with the Broadcast Driver Architecture (http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/broadcast.mspx).

Ronin-7

23rd February 2006, 11:23

NVIDIA did have a product called personal cinema it was a combo TV tuner graphics card if I'm not mistaken do you have one of those as that could be related to it. Also as NW links to above if you Google BDA driver it will bring back results pertaining to a TV tuner driver for Windows.

carlo_0000

26th February 2006, 04:47

there are not even drivers available allowing h.264 acceleration on nvidia cards...

anyways cyberlink and intervideo announced that they will release decoders able to use the nvidia gpu

you are wrong

the hardware support for mpeg4 work perfectly with my gf6600 end vlc player

i play mkv (ac3 +x264) or divx with 0% cpu usage

when i play it with an other player is use 40% cpu usage

that is a big difference

http://perso.latribu.com/tribu/local.JPG

26th February 2006, 11:05

No. VLC doesn't even support DXVA (https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/151) (GPU acceleration interface for MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 ASP among others). Seems that in your case its CPU usage doesn't get counted to the VLC process. There is one program/thread in your list that uses 99% CPU. What is that?

foxyshadis

26th February 2006, 11:11

That would be system idle processes, whatever the italian name for it is. :p Note the 0K VM size, it's the only one that can do that.

carlo_0000

26th February 2006, 16:31

it's not italian it's french :)

it s a athlon 64 2800+ asus + 512mb ram gf6600

for me i m very sure it is supported

vlc use 0 to 1%

when i use virtualdub in same time than playing something with vlc
virtualdub use 99% cpu usage

than we can't say vlc procces is not count

i olso try to play some videos on an other computer athlon xp 2000+ 52 ram gf fx5600

vlc use 45% cpu usage i have use the same setting in vlc :confused:

Sharktooth

26th February 2006, 16:36

it's simply not possible.

carlo_0000

26th February 2006, 16:41

it olso work for mpeg2

play hdtv 1920*1080 with 5% cpu usage

end when i deactivate the video on overlay in directx modul

end play a hdtv mpeg2 cpu use 100% with some lag

edit : i use vlc 0.8.4.b

Sharktooth

26th February 2006, 16:55

it's simply not possible.
read the above posts.

bond

26th February 2006, 17:42

well carlo, enjoy your 0-1% avc playback ;)

Mei

27th February 2006, 23:08

Currently, latest NVIDIA PureVideo software using up-to-date WMP10 can handle hardware decompression of 1920x1080x32 WMV9 HD @ 30-40% of CPU usage on an Athlon 64 @ 1GHz (C&Q Enabled).

DVD is @ 10-20%...

So I think the PureVideo hardware is really working, but in fact it needs to be used by an DirectX VA compliant software. (for WMV9 HD perhaps only WMP10 makes it working)

rozemab

2nd March 2006, 17:39

http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo.html

Adub

2nd March 2006, 17:46

Also new version here:
http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=NVIDIA_DVD_Decoder

GmorG McRoth

2nd March 2006, 17:48

there is official beta drivers on nzone.com

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_winxp_2k_32bit_84.12.html

Release Highlights:

* Adds support for GeForce 7300 GS and GeForce 7300 LE GPUs.
* New NVIDIA PureVideo features and enhancements. Please visit the NVIDIA PureVideo website for more information on PureVideo technology and system requirements.
o Support for high definition H.264 hardware decode acceleration on GeForce 6 and 7 series GPUs.
o Support for high definition MPEG-2 inverse telecine.
o Support for high definition MPEG-2 spatial temporal de-interlacing.
* Adds mixed vendor support for NVIDIA SLI.
* TV-Out/HD-out support for NVIDIA SLI.
* Added support for VSync on Direct3D games when running NVIDIA SLI.
* Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0c and OpenGL® 2.0 support
* For a full list of fixed and known issues please view the Release Notes.

I hope its usefull for somone.

bond

2nd March 2006, 17:54

great news thx!

tough afaik till now there is no avc decoder available useable with nvidia's gpu
edit2: a list of potential avc decoders being able to use the gpu:
http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_purevideo_requirements.html

CyberLink PowerDVD™ with H.264 (AVC) and AAC Pack
InterVideo® WinDVD®
Nero® ShowTime

i cant check the cyberlink avc pack, cause there simply is no download available for testing it
intervideo's windvd includes a videosoft avc decoder from 2004 which surely doesnt support the nvidia gpu
nero is currently updating its trial packages (100mb bloatware! why nero???)

edit: seems they now also updated the product list which tells what cards support avc gpu decoding:
http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html

BetaBoy

2nd March 2006, 18:20

Define PureVideo's role in H.264 CPU vs. GPU as I see no mention. Anyone?

bond

2nd March 2006, 18:31

threads merged

BetaBoy

2nd March 2006, 18:34

thx bond... I see they are updating it to specify GPU.

travisbell

3rd March 2006, 02:53

So does anyone have any performance comparisons yet?

FFWD

3rd March 2006, 03:00

I'm interested too, here's a reviewers guide :
http://home.wanadoo.nl/mvp35/NVIDIAPureVideoReviewersGuide.rar

(please ignore nvidia marketing talk)

Schrade

3rd March 2006, 09:58

It's interesting that they've changed the specs on PureVideo. Does it no longer support older nVIDIA cards?

Sharktooth

3rd March 2006, 10:45

So does anyone have any performance comparisons yet?no, coz there are no available decoders that support it.

FFWD

3rd March 2006, 13:08

It's interesting that they've changed the specs on PureVideo. Does it no longer support older nVIDIA cards?Here's (http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html) a list of supported PureVideo features. For software MPEG-2 postprocessing any DirectX 8.0 videocard will do (incl. ATi's). Most GeForce 6 and 7 series videocards support H.264 hardware decoding acceleration.

no, coz there are no available decoders that support it.http://www.cyberlink.com/oem/nVidia/0602/enu/index.jsp ;)

Nero ShowTime and InterVideo WinDVD will be next.

tomos

3rd March 2006, 13:21

cant wait for this to come out can bump up the bitrate in my encodes then :)

this, and when coreavc goes smp = the daddy!

Ice =A=

3rd March 2006, 14:52

@FFWD:
That PowerDVD description does not necessarily indicate that h264 acceleration through purevideo is supported yet. In fact, that version is available for quite some time now.

bond

3rd March 2006, 15:06

@FFWD:
That PowerDVD description does not necessarily indicate that h264 acceleration through purevideo is supported yet. In fact, that version is available for quite some time now.on the site FFWD linked to it says:
Note: The NVIDIA H.264 decoder acceleration requires a GeForce 6 or GeForce 7 Series graphics card and NVIDIA ForceWare 84.12 or greater software.
so i am pretty sure it supports the nvidia gpu already

also cyberlink already offers a decoder able to use the ati gpu, i guess they are simply the most advanced ones atm in this gpu acceleration field

the bad thing simply is that there is no trial download available :(
eg i would love to add the cyberlink decoder to my decoder comparison

DanielSun

3rd March 2006, 17:17

Bond,why didn't you include CoreAVC in your decoder comparison?

