Hi,

What is it?

thanks

Sorry dude, search. There's several extremely detailed threads about it, some on the first page no less.

-Trouble

http://www.google.com/search?q=vdpau&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.ubuntu:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-a

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDPAU

http://http.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/vdpau/doxygen/html/index.html

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia_vdpau&num=1

Any further questions post here

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1097364

Thanks for your replies. I did search, found some threads like the ones you are pointing, Rgb.

What I don't get is the advantages over just playing media via VLC and nvidia drivers installed? well, CPU usage seems a major advantage, isnt it?

so is it HIGHLY recommended to install it?

thanks

The advantages depend on your hardware. For my setup the benefits we tremendous.

Prior to myth 0.22 with VDPAU, I had issues recording 3 shows while playing a recording. I would get freezes, jumps, skips. Now same scenario is smooth and only uses about 15% cpu.

However, if your current setup works, I wouldn't jump on it just yet. Compiling the source and configuring can be problematic from time to time.

VDPAU has allowed me to keep my Athlon x2 4600 as my backend and main frontend. I was about to upgrade the hardware because it couldn't handle 1080p smoothly, but VDPAU solved the issue.

The advantage of VDPAU for me is that with the purchase of a $40 video card (8400 GS 512M pci) I am able to continue to use 5 year old hardware to watch HDTV. My motherboard doesn't even have pci express as an option! All it has is a (now useless) AGP and some pci slots (3 of which are occupied by tuners).

The one change I did do is because my first forays into VDPAU would occasionally hard hang the system, is I moved the frontend off of my backend system (an AMD Athlon XP2000 based system) and onto a Geodge based system (I moved the pci card as well). By having the frontend separate from the backend, I don't lose recordings when I have to hardboot the frontend. Since installing the .29 version of Nvidia drivers and the latest mythtv 21 fixes + VDPAU (from avenard's site), it's seemed pretty stable.

I still find it hard to believe I'm able to watch HDTV on an AMD Geode (around 1400 Mhz if I recall) with no breaking, no sputtering, and around 30% of the CPU used.

The advantage of VDPAU for me is that with the purchase of a $40 video card (8400 GS 512M pci) I am able to continue to use 5 year old hardware to watch HDTV. My motherboard doesn't even have pci express as an option! All it has is a (now useless) AGP and some pci slots (3 of which are occupied by tuners).

The one change I did do is because my first forays into VDPAU would occasionally hard hang the system, is I moved the frontend off of my backend system (an AMD Athlon XP2000 based system) and onto a Geodge based system (I moved the pci card as well). By having the frontend separate from the backend, I don't lose recordings when I have to hardboot the frontend. Since installing the .29 version of Nvidia drivers and the latest mythtv 21 fixes + VDPAU (from avenard's site), it's seemed pretty stable.

I still find it hard to believe I'm able to watch HDTV on an AMD Geode (around 1400 Mhz if I recall) with no breaking, no sputtering, and around 30% of the CPU used.

Yes, an exciting time to be in the Linux media PC game :)

It's quite amusing that a PCI card here in 2009 can do 1080p/1080i HD with no sweat.

Longtime avsforum members will recall how "common wisdom" here around 2000-2003 dictated you "must" have an AGP 8x video card, then PCIe- HD "wouldn't play smooth" on even an AGP 4x, let alone a lowly PCI card! Granted, with VDPAU, compressed video data is being sent over the PCI bus vs CPU-decompressed video data in the early days, but still...

The advantage of VDPAU for me is that with the purchase of a $40 video card (8400 GS 512M pci)

does your PCI card have G98 gpu or another ?


I still find it hard to believe I'm able to watch HDTV on an AMD Geode (around 1400 Mhz if I recall) with no breaking, no sputtering, and around 30% of the CPU used.

did you try to play 1080p/1080i video ?ш

is it possible to transfer audio through dvi on that card ?

does your PCI card have G98 gpu or another ?



did you try to play 1080p/1080i video ?ш

is it possible to transfer audio through dvi on that card ?

Yes, I am playing both 1080i (the best my TV can do) and 720P with no problems. No, the card has only DVI, no audio. I use a USB sound card with optical hookup to my receiver for sound.

I don't know, to be honest, what the processor on the graphics card is, I don't think it's a G98, I might check that tonight if I have time (I'm working on a usb driver for an unsupported atsc capture card, so that's taking most of my cycles right now.)

did you try to playback 1080p video ?
the GPU type you can find in the xorg logs.
does your card from Sparkle or PNY ?

