ATI Radeon HD 2X00 (2400,2600,2900) series owners thread

[topcaser]

Is posterization fixed

[arfster]

Never had it myself, so no idea, sorry.

None of the standard HTPC bugs have changed: expansion, deinterlacing selection oddities etc. They're still mis-spelling Felshtone_DE_MAX and Felshtone_DE_DEF within atiumdva.dll also.


Three months now since I reported the HD expansion issue.

[arfster]

Yay, they've now broken mpeg2 Bluray acceleration on the 2600 also, like it's always been on the 2400.

[ExDeus]

how do i tell what codec i am using? i am very new to all of this...
It depends on your playback software. You mentioned PowerDVD initially, which means you're using the Cyberlink codecs inside PDVD.

[DigitalDingo]

Hi.

I just bought a Sapphire 2600XT to replace an older ATI card. The problem I am having is that once I installed the 2600 card, the HDMI audio device becomes the default and my onboard audio dissapears from the device manager. When I plug back in the old card, Realtek comes back into the device manager and I have sound again. I am using a Realtek ALC 882 chipset. I just cant figure out how to get the Realtek back. Or am I stuck having to use the HDMI for audio now?

[mitcheal]

ok exdeus...answers to your questions
I'm talking about GPU usage. it hits 100% when playing mpeg2. CPU is averaging 25%.

hardware accelration is on. dxva is on. so based on your post, i need to disable dxva... where can i do that?

Is the idea to disable dxva when playing mpeg2 and on when paying hddvd?
also, would you recommend the registry changes?
thanks for your help..

[mitcheal]

ok exdeus...answers to your questions
I'm talking about GPU usage. it hits 100% when playing mpeg2. CPU is averaging 25%.

hardware accelration is on. dxva is on. so based on your post, i need to disable dxva... where can i do that?

Is the idea to disable dxva when playing mpeg2 and on when paying hddvd?
also, would you recommend the registry changes?
thanks for your help..


told, you... i'm new at this...i turned off dxva in powerdvd and gpu dropped to 20%... CPU jumped to 100%...

is a new CPU the only answer? it seems to play fine...but i only watched for a few minutes...

[mike infinity]

Or am I stuck having to use the HDMI for audio now?lt and my onboard audio dissapears from the device manager.

Once you've installed the card, try rebooting your machine and entering the CMOS setup before it loads up windows. You might be able to reactivate your audio device from there.

When windows boots up, the device manager should now see your other audio hardware.

It worked for me. Now I can choose which audio device to use in device manager.

[millerbrad]

I get an error when I access this site (no permission). I did find the file elsewhere though and have installed the avivo codecs (according to the installation software anyway)

When I run deccheck I now see 2 new entries:

ATI MPEG video decoder (atidvcr.dll)
ATI CC multiplexor

I was expecting AVIVO in the codec name. More, I don't seem to be getting any hardware acceleration on mpeg 2 or 4. It remains the only HW acceleration I can get is via powerdvd for mpeg 4.

Am I missing something?

Nope. Nothing missing. The ATI MPEG video decoder is the AVIVO codec.

And I don't think the AVIVO codecs even support HW acceleration. Awesome, huh?

[millerbrad]

Where in the settings for Media Center is this? The way i have it now is that it uses ffdshow to do the audio work.

Oops found it: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/using/setup/surroundsound.mspx

Is it the same thing you are talking about?

Not too familiar with XP MCE (I have Vista), but that seems to correspond with the Media Center setup screens I was referring to.

[millerbrad]

Never had it myself, so no idea, sorry.

None of the standard HTPC bugs have changed: expansion, deinterlacing selection oddities etc. They're still mis-spelling Felshtone_DE_MAX and Felshtone_DE_DEF within atiumdva.dll also.


Three months now since I reported the HD expansion issue.


But these "Shoot-em-Up" drivers sure do a good job with games... Who cares about HTPCs? :rolleyes:

[millerbrad]

Unfortunately the link does not work, even getting to it via the homepage. Is this mirrored anywhere?

Hmm.. Try going to softella.com, and click the link on the left to download the "DSFM" software.

Or maybe try Googling DSFMgr.zip... (http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&q=dsfmgr.zip)

[originalsnuffy]

Hey now good people...

Just installed 7.10. Did not do anything fancy. Did not even uninstall the old drivers before installing the new.

PowerDVD, even on my wimpy 2400 and wimpy notebook CPU, now is working fine (at least so far). No little flashing lines on the screen with HD DVD playback (tested three movies so far). The BBC h.264 files that I have still are a bit jerky in quicktime...no better or worse. But PowerDVD is the most important test for me...and so far this passes!

[red5goahead]

good. in Ati 7.10 an issue has been fixed! :) Under Vista with kmplayer using evr rendered when start evr on 2° monitor from first monitor (there is an usefull option in kmp) an error occour on atikmdag.sys (the ati kernel).
I test this problem with 7.8 , 7.9 and 7.9 hotfix.

this is the video of error:
http://www.4shared.com/file/25464699/76c7f511/kmplayer_crash_into_Vista_when_display_on_second_monitor.htm l?dirPwdVerified=f1c1905

a problem remain in dxva mode. evr seems not work on second monitor. but could be a related kmp problem.

[Nyria]

I'm having serious issues with the 7.10 drivers.

1. The picture starts shaking like i'm watching an earthquake.
2. The picture goes black sound stops, tv reports "Non suported Mode", and a few seconds later the picture comes back again.

Did notice the "use hardware acceleration" in powerdvd stays on again while playing mpeg2 files, so thats an improvement.

I will be sticking to 7.9 for now.

[hapklaar]

told, you... i'm new at this...i turned off dxva in powerdvd and gpu dropped to 20%... CPU jumped to 100%...