BetaBoy

3rd March 2006, 17:38

Bond,why didn't you include CoreAVC in your decoder comparison?
I am sure he will once we publically release it after March 15.

FFWD

3rd March 2006, 17:43

I am sure he will once we publically release it after March 15.You're announcing AVC GPU accelleration @ CeBit (9 - 15 March 2006)?

Kostarum Rex Persia

3rd March 2006, 17:50

BetaBoy, CoreAVC decoder will be official version 1.0 or not?

DanielSun

3rd March 2006, 17:58

Betaboy,Does CoreAVC use GPU accelleration to achieve such low cpu usage?
Does it use purevideo h.264 accelleration API or not?
What about ATI cards?( I only have NV cards)

BetaBoy

3rd March 2006, 18:10

Betaboy,Does CoreAVC use GPU accelleration to achieve such low cpu usage?
Does it use purevideo h.264 accelleration API or not?
What about ATI cards?( I only have NV cards)

CPU/software only.... and I cannot comment on anything GPU related at this time.

DanielSun

3rd March 2006, 18:38

No kidding！？

That is Amazing！！！

I am totally shocked by this low-cpu-usage thing！

Great work！

Blue_MiSfit

3rd March 2006, 20:12

Ice =A=

3rd March 2006, 20:27

bond

3rd March 2006, 20:48

@bond:
Good point that, I missed that last line... :(
However, the only PowerDVD trial version to download is from last year, and they hardly could have had that h264 hardware support back then... Strange...yeah, seems they want us to buy the "cat in the sack" :D

eg i am absolutely not sure how much this acceleration will bring with older nvidia cards like the 6600's

also a weak avc decoder with gpu support might be still slower than a good avc decoder without gpu support (someone reported such results with cyberlink and the ati gpu vs. coreavc)

DanielSun

4th March 2006, 09:01

Well let's hope for CoreAVC adding GPU support in public version,and that competition will be end before it begins~

sjchmura

4th March 2006, 15:22

So if we have Nero 6.6 will this work with the 84 drivers or do we need to buy the NEW windvd (I have 5.0 OEM) or PowerDVD from cyberlink?

bond

4th March 2006, 15:27

So if we have Nero 6.6 will this work with the 84 drivers or do we need to buy the NEW windvd (I have 5.0 OEM) or PowerDVD from cyberlink?i dont think latest nero 6 and windvd support nvidia

powerdvd alone also doesnt support it, you need to buy the extra avc pack for it

Adub

4th March 2006, 18:57

How messed up is that? Personally the only software that I will buy will be the CoreAVC public version. I use MPC for everything, and if that doesn't work I use VLC. Why buy that crap software if there are almost always free alterantives:)

Oline 61

4th March 2006, 18:58

Okay, I have a GeForce 6600GT. What do I have to do to get h264 acceleration working? Do I just download the driver? I already have PureVideo DVD Decoder. What other software will I need?

FFWD

4th March 2006, 18:59

Why buy that crap software if there are almost always free alterantives:)I already own Nero 7, so I'm hoping for a free update around CeBit time..

Okay, I have a GeForce 6600GT. What do I have to do to get h264 acceleration working? Do I just download the driver? I already have PureVideo DVD Decoder. What other software will I need?http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_purevideo_requirements.html

Oline 61

4th March 2006, 19:13

I have Nero 6 with ShowTime, does that mean that it will work for me?

All latest versions for Nero 6 Burning Rom and NeroVision BTW.

bond

4th March 2006, 19:59

Oline 61

- if you have the agp version of your card it wont support avc
- nero doesnt seem to include gpu support atm (guessing)

Oline 61

4th March 2006, 20:01

But that page said that showtime supported it. I guess that must be a future prospect. I have PCI-E so I may try it anyway.

FFWD

4th March 2006, 20:02

Oline 61

- if you have the agp version of your card it wont support avcThe 6600GT AGP supports (http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html) H.264 Decode Acceleration

bond

4th March 2006, 20:17

The 6600GT AGP supports (http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html) H.264 Decode Accelerationups indeed, i mixed up 6800 with 6600 :devil:

dragongodz

6th March 2006, 01:22

a small review/test of Nvidia h264 decoding in french.
http://www.pcinpact.com/articles/a/178/1.htm
translated by google
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pcinpact.com%2Farticles%2Fa%2F178%2F1.htm&langpair=fr%7Cen&hl=en&safe=off&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

and as the link at the end of that says Nero showtime2 version now available in Nero 7.
http://www.nero.com/enu/NVidia.php

Oline 61

6th March 2006, 01:54

I take it that ShowTime from Nero 6 will never see this update?
That's a shame, 6 was so much better than 7.

dragongodz

6th March 2006, 02:17

I take it that ShowTime from Nero 6 will never see this update?
since Nero ,as with any company, would obviously want people to buy and/or upgrade to the latest version i doubt it will be in showtime(1) aswell.

That's a shame, 6 was so much better than 7.
the advantage of Nero 6 was it was split in bundles so you didnt have to download everything if you didnt want it. as such i havent even bothered to look at the trial version for 7 since its a 108mb download.

BetaBoy

6th March 2006, 03:52

The question is... (or maybe I have missed this somewhere) what actual AVC profile accelerations does it do?

bond

6th March 2006, 11:17

The question is... (or maybe I have missed this somewhere) what actual AVC profile accelerations does it do?afaik the acceleration isnt profile-related but feature related, like for example cabac and loop can be handled on the gpu...

CruNcher

7th March 2006, 04:35

so Nero decided for Nvidia's Purevideo approach

http://www.nero.com/enu/NVidia.php

wich doesn't really wonder if you compare the cards that support it vs ATI wich shoot themselves in the foot this time

dragongodz

7th March 2006, 13:25

CruNcher - so you missed this post i take it. ;)
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=795057#post795057

lexor

7th March 2006, 14:38

well I sure hope that NV's implementation of h264 acceleration is better than their mpeg2 acceleration. Playing a DVD with PureVideo in WMP10 is the same CPU usage as playing that DVD in MPC without PureVideo. I'm so glad I got to test it out at work for free before buying it for myself.

Mei

7th March 2006, 17:49

lexor

7th March 2006, 18:26

I think your WMP10 wasn't patched in order to use DirectX VA... On my Athlon 64 3200+ using GeForce 6150 Integrated GPU, I have an average CPU usage of 20% with the CPU at 1GHz (C'n'Q activated).

Also, the PureVideo codec is usable by any DirectShow compliant application as well as acceleration is usable by any DirectX VA application...

DirectX VA 2.0 will had H264/VC1 acceleration to the actual H261/H263/WMV ...
there is a patch for WMP10? why wouldn't NV tell that on their page, how would I have known that if I didn't ask here?

as for performance I get 20% but at 2.2Ghz A64 and 6600gt in both WMP10 and MPC.

FFWD

7th March 2006, 23:31

there is a patch for WMP10? why wouldn't NV tell that on their page, how would I have known that if I didn't ask here?http://home.arcor.de/carsthom/updates/wmp10_updates.html. You should be OK if you have WMP10 build 3923 or later.