I ordered a BFG nVidia 8400 GS (http://www.bfgtech.com/bfgr84512gsp.aspx) for my old 32-bit athlon-2800 running on an equally old Asus A7N8X motherboard (http://www.gamepyre.com/hardwared.html?aid=43&p=1) which has no PCI-e (only a PCI). ... Needless to say I'm very curious as to how it will perform on my athlon-2800 on this motherboard (running openSUSE-11.1).

I anticipate the card will arrive by mail in a week or two.

If it runs reasonably ok, I may try it in an even older athlon-1100 (on a 9-year old MSI KT3 Ultra motherboard) to see how it works.

But I'm not going to "hold my breath". ... I anticipate the PC being 32-bit and the motherboard bus having the slowest of the PCI slots, has to mean there is a bandwidth limitation. Its really a question of the 8400GS performing better than the AGP graphic card (FX5200 on the athlon-2800 and MX400/440 on the athlon-1100) that I own now in those PCs.

I do have the purchase of a new Intel i7 based PC planned (not sure what graphics to get for this new PC...) , but it would be nice to get more life out of these older PCs at the same time.

I'm thinking maybe getting a nVidia GTX 260 for the new Intel i7 PC, but I'm not sure.

does your card from Sparkle or PNY ?
For information, my research indicated PCI nVidia 8400GS cards could be procured from the following suppliers:
BFG: http://www.bfgtech.com/bfgr84512gsp.aspx
Sparkle: http://www.sparkle.com.tw/product_detail.asp?id=86&sub_id=238
PNY: (newegg photos - I could not find the product URL for their card on the PNY site): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133245
eVGA: http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=512-P1-N724-LR&family=GeForce%208%20Series%20Family

I ordered a BFG nVidia 8400 GS (http://www.bfgtech.com/bfgr84512gsp.aspx) for my old 32-bit athlon-2800 running on an equally old Asus A7N8X motherboard (http://www.gamepyre.com/hardwared.html?aid=43&p=1) which has no PCI-e (only a PCI). ... Needless to say I'm very curious as to how it will perform on my athlon-2800 on this motherboard (running openSUSE-11.1).

I anticipate the card will arrive by mail in a week or two.

If it runs reasonably ok, I may try it in an even older athlon-1100 (on a 9-year old MSI KT3 Ultra motherboard) to see how it works.

But I'm not going to "hold my breath". ... I anticipate the PC being 32-bit and the motherboard bus having the slowest of the PCI slots, has to mean there is a bandwidth limitation. Its really a question of the 8400GS performing better than the AGP graphic card (FX5200 on the athlon-2800 and MX400/440 on the athlon-1100) that I own now in those PCs...

I think you might be OK --> http://xbmc.org/forum/showpost.php?p=299506&postcount=523

For information, my research indicated PCI nVidia 8400GS cards could be procured from the following suppliers:
BFG: http://www.bfgtech.com/bfgr84512gsp.aspx
Sparkle: http://www.sparkle.com.tw/product_detail.asp?id=86&sub_id=238
PNY: (newegg photos - I could not find the product URL for their card on the PNY site): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133245
eVGA: http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=512-P1-N724-LR&family=GeForce%208%20Series%20Family


I wish they would make an AGP version, I have a few older P3/P4 motherboards with AGP 4x/8x slot that would be reborn with any of these cards. I know I could just use a PCI slot but it seems like a waste to me not being able to make use of the much faster AGP bus (which would mean even less cpu load than with PCI).

Actually I might get one for my ancient dual Pentium 233MMX (which was my first HTPC back in 1997, it has a Creative DXR3 card and is perfectly capable of playing DVDs with it), it has 384MB RAM and rev 2.1 PCI slots, so technically the 8400GS should work in it, I wonder if I get HD out of it... ;)

I wish they would make an AGP version, I have a few older P3/P4 motherboards with AGP 4x/8x slot that would be reborn with any of these cards. I know I could just use a PCI slot but it seems like a waste to me not being able to make use of the much faster AGP bus (which would mean even less cpu load than with PCI).

Actually I might get one for my ancient dual Pentium 233MMX (which was my first HTPC back in 1997, it has a Creative DXR3 card and is perfectly capable of playing DVDs with it), it has 384MB RAM and rev 2.1 PCI slots, so technically the 8400GS should work in it, I wonder if I get HD out of it... ;)

Agreed re: shortsightedness of leaving out the AGP slot for 8400GS's.

It would be fun to see "how low can you go" re: lowest CPU capable of playing 720p and 1080p x264 with a VDPAU capable GPU.