What do you use to measure GPU load?

[eagleone]

What do you use to measure GPU load?
I keep the ATI CCC open in Overdrive page where GPU load is shown. Task manager is enough for me for CPU load.

[mitcheal]

What do you use to measure GPU load?

rivatuner

[graham_h]

Hi Gents and ladies

First post but needing some expert help.

MSI Radeon X2600XT 512mb
hooked upto benq 19" LCD desktop display
and a sony bravia XBR 46" LCD via HDMI (using a converter)

I have it all "working" but just can't figure the correct settings.

I'm using the 7.9 drivers and just installed power strip.
I'd like the benq to stay at native res and never change.
And I'd like to be able to use the Sony in the mode that is compatible with what ever media I may be watching.

So 1080p for blu ray, hd dvd.
720p for TV eps etc.

I'll be damned if I can figure this out. Every time I set res for the Bravia it buggers up the benq and vice versa.
Should I even bother with powerstrip ?

Sometimes no desktop icons show on the bravia.

All I want is to be able to switch display and have them work as I want.
Pc is running XP pro if that makes a difference.

I'd also like to know more about overscan and 1.1 pixel mapping.

Thanks
G

[topcaser]

ATITool 2.7 beta. With this tool one is able to control the fan
:cool:

[Beefcake]

graham, I'll try to help.

The way you want to do this is to find the native resolutions for BOTH displays and leave each display at that resolution no matter the source material. Your video card will do a better job of scaling than the TV.

For desktop items, whats going on is the desktop is being "expanded" to fill the other screen as well. You won't ever see the desktop items on both screens.

I don't believe you will need Powerstrip for anything. the ATI drivers should be able to drive what you need.

Overscan and 1:1 pixel mapping.

Overscan is when the desktop image doesn't "fit" on the viewable TV screen because it is Over-Scanned and being displayed larger than the TV screen. ALL TV signals (HD and SD) are normally displayed on a TV with some amount of overscan. I don't want to get into why. Now, with your HDTV, you can use the ATI driver to adjust the overscan/underscan of the image being displayed. This is done in the CCC software.

1:1 pixel mapping is when source resolution = display resolution. Most importantly, I think you want to keep the display resolution set to the display's native (best) resolution. All HDTVs convert all incoming signals to some common resolution. Say you have a 1080p TV and are feeding it a 720p signal from your STB or computer. Sure, the TV can handle it, but it does so by converting it to its native 1080p interal format. Same thing with 1080i.

I hope this helps and most importantly I hope I'm right in the way I describe things. Of course, there are always expects to every rule, so remember that too. I try to use the "most common" approach to explaining things.

-Brian

[graham_h]

Excellent Brian, thank you.
Admittedly I haven't sat down and actually tried to set it up yet. More like kept bashing away and forcing the issue.

I'll get rid of power strip and go back to basics. Then I should be all good.

[FerPhobos]

Hello.

Let me ask you some basic questions about the excellent work of ExDeux and arfster concerning to the ATI HD2x00 Registry Tweaks.

These Tweaks apply both to the software and hardware acceleration modes of PowerDVD Ultra, or only with the hardware acceleration is active?

When arfster say:

"VForceMaxResSize 2800000 (aka SORTOverrideVidSizeCaps in Cat7.7 and earlier) = this sets the PDVD HDDVD/Bluray max render size in pixels, but the default setting is so small that it can't fill a 1080p screen."

means that if you send a 1080p HD file from an HTPC to a 1080p display there is not a 1:1 maping, and instead there is some kind of scaling in the ATI card or the display?


Thank you very much in advance.

[arfster]

When arfster say:

"VForceMaxResSize 2800000 (aka SORTOverrideVidSizeCaps in Cat7.7 and earlier) = this sets the PDVD HDDVD/Bluray max render size in pixels, but the default setting is so small that it can't fill a 1080p screen."

means that if you send a 1080p HD file from an HTPC to a 1080p display there is not a 1:1 maping, and instead there is some kind of scaling in the ATI card or the display?


Yes, it scales it down within the PDVD window, so when fullscreen on a 1080p display you get black bars to left and right. Setting it to the value above fixes this.

[mike infinity]

I don't believe you will need Powerstrip for anything. the ATI drivers should be able to drive what you need.

Powerstrip can get you 1:1 mapping if you use it to compensate for overscan. The CCC drivers compensate for overscan by clipping the pixels. So a 1280x720p display gets clipped by CCC to eliminate overscan. With powerstrip, you can adjust the pixel clocks to get 1:1 with no overscan.

My problem is that if I use powerstrip for customized timings, I get juddery video output from the 2400 or 2600.

[karrih]

Is posterization fixed

No change in my testclip. Oh well, maybe next month...

[ditcho]

Powerstrip can get you 1:1 mapping if you use it to compensate for overscan. The CCC drivers compensate for overscan by clipping the pixels. So a 1280x720p display gets clipped by CCC to eliminate overscan. With powerstrip, you can adjust the pixel clocks to get 1:1 with no overscan.

My problem is that if I use powerstrip for customized timings, I get juddery video output from the 2400 or 2600.

If your display overscans, you can never have 1:1 pixel mapping and no overscan without losing visible pixels. Regardless of how and what you use. Perhaps you are trying to say that only Powerstrip allows you to achieve 1:1 pixel mapping with zero overscan, which is also not quite true - I was able to do it on my rear projection 720p display without Powerstrip.

[gtgray]

Powerstrip can get you 1:1 mapping if you use it to compensate for overscan. The CCC drivers compensate for overscan by clipping the pixels. So a 1280x720p display gets clipped by CCC to eliminate overscan. With powerstrip, you can adjust the pixel clocks to get 1:1 with no overscan.

