Evaluation of HEVC decoders (SW, Hybrid and HW)

[NikosD]

Originally Posted by mariner

[U]
3. If DXVA Checker shows HEVC_VLD_Main10, how does one tell if it is full or partial hardware decoding

I agree with the previous post of huhn, but I want to add a few things.

For HD 620, what you see in DXVA Checker is full hardware decoding for all codecs/resolutions.

But generally speaking you can't say for sure.

For me, the best way to find out what is really going on, is by monitoring CPU and mainly GPU loading while decoding in DXVA native mode (LAV) and pure decoding DXVA Checker benchmark (not playback mode)

Full hardware decoding gives almost 0% usage for both CPU and GPU loading.

If you see a two digit figure for GPU loading like 20% or more, then it's probably hybrid decoding.

For the rest of your questions, huhn has already replied.

BTW, my first research regarding VP9 8K 10bit gave me nothing.

Almost all of the Google results gave me a YouTube announcement regarding 8K VP9 10bit HDR support, which seems that it doesn't exist.

[mariner]

Thanks for the kind reply huhn and Nikos.

1. So the HD620 should have no issues with the likes of 400mbps Jellyfish and MBC UHD Music Core GFriend - Rough (4in1). Any known test clip that it cannot handle?
2. A question for those with experience running Win7 on Kabylake. Is the good old DXVA2 up to the task?

Many thanks and best regards,

[dredik]

1. On a laptop with i3-7100u with hd620 (2*4Gb dual channel RAM) MBC UHD Music Core GFriend - Rough (4in1) was lagging pretty much. Cant say about hd620 in other CPUs. But I must say that GTX1050Ti 4Gb paired with core i5-7400 (desktop) cant handle this clip either (I could not make it play smooth without hccups ). 400mbps Jellyfish had no problems on i3-7100u - played great, without frame drops.
2. KabyLake CPUs is not supported by Windows 7. You can install Windows7 on KabyLake system but there is no official HD620 windows7 driver.

[huhn]

why do you even care about these dumb test files?

no commercial file will ever be encoded like this UHD BD are capped at a something like 125 mbit sorry i don't know the exact number because it doesn't matter.

8k may not even use HEVC as a codec but a codec that is not yet supported like AV1.

i mean your GPU can't output 8K 60 hz and no other GPU too and DXVA downscaling is pathetic.

[hajj_3]

UHD bluray max bitrate is 128Mbps. The maximum of kaby is ridiculously high, something like 400Mbps so all consumer h265 videos can be hardware decoded.

[littleD]

Originally Posted by mariner

Intel Graphics HD 620

Greetings.

Thinking of getting an old entry level Kabylake with mobile i5 7200U/DDR3 running Win7(hacked?). Would like some advice on the hardware decoding capabilities of the HD 620 graphics processor.

1. What's the concensus of this forum on HD620's hardware decoding of 10bit HEVC and VP9, 8K & 4K? Full or hybird? Any bitrate limitation?
2. Is Win7 up to the task? Or is Win10 required? ie D3D11 etc.
3. If DXVA Checker shows HEVC_VLD_Main10, how does one tell if it is full or partial hardware decoding?
4. Does i5 7200u have the power to do softwaer decoding of these 10bit video? i7 7500U?

Many thanks and best regards,

I have 620. It plays 8k files nicely i mean hevc and vp9 and rest is 4k only including h264. All files play fluently with dxva, if you wanna use d3d11 forget about high resolutio and 10 bit cause it stutters.
dxva checker cannot show You if chip uses partial decoding. There were some partial decoding profiles long time ago, but they were partial by it means.
4k 50 fps 10bit is slow in software for 7200u, i have no sample with 10 bit 25 fps.
Intel team always drop old windows systems early, i see no drivers for hd620 and windows 7...

[mariner]

Thanks for the kind reply dredik, littleD and otheres.

If HD620 cannot cope with the MBC clip despite being identified by DXVA Checker as 8K HEVC 10bits capable, would anyone know if the UHD 605 (Gemini Lake) or UHD 620 (8th Gen.) can handle this?

Thanks and best regards,

[NikosD]

Does anyone know the difference between Titan V and Pascal's latest video decoder like 1050/1050 Ti/1080 Ti ?

According to DXVA Checker they have similar features but according to Nvidia they belong to different VPDAU sets.

Maybe the have a difference in speed.

Is it Titan V any faster in video decoding than 1080 Ti for example ?

