Yup, fixed it!
.
TOOK THE CARD OUT AND PUT IN AN NVIDIA CARD!
Night and day difference. Smooth as silk.
I was just so fed up that I had to vent on this.
(Sorry ;) )


-Trouble

You have done what many of us have done to experience liberation.

Well done, Troubleshooter. Hope you got a 9300 or 9400.

Nah, swapped the 8800GT from my gamer. Until Mythtv .22 is out and things stabilize, I don't care about VDPAU much.

-Trouble

Ya, I'm running SVN, and recent versions took away WatchRecorded|{rightarrow} for transcoding, and the OSD while watching for Pause, FF, Info, etc. Annoying, although the UI is better.

Yup, fixed it!
.
TOOK THE CARD OUT AND PUT IN AN NVIDIA CARD!
Night and day difference. Smooth as silk.
I was just so fed up that I had to vent on this.
(Sorry ;) )


-Trouble

TROUBLE! and here I thought I was being a traitor by buying a fanless 9400GT card for under 40 bucks.

I just hope I can disable the on board video (780G Motherboard) without too much of an issue.

Well anyhow, same frustration here. I hope ATI/AMD or open source eventualy solve this. When the magical day happens and the onboard video is usable for HTPC, I'll remove the card and use the Nvidia in a backend box I eventualy will build.

I didn't know Nvidia 9xxx series cards could be had fanless. Here's one-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814187036

I assume the current Nvidia driver supports the 9400GT well with no Flash issues like the 8200...

I didn't know Nvidia 9xxx series cards could be had fanless. Here's one-


Yep, that's the one I ordered. Should be in Fri or Mon... free shipping and less than 40 with a promo code.

Too bad it's not half height!

Yep, that's the one I ordered. Should be in Fri or Mon... free shipping and less than 40 with a promo code.

Too bad it's not half height!

Code? ;)

I don't think that 9400 has the core that enables VC-1 VDPAU.

I don't think that 9400 has the core that enables VC-1 VDPAU.

Eh, by the end of the year we'll all have 45nm or 35nm 3.0Ghz+ quad cores, so software decoding of any codec will be no sweat :D

Seriously, if we had to choose, I'd rather have quad core optimized mplayers, vlc's, xines, ffmpeg's, XBMC's and Myth's vs VDPAU/XvBA optimized stuff (i.e. properly coded uber multi-threading), though XvBA/VDPAU won't hurt either ;)

I hope those drop down from 125W to 10W

I hope those drop down from 125W to 10W

Heck, if the Phenom2's or AM3 Phenom2/3's can get below 100W at 45nm and 3Ghz, I'll be happy...

...and the i7's ain't any better power-wise...

Not to start a CPU fanboi war, but I really think AMD has the low cost+low power/heat+good performance balance equation down pat.

Kind of ironic that so many Linux people like AMD CPU's, but they can't get their Linux video drivers right yet...:(

I don't think that 9400 has the core that enables VC-1 VDPAU.

I'll be happy to play MPG2 without tearing: SD or HD!

Kind of ironic that so many Linux people like AMD CPU's, but they can't get their Linux video drivers right yet...:(

GRR... Yes.

I'll be happy to play MPG2 without tearing: SD or HD!

Try the Asus 8400 GS 512MB. I bought two and they play MPEG2 perfect at the cost of a little more CPU usage compared to my 8600 GT. However this is without VDPAU. With VDPAU, the CPU usage should be moot.

In this regard I am looking at the 8400 GS as a better buy due to the smaller form factor and VC-1 support than the 9400 GT posted above. However, if the 9400 GT also supports VC-1 (now or later) and you have the space to accomodate the heatsink/passive cooler on the 9400 GT, then the 9400 GT would be the better buy.

Try the Asus 8400 GS 512MB. I bought two and they play MPEG2 perfect at the cost of a little more CPU usage compared to my 8600 GT. However this is without VDPAU. With VDPAU, the CPU usage should be moot.

In this regard I am looking at the 8400 GS as a better buy due to the smaller form factor and VC-1 support than the 9400 GT posted above. However, if the 9400 GT also supports VC-1 (now or later) and you have the space to accomodate the heatsink/passive cooler on the 9400 GT, then the 9400 GT would be the better buy.

Plus, there's a metric buttload of low cost (~$30 or less, some after MIR), passively cooled 8400GS's to choose from :D

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048+106791921+1067929423+1295318921&Configurator=&Subcategory=48&description=&Ntk=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=

http://3btech.net/videocards-nvidiapcie.html

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=SFPX84GS256U2LP&cat=VCD

Try the Asus 8400 GS 512MB. I bought two and they play MPEG2 perfect at the cost of a little more CPU usage compared to my 8600 GT. However this is without VDPAU. With VDPAU, the CPU usage should be moot.

.

I assume the 64bit memory interface/path vs 128bit doesn't make a difference for video media playback, regardless of codec/resolution (i.e. VC1/MPEG2/x264 and 480p/720p/1080p)?

Also, any functional/performance difference with VDPAU and/or x/h264/MPEG2 playback with 256M vs 512M?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=asus+en8400gs&x=0&y=0

The 8400GS fully supports all VDPAU accelerations, I believe.

The 64-bit thing was and still is a concern. Until I have VDPAU enable and test it out I'm not going to know for sure unless others have done it.

For the memory, I think it is safer to get the 512 MB as I heard that the 256 MB may be an issue when VDPAU is fully baked.

The 64-bit thing was and still is a concern. Until I have VDPAU enable and test it out I'm not going to know for sure unless others have done it.

For the memory, I think it is safer to get the 512 MB as I heard that the 256 MB may be an issue when VDPAU is fully baked.

Whatcha waitin' fer? According to the first review

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121235

"a VDPAU dream-
This is a G98 chipset (567 MHz Core clock) it does everything vdpau has to offer as of 01/22/09 which is full hardware offloading of VC1 - H264 - MPEG2. It works like a charm, I bought 3 of those and I am not looking back"

Well, I am still on Myth 0.21 and there seems to be no one backporting VDPAU to the fixes branch.

You may want to revisit the ATI card-

http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/linux/linux-radeon.html

Catalyst 9.1 just released...

Report Cat 9.1 results here

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1114863

I'm on the road now but when I get back, I'll give it a shot on my desktop machine that got the 4870. At the same time, I certainly don't expect anything more than ATI=FAIL at this point. I've had to turn off compiz altogether on the ATI machine due to that flickering garbage...betcha it ain't fixed ;(

-Trouble

I'm on the road now but when I get back, I'll give it a shot on my desktop machine that got the 4870. At the same time, I certainly don't expect anything more than ATI=FAIL at this point. I've had to turn off compiz altogether on the ATI machine due to that flickering garbage...betcha it ain't fixed ;(

-Trouble

I wouldn't count video quality with Compiz enabled on any GPU or driver...