My problem is that if I use powerstrip for customized timings, I get juddery video output from the 2400 or 2600.

My problem is that if I use CCC to control overscan I get some weird scaling artifacts that just look like random noise. So I am setting the scaling to 0 and using Studio mode (Dot by Dot) and just letting it overscan. I loose some desktop but at least I am able to get at the start icon and can see the edge of the taskbar. Not really much of a problem in VMC or PowerDVD Ultra. I hope there is a better solution down the road. The 6600GT and 7600GT cards I had before were recognized by the HP DLP as DVI and it automatically adjusted the desktop to have zero overscan and there were no scaling artifacts. When displaying TV or Movies I would change the TV's aspect ratio from PC to Studio. The HP DLP does not recognize the ATI 2600 as PC input via DVI/HDMI and make the necessary corrections.

[originalsnuffy]

Other than CCC; how does one adjust overclocking with the 2400? I can't get clocking adustments to "stick" since 7.7.

[ExDeus]

ok exdeus...answers to your questions
I'm talking about GPU usage. it hits 100% when playing mpeg2. CPU is averaging 25%.
In my experience, that really shouldn't happen, but it seems your real question is about how to turn off DXVA, which you figured out in PowerDVD with the checkbox to enable hardware acceleration (ATI AVIVO). What are the specs of the MPEG2 stream (resolution, progressive/interlaced, framerate)? Does this happen with every MPEG2 stream? What deinterlacing mode is selected in CCC? Have you tried a different mode?

hardware accelration is on. dxva is on. so based on your post, i need to disable dxva... where can i do that?
Hardware acceleration = DXVA (DirectX Video Acceleration).

Is the idea to disable dxva when playing mpeg2 and on when paying hddvd?
No, you shouldn't need to disable it. Perhaps you have a defective card.

also, would you recommend the registry changes?
Well, yes. I use all of them except VForceMaxResSize and SORTOverrideVidSizeCaps (they do the same thing, depending on the driver version you use). I don't have a 1080p display, so I don't need it.

You can read arfster's explanation (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=11659897&postcount=2121) to see which ones you want to use. Personally, I don't want artificial picture enhancements, i.e., detail/edge enhancement, color/fleshtone enhancements, or denoising, but I do want consistent level expansion b/w HD and SD. arfster's registry tweaks make that all possible.

[mike infinity]

If your display overscans, you can never have 1:1 pixel mapping and no overscan without losing visible pixels.

I'm not much of an expert. I suppose 1:1 is possible on powerstrip adjusting for overscan on CRT type displays...correct?

Right now I would be happy if I could get rid of the green flashes and juddery playback at 1080i on my 2x00 card.

my Hitachi screen actually looks best when it downsamples 1080i output to 720p (I think it actually resamples 720p signals before displaying them natively...I get what looks like interlacing jitters on horizontal lines at 720p, but not from downsampled 1080i).

[JackBee]

Have the 2600 XT, using the 7.7, 7.9, newest Omega drivers and 7.10, using HDMI i cannot get 1:1 pixel mapping on 1360x768. It is overscanned by ~10% regardless of what i do, and the overscan option in CCC is greyed out. I tried powerstrip and it refuses to adjust anything. Uncanny. 1280x720 works and i can over/under scan it to fit the display fine but i want 1:1 pixel mapping. My old X1300 card worked fine in this regard. Same display on both cards. Anyone have any ideas?

[mitcheal]

In my experience, that really shouldn't happen, but it seems your real question is about how to turn off DXVA, which you figured out in PowerDVD with the checkbox to enable hardware acceleration (ATI AVIVO). What are the specs of the MPEG2 stream (resolution, progressive/interlaced, framerate)? Does this happen with every MPEG2 stream? What deinterlacing mode is selected in CCC? Have you tried a different mode?


Hardware acceleration = DXVA (DirectX Video Acceleration).


No, you shouldn't need to disable it. Perhaps you have a defective card.


Well, yes. I use all of them except VForceMaxResSize and SORTOverrideVidSizeCaps (they do the same thing, depending on the driver version you use). I don't have a 1080p display, so I don't need it.

You can read arfster's explanation (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=11659897&postcount=2121) to see which ones you want to use. Personally, I don't want artificial picture enhancements, i.e., detail/edge enhancement, color/fleshtone enhancements, or denoising, but I do want consistent level expansion b/w HD and SD. arfster's registry tweaks make that all possible.

ok,you're noty gonna believe this. it's an mpeg 4, H264.... i didn't realize that... i'll try and find an mpeg2 file... how does the card handle that file?

[karrih]

No change in my testclip. Oh well, maybe next month...

In fact it seems that 7.10 drivers are somehow incompatible with my XP setup. I have tried uninstalling first 7.9 with ati uninstall utility and also upgrading from 7.9. Both ways of installing 7.10 will put my pc into real crawl, just starting up will take minutes. Catalyst CC will not open either most of the time.

I guess I could try full reinstallation starting with XP, but as the posterisation, my major source of annoyance, has not been fixed yet, I believe I will stay with 7.9.

[augiedoggy]

this is driving me nuts.....I have tried just about every version of the drivers on my eah2400pro card and even the registry tweaks......nothing is a working combination.....the drivers with the built in registry tweaks worked the best on powerdvd with HD-dvd but then my option to watch hd mpeg streams in mediaportal either from my dvbs or recorded files from atsc tuner was broken....When I would try to view such a stream I would get a windows error or mediaportal would just close....and this is with hardware accel off on the directshow filters mpeg decoder I use. If I turn hardware accel on I cant get it to play any hd video in mediaportal at all...it just crashes even without the tweak on a full uninstall and fresh reinstall of the latest drivers.This is sooo agreivating. Does anyone know if the hardware accel will work with a nivdia 8500 card when switching to and from different types of video in mediaportal?
I acually get the same results from mytheatre with hadware accel on...if I open the program and it was already tuned to an hd channel it plays in hardware accel mode but as soon as I switch to a channel thats playing a different format (example 1080i to 720p or 480i ) i loose video. Seems like this is a vmr issue only but I need that to work.