Mei

8th March 2006, 11:44

FFWD says true.

This is the required update : http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=888656

xkodi

9th March 2006, 09:54

on my system both h264 and wmv accelerations don't work - 100% CPU load and very low fps, please help:

MB: Epox 8RDA6+Pro
CPU: Athlon XP 3200+, 400MHz FSB
Video card: Asus N6600TD, 128MB, AGP 8x
RAM: 2x512MB DDR400
OS: clean install of WinXP Pro+SP2
Drivers: ForceWare 84.12, nVidia nForce drivers 5.10

Software: NVIDIA PureVideo Decoder 1.02-196, WMP10 build 3923, latest Nero ShowTime 2 from here http://www.nero.com/enu/NVidia.php

Test files:
http://trailers.nerodigital.com/Disney/TheGreatestGame_HD_AVC.mp4
http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/a/d/eadb9b42-728b-42b0-bfdf-b472fa2a2464/Step_into_Liquid_1080.exe

Ronin-7

9th March 2006, 12:12

It has been working for me though the gains are variable it is almost as good as CoreAVC for CPU usage in some clips but not as good in others (trailers from Nero & Apple's sites).

Athlon 64 X2 4400
7800 GTX + ForceWare 84.12
Nero Showtime 2.1.0.15
PureVideo Decoder 1.02-196
WMP10 build 3990

lexor

9th March 2006, 14:39

yeah I stand by my previous statement, with the patches above installed, PureVideo in WMP is still less CPU efficient (by 2-6% in TaskManager) than built in decoder of MPC.

Stebs

9th March 2006, 18:29

Then why you dont use Nvidia PureVideo within MPC?
MPC with PureVideo is definitely faster than buildin MPC mpeg2 decoder.

lexor

9th March 2006, 20:16

Then why you dont use Nvidia PureVideo within MPC?
MPC with PureVideo is definitely faster than buildin MPC mpeg2 decoder.
I'm gonna sound like a n00b, but I don't know how to set that up :o

GmorG McRoth

9th March 2006, 20:39

it just works in MPC here.

for Transport stream mpeg2 with ac3 audio (HDTV 1080p)
it takes from 10% to 20%, in overlay mixer mode and 19% to 30% in VMR9 mode. MPC internal decoder spikes with CPU usage making video skippy.

(pentium4 prescott 3.0GHz (set in single threeded mode) and GeForce FX 5700

in HT mode:
9%-15% for VMR9 and 8%-12% for overlay mixer

Stebs

9th March 2006, 20:42

Very simple: in MPC, under Options, Internal Filters, disable Mpeg2-Video under Transform Filters. That disables MPCs internal mpeg2 Codec. Now, if PureVideo is correctly installed, when you play an mpeg2 file there should be appearing the Nvidia Logo in the Systray on the bottom right...

dragongodz

10th March 2006, 00:06

i think it should also be noted and made clear that from my understanding the latest purevideo does not do wmv or h264 decoding yet. for that you need either the nero mentioned above or powerdvd with mentioned plugin.

i actually see nero have also released a newer version 7 ,in their normal section, with a higher version number. however it says nothing about supporting nvidia decoding. so you may have to make sure you get that specific version above.

lexor

10th March 2006, 02:43

oh yeah, I was talking about current mpeg2 PureVidoe acceleration, and enabling it in MPC gave me another 3-5% CPU load reduction :) nice.

Stebs

10th March 2006, 12:47

Also try some complex HD mpeg2 files. Normal SD files mostly show no great difference (in Performance, but still in Image Quality).
Got one HD mpeg2 DVB-S file (.tp) that reaches 100% CPU with my XP3200+ and only 35-40% with PureVideo...

iwod

10th March 2006, 17:26

so i gather ATI AVAIO is free while Purevideo wont be?

Am i correct?

FFWD

10th March 2006, 17:38

Only PureVideo support for WMV/VC-1 is free.

bond

10th March 2006, 19:11

Only PureVideo support for WMV/VC-1 is free.as i understand it the purevideo specs are freely available
so i guess someone could implement it for libavcodec and purevideo would be free (except buying the nvidia card :D )

ToS_Maverick

11th March 2006, 00:17

i discovered an interesting phenomenon:

after installing the new 84.20 driver and the nvidia mpeg2 decoder, my VMR9 played videos without the brightness gain. all videos look just right. it's as if i play everything through ffdshow with high quality RGB output to VMR9.

right now i use the last free available CoreAVC test version and MPC, but ffdshow in YV12 mode also looks right with VMR9.

Oline 61

11th March 2006, 00:51

Yes, a lot of people have noticed this. The older drivers output the 16-235 video at 0-255 with no scaling, resulting in blacks being clipped to a dark grey. The new drivers do a proper 16-235 to 0-255 conversion the same as overlay and other renderers do.

lexor

11th March 2006, 15:08

as i understand it the purevideo specs are freely available
so i guess someone could implement it for libavcodec and purevideo would be free (except buying the nvidia card :D )
don't you mean DirectX VA is a freely available API infrastructure? So any one can write an app that works like PureVideo?

bond

11th March 2006, 15:16

don't you mean DirectX VA is a freely available API infrastructure? So any one can write an app that works like PureVideo?afaik there is no h.264 support in dxva meaning nvidia and atis avc support isnt real dxva but own stuff

Mei

13th March 2006, 18:15

afaik there is no h.264 support in dxva meaning nvidia and atis avc support isnt real dxva but own stuff
DXVA 2.0 will supports H264.

Currently DXVA supports H261/H263/WMV.

Sharktooth

13th March 2006, 18:46

DXVA 2.0 will be for WinVista only...

Mei

13th March 2006, 22:56

DXVA 2.0 will be with DX10 ... so yes with Vista only is the rumors becomes true.

In fact, when H264 HD will be avaiable, Vista will be the new OS that the common user will use.

Mei

13th March 2006, 22:57

DXVA 2.0 will be with DX10 ... so yes with Vista only is the rumors becomes true.

In fact, when H264 HD will be avaiable, Vista will be the new OS that the common user will use.

Sharktooth

13th March 2006, 23:19

There will be no DX 10.
The new graphic framework will be Windows Graphics Foundation 1.0 and 2.0.
Where 1.0 is supported by the actual generation video cards...and 2.0 will be supported by the next generation video cards.

Deinorius

13th March 2006, 23:37

That's wrong.

The correct name (at the end :rolleyes: ) ist Direct3D10, what we understand for the Graphics-API. Could it be, that the whole DirectX API will be called WGF?
But I don't know, if they want to continue using the name WGF 1.0 for the newer DX9c?
That's all very stupid.

Sharktooth

14th March 2006, 00:57

Dx 9c is Dx 9c...WGF 1.0 will be the new graphic framework in WinVista and will be supported by the actual video cards and will provide partial acceleration for the Vista UI.
WGF 2.0 will be supported by future generations of video cards and will provide full acceleration for the Vista UI.
However, as i said, i never heard of DX 10...

