graphic card ati vs nvidia for playing 1080p

[svcdprayer]

I am wondering i do have ati hd 3850 256mb ddr3

wondering if i get ati hd4870 x2 will i get better performance while playing movies blu ray mkv just by upgrading graphic card?

what do you guys recommend i heard about coreavc , and that gives improvement, is it better then to go with nvidia for that purpose and wich one would you reccommend to buy that is in range of ati hd 4870 x2

thanks

[ash925]

All the cards supporting a particular video decoding chip like UVD 2 for ATi or PureVideo 2 or 3 for nVidia will give the same performance i.e. a HD4670 is as good in decoding video as HD 4850 because they have the same chip so you might want to scale down if you are not a heavy gamer(and I mean playing at 2500x1600).
Coreavc is good, use trial to see if your processor can handle the videos with it or use ffdshow with ffmpeg-mt.

[Jong]

I am wondering i do have ati hd 3850 256mb ddr3

wondering if i get ati hd4870 x2 will i get better performance while playing movies blu ray mkv just by upgrading graphic card?No you will not. The 3850 and 4870 are just about identical in HD quality and performance. The 4xxx series does have marginally better SD picture quality (e.g DVDs) but it is not that significant and mostly affects de-interlacing, which is of no benefit for movie watching.

The 4xxx series does have audio benefits - it can send HD audio (multi-channel PCM) over HDMI, if your amp supports it. No Nvidia cards can do this even now. The 3850 and all Nvidia cards can only send compressed multi-channel audio like AC3 or DTS.

Even the 4xxx series cannot "bitstream" HD audio codecs like TrueHD and DTS-MA. They must be decoded first on the PC, but can then be sent uncompressed to your amp.

There is no need to go to a high end gaming card. the video decoding part of all the ATI cards is essentially identical in all of them. However, it is best to avoid anything less than 46xx, as the real entry levels can have problems with de-interlacing.

Personally I would not bother upgrading for picture quality reasons, unless you watch a lot of interlaced content and see the subtle problems with your 3850. But an upgrade for HD audio might be worth it, or just for increased gaming performance.

CoreAVC was and possibly still offers the best software decoder picture quality for h.264, but the difference now with something like ffdshow or the free MPC Video Decoder is marginal to invisible. I believe CoreAVC still has problems with some interlaced content (although I have not seen it myself and may be wrong). It also only does h.264/AVC. It is no use for VC-1 encoded discs. Personally, I bought it 2.5 years ago and it was useful, but would not see the need now. CoreAVC is certainly no better than your 3850 in DXVA mode.

[svcdprayer]

thanks guys

i was thinking that graphic card would improve, can you guys tell me what is necessary for graphic card to look for when it comes to video editing whats essential when it comes to that part?

as far as i can see when watching movies i have windows xp and when using haali renderer on mpc-hc it improves watching, but theres times when audio is shuttering, im wondering why is that? is that because of my graphic card?

and other renderers cant play well 1080p

how its possible to fix such problem?

thanks

[Jong]

It is very early days for using the GPU to help with other tasks like video editing. Personally I will not be basing any decisions on that until standards have evolved (OpenCL). But yes, Nvidia, with CUDA, do have more stuff up and running right now for that.

I assume you meant audio is "stuttering". No that will not be your 3850. The possible causes with a Windows PC are unfortunately too many to mention, but will surely be resolvable with patience.

Haali renderer is good but if you want to experiment with a non-standard high quality renderer you are better now trying MadVR, which is under rapid development. Both of course require you to decode in software, bypassing much of the fancy video circuitry in your GPU, so you need to be sure your system has the CPU power for this.

[TinTime]

Haali renderer is good but if you want to experiment with a non-standard high quality renderer you are better now trying MadVR, which is under rapid development. Both of course require you to decode in software, bypassing much of the fancy video circuitry in your GPU, so you need to be sure your system has the CPU power for this.

If you wanted to use a non-standard renderer that Jong mentions then it could be an argument for going with Nvidia and CoreAVC. This would allow GPU decoding of AVC using CUDA so DXVA requirements don't matter. It won't help with MPEG2 and VC1 though, but your CPU may be sufficient for these anyway (certainly for MPEG2 I'd have thought).

Also, if you use AVISynth at all for video editing then an Nvidia card would give you access to neuron2's GPU enabled tools.

However, if your CPU is good for 1080p AVC decoding already then do as Jong suggests and try madVR for a free upgrade :)

[svcdprayer]

thanks guys

@jong for madvr renderer is cpu of quad core 2.4ghz enough?

about video editing - lets suppose as of right now if i want graphics card for video editing and not gaming, when i want to choose new graphic card what is important to look for in its specification so i can make sure graphic card wont be primary for gaming but video editing?

thanks guys

also anyone tried madvr and what are expiriences compared to standard renderers?