[VegasF6]

I hate to over simplify this question, but can someone please tell me how to test and see if hardware acceleration is working for me?

Visiontek 2400hd agp card
Amd 64 3200+
MSI neo fisr motherboard
Vista X86 ultimate
Power DVD 7

I have installed the .9 reg tweaks, although I don't imagine I needed them if the card isn't working right.

I have installed cat 7.10 from visiontek's website. The drivers from visiontek are more than twice the size of ATIs so I have no idea what they did to them. When I download any drivers from ati arena they don't seem to support my card. Is that normal? When I was running XP they would tell me device not found, and in Vista, they run, but they only thing they install is the cat install manager and free games offer.

I installed the vivo package from ATI website.
I have run both deccheck and VMCD and after installing vivo I finally see ATI decoder and have set it for preferred in vista MCE.
I am running various players, zoom player, VLC, media player classic, and powerdvd 7.2

I am trying various test files. I frankly don't know which files the card should accerate and which it shouldn't.
I have a .ts mpeg 2 file from discovery earth. Several h.264 demo files I have downloaded as trailers. And, a .mkv file that claims to hold .264 video in 720P and is supposedly in blu ray format.
Zoom player freezes on some of these. Media Player classic plays them all. VLC plays them all. Power DVD plays all of them but the 720P MKV file, it just freezes (this is after renaming it from .mkv to .h264)

In particular, the 1080i .ts file is the only one that plays on everything so I have mostly been concentrating on it.
GPU usage stays in the 10-20% range, CPU maxes out at 100% mostly, and video stutters and drops frames.

In powerdvd configuration I have enabled hardware acceleration, but if I go the information tab it shows Video Accelerator: DirectX VA (not in use)


Again, I don't expect anyone to spend too much time trying to figure this out, but can you at least point me in the right direction of what video files I should be concentrating on and which player to start with to just get this thing working?

I was on the phone with visiontek support for about a half hour and they are just morons. They claim that I shoud be able to use ATI's drivers instead of the one on there website, but as far as I can tell, they don't support AGP and visiontek doesn't even know this. Had me run through various things that made no sense. Mostly I called them about blank screen in XP MCE and they had never heard of it. So, that is why I installed the card in my vista machine instead. Final solution was they would send me a cd of 7.9 cat because I must be downloading corrupted files.... whatever. Or, I was free to return the card they told me. Great. Except I already cut off the UPC.

[ExDeus]

ok,you're noty gonna believe this. it's an mpeg 4, H264.... i didn't realize that... i'll try and find an mpeg2 file... how does the card handle that file?
Well, no, I believe it. But it still doesn't explain 100% GPU.

The HD2600pro handles H.264 better than MPEG2, because the DXVA is handled by the UVD chip rather than in stream processors. It should support H.264 @ 1080i/p no sweat. It should also handle MPEG2 @ 1080i/p, but will use more GPU.

Perhaps you have a problematic stream in that file. You need to test a variety of different files for each video format, as there are catches with each format. For H.264, one such catch is that H.264 files encoded by x264 with certain features enabled will not work with DXVA. This doesn't seem to be the case with your file, since GPU is pegged at 100%, but you may have a problematic file of another sort. Try some others.

[B Leisle]

Don't know if anyone posted it, but the Catalyst 7.10 drivers seemed to fix the display driver crash I had with 7.9 when playing the HD DVD disc Galapagos. If others are having problems, you may want to apply the new drivers. The main menu video is still a little wonky - it gets choppy - but once you start the main feature, it's fine.

[ExDeus]

When I download any drivers from ati arena they don't seem to support my card. Is that normal?
Yes. Sometimes the driver files don't get updated, so you can update them yourself, or use the VisionTek drivers. See http://exdeus.home.comcast.net/ati-hd2x00/#AGP.

I am trying various test files. I frankly don't know which files the card should accerate and which it shouldn't.
I have a .ts mpeg 2 file from discovery earth.
Yes, DXVA should work.

Several h.264 demo files I have downloaded as trailers.
What container format are they in? In TS, they should work. In MKV, if they were encoded with x264 with certain options (not sure which ones), then DXVA will not work. Otherwise, they should work. Other formats, i.e., MOV, I haven't tried.

And, a .mkv file that claims to hold .264 video in 720P and is supposedly in blu ray format.
There is no 'BluRay format' for H.264, only a container format to hold H.264. If you have an MKV file, then MKV is the container format. I assume "BluRay" is in the title of the file, which simply indicates the video was re-encoded from the file on a BluRay disc. If the x264 codec was used, then like I mentioned, DXVA will not work if some options were used when encoding. You just have to try it to find out.

Zoom player freezes on some of these. Media Player classic plays them all. VLC plays them all. Power DVD plays all of them but the 720P MKV file, it just freezes (this is after renaming it from .mkv to .h264)
ZP and MPC have interfaces to select the DirectShow filter used for playback. VLC and PDVD use their own internal codecs. In ZP and MPC, which DS filter is selected for H264 video? You want to use the Cyberlink decoder to get DXVA. See my post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11772733#post11772733) on configuring ZP to make the Cyberlink and ATI AVIVO decoders available.

Also, PDVD does not read the MKV format. The .mkv file extension indicates the file is in the MKV container format, whereas the .h264, .264, or .avc file extensions indicate a file is raw H.264/AVC video without a container. Changing the file extension will not help PDVD play the file.