Agreed re: shortsightedness of leaving out the AGP slot for 8400GS's.


Yes especially as recent ATI GPUs (HD3650 HD3850) are still available for the AGP bus.


It would be fun to see "how low can you go" re: lowest CPU capable of playing 720p and 1080p x264 with a VDPAU capable GPU.

I did a search as I was considering buying one just for experimenting with it, but unfortunately the 8400GS PCI doesn't seem to be available at all in Europe, I can only find the PCI-E version.
While I obviously could get one from the US, the shipping and customes fees would make that not worthwhile anymore.

I did a search as I was considering buying one just for experimenting with it, but unfortunately the 8400GS PCI doesn't seem to be available at all in Europe, I can only find the PCI-E version.I know what you mean, ... I had a heck of a time finding a PCI card (not PCI-e) of the 8400GS in Europe ... and I'm still have not succeeded in obtaining one, although I may be close ...

I did note the BFG card http://www.bfgtech.com/bfgr84512gsp.aspx can be found on Swiss web sites. But trying to find a Swiss site that ships out of Switzerland is not easy, and I do not know if there will be custom duties when bringing the card into the EU. Plus the Swiss web sites also want a big fee (about 10 CHF normal shipping (internal to Switzerland) fee + at least another 25 CHF or so fee) to ship outside of Swizterland .

The Sparkle card http://www.sparkle.com.tw/product_detail.asp?id=86&sub_id=238 is advertised on a German web site, but the web site has a series of "reds" for in stock (ie its out of stock) and there is no indication if and when it will come back in stock. Since I do not plan to throw out my old PCs anytime soon, I'm tempted to place an order on the German web site for the Sparkle card, and just let it sit and see how long the order takes.

I did note the BFG card http://www.bfgtech.com/bfgr84512gsp.aspx can be found on Swiss web sites. But trying to find a Swiss site that ships out of Switzerland is not easy, and I do not know if there will be custom duties when bringing the card into the EU. Plus the Swiss web sites also want a big fee (about 10 CHF normal shipping (internal to Switzerland) fee + at least another 25 CHF or so fee) to ship outside of Swizterland .


Interesting, I have only found it here now:
http://www.1000ordi.ch/40534

Where else have you seen it?

EDIT: never mind I found a list of all Swiss online shops that have it:
http://en.toppreise.ch/index.php?search=bfg+GeForce+8400gs&manu=0&cat=0


The Sparkle card http://www.sparkle.com.tw/product_detail.asp?id=86&sub_id=238 is advertised on a German web site, but the web site has a series of "reds" for in stock (ie its out of stock) and there is no indication if and when it will come back in stock. Since I do not plan to throw out my old PCs anytime soon, I'm tempted to place an order on the German web site for the Sparkle card, and just let it sit and see how long the order takes.

Can you post a link please?

Edit: found the sparkle too in Switzerland:
http://www.digitec.ch/?param=toppreise&wert=161377

I just noticed the Sparkle has a 900 MHz Shader Clock, while the BFG is 1400MHz (I guess that's why one has passive and the other one active cooling).

Can anyone please confirm that this won't make any difference for HD playback, I assume it's only relevant for 3D performance, correct?

While I obviously could get one from the US, the shipping and customes fees would make that not worthwhile anymore.

What happened to "free trade"? Oh yeah, it's only "free" when helping the big boys, not us lowly consumers :(

What happened to "free trade"? Oh yeah, it's only "free" when helping the big boys, not us lowly consumers :(

The big boys don't even need that anymore, now that they are helping themselves of free taxpayer money...

Anyway back on topic, does anyone know what the consequences of the different Shader Clock speed are for HD video playback?

I would prefer to get the passively cooled one with the lower clock speed as long as that doesn't make any difference for video playback.

The big boys don't even need that anymore, now that they are helping themselves of free taxpayer money...

Anyway back on topic, does anyone know what the consequences of the different Shader Clock speed are for HD video playback?

I would prefer to get the passively cooled one with the lower clock speed as long as that doesn't make any difference for video playback.

I'm not 100%, but I think de-interlacing and other post-processing use that. Don't quote me. ;)

I'm not 100%, but I think de-interlacing and other post-processing use that. Don't quote me. ;)

Thanks, assuming you are right (as you said you aren't sure), is 900Mhz sufficient for all HD video playback (including de-interlacing and other post-processing) or will I notice differences, i.e. are the additional 500Mhz of the BFG only useful for 3D (which I don't care about) or also for video?

