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

[sjchmura]

I have heard the "80" series would include hardware support ala the demonstrated ATI suppprt. Do the new beta drivers enalbe this with PureVideo(tm) :)??

[Sharktooth]

There are no official comments on nvidia beta drivers.
There are only (as you said) rumors. Until officially stated by nvidia, i wont trust any rumor.

[superdump]

You could trust test results maybe...

[nmap]

Not that I encourage any Leaked Nvidia drivers but here's the leaked nvidia 80.40

http://www.3dchipset.com/drivers/nvidia/beta/nt5/8040.php

[sjchmura]

Tell more - what test results?? Are they posted here? I searched this forum and google :(

From what I understood people were unable to "activate" the hardware acceleration in these drivers

[nmap]

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]

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

[Sirber]

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]

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...

[Airw0lf]

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=]

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!!!

Since nVidia did so poorely with their last attempt at video acceleration I'm very carefull and sceptical to trust them again as long as they show no prove. You should be, too.

[Airw0lf]

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]

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]

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=]

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

[Inventive Software]

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]

arg Yes, thank you. *edits post*

[movax]

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

[FFWD]

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]

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]

@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]

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]

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

[charleski]

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]

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]

thx for the info

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

[CruNcher]

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

:)

[Kopernikus]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

[AlexB17]

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]

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]

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=]

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]

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]

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

[bond]

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]

"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]

"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]

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

[travisbell]

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]

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]

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=]

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]

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! :))

Actually, I'm under the impression that you merely need any player app that makes use of directshow filters.

[Doom9]

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]

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