In particular, the 1080i .ts file is the only one that plays on everything so I have mostly been concentrating on it.
GPU usage stays in the 10-20% range, CPU maxes out at 100% mostly, and video stutters and drops frames.

In powerdvd configuration I have enabled hardware acceleration, but if I go the information tab it shows Video Accelerator: DirectX VA (not in use)
It doesn't seem DXVA is working for you then. I would try different driver versions, like Catalyst 7.6, 7.7, 7.9. As for my experience, I swapped the 2400 for a 2600, b/c I could never get any H.264 or VC-1 acceleration working. MPEG2 was the only format that would work.

[VegasF6]

I sure appreciate the respone, it will be immensly helpful. I will concentrate mostly on the .ts file right now and I will peruse your other posts soon, then post back.
Yes, the other file contains bluray in the title and is in the x264 format, and does not appear to be working. The source on that one is a little dubious so we will leave it at that. But, I am more certain on the .ts file so I will be able to concentrate on it.
Also, if I re-install my hauppauge 1600 hybrid card, I think I can capture in native .ts, if not that one, then my fusion hdtv card certainly will. They are not installed in this computer they are in another.
All the trailers I have found I think are in .mov or quicktime links to streaming videos even so hardware acceleration may not work on them either.

In zoom player under video I am using vmr9 renderless and I chose a custom renderer, CyberLink Video/SP BD-HD Decoder (PDVD7.x)|{E4913A80-54B7-45DF-AC7B-568FD1CF95EE}.

I will need to read your how to setup zoom player to see if I am doing it wrong, I have chosen about every option I could see.
I am not sure how to tell which direct show filter is enabled, if I right click on the screen and choose filters after loading the file, the only video filter I see is Dscaler mpeg 2 video decoder, so I imagine this is wrong.

I started this PC with a 6600GT and I had to steal it for another computer. I then bought a 7600LE from newegg and returned it because I hated it. Restocking fee. I then bought this 2400 ati and I don't want another restocking fee, besides which like I said I cut the UPC already. I really don't want to buy ANOTHER video card, but I am certainly wishing I had gone with the 2600 now. Or am I just doomed trying to use an AGP card?

[ExDeus]

In zoom player under video I am using vmr9 renderless and I chose a custom renderer, CyberLink Video/SP BD-HD Decoder (PDVD7.x)|{E4913A80-54B7-45DF-AC7B-568FD1CF95EE}.
That may work; I'm not seeing that decoder on my system, though. The one that works for me is {F2E3D920-0F9B-4319-BE87-EB94CCEB6C09}|CyberLink H.264/AVC Decoder (PDVD7.x), and I'm using the standard overlay.

f I right click on the screen and choose filters after loading the file, the only video filter I see is Dscaler mpeg 2 video decoder, so I imagine this is wrong.
Then yeah, it's using Dscaler instead of Cyberlink. Dscaler and ffdshow are meant to be software implementations in lieu of DXVA. You need to look at the various MPEG2 program/transport stream filters in ZP to make sure you have the right decoder selected, and make sure you enabled Smart Play. You also have to close/reopen ZP after changing filters to get the changes to take effect, or press Shift+J to reload the file.

I really don't want to buy ANOTHER video card, but I am certainly wishing I had gone with the 2600 now. Or am I just doomed trying to use an AGP card?
I feel your pain. I consciously held off on the rebate for my 2400 until I saw everything working. I opted to return it for the 2600, but that doesn't mean that it won't work for the 2400, I just don't know what the magic configuration is. I am also on XP, so YMMV on Vista.

[grubi]

Is posterization fixed

It is not.
:mad::mad::mad:

[ExDeus]

Unfortunately, the red-shift problem isn't fixed in 7.10, either.

[ygre]

amd athlon 3500 (2200 mghz) + ati 2600 ht download beta 7.10 + REG TWEAKS STILL
HA DISENGAGE AT PLAYBACK .I FUGURE MAYBE IT IS POWER DVD .I GO AT CYBERLINK
IF AN UPDAT WAS ARRIVE AND I FOUND A PATCH CYBERLINK 3104 _R1_EVR_LOGO_
DVD70614_02 VER 4.0.100.1190 NOW PLAYBACK WITH HA ALL WAY LONG ENJOY !
RUN WIYH XP ON AN AQUOS 52" 1080P

[Mike_Stuewe]

amd athlon 3500 (2200 mghz) + ati 2600 ht download beta 7.10 + REG TWEAKS STILL
HA DISENGAGE AT PLAYBACK .I FUGURE MAYBE IT IS POWER DVD .I GO AT CYBERLINK
IF AN UPDAT WAS ARRIVE AND I FOUND A PATCH CYBERLINK 3104 _R1_EVR_LOGO_
DVD70614_02 VER 4.0.100.1190 NOW PLAYBACK WITH HA ALL WAY LONG ENJOY !
RUN WIYH XP ON AN AQUOS 52" 1080P

what?

[grubi]

Unfortunately, the red-shift problem isn't fixed in 7.10, either.

What is best to reduce the problem?

From what I found disabling noise reduction (TRDenoise=0) reduces is but to get rid of it you also have to set deinterlacing to simple adaptive.

Any other observations or tips?

Thanks
grubi.

[airbedman]

.... Mostly I called them about blank screen in XP MCE and they had never heard of it. So, that is why I installed the card in my vista machine instead. Final solution was they would send me a cd of 7.9 cat because I must be downloading corrupted files.... whatever. Or, I was free to return the card they told me. Great. Except I already cut off the UPC.

Did you ever solve the blank screen in MCE problem?

[BertM]

What is best to reduce the problem?