Deinorius

14th March 2006, 01:55

WGF 1.0 is DirectX 9c. It's just another name with another function for WinVista.
It won't be called DirectX 10 but Direct3D 10.
I searched for the news (http://www.3dcenter.org/news/2006/woche06.php) (sorry, it's just german) and the name WGF won't be used anymore.
DirectX (without any number) ist the combination of DirectX 9c, Direct3D 10 and the other DirectX Components.
That's the way it is.
I know, M$ needed a long time only to find the perfect name für the new API and they chose the old name. :devil:

Airw0lf

19th March 2006, 01:49

Yeah.. CoreAVC pretty much pwns the house.

I tried out the apple HD gallery the other day by remuxing the mov to mkv and forcing coreavc. 30% cpu utalization for 1080p at full speed playback whereas quicktime could not even play 15fps.

awesome. im buying it :)

Just been trying out CoreAVC on an Apple HD trailer (1080i). Performance isn't all that stellar for me (P4 3.4GHz, 1GB RAM, XPSP2). Video plays nice enough for a few secs, then drops some frames, then plays nicely, drops frames...Basically I am not seeing any real improvement from the latest version of QuickTime. QT plays slowly at ~20 fps but doesn't skip out huge chunks of frames.

I am using Media Player Classic, CoreAVC, CoreAAC as well. I basically renamed the .mov to .mp4 and used Haali's media splitter.

So I am interested to know why you remuxed to mkv? Did you just put the video/audio in a new matroska container, or did you actually transcode as well?

Airw0lf

19th March 2006, 01:58

the advantage of Nero 6 was it was split in bundles so you didnt have to download everything if you didnt want it. as such i havent even bothered to look at the trial version for 7 since its a 108mb download.

I agree. I am interested in trying their showtime 2, but I don't want any of their other useless junk. They are so obsessed with making people pay for/use all of their products that they miss out on people who want a specific thing.

NVidia did the right thing with their PureVideo MPEG decoder - it's not bundled with any bloated "player" or "media center". You just get the codecs, you are free to use them in whatever player you wish. A Nice user manual is also included so that you know how to configure it. That's all you need.

BetaBoy

19th March 2006, 03:10

Just been trying out CoreAVC on an Apple HD trailer (1080i). Performance isn't all that stellar for me (P4 3.4GHz, 1GB RAM, XPSP2).

What kind of video card? 1080i with even the old 0.04 CoreAVC should rock with your PC specs and a good GPU.

Sharktooth

19th March 2006, 03:16

I am using Media Player Classic, CoreAVC, CoreAAC as well. I basically renamed the .mov to .mp4 and used Haali's media splitter.

mov is not mp4 and you should NEVER rename .mov to .mp4.
demux the streams and remux them with the appropriate tools instead.

HookedOnTV

19th March 2006, 04:48

1080i...CoreAVC... I thought interlaced wasn't supported yet?

BetaBoy

19th March 2006, 05:19

/me notes me bad... thought he had 1080p... and yes interlaced is complete.

Airw0lf

19th March 2006, 11:16

What kind of video card? 1080i with even the old 0.04 CoreAVC should rock with your PC specs and a good GPU.

Geforce 6800 PCI-X.

mov is not mp4 and you should NEVER rename .mov to .mp4.
demux the streams and remux them with the appropriate tools instead.

Yes I was just reading about that. I got 'mkvmerge gui' and remuxed my mov file. I am still losing frames for an average frame rate of about 19-20.

1080i...CoreAVC... I thought interlaced wasn't supported yet?

I *think* my clip is 1080i. It is the V for Vendetta trailer, 1920 x 1080 resolution. Do I need to find a progressive clip? Could someone just tell me a good clip to test with. At this point all I care about is verifying that it's all working.

Also, I only have v0.0.0.4 of CoreAVC, so it's possible that it's not the latest version.

Update:
I just tried out the "Magnificent Desolation" clip, which is called "imax-desolation_m1080p2.mov". I assume this means it is a progressive clip. Remuxed to mkv and it did play fine. CPU usage got to over 40% on a couple of occasions, but no frames dropped.

Avish

19th March 2006, 15:53

What kind of video card? 1080i with even the old 0.04 CoreAVC should rock with your PC specs and a good GPU.
"old 0.04 CoreAVC"? Is there any newer version available?

Eretria-chan

19th March 2006, 16:00

Yeah... but not public. Some testers with SMP systems recieved a private beta version with smp and interlace support.

xkodi

21st March 2006, 12:37

http://www.nero.com/nero7/eng/Nero_ShowTime_2_Release_Notes.html

Nero ShowTime - Release Notes

Version Number: 2.1.0.17

Release Date: March 06, 2006
New features

* NVidia hardware acceleration support for H.264 decoding

but it still doesn't work for me and i get only 15fps using Nero ShowTime 2.1.0.17 and ForceWare 84.21, i have GF6600 made by Asus, for example when i use CoreAVC i get 24fps and i have only an old AthlonXP 3200+, so is my GF6600 broken or nvidia h264 acceleration is just a marketing trick

hwti

21st March 2006, 12:58

with my 6800GS, nero showtime 2.1.0.17 and 84.21

When I enable hardware acceleration, CPU use increase, and for 1080p30 I have image corruption (green squares) with 100% CPU

xkodi

21st March 2006, 14:25

with my 6800GS, nero showtime 2.1.0.17 and 84.21

When I enable hardware acceleration, CPU use increase, and for 1080p30 I have image corruption (green squares) with 100% CPU

same here, so i am not alone and i really start to think that nvidia lies to us about the h264 acceleration or if i am not right nvidia should tell us why there is no improvement in performance with our cards

slavickas

21st March 2006, 16:23

with my 6800GS, nero showtime 2.1.0.17 and 84.21

When I enable hardware acceleration, CPU use increase, and for 1080p30 I have image corruption (green squares) with 100% CPU
agp or pci-e? as agp version uses older chip which dont support h.264

hwti

21st March 2006, 16:45

It's a PCI-E version.
May be it's a Nero bug and not nvidia one, but I can't test since powerdvd demo doesn't have acceleration.

xkodi

21st March 2006, 17:51

It's a PCI-E version.
May be it's a Nero bug and not nvidia one, but I can't test since powerdvd demo doesn't have acceleration.

is WMV HD acceleration works for you, because for me it also doesn't work, that's why at least in my case i believe is not a software issue

Stebs

21st March 2006, 23:16

For wmv HD acceleration, you need a patch from Microsoft.
This Patch is NOT distributed through Windows Update (ask Microsoft why).
With that Patch, acceleration definitely works.