[Jong]

Hmm, I'd say quad core @2.4Ghz is not enough for software decoding of difficult blu-rays/h.264@1080p, but others may have more experience in this area.

Personally I am not happy if the core speed is <3Ghz, but you may be able to get away with a bit less. Just try.

As I said I would not consider video editing when buying a GPU. Until Cuda it made no difference what your GPU was - all processing done on CPU. In future GPUs may well be able to help using open interfaces. but right now you would need specific tools for editing that match the GPU you have, like Nvidia Cuda and Adobe. Personally I'd say more hassle than it is worth right now and may be out of date in a year. But up to you.

Yes, I've used MadVR. Have a look in the thread here. It's good but still a bit buggy (can't play DVDs right now). Not sure it is worth the upgrade that would be needed for me to go 100% software decoding for Blu-ray (I have a C2D@2.7Ghz), but if I had a new HTPC that could do that without too much noise and/or heat I might well think of it.

[svcdprayer]

@jong madvr dosent work for me it freezes everything up :) as you said quad core @2.4 is not enough.

can you tell me if i use ffdshow with mpeg-ft decoder, and if i purchase new cpu like I7 965 @3.2 with with current ati graphic , will i get improvement in performance of 1080p watching?

im new into this can you tell me what matters/improves 1080p watching? what i concluded is about what renderer you use for watching is important
but you can tell me more?

i appreciate it

also what htpc you recommend?
thanks

[Mark_A_W]

Hmm, I'd say quad core @2.4Ghz is not enough for software decoding of difficult blu-rays/h.264@1080p, but others may have more experience in this area.



You are kidding me right? Maybe if you want to watch two at once.

My Q6600 at stock, plays BD in software, with digital room correction, at about 30% usage.

I can just about do two Blurays at once. One is a trivial task.

If the OP can't do it with a 2.4ghz quad core, there is a setup issue.


As for a video card, my requirements are:

1. Not tear.

2. Allow powerstrip to work (ATi cards are better here).

3. Allow desktop gamma to affect the video (this means no DXVA or Overlay).

4. Have enough guts for MadVR to work - this is new.



For bluray at 1920x1080, even my 2600XT seems to be fine.


I am building a small HTPC for another room, but even then I am avoiding DXVA, as I want gamma. (And powerstrip, so it's an ATi card I guess). Almost any ATi card will fit the bill, unless it's one of the bottom of the barrel cards - (3450, 4350, that sort of thing).

[Jong]

@jong madvr dosent work for me it freezes everything up :) as you said quad core @2.4 is not enough.

can you tell me if i use ffdshow with mpeg-ft decoder, and if i purchase new cpu like I7 965 @3.2 with with current ati graphic , will i get improvement in performance of 1080p watching?

im new into this can you tell me what matters/improves 1080p watching? what i concluded is about what renderer you use for watching is important
but you can tell me more?First, 1080p Blu-ray is actually easier to do "right" than DVD. For DVD compression is so high there is a lot of room for subjective judgement over the right way to decode it and make it look half decent. With Blu-ray there really is only one right way to decode each pixel, so all decoders produce near identical results.

There are at least two principle problems with conventional renderers though:

1. It is very hard to get smooth, judder-free playback on a PC. PCs and Windows specifically were not ever designed for high quality video playback equivalent to a good AV component. Often refresh rates do not match those needed for smooth playback e.g. 60Hz instead of 59.940Hz, or better 47.952Hz. Even then a PC has three clocks involved in video playback - system, video and audio - and if they drift relative to each other frames will be dropped etc. And Windows is not inherently designed to time frame arrival and vsync to avoid judder. It is all a mess. Much of this can be fixed by using Reclock with the right renderer and renderer settings, or some new players renderers try to fix this themselves. Examples are the new builds of MPC-HC with "Beliyaal fixes", when using EVR Custom Presenter or MadVR (although it's smoothness improvements are still under development).

2. Most renderers and GPUs cut certain corners when rendering to reduce computational effort. Mostly this is totally invisible but with certain very specific scenes and especially test samples it is easy to see how these corners have been cut. The MadVR thread has many examples. If you want the best possible video quality and the closest possible representation of what is on disc MadVR can help. It will improve color upsampling and grey scale accuracy (principally by use of "dithering" and higher bit-depths). However, for most scenes, even most movies, the differences are very small to invisible. And to notice you need a very well calibrated TV and a very good eye.