From what I found disabling noise reduction (TRDenoise=0) reduces is but to get rid of it you also have to set deinterlacing to simple adaptive.

Any other observations or tips?

Thanks
grubi.

If by red-shift you mean the colour displacement of the picture:

use ffdshow as your decoder for MPEG.
set the output colour space to NV12 (deselect all other options) and select "Set deinterlacing flag in output media type to BOB", which activates the complete postprocessing and vector adaptive deinterlacing (if selected in CCC, that is...)
activate the Offset & flip filter in ffdshow properties window. I have set it to luma vert. offset of -2 and horz. offset of -1.

Chroma and luma now perfectly overlap, while maintaining the advantage of VA deinterlacing, anti-aliasing, edge-enhancement (which we luckily can turn off in the registry) etc. from the postprocessor. Of course now you don't use the MPEG2 decoder in the card, but ffdshow's libavc and libmpeg do a very good job at decoding the picture.

I have submitted a ticket some time ago with ATI; they acknowledged the problem and are working on it. Think it might be some time into 2008 before we see a solution... But who cares, the ffdshow solution is nearly perfect

regards,
Bert

[arfster]

Bert: does this only affect mpeg2? Also, only with dxva?


I never watch mpeg2 HD cos it's all h264 here, and the only time broadcast SD mpeg2 goes through the machine is watching sports/news in a tiny desktop window, so likely I'd never notice. DVDs are still via ffdshow for subtitle reasons, which kills dxva.

Will have a look at this later, and see if there's anything can be done in the registry.

[BertM]

Bert: does this only affect mpeg2? Also, any idea whether it exists with vista/xp, or both?


I never watch mpeg2 HD cos it's all h264 here, and the only time SD mpeg2 goes through the machine is watching sports/news in a tiny desktop window, so likely I'd never notice.

I only use XP, I can't get the picture right in Vista (using DVBViewer) so I really don't know whether it (vista) exposes the same problem.

It affects both MPEG2 and H264, it's probably a bug in the postprocessing pipeline. A neat way to show this is by having ffdshow show OSD info about the signal: the colour of the font is shifted when the luma shift filter is enabled, while the colour in the background (MPEG) picture is on spot. (Well, thinking of it, there's no way it can be a bug in the MPEG decoder itself; when using any of the picture filters in ffdshow the hardware decoder isn't (cannot be) used, so it has to be the postprocessing; it even shows up in the CCC waving flag demo)

Since I cannot view H264 through ffdshow in DVBViewer (I have to use the cyberlink thingy) the colour shift remains there in H264 (and it wouldn't make sense here: with my core-2 6600 even mainconcept produces judder in h264, with dxva the picture is perfectly smooth).
So BBC HD and the three German FTA channels still show colour offset, but less visible as vertical resolution is higher. Euro1080 HD1 is back to MPEG2 so doesn't suffer from colour shift (but suffers from repeating the same show for months... but I think I can't blame ATI for that)

H264 files should be fine when played through the ffdshow decoder and luma shift enabled.

(BTW, I found that luma shift is the better option to use; when using luma shift, the picture becomes juddery with fast motion... and vertical shift has to be an even number, which makes sense with 4:2:0)

Update:
colour shift isn't present with progressive material (tried some vc1 and h264 720p files) so here the shift option in ffdshow introduces a colour shift... And gives us the the source of the shift: motion or vector adaptive deinterlacing.

regards,
Bert

[ygre]

I bought the xbox 360 hddvd drive that is connect direct to my pc.For the moment i
only want hddvd playback, so with all the problems since the beginning of these
pages.For king kong audio is correct but i got diaporama image one each min.With the
patch mention above , the movie is now perfect cpu average from 50 - 70 % with some
peak of 90 and gpu 20 to 30 on acc dxva.No need to upgrade my pc for now.
king kong is mpeg 2 right so... just add the patch.

[arfster]

I bought the xbox 360 hddvd drive that is connect direct to my pc.For the moment i
only want hddvd playback, so with all the problems since the beginning of these
pages.For king kong audio is correct but i got diaporama image one each min.With the
patch mention above , the movie is now perfect cpu average from 50 - 70 % with some
peak of 90 and gpu 20 to 30 on acc dxva.No need to upgrade my pc for now.
king kong is mpeg 2 right so... just add the patch.


King Kong is VC1, but your problems are fairly common - you were using a really old PDVD version before. The patch you put on there isn't even the newest, it's 2 months old. Here's the new 3319 version:

http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/patch/enu/index.jsp

[RichB]

King Kong is VC1, but your problems are fairly common - you were using a really old PDVD version before. The patch you put on there isn't even the newest, it's 2 months old. Here's the new 3319 version:

http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/patch/enu/index.jsp

I am sometimes just getting a blank green screen with 3319. I have to reboot to get a picture. Anyone else seeing this?

Update: It green screens the display and crashed my Vista32 Ultimate system when started after Sleeping. Time to System Restore to 3104a ;)
I guess we know why this version has not been released.

- Rich

[rtiangha]

For those with problems with the AGP versions of this card, there's an article in the knowledge base (737-29894 (http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=29894)) that may apply to you:


737-29894: Radeon HD 2xxx AGP Series - High CPU usage or system crash during HD playback

The information in this article applies to the following configuration(s):

* PowerDVD, ZoomPlayer
* Catalyst Display Driver 7.9
* Radeon™ HD2900 series
* Radeon™ HD2600 series
* Radeon™ HD2400 series
* Windows Vista 32-bit Edition
* Windows Vista 64-bit Edition
* Windows XP Professional
* Windows XP Home Edition
* Windows XP Media Center Edition
* Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

Symptoms:
On AGP versions of the above mentioned graphics cards the Hardware Acceleration does not get enabled. High CPU usage, stuttering HD playback or even system crash are expected behaviours, although DXVA (DirectX Video Acceleration) is enabled by the application.