Dont know about h.264 not working, but it may well be a Problem with the Nero-Software.

dragongodz

22nd March 2006, 00:26

Stebs

22nd March 2006, 01:28

hmm seems nvidia is saying no 6800 agp card will do not only no do wmv but also no h264 decoding aswell.
http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html
this is very strange since the only thing not working in the early chips was reportadly wmv. also with the pci-e versions only the 6800 ultra and 6800gt are the ones unable to decode wmv and h264..
:confused:
This ist not strange, this is very very strange!
This must have been changed very lately, I could swear that before, on this list AGP GeForce 6800, 6800GS and 6800XT could do AT LEAST wmv accel.
for example 1 guy gets acceleration with a 6200 and great picture while on his other pc, with 6600gt, he gets a corrupt picture when playing with WMP10 ,even with fresh install. this is using powerdvd plus h264 pack.Had an AGP 6600GT for a short time, and HD wmv accel. with the Patch did work very well (albeit only with Windows Media Player, not with MPC).
The "famous" file Step_into_Liquid_1080p.wmv was at 100% CPU and Audio not in snync after some time with my XP3200+ without accel. and with accel. only about 40% CPU!
Now I have AGP 6800GT without wmv+h.264 accel., but I knew that before... (mpeg2 accel. works fine though with Purevideo).

i believe its hotfix windowsmedia10-kb888656-x86-global-enu.exe ,dont have the link handy sorry.Yes, thats it! Sometimes you also need that patch before: WindowsMedia-KB891122-x86.exe -It must be in the right language Version (unlike the other patch).
Dont have links either, otherwise would have posted them.

dragongodz

22nd March 2006, 02:20

This must have been changed very lately, I could swear that before, on this list AGP GeForce 6800, 6800GS and 6800XT could do AT LEAST wmv accel.
yes i remember that ages ago it was only the ultra and gt for agp that couldnt do wmv same as their pci-e parts. to now not only say no 6800 agp,especially newer models, can not only not do wmv but also not h264 is bewildering. the 6600 and 6200 agp's have been out for much longer than things like the 6800gs agp and yet they can do h264 and wmv while the 6800gs cant ? nvidia needs to explain that one.

Stebs

22nd March 2006, 03:19

The 6800 (not Ultra or GT) for AGP was the first part that was not the old flawed chip with 16 pipelines. It was smaller with 12 Pipelines and therefore they changed the chip and - as everybody thought until now - also fixed the accel. Bug. Same thing with the GS and XT that came later.
Perhaps there are a small number of old 6800gt/ultra chips out there that were relabeled to 6800 ,GS or XT -so now they can no more say ALL 6800 , GS and XT can do accel. ?
Or simply a mistake on the Site?
We will see...

xkodi

22nd March 2006, 05:23

i have 6600 AGP and hwti have 6800GS PCI-E and according to http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_support.html both supports h264 and WMV HD acceleration, and if we assume current version of Nero Showtime have problems with h264 acceleration

why then WMV HD also doesn't work for me - without the patches from MS i get 15-18fps and with patched WMP10 only 5-8fps when playing "Step into Liquid 1080p", not only the patches i am using are the same mentioned above, but i am sure they are correct and works, because i also have access to laptop with ATI X700 and on the laptop after patching WMP10, CPU usage drops to under 50% when playing "Step into Liquid 1080p", i also try the same 6600 AGP with another PC and there is no difference in results, so it looks like my 6600 AGP is completely uncapable to do WMV HD

slavickas

22nd March 2006, 10:47

yes i remember that ages ago it was only the ultra and gt for agp that couldnt do wmv same as their pci-e parts. to now not only say no 6800 agp,especially newer models, can not only not do wmv but also not h264 is bewildering. the 6600 and 6200 agp's have been out for much longer than things like the 6800gs agp and yet they can do h264 and wmv while the 6800gs cant ? nvidia needs to explain that one.

GeForce 6800 Ultra NV40/NV45 130 нм AGP/PCI-E
GeForce 6800 GT NV40/NV45 130 нм AGP/PCI-E
GeForce 6800 GS NV42 110 нм PCI-E
GeForce 6800 GS NV40 130 нм AGP
GeForce 6800 NV40 130 нм AGP

IIRC NV40 and NV45 were buggy ones

Sharktooth

22nd March 2006, 15:16

yeah... older 6800 chips (nv40/nv45) were the buggy ones.

Danj

22nd March 2006, 22:54

This whole PureVideo thing confuses me. Do you have to get one of these third party programs like WinDVD or Nero Showtime to be able to have H.264 acceleration on nVidia cards, or can you just get PureVideo? If you can just get PureVideo, how do you enable it or use it or whatever?

Deinorius

23rd March 2006, 00:08

Forget Purevideo!
Look at this pdf (http://www.alphamoose.de/h264.pdf). CoreAVC is still more efficient than anything else. German Thread here (http://www.computerbase.de/forum/showthread.php?t=190147).
He tested with perfmon of WinXP on an Athlon 64 X2 4200+.

Stebs

23rd March 2006, 00:22

PureVideo is great for high Quality mpeg2, but I agree that CoreAVC is simply amazing for h.264 decoding.
Take the Apple Quicktime movs with AVC and simply laugh at the very, very disappointing 10 fp with Quicktime for Windows.
Take MPC and ffdshow and be amazed to see those same movies running without hicks at 80% CPU usage.
THEN, take CoreAVC and be blown away when those same movies only use 40% CPU...
Now compare Quicktime again with CoreAVC ;)

BetaBoy

23rd March 2006, 02:00

All... not sure if you all have kept up with the latest CoreAVC thread... but our 'newest' pre 1.0 Professional Edition is about 15% faster if you have a Hyperthreaded enabled CPU (up to 4 CPU's are supported).

We will launch it sometime next week @ www.coreavc.com

dragongodz

23rd March 2006, 02:37

so it looks like my 6600 AGP is completely uncapable to do WMV HD
after doing a bit of searching(which is always a good idea) it seems some people have found the 80 series of drivers have this problem for the 6600 series. going back to 78 drivers apparently gets the acceleration working for wmv.

Do you have to get one of these third party programs like WinDVD or Nero Showtime to be able to have H.264 acceleration on nVidia cards
currently yes. though either the drivers or these programs or even both are showing some bugs, fail to accelerate or picture corruption, at the moment with some cards/systems.

Forget Purevideo!
Look at this pdf. CoreAVC is still more efficient than anything else.
not sure if you all have kept up with the latest CoreAVC thread
this thread is about hardware acceleration of h264 with nvidia gfx cards and the current state of software and drivers etc. its not about coreavc. as BetaBoy said, coreavc has its own thread. so if you just feel like praising it and saying "dont use anything else" please post it there.

xkodi

23rd March 2006, 07:30

after doing a bit of searching(which is always a good idea) it seems some people have found the 80 series of drivers have this problem for the 6600 series. going back to 78 drivers apparently gets the acceleration working for wmv.

several minutes ago installed ForceWare 78.82 and there is no difference in comparison with 84.21 - 100% CPU usage and several fps;

so exactly which 78.xx drivers is working for sure

xkodi

23rd March 2006, 07:55

exactly which 78.xx drivers is working for sure

i try with 78.01 and i can confirm that 78.01 has working WMV HD acceleration for GF6600 AGP, with Step_into_Liquid_1080.wmv CPU usage is under 50%, but things are not perfect - there is a problem with audio syncronization

devaster

23rd March 2006, 08:16

xkodi

23rd March 2006, 10:25

i have the latest driver from nvidia (84.21) on my NV6600, and nvidias purevideo decoder and when used the purevideo decoder the cpu usage drop down at half (A64 3000+) (from 40% to 20%)...
i think it is working ...

when i use last elecard decoders (AVC/ASP/mpeg2 released feb. 9,2006; have implemented and using DXVA), the effect is the same ....

last nero decoder (AVC/ASP/mpeg2) is using DXVA too (not only implemented how before) ...