Simply boosting your CPU will give very little improvement in 1080p picture quality. It will let you use MadVR, software decoding and get total control of visual quality, but for 95%+ (99%+?!) of people they will notice no improvement over a GPU using DXVA. Modern GPUs do a very good job of HD decoding from a PQ standpoint (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/media-playback_6.html#sect0).

Using MadVR could give you smoother playback, but that should also be possible using the latest MPC-HC builds with EVR-CP, or by using VMR9/EVR with Reclock. And the latter will even let you get smooth playback with PowerDVD for full disc playback, if you set it up right! MadVR will give you the most accurate color representation and generally higher accuracy in rendering, but this will mostly be noticeable in specific test samples rather than actual movie viewing. It is up to you!

All this is a bit off the top of my head. Hope I haven't over-simplified or made too many errors! If I have I am sure someone will chip in to correct me!

[Jong]

You are kidding me right? Maybe if you want to watch two at once.

My Q6600 at stock, plays BD in software, with digital room correction, at about 30% usage.Assuming all your decoding is in software I can only think you have very good multi-threading going on. I can see how - if you have 90% utilisation with one core decoding, with two extra cores that can drop to 30% per core. Not all decoders will do that I would think. It does depend on the disc; I have been surprised by how much they vary in the CPU needed. But for sure you need 3Ghz for a C2D to get guaranteed smooth playback. I did say I do not have a lot of experience with quad-core in an HTPC. Maybe you are right, with the right decoder it is possible. HD audio decoding (esp. DTS-MA) can also add substantially to the workload. What decoders are you using?

[Grmpf]

Assuming all your decoding is in software I can only think you have very good multi-threading going on. I can see how - if you have 90% utilisation with one core decoding, with two extra cores that can drop to 30% per core. Not all decoders will do that I would think. It does depend on the disc; I have been surprised by how much they vary in the CPU needed. But for sure you need 3Ghz for a C2D to get guaranteed smooth playback. I did say I do not have a lot of experience with quad-core in an HTPC. Maybe you are right, with the right decoder it is possible. HD audio decoding (esp. DTS-MA) can also add substantially to the workload. What decoders are you using?

Just to throw VC-1 interlaced content into the mix - ffmpeg doesn't work with it and so you are stuck with the microsoft decoder which is far from optimized in regards of multithreading - add deinterlacing to it and "The Police - Certifiable" Blu-ray kills my Q9550 easily at standard clock - with 3 cores ideling around, but one maxed out.

[svcdprayer]

As for a video card, my requirements are:

1. Not tear.

2. Allow powerstrip to work (ATi cards are better here).

3. Allow desktop gamma to affect the video (this means no DXVA or Overlay).

4. Have enough guts for MadVR to work - this is new.



thanks can you please tell how can i setup my ati in points you described how to allow powerstrip and desktop gamma instead of overlay and dxva

thanks

[svcdprayer]

@jong thanks bro can you tell me what mpc-hc builds of who ive downloaded from clsi
what is reclock where i can get it so i can try that thanks for all great explanation!

[Jong]

@jong thanks bro can you tell me what mpc-hc builds of who ive downloaded from clsi
what is reclock where i can get it so i can try that thanks for all great explanation!

MPC-HC thread is here:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=123537

and latest builds are here:

http://www.xvidvideo.ru/content/category/1/1/2/

(changes are posted in the thread above).

Reclock comes from here: http://forum.slysoft.com/forumdisplay.php?f=85

Allow desktop gamma to affect the video (this means no DXVA or Overlay).Desktop gamma affects video as long as you do not use overlay, even with DXVA.

[Jong]

Just to throw VC-1 interlaced content into the mix - ffmpeg doesn't work with it and so you are stuck with the microsoft decoder which is far from optimized in regards of multithreading - add deinterlacing to it and "The Police - Certifiable" Blu-ray kills my Q9550 easily at standard clock - with 3 cores ideling around, but one maxed out.By the way "30% Usage" on a quad core, if it were TOTAL usage, could mean 20% on core 0, 100% (maxed out) on core 1 and 0% on cores 2 & 3, but I assume Mark does not mean this!

[svcdprayer]

thanks friend, im now just wondering if i want to play bd disc from hdd what player is more convinient to do so? ive tried powerdvd 7.3 and 8 but no success should i also need to have that player in dxva? what do you reccommend?

thanks for brilliant explanations!

[Mark_A_W]

Assuming all your decoding is in software I can only think you have very good multi-threading going on. I can see how - if you have 90% utilisation with one core decoding, with two extra cores that can drop to 30% per core. Not all decoders will do that I would think. It does depend on the disc; I have been surprised by how much they vary in the CPU needed. But for sure you need 3Ghz for a C2D to get guaranteed smooth playback. I did say I do not have a lot of experience with quad-core in an HTPC. Maybe you are right, with the right decoder it is possible. HD audio decoding (esp. DTS-MA) can also add substantially to the workload. What decoders are you using?