Solution:
Currently there is no solution.

ATI Engineering has been advised of this issue and is investigating. Any updates will be published when they become available.



217698


If there are others (like me) who seem to have this problem, I urge you to write ATI support about it, otherwise they may not do anything about it (doubtful as these are new cards, but they could in theory pull an Nvidia later on and say that UVD doesn't work on AGP just like Nvidia said that the AGP 6600GT didn't accelerate WMV HD even though their marketing materials said so and silently removed all mention of those AGP features from their site).

In any case, here are my specs, for those who are curious:

MSI K7N2 Delta2-LSR (nforce 2 based, BIOS B.5 2005-01-20)
Athlon XP 2500+
Diamond Viper 512MB DDR2 HD2600pro AGP (Model: 2600PRO512ASB)


Graphics Card Manufacturer Powered by ATI
Graphics Chipset ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro AGP
Device ID 9587
Vendor 1002

Subsystem ID 0028
Subsystem Vendor ID 1092

Bus Type AGP
Current Bus Setting AGP 8X

BIOS Version 010.051.000.002
BIOS Part Number 113-AB31200-100-IT
BIOS Date 2007/08/31

Memory Size 512 MB
Memory Type DDR2

Core Clock in MHz 601 MHz
Memory Clock in MHz 405 MHz

Primary Display Yes


1 GB DDR RAM
DVI or VGA connection (my monitor supports both)
Windows XP SP2
DirectX 9c (Aug 2007)
No exclamation mark in device manger, but unknown PCI Device which is probably the HD HDMI Audio device.
AGP Aperture currently set at 512MB (used to be at 128), but it can also be set to 32, 64, 128, and 256 as well.

I also don't get any Direct 3D acceleration (according to dxdiag) in any version of Catalyst 7.8 or higher (am currently running 7.7 (one version below what shipped on the CD) just to get VMR9 to work).

[ExDeus]

amd athlon 3500 (2200 mghz) + ati 2600 ht download beta 7.10 + REG TWEAKS STILL HA DISENGAGE AT PLAYBACK .I FUGURE MAYBE IT IS POWER DVD .I GO AT CYBERLINK IF AN UPDAT WAS ARRIVE AND I FOUND A PATCH CYBERLINK 3104 _R1_EVR_LOGO_DVD70614_02 VER 4.0.100.1190 NOW PLAYBACK WITH HA ALL WAY LONG ENJOY !
RUN WIYH XP ON AN AQUOS 52" 1080P

what?
Not to worry, I speak gibberish.

With an HD2600 and 7.10 beta drivers, he applied the reg tweaks but DXVA still wouldn't work in PowerDVD. He checked for an update at Cyberlink, and discovered that patch 3104 had been released. Now DXVA always works.

Had he read a page or two of the thread here, he might of discovered this some time ago.

Our friend is obviously communicating via babelfish or some internal wetware equivalent. Let's cut him some slack.

[ExDeus]

What is best to reduce the problem?

From what I found disabling noise reduction (TRDenoise=0) reduces is but to get rid of it you also have to set deinterlacing to simple adaptive.

Any other observations or tips?

Thanks
grubi.
I've always had denoising off, and I've still had it. I haven't tested it myself, but it was also reported (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11675596#post11675596) that turning off pulldown detection can also resolve the issue.

I have pulldown detection on and deinterlacing set to vector adaptive. I might test some other combos.

[ExDeus]

If by red-shift you mean the colour displacement of the picture:

use ffdshow as your decoder for MPEG.

I'm seeing it on SD MPEG2 (special features) on an HD DVD, which leaves me two options: PDVD or Nero Showtime. Showtime works for sh*t, so that leaves me PDVD with the built-in Cyberlink decoder.

It affects both MPEG2 and H264, it's probably a bug in the postprocessing pipeline.
I haven't seen that. I only see the red shift affect SD MPEG2 --- not HD MPEG2, or H264 or VC-1. I haven't tried any SD or interlaced H264, so it's possible it would crop up if I did, but I do watch 1080i MPEG2 without the problem.

Update:
colour shift isn't present with progressive material (tried some vc1 and h264 720p files) so here the shift option in ffdshow introduces a colour shift... And gives us the the source of the shift: motion or vector adaptive deinterlacing.
I will have to see if I tested 480p or 480i... I thought I saw it on 480p on HD DVD. That may mean it is not isolated to adaptive deinterlacing, but also affected by pulldown. Still related to framerates and frame detection.

[VegasF6]

Nope, the original plan was to put it in my vista machine just to eliminate a hardware problem, then I got into other issue's with it. So, I plan to get it running perfectly in Vista, then re-installing it on the XP-MCE machine. But, after all this trouble if I get it running I doubt I will want to switch it back frankly.

I have seen a few others post about the black screen in MCE, but no solutions.

[sosuke3]

Has anyone else had problems with PowerDVD causing a BSoD on ativvaxx.dll? I have catalyst 7.10 installed with my 2600XT; I tried with hw accel on and off and it's the same no matter what. Seems to be ok windowed but as soon as I go fullscreen with powerdvd it blue-screens... and it only seems to happen with HD-DVDs. I tried a regular DVD and it was fine. Anyone have any ideas? I installed the latest update for powerdvd and that didn't help either.

Note, I just installed this card today so I haven't tried 7.9 drivers or earlier. It was working fine with my nvidia card but I figured it was time for an upgrade.. guess not...... Also I've been watching a bunch of h264 stuff in zoomplayer since I installed this card with no problems, so it seems to only be powerdvd/HDDVDs that are having issues.