Nvidia Purevideo decoder is only MPEG2 decoder using DXVA, it even works with several years old GPU from ATI like Radeon 7000, and here we are discussing h264 and WMV HD acceleration of GeForce 6 and 7, which is different thing than MPEG2 DXVA capable decoders

try the following video http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/a/d/eadb9b42-728b-42b0-bfdf-b472fa2a2464/Step_into_Liquid_1080.exe and see your CPU usage

dragongodz

23rd March 2006, 12:45

but things are not perfect - there is a problem with audio syncronization
yes i saw that mentioned aswell. specifically what i read was the sync problem is with vmr mode while no sync problem with overlay. however overlay doesnt get the same acceleration as vmr(meaning overlay is much slower, closer to no acceleration apparently) for some reason. as i said, this is what i have read on other forums, not my own experiences.

the point is wmv acceleration does kind of work. you get a lot lower cpu usage as you noted but there is a bug with sync. apparently the 6200 and 7800 series dont have this problem.

relevance is that h264 acceleration is also very new and these are beta drivers and early versions of decoding software. as such they are showing plenty of bugs right now. i know i am not upgrading or buying any software until i see whats stable and working right. ;)

oh and theres a new forceware out, 84.25 with the only change mentioned(after 84.21) is some compatability fixes. :)

hwti

23rd March 2006, 14:27

is WMV HD acceleration works for you, because for me it also doesn't work, that's why at least in my case i believe is not a software issue

with 84.21
WMV acceleration works :
step_into_liquid_1080.wmv
without acceleration (WMP9 or old WMP10) : 60% mean CPU usage
with WMP10 + KB888656 + KB891122 : 30% mean CPU usage

But still no H264 acceleration, and I even have another bug :
On windows 2003 with nero showtime and H264 acceleration enabled, if I press ctrl+alt+suppr and want to show task manager (which resets VMR renderer, some softwares need restarting to get the image back) I get a BSOD in nv4_mini.sys

xkodi

23rd March 2006, 19:20

after a lot of tests, there are only a few versions of ForceWare after 78.01, capable to do WMV HD acceleration with my AGP GF6600-based Asus N6600TD, here is the chart:

ASUS N6600TD (GF6600 AGP)

FW WMVHD h264

78.01 OK NA
78.03 OK NA
78.05 OK NA
78.10 OK NA
78.11 OK NA
78.30 BAD NA
78.82 BAD NA

80.40 OK NA

81.26 BAD NA
81.33 BAD NA
81.40 BAD NA

83.91 BAD NA

84.21 BAD BAD
84.25 BAD BAD

the more interesting thing i found during the test is that if i replace nv4_disp.dll from not working version with one from working, for instance i replace "nv4_disp.dll 78.30" with "nv4_disp.dll 78.11" i get WMV HD acceleration with 78.30, so it looks like that the problem is in nv4_disp.dll ...

tomos

1st May 2006, 11:52

has anyone had this working with h264 content?

tried the latest beta drivers, as well as the latest purevideo and no joy getting it working in MPC.

i'm going to try the latest nero showtime since a google search showed someone using that successfully.

migor

5th May 2006, 07:55

Latest Nero's 7.2 ShowTime 3 already really supports NVIDIA
h264 hardware acceleration. At least it works on my 7600GT. When HW acceleration is turned on, CPU usage drops approx. by 30% (less, than in DVD case).

DanielSun

6th May 2006, 13:43

powerDVD7has been lanched，anyone tested it yet？

DanielSun

6th May 2006, 16:10

Nero ShowTime hardware H.264 acceleration works for me too!

tomos

6th May 2006, 16:41

which forceware do you use? nothing works here :(

p.s. which card?

migor

7th May 2006, 19:30

I'm using:

ForceWare 84.43 (beta)
PureVideo 1.02.196

The computer configuration is:

Athlon X2-3800
DFI NF4 Ultra-D
2x512MB PC3200 Ballistix Ram
eVGA 7600 GT CO
Windows MCE 2005

Jan Marijniszoon

8th May 2006, 23:52

I got an Nvidia 6200 AGP

Nero Showtime says that it uses hardware accelaration, but I am getting extreme strange artifacts.

Nick [D]vB

14th May 2006, 23:25

I don't know if this has been posted in here before but it makes very interesting reading!

http://www.behardware.com/news/8117/coreavc-stronger-than-avivo-purevideo.html

Sharktooth

23rd May 2006, 18:10

a new beta driver is available from nvidia with a lot of improvments in purevideo area:
New NVIDIA PureVideo features and enhancements. Please visit the NVIDIA PureVideo website for more information on PureVideo technology and system requirements.

* Adds noise reduction post processing
* Adds image sharpening post processing
* Improved Inverse telecine algorithm
* Improved de-interlacing algorithm
* Improved compatibility with third party MPEG-2 decoders
URL: http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_winxp_2k_32bit_91.28.html
As a side note, OpenGL 2.0 is supported... finally...

Carpo

23rd May 2006, 18:13

shame they shiped my 6800 ultra with broken chip :(

sjchmura

23rd May 2006, 19:06

7800GTX and Purevideo / Nero ?

So: I have purevideo .192 version (newest). Can the new NERO codecs enable the h264 acceleration? I have not updated this in some time and am scared (use this on media center). as you know when MCE works it is ROCK SOLID so I just wanted to know can you use the Nero 6 ULTRA drivers to get h264 accel or do you need to upgrade yo 7.0 (that still is not direct show compatible! with other players then SHOWTIME~!~~)

Steve

Sharktooth

23rd May 2006, 19:25

Nero6 does NOT support purevideo.

tomos

23rd May 2006, 19:35

as said, you need nero7 or powerdvd 7 with AVC support i think

Stebs

23rd May 2006, 19:51

As a side note, OpenGL 2.0 is supported... finally...
AFAIK Definitely not, since OpenGL 2.0 is supported since quite some time (at least since first 80 releases or even earlier).
And yes, I saw "Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0c and OpenGL® 2.0 support" too, but Nvidia supports this NOT since this Driver (just as DirectX 9.0 is supported since quite some time...)
shame they shiped my 6800 ultra with broken chip :(
Well, at least not completely broken, only WMV and (far more disappointing) h264 hardware acceleration.
All mpeg2 gimmicks DO work.
I did first have a 6600GT with all video accel. things working but I grabbed a 6800GT for a very reasonable Price because I wanted a last faster AGP card (but knowing I would loose some video accel. capabilities).
Seriously, I do not regret this since wmv accel. is not THAT important (and my XP 3200+ can still handle 99,9% of those few wmv Trailers). For h264 there is CoreAVC which is even better than normal hardware accel.