Either CoreAVC or Ffdshow for AVC (both seem fine at balancing cores now - ffdshow used to be terrible, but no longer).

Ffdshow set to use wmv9 decoder for AVC.

One core might be at about 60%, the others are down 20-30%.


And you are right about Desktop Gamma in MPC if you have EVR Custom select - it does work. Gamma doesn't work with either Powerdvd or Arcsoft, on Vista (grr).

So the only thing I can't get exactly how I want it running DXVA is it always expands the levels (EVR Custom levels settings do nothing). I'd prefer it to leave them be, but not a big deal.

svcdprayer, MPC-HC will play a bluray disc directly.

Mark

[Mark_A_W]

thanks can you please tell how can i setup my ati in points you described how to allow powerstrip and desktop gamma instead of overlay and dxva

thanks

Install Powerstrip...and use it. This is only if you need a custom resolution for your display.

I was wrong about DXVA and gamma, provided you use MPC-HC, and select an Output renderer that is NOT Overlay.

[svcdprayer]

by playing bd disc directly, you mean original bd disc from hdd and not mkv blu ray right? because that is what im looking for

thanks guys

[Mark_A_W]

No, you can play the original bluray disc directly.

Put it in your bluray DVD-rom and then go File->Open->DVD.

No need to rip an iso or make a mkv if you don't want to.

[svcdprayer]

thanks! what i need is i want to play bd disc from hard disk directory,

you got any suggestion for that matter? thanks alot

[Mark_A_W]

MPC-HC will do that too.

Do you want to make an iso? Or play from Bluray-structured folders on the hard drive?

[svcdprayer]

both but prefer blu ray bd structured folder :)
for creating is is magiciso enough or you prefer different app for creating iso for bd?

[petran79]

It is very early days for using the GPU to help with other tasks like video editing. Personally I will not be basing any decisions on that until standards have evolved (OpenCL). But yes, Nvidia, with CUDA, do have more stuff up and running right now for that.



For this task a separate card is needed that is exclusively devoted to video editing. But most do not come cheap and unless you use more professional equipment there is really no reason to invest in such a card. Same goes for cards devoted to 3D Graphics and Animation.

[Thunderbolt8]

If the OP can't do it with a 2.4ghz quad core, there is a setup issue.nope, just depends on player & core usage. using ffdshow and mpeg2 or VC-1 stuff, multi core support for those 2 are not supported. try to play some mid-high bitrate vc-1 stuff and then also try to add some sharpening. here you go, delay.

[Mark_A_W]

nope, just depends on player & core usage. using ffdshow and mpeg2 or VC-1 stuff, multi core support for those 2 are not supported. try to play some mid-high bitrate vc-1 stuff and then also try to add some sharpening. here you go, delay.


Well, use multi threaded codecs.

Just set ffdshow to use WMV9 as the decoder instead of libavcodec.

But in my experience ffdshow works just fine for multi threads now. Download a new version.

There really is no problem with CPU usage on a Q6600 at stock speed, even with sharpening. Sure there are *some* sharpening settings you can't use, but many that you can.

[Thunderbolt8]

afaik AVC is the only supported multithreaded codec for ffdshow so far. been using WMV9 for VC-1 for quite a while, but still didn't look like multithreadding to me last time I checked (ive already asked the ffdshow guys twice for multi core support for the other 2 codecs, but as it seems it hasnt changed much since then).

[Mark_A_W]

Windows wmv9 decoder is multithreaded, and has been for ever.

[Thunderbolt8]

then I dont know why some people in the ffdshow thread said that VC-1 is not (yet) multithreaded when I asked back then -.-

[Thunderbolt8]

ive tried watching a high bitrate VC-1 movie yesterday (.mkv remix) with ffdshow & wmv9 & sharpening, but it was exactly like that that 1 core was shooting out of the roof, while the other 3 had ~half load according to task manager. this still doesn look like multithreading to me.

[Mark_A_W]

3 cores had half load and another had a bit more? Sounds exactly like MT.

What do you think MT can do? Miracles? The sharpening will all be on one thread.

If you turn off sharpening they will be close to balanced. The decoder is MT.

[Thunderbolt8]

no, not a bit more, basically it was at ~100% so double the load of the other cores. some guys in ffdshow thread also said once that this task manager window doesnt always display exact loads so it can happen that it looks like MT, while it isnt.

I can play any progressive 24fps AVC blu-ray remux with sharpening on that PC so far, but apparently there are problems when it comes to VC-1 stuff.