Use onboard video processing though pci-e card's output.

[darknezz19]

Hi everyone. Got a rig with onboard video but only via a vga port. the radeon 9700 is in the single pci-e slot and has a 24/7 load folding. My question is would it be possible to use onboard video to decode and send it out the hdmi hooked up to the 9700 card?

[Guest]

Highly doubtful. I've never heard of anyone doing something like that.

[Stereodude]

It might be depending on a variety of factors.

For example, on my Haswell i7 system I have a Nvidia card in it for DGdecNV use with no monitor connected to it. I have my monitor connected to the integrated Intel graphics in the i7. I can select and use the CUDA video decoder in MPC-HC even though the Nvidia card is not driving the monitor. Please note that I suspect that the CUDA video decoder is probably the exception in this regard rather than the rule.

[darknezz19]

Thanks for the information amigos. Worst case scenario, is there a filter that can decode bluray video using only the cpu?

[Guest]

Worst case scenario, is there a filter that can decode bluray video using only the cpu? Yes, there are many. Use search.

[darknezz19]

Could you recommend me a flavor please kind sir? Using mpc-hc if it matters at all.

[Stereodude]

Can't the built in LAV filters (built into MPC-HC now) decode all the blu-ray video formats?

[darknezz19]

Sure can, and enabling borderless wm7 output i think it's called offloads to the cpu. Just wondering if there is a filter designed for this that might be faster as I'm getting frame drops here and there still.

[Guest]

No need to call me sir! :scared:

You haven't told us whether you have MPEG2, VC-1, or H264. And you haven't told us your hardware.

Surely you can search google for available directshow decoders.

[darknezz19]

The cpu is an amd 4x core x64 and it's usage is averaging about 33% across all 4 cores during playback of m2ts video files. Leaves me to think there is something better out there.

[Guest]

Well again you fail to tell us the video type and details. M2TS is a container, not a video format. Anyway, that hardware should not be dropping frames, especially with only 33% CPU utilization. Which filters have you tried?

[darknezz19]

Alright I understand. Not sure which format this particular flic is in, but can we please just assume I'd like to support all bluray formats. So far tried ffdshow and lav filters, both x86 and x64 trying different output methods in the mpc-hc options. The LAV with hardware decoding set to Off and and output to Renderless Window 7 mode gives best results, but a frame is dropping here and there and the core usage is about 33% across cores.

I read that if you use a vga to dvi adapter the error rate for the analog to digital conversion is so low you wont be able to see a difference, so I will probably go with that if the picture is still just as sharp.

[nhakobian]

By "Renderless Window 7 mode" do you mean Video Mixing Renderer 7 (renderless)? Have you tried Video Mixing Renderer 9 (renderless) or Enhanced Video Renderer (custom presenter)?

VMR-7/VMR-9/EVR (CP) all do scaling on the video hardware. Perhaps the onboard video hardware is not fast enough to perform the scaling without dropping frames occasionally.

You say that the dedicated hardware is running folding operations 24/7. Is it possible that it is using tons of PCIx bandwidth and starves the onboard video hardware of enough bandwidth to send video frames? Have you tested to see if maybe the folding program has short bursts of 100% CPU that might be causing frame drops? Have you attempted to set MPC-HC to a slightly higher than normal thread priority to see if another program could be causing this?

And finally, have you attempted to disable the folding program temporarily to see if it still happens?

Other thoughts: If you're using a Radeon 9700, I'm wondering how old the onboard video is, and how old of a cpu/motherboard/ram you are using. The Radeon 9700 came out in 2002. I'm guessing that you might also be using Windows XP since the whole Radeon 9000 series doesnt have Windows 7 drivers (officially). What is the exact model of your CPU? It might be old enough that it is missing some of the extra CPU features that newer CPUs have that assist in video decoding.

Using this test file http://jell.yfish.us/media/Jellyfish-40-Mbps.mkv, on an AMD A10 mid-range CPU, a 40Mbps H.264 file took about 30% of 2 (of the 4) cores, with an overall CPU usage of 20%. Since you are seeing 30% through all 4 CPU's I'm guessing your CPU is at least a few years old (but should still handle it fine).

Edit: I just realized that the Radeon 9700 was AGP and not PCIx. I'm thinking you should test your system without the folding program running and see if that could be causing the frame drops you are seeing.

[darknezz19]

Ive tried all of the output methods, the renderless 7 one gave most fluid results. Meant to say 7900 series as it's pci-e, my mistake. My cpu is 1045t with unlocked l3 cahe. Tried to elevate the process priority to high but same results. I guess LAV decoder with Hardware decoding set to off and output on renderless 7 is as good as it gets. mplayer almost looked smoother when i tired that but it ran into the same thing. It's almost like mpc-hc is using cpu and gpu, like you said for scaling, but this lags as the card already has a full load. I need all decoding via the cpus, but this doesn't look possible:confused:

[Guest]

Did you try nhakobian's idea of disabling the folding stuff?

[darknezz19]

No, but I assume with 97% certainty that would remedy the lag. I WANT TO MINE WHILE WATCHING MOVIES DAMMIT. IM REACHING FOR DIVINE LAZINESS HERE PPL, WHAT DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?

Sorry.. I had to let that out.

[nhakobian]

It wasn't suggested as a permanent solution, just as a step in order to determine the cause. If the cause can be identified, then solutions can be suggested. This technique is called deductive reasoning and forms the basis for all problem solving. Lots of people (including myself) like trying to solve these oddities not only to help people, but to further our own understanding of how things interact. This is at least the way I approach it.

Back to the issue at hand. Glad to hear its actually a 7900. I cringed just thinking that an old 9700 would be able to handle that type of processing :P. Your CPU seems more than capable. I did a little googleing and found that the only AMD chipset motherboards with integrated graphics that supported your cpu were the 890GX and the 880G, which has a Radeon HD 4290 and a 4250 respectively. Either one should have enough power to do scaling. Both those chipsets include the UVD2 hardware video decoder, so, in theory, if you put LavFilters in DXVA2 (native) mode, all of the video decoding and scaling would happen on the integrated graphics card side and it might not be as susceptible to the PCIx bus being saturated.

Now, I don't know how the DXVA API chooses decoders when there are multiple video cards set up, but it might be something worth looking in to.

Now all that said and done, I still stand by my earlier suggestion to *try* disabling folding or mining to see if the frame dropping still occurs. If it does, then we know to focus on something on the interaction between multiple GPU's. If it doesn't, then I'm out of ideas (for now).