Sharktooth

23rd May 2006, 20:13

AFAIK Definitely not, since OpenGL 2.0 is supported since quite some time (at least since first 80 releases or even earlier).
And yes, I saw "Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0c and OpenGL® 2.0 support" too, but Nvidia supports this NOT since this Driver (just as DirectX 9.0 is supported since quite some time...)
Uhm, spoken too early.
OpenGL 2.0 support is not there even with these drivers.
Nvidia says it's there but it isnt... or at least it's far from complete.
80.xx series was the same... no OpenGL 2.0 support even if they claimed it...

Stebs

23rd May 2006, 20:18

Nvidia says it's there but it isnt... or at least it's far from complete.Ok, you got me curious now.
How you came to this conclusion/tested this?

Sharktooth

23rd May 2006, 20:23

get the opengl conformance test and run it.
it fails several tests.

Stebs

23rd May 2006, 20:35

Ok thanks.
But I suppose those failures will mostly have nothing to do with features needed for common games and apps? - Anyway, a pity those drivers are still not 100% compliant, but I guess then that other Vendors will not do much better.
I only knew the OpenGL Extension Viewer from Realtech VR...

Sharktooth

23rd May 2006, 20:39

well, developers know what features are broken or unsupported and they avoid them.
but claiming OpenGL 2.0 compatibility (or even lower coz it fails also 1.x tests) without having passed the conformance test is not that "fair"...
however others does it as well, so...

sjchmura

24th May 2006, 02:55

Is Nero7 Finally "unbroken" so he codecs can be used under MCE and other DirectShow software (zoomplayer) like Nero6???

Sharktooth

24th May 2006, 02:57

Dunno, i use ffdshow, coreavc and haali splitter but the last time i heard nero 7 filters were a bit pricky.

sjchmura

24th May 2006, 22:06

Nero 7: Showtime only ....

That is the reason i did NOT upgrade (for $20) - was this issue. I find it CRAZY as their filters were GREAT under media center etc.

Nick [D]vB

27th May 2006, 18:09

Can anyone tell me how Cyberlink's H.264 acceleration scales across the Geforce 7 cards?

Because the Nvidia chips have dedicated SIMD hardware [instead of using shaders like ATI]

is the performance still relative to their 3D performance?

I am hoping it scales with clock speed so the 7600GT will give similar performance to the 7900GT

[because they have the same clock speed]

Has anyone done any benchmarks showing the % CPU load reduction with the different GF7 cards?

I have heard that the 7600GS cards do not perform well, is this a driver issue or does the 128bit memory bus cripple acceleration in some way?

BTW, I thought the decoder from PDVD7 Deluxe already supported GPU acceleration on NVIDIA cards "out of the box"

but I keep on hearing that Cyberlink will be releasing H.264 acceleration packs for PowerDVD7 later in the year???

If it does already support it is it better that the add-on pack for PDVD6 or is it the same decoder?

Sorry for all the questions,

Thanks for your help,

Nick

bond

27th May 2006, 19:48

cyberlink has already released versions of their decoder for ati and nvidia, but the one in powerdvd seem to support none

Nick [D]vB

28th May 2006, 17:20

So you still need to buy one of these:

http://www.cyberlink.com/cinema/ati/h264_decoder/enu/index.jsp

http://www.cyberlink.com/oem/nVidia/0602/enu/index.jsp

...even if you have already forked out $70 for PowerDVD 7 Deluxe!!!

I wonder why is the NVIDIA version three times the price of the ATI version? It's only about twice as fast...

http://www.behardware.com/news/8117/coreavc-stronger-than-avivo-purevideo.html

An enhancement pack providing optimized H.264 performance for ATI® Avivo™ and NVIDIA® PureVideo™ graphics cards will be released later in the year.

http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/2497/cyberlink_launches_powerdvd

Does anyone know when the PowerDVD7 add-on packs will be out?

I am thinking about getting a new graphics card soon, I assume the 7600GT beats the X1800GTO at H.264 accelleration

but if it doesn't I would prefer to get the X1800GTO because it beats the 7600GT at 3D [apart from OpenGL] and is cheaper in the UK.

If anyone has tested these two cards with the Cyberlink decoders please let me know what you found.

Thanks,
Nick

.

Nick [D]vB

30th May 2006, 17:33

cyberlink has already released versions of their decoder for ati and nvidia, but the one in powerdvd seem to support none
It looks like support for NVIDIA and ATI has just been added to PowerDVD Deluxe:

http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/download/trials_1_ENU.html

I wonder if they will still release improved add-on packs at some point?

Jay Bee

30th May 2006, 19:32

vB']It looks like support for NVIDIA and ATI has just been added to PowerDVD Deluxe:

Confirmed. I downloaded thw new demo you linked to, Nvidia Purevideo is supported and the performance is very impressive. :)

Some quick tests:

The BBC test clips linked to here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=826082#post826082) now play perfectly with 50 fps and CPU at 30-80% load. Without hardware acceleration they play at about 15 fps. That's an improvement of over 300%!

With other clips and outside of PowerDVD performance is a bit random, depending on renderer and clips used. You really have to try different combinations of splitters, players, renderers and decoders to find the best combo for each clip. For example the Cyberlink splitter causes stuttering in an MPEG2 clip that the Nvidia splitter plays fine, a German AVC sample crashes PowerDVD but works in VLC, selfmade x264 clips look rubbish and blocky with hardware acceleration on etc.

So still a long way to go for AVC but when the Cyberlink/Purevideo decoder does work it really flies.

Nick [D]vB: Since the BBC clips work doesn't this mean that your football HD problem is solved? (or in fact has been for quite some time?)

My specs:
AMD Opteron 144 @2.5 Ghz
Geforce 6600 GT 128 MB AGP
Asrock Dual SataII
512 MB RAM

Nick [D]vB

30th May 2006, 19:41

Nick [D]vB: Since the BBC clips work doesn't this mean that your football HD problem is solved?
Not quite, my X800 doesn't support H/A and my X1800's H/A sucks, it only takes about -10% CPU load.

The new version is a bit faster for me even without H/A, I get ~24fps on my 3GHz AlthonFX but it is not stable [drops to ~15fps on fast pans etc].

It will be interesting to see how it performs on my new dual core rig,

the latest VSS3 beta is much slower than I'd hoped so it looks like CoreAVC is the way to go...

Cheers,
Nick

Theliel

31st May 2006, 22:39

woww, i get it!!
I try nero7, WinDVD... and nothing. Only soft that i can doing run hard acell in X64 (with purevideo) are new powerDVD7 trial.

Some test...

TheGreatestGame_HD_AVC.mp4 in nerodigital

CoreAVC 1.0 and zoomplayer I get a 40% in the best case and 80% in the worse in CPU load (is more irregular)
PowerDVd without purevideo CPU load go to 90-96% CPU load estable
PowerDVD WITH purevideo 20% in best case and only 40-50% in the worse!!