[huhn]

do you really care about a 10k cards hardware decoder?

for end user it should be more interesting if nvidia is releasing new gaming GPU at gamescom.

these quadro cards are most likely 12 nm i only found the die size which is nearly as big as volta with a lower transistor count so unlikely to be 7 mn.

the next big thing for hardware decoder should be AV1 and it's a little bit early for it but i guess doable if they really really wanted to do it but windows has to add it too the 960 had a VP9 decoder but it took quite some time before it was usable.
so i don't except anything new from nvidia this round.

[Cary Knoop]

Originally Posted by NikosD

Is it Titan V any faster in video decoding than 1080 Ti for example ?

Video decoding is not very efficient for CUDA cores. NVIDIA and other GPUs have dedicated encoding and decoding modules. The GPU is more important for image processing.

For image processing, the Titan V is definitely faster but it depends how much of a difference you will actually see!

Most video processing applications use single precision functions as there is no need for double precision functions. The special thing about the Titan V is fast double precision functions (good for artificial neurons) and you pay for that functionality. You can buy three 1080Ti's for one Titan V!

So unless your CUDA software takes advantage of double precision functions for image processing (not likely!) a lot of the gain from the Titan V will be unused.

[NikosD]

Originally Posted by GTPVHD

Nvidia just announced the new Nvidia Turing GPU microarchitecture at Siggraph, wonder what Feature Set hardware decoder does it have, I like Volta?

Originally Posted by huhn

do you really care about a 10k cards hardware decoder?

...so i don't except anything new from nvidia this round.

The reason I asked about Titan V is because I had 1150 (Ti) or 2050 (Ti) in mind - I don't know what name will be Nvidia's final decision.

I thought that Titan V most likely has the same video decoder with Volta/Turing/Ampere - whatever Nvidia architecture decides to put in gaming platform.

The gaming cards are very close to release, so I guess we are just going to wait and see.

Originally Posted by Cary Knoop

Video decoding is not very efficient for CUDA cores. NVIDIA and other GPUs have dedicated encoding and decoding modules.

You seem that you weren't been following this thread for a long time.

In the context of this thread, whenever someone is talking about a GPU regarding video performance or features, he is actually referring to VPU - that dedicated ASIC that you mentioned too.

But thanks for the post.

[huhn]

volta is quite old and nvidia has different decoder for the 1080 and the 1050 so more than enough time to add something. so no i don't think it will be the same.

as you already said the decoder from volta is different at least in name from the pascal decoder so the decoder really has to be different for these upcoming cards. if it will be something meaningful i doubt it. maybe is just named different because of the shrink.

my command about 10k cards is about the upcoming quadros. volta/titan V is at least some kind of consumer grade card at least to some people out there.

[NikosD]

From Anandtech:

Finally, while NVIDIA only briefly touched upon the subject, we do know that their video encoder block, NVENC, has been updated for Turing.
The latest iteration of NVENC specifically adds support for 8K HEVC encoding.
Meanwhile NVIDIA has also been able to further tune the quality of their encoder, allowing them to achieve similar quality as before with a 25% lower video bitrate

[alex1399]

No signs for a new hardware decoder block

[sneaker_ger]

The latest pascal decoders leave little to be desired, anyways (except AV1). Encoder improvements would be more important.

[alex1399]

Maybe they could add some hardware enhancer and make the HEVC decode stuffs looks better.

[huhn]

you can destroy your image quality by using the sharpener in the nvidia control panel with a video renderer that supports it by your choice...

[Cary Knoop]

Originally Posted by alex1399

Maybe they could add some hardware enhancer and make the HEVC decode stuffs looks better.

Did you actually read the full topic?

Sharper is not better!

[Forteen88]

Originally Posted by alex1399

Maybe they could add some hardware enhancer and make the HEVC decode stuffs looks better.

"Sharpening increases high frequency detail (well, in normal circumstances - you could also sharpen/emphasise low frequenzy detail), which then requires more bitrate for the same quantiser (whereas increasing low frequency detail doesn't increase the needed bitrate significantly)."
So it's better to sharpen during playback than in the encode, if you want to sharpen.

[NikosD]

Guys, if someone sells his kidney in the black market in order to buy a new RTX card, please run DXVA Checker in order to check features and performance and share this info with us.

Also, I'm interested in the release month of 2050 (Ti) and if someone knows if 2050/2060 will have Tensor and Ray Tracing cores inside like 2070 and above.