[robgrobg]

I reported a while back about how my on-board audio "up-and-left-town" after installing a Gigabyte HD 2600 Pro video card. I have an HP a1740n pc, Vista Home Premium, with on-board Realtek HD audio device. I was running with the latest Realtek driver, version 1.79 - everything just great. I then installed the video card and, just like that, the only audio device I have in the system now is an HDMI device, something to do with ATI's bizarre ability to send audio out the DVI ports of the video card. Maybe it's working or maybe not - haven't connected it to a HT receiver to test it. I don't really care about that at present - I just want my damn desktop speakers to work.

Any (new) ideas/thoughts on this problem out there? I just don't get how my on-board audio device can suddenly disappear. Windows is usually pretty good at recognizing hardware. It's like the presence of the video card with it's goofy audio capability has swapped itself in to replace my on-board device, masking or hiding its existance. Tres weird. Any help appreciated. Thx.

[VegasF6]

Has anyone else had problems with PowerDVD causing a BSoD on ativvaxx.dll? I have catalyst 7.10 installed with my 2600XT; I tried with hw accel on and off and it's the same no matter what. Seems to be ok windowed but as soon as I go fullscreen with powerdvd it blue-screens... and it only seems to happen with HD-DVDs. I tried a regular DVD and it was fine. Anyone have any ideas? I installed the latest update for powerdvd and that didn't help either.

Note, I just installed this card today so I haven't tried 7.9 drivers or earlier. It was working fine with my nvidia card but I figured it was time for an upgrade.. guess not...... Also I've been watching a bunch of h264 stuff in zoomplayer since I installed this card with no problems, so it seems to only be powerdvd/HDDVDs that are having issues.
Just a shot in the dark, but do you have read it clearly enabled? I have been having some issues with it on full screen. Not BSOD but picture shrunk and upper right quadrant just a green mess of pixels. I enabled it and disabled it several times, still the same thing. But, if I enable and also turn on high performance mode, it seems to work ok.

[originalsnuffy]

Sosuke3--I think 7.10 is great; but common wisdom is that the most trouble free version is 7.7. You could also try the arfster pack....but I actually had better success with plain old 7.7.

[rtiangha]

Has anyone else had problems with PowerDVD causing a BSoD on ativvaxx.dll? I have catalyst 7.10 installed with my 2600XT; I tried with hw accel on and off and it's the same no matter what. Seems to be ok windowed but as soon as I go fullscreen with powerdvd it blue-screens... and it only seems to happen with HD-DVDs. I tried a regular DVD and it was fine. Anyone have any ideas? I installed the latest update for powerdvd and that didn't help either.

Note, I just installed this card today so I haven't tried 7.9 drivers or earlier. It was working fine with my nvidia card but I figured it was time for an upgrade.. guess not...... Also I've been watching a bunch of h264 stuff in zoomplayer since I installed this card with no problems, so it seems to only be powerdvd/HDDVDs that are having issues.

Just curious, but do you have an AGP or PCI-E card? And could you list your specs and OS? If it's an AGP card, it might be related to 737-29894 (http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=29894).

[Beefcake]

robg ->

you should be able to just re-install your realtek drivers (go to website to check latest version). I had a similar thing happen and this fixed it for me. YMMV, but good luck.

-Brian

[sosuke3]

I'll take a look at 7.7. I might also just try the drivers that came with the card.


Card is PCI-E Gigabyte 2600XT
OS is XP SP2


What is high performance mode? I don't remember seeing an option for that anywhere.

[robgrobg]

robg ->

you should be able to just re-install your realtek drivers (go to website to check latest version). I had a similar thing happen and this fixed it for me. YMMV, but good luck.

-Brian

Thanks, but the problem is that I no longer have a physical device to load the drivers against. Prior to installing the video card I have a device called "Realtek High Definition Audio Device" in the Sound, Video and Game Controllers" section of the Device Manager. After I install the video card, before I put the Catalyst software on or anything else, that device disappears and is replaced with "High Definition Audio Device" (similar name, yes, but distinctly different) and in the Control Panel Sound app that device identifies itself as HDMI-specific. I know it represents the HDMI device because it only offers playback control... the "Recording" tab is empty, since it's really output only.

I started out with the latest v1.79 driver in the first place. Everything was great before adding the video card. If I try to manually add the missing device, or update the driver of the device that's there now, I always get a BSOD reset - I think I get about 6 or more different .inf files to choose from when I try to do this... how am I supposed to know which is the right one? None that I've tried has resulted in success anyway.

[Rew452]

Just reloaded and completely updated WinXP Pro and I have one issue with this new video board. I enter Safe Mode and all I get is a black screen with Safe Mode in all four corners and a mouse cursor which moves but is jerky and no matter how long it sets there it does not Finnish loading in Safe Mode.

I saw this in my old WinXP installation as well and thought it would be fine on a clean install. But not--

My old ATI AIW X800 worked without a hitch so I am sure it has something to with HD 26600xt and or drivers which are now 7.10.

Can anyone share some ideas on what may be wrong and how to remedy?????


My system:
HD 2600xt AGP
Asus P4c800e deluxe
3.2Ghz P4
Bios 1023
1gb Ram

[s174955]

Hi, I read about enabling the Catalyst drivers for AGP versions of the cards,
by adding the HWID of the agp card to the .inf file in the installation directory.
Tried this for mine MSI 2600pro at Vista 32-bit, but didn't succeed.

Only drivers I can install are the 7.7 (latest at MSI site) or a 7.9 beta, which only supports AGP versions.
Hacking the .inf files doesn't work her.

Anyone succeeded?

Besides that the card works quite OK.
Two issues remaining are:
- 20 fps bug (with .mkv files and hardware acceleration)