The best solutions... CoreAVC with Purevideo support ¿when? :P

devaster

5th June 2006, 15:34

I have asus 6600 256 MB silent and amd64 3000+ 1 GB RAM and z-tweaked 91.28:
nero showtime (from 7.2.0.3b) full PAL MPEG4 AVC : 25-30 %
coreavc in mpc : about 30 %
powerdvd bundled with my card: 20% and lower ...

jok

23rd June 2006, 15:10

devaster

24th June 2006, 09:28

have you a dx9c installed ???

JohnnyFu

25th June 2006, 22:10

Hi,
I have a 6600GT AGP on a nForce2 system and can't get DXVA working with Cyberlink 7 H264 decoder (CL264dec.ax build 1.7.0.1626 -> the build that supports nVidia purevideo DXVA).
I've tried many nVidia drivers (84.21, 91.28 and 91.31) and many players (also graphedit) without success.

IMHO the problem might be related to one of the following:
- my XFX 6600GT is one of the first released (November 2004)
- DXVA H264 doesn't work on AthlonXP/nForce 2 system
- DXVA H264 doesn't work on system with ACPI disabled (as mine)

If anyone has DXVA H264 working with a 6600 AGP and nForce2 motherboard let me know, thank you.

Regards,
Jok

I had the same trouble on my old 6600GT AGP card... forgett it... you will never get h.264.... the will not support this cards anymore i think. i wrote to the inquirer and emailed with nvidias tech marketing manger europe... nothings happend...

btw, its not an nforce2 problem, i had a KT880 chipset and acpi was alway enabled.
my MSI 6600GT ViVo was bought early in 2006.

jok

26th June 2006, 11:25

JohnnyFu

26th June 2006, 21:05

Yes, I've dx9c installed (updated to May 2006).
It is not a 6600GT AGP problem, on another forum there are people that got DXVA H264 working with Cyberlink filter build 1.7.0.1626, P4 3GHz CPU and 91.28/91.31 driver.

Any other suggestion?

Thanks,
Jok

i think there was one report somewhere in a forum, of working h.264 h/a on a 6600GT AGP, but i´m in doubt about the technical skills of that user.

jok

27th June 2006, 16:00

i think there was one report somewhere in a forum, of working h.264 h/a on a 6600GT AGP, but i´m in doubt about the technical skills of that user.

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

Jay Bee

27th June 2006, 18:48

Maybe it would'nt hurt if you told us exactly what doesn't work. Is the DXVA setting available in PDVD? Is the image corrupted? Is it a performance problem? What are you testing?

My 6600 GT AGP works with CL264dec.ax 1.7.0.1626 in PDVD and with some glitches in Zoom Player using 9x.xx drivers. Also deblocking seems to be deactivated, don't know what it's like on other cards.

More Specs: A64 CPU ,Uli Chipset, PNY GPU

Theliel

28th June 2006, 11:27

jok

28th June 2006, 11:51

My 6600 GT AGP works with CL264dec.ax 1.7.0.1626 in PDVD and with some glitches in Zoom Player using 9x.xx drivers. Also deblocking seems to be deactivated, don't know what it's like on other cards.

More Specs: A64 CPU ,Uli Chipset, PNY GPU

Thank you for your report, what Forceware driver version are you using?
I've PowerDVD7 with CL264dec.ax 1.7.0.1626 and DXVA setting is available both in PowerDVD7 and directly on Cyberlink H264 filter using graphedit. But it is not working: while playing a H264 content in PowerDVD7 the information tab show DXVA "not in use", CPU usage is at 100% and the video stutters a lot.
The same thing happens with graphedit (using CL264dec.ax filter) and DVBViewer.
I've tried a lot of Apple H264 trailers, some .ts H264 and live sat TV with H264 channels. I've tried these Forceware driver versions: 84.21, 91.28 and 91.31.

There must be something wrong on my system, but what?
My 6600GT AGP is a XFX dual DVI with 128 MB bought on November 2004. Perhaps a recent GPU revision fixed the problem...

Any suggestions?

Thank you,
Jok

jok

28th June 2006, 12:02

6600GT AGP work fine.

first at all:

PureVideo 1.02-196
ttp://download.nvidia.com/Windows/dvd_decoder/1.02-196/NVIDIA_PureVideo_Decoder_Trial_1.02-196.exe

Driver 91.31:

ftp://download.nvidia.com/windows/91.31/91.31_winxp2kmce_international_whql.exe

PowerDVD TRIAL!!:(only work for me the trial version):

http://download.cyberlink.com/ftpdload/trial/PowerDVD_Trial.exe

I have a lot of problems with H264 and pure video. Only way to use was with powerDVD7 trial. Nero show time 3 nothing, and WinDVD7 nothing

The problem here is only for DXVA H264, PureVideo decoder 1.02-196 has nothing to do with it as it is a MPEG2 decoder. However I've installed that version on my system.
Also the versione of PowerDVD7 you linked is not the correct one as it doesn't support DXVA on H264 content.

Have you checked the DXVA status ("in use" or "not in use") in PowerDVD7 while playing a H264 content?

Regards,
Jok

Jay Bee

28th June 2006, 19:18

Thank you for your report, what Forceware driver version are you using?
I've PowerDVD7 with CL264dec.ax 1.7.0.1626 and DXVA setting is available both in PowerDVD7 and directly on Cyberlink H264 filter using graphedit. But it is not working: while playing a H264 content in PowerDVD7 the information tab show DXVA "not in use", CPU usage is at 100% and the video stutters a lot.
The same thing happens with graphedit (using CL264dec.ax filter) and DVBViewer.
I've tried a lot of Apple H264 trailers, some .ts H264 and live sat TV with H264 channels. I've tried these Forceware driver versions: 84.21, 91.28 and 91.31.

There must be something wrong on my system, but what?
My 6600GT AGP is a XFX dual DVI with 128 MB bought on November 2004. Perhaps a recent GPU revision fixed the problem...

Any suggestions?

Thank you,
Jok

Sorry. I can't really think of anything you could try. I've attached a few screenshots you could compare.

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 :(

6600GT AGP work fine.

first at all:

PureVideo 1.02-196
ttp://download.nvidia.com/Windows/dvd_decoder/1.02-196/NVIDIA_PureVideo_Decoder_Trial_1.02-196.exe

Driver 91.31:

ftp://download.nvidia.com/windows/91.31/91.31_winxp2kmce_international_whql.exe

PowerDVD TRIAL!!:(only work for me the trial version):

http://download.cyberlink.com/ftpdload/trial/PowerDVD_Trial.exe

I have a lot of problems with H264 and pure video. Only way to use was with powerDVD7 trial. Nero show time 3 nothing, and WinDVD7 nothing

The purevideo decoder is only an MPEG-2 decoder not H264 (as already mentioned). Nvidia's marketing is just confusing people.

Nero Showtime demo should work but it isn't very fast anyway. And you need a special version:
http://www.nero.com/enu/NVidia.php

I don't think WinDVD supports H264 DXVA.