Has anyone here tried the Sparkle 8400GS Passive, PCI, 512MB, with VDPAU and 1080i videos?

Thanks, assuming you are right (as you said you aren't sure), is 900Mhz sufficient for all HD video playback (including de-interlacing and other post-processing) or will I notice differences, i.e. are the additional 500Mhz of the BFG only useful for 3D (which I don't care about) or also for video?

Has anyone here tried the Sparkle 8400GS Passive, PCI, 512MB, with VDPAU and 1080i videos?
I really don't know...my 9300gs is 1400 & I think that's the 1st I've heard of the sparkle. I'd be interested to find out, though, if you hear anything.

Can you post a link please?
This is the German shop that has the Sparkle advertised, but out of stock:
http://www.alternate.de/html/product/Grafikkarten_PCI/Sparkle/SF-PC84GS512U2LP/324106/

Edit: found the sparkle too in Switzerland:
http://www.digitec.ch/?param=toppreise&wert=161377The problem I find with the Swiss shops is trying to get one that will ship out of country, and when they do ship, they want a large shipping fee.

The method I found for searching for suppliers in different countries, is to do a search under google, but go to "advanced" and change the language of he search to the country under consideration. ..

So changing to German language will pick up German suppliers, Swiss suppliers, and sometimes a Czech or Polish supplier ..

Changing to French language will pick up a French, Swiss, or Quebec (Canada) supplier, ...

... etc ...

I ordered a BFG nVidia 8400 GS (http://www.bfgtech.com/bfgr84512gsp.aspx) for my old 32-bit athlon-2800 running on an equally old Asus A7N8X motherboard (http://www.gamepyre.com/hardwared.html?aid=43&p=1) which has no PCI-e (only a PCI). ... Needless to say I'm very curious as to how it will perform on my athlon-2800 on this motherboard (running openSUSE-11.1).

The BFG nVidia 8400GS PCI card finally did arrive. I installed it a significantly older PC than I originally intended ... putting it in an athlon-1100 (w/1GB RAM) replacing a nVidia MX400 AGP card.

Unfortunately with the nVidia 180.44 graphic driver, KDE-3.5.10 (and also KDE-4.1.3) were very unstable. Using the openSUSE KDE default theme, X window would be corrupted within minutes. Chaninging to the KDE-Classic theme, I could get a couple hours of operation under X window, before the desktop was corrupted. VDPAU did work very well, but its still experimental, as with mplayer it would freeze in playback of both H.264 and MPEG files after a while, giving lots of vdpau errors. I plan to write a couple of bug reports on it (the nVidia 180.44 graphic driver) this weekend.

Still, it has incredible potential. For brief times before the freeze, I was able to play on the athlon-1100, with 5% CPU loading, H.264 encoded high definition videos that would give my Intel Core2 duo P8400 PC difficulties.

But the bugs need to be fixed.

Unfortunately with the nVidia 180.44 graphic driver, KDE-3.5.10 (and also KDE-4.1.3) were very unstable. Using the openSUSE KDE default theme, X window would be corrupted within minutes. Chaninging to the KDE-Classic theme, I could get a couple hours of operation under X window, before the desktop was corrupted. VDPAU did work very well, but its still experimental, as with mplayer it would freeze in playback of both H.264 and MPEG files after a while, giving lots of vdpau errors. I plan to write a couple of bug reports on it (the nVidia 180.44 graphic driver) this weekend.
I need to qualify this as being PC specific, and possibly due to PC hardware problems.

vdpau works well with this BFG nVidia GeForce 8400 GS (PCI) card on another PC. ...

I removed the BFG nVidia GeForce 8400GS PCI (512MB) graphic card out of the PC in which I was using it (an older (9+ years) athlon-1100 PC with an MSI KT3 ultra motherboard) where that PC was having the problems with the desktop.

I put the BFG nVidia GeForce 8400GS PCI (512MB) graphic card in my slightly newer athlon-2800 PC (+4 years old Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard ) and installed the proprietary nVidia driver (180.51) and KDE-3.5.10 w/openSUSE-11.1 works great. No corruption. vdpau works fabulous on this athlon-2800 with the 8400GS card.

I'm thinking now the problems I experienced on the athlon-1100 were PC specific, ... either
the power supply on the 9 year old PC was simply too old, or
there was a problem with interrupts, or
it was just a basic compatibility between the motherboard on that 9 year old PC and the graphic card.

So I am happy to report success on this and I can recommend the BFG nVidia GeForce 8400GS (PCI) card to PCs of the same vintage as my athlon-2800 !