x264 HA in MPC-HC with ATI and NVidia cards

[Zag]

I have some x264 clips that will make use of HA when played on an nvidia card but the exact same clip will not use HA with ATI cards.

I have three systems setup, two are vista 32bit sp1, one has a 2600xt while the other has the IGP HD3200 (780G chipset). The third is the nvidia geforce GTX 280 on XP SP3.

The clips are 1920x816 High@L4.1 but have 8 reference frames which I understand makes them out of specs and has such they wont make use of HA acceleration on the ATI cards but when played on the nvidia system they do use HA.

I am using the exact same version of MPC-HC using the internal h264 filter the only difference is I am using EVR on the vista machines and VMR9 renderless on the XP machine with the nvidia.

Anyway, my question is why do these out of spec clips play with HA on the nvidia card and not with the ATI cards. I am using the latest drivers for all cards catalyst 8.12 for ATI and 181.20 for nvidia.

I remember reading something about nvidia adding the ability to play L5.1 in their drivers is this the case?

[Esurnir]

Since a recent driver update, nvidia VP2 purevideo processor accept level 5.1 videos (which basicaly means every video up to 1080p with every possible settings save lossless)

[burfadel]

If you install Net Framework 3.5 SP1 (actually even just 3), EVR is available under XP! :). EVR is part of the Net Framework and not specifically Vista!

[Zag]

Since a recent driver update, nvidia VP2 purevideo processor accept level 5.1 videos (which basicaly means every video up to 1080p with every possible settings save lossless)

So it is strictly because NVidia updated their drivers to handle level 5.1 encodes. I assume this is something the ATI could also implement or is it a hardware limitation on their cards?

[Esurnir]

So it is strictly because NVidia updated their drivers to handle level 5.1 encodes. I assume this is something the ATI could also implement or is it a hardware limitation on their cards?

We don't really know what are the spec of those cards. They are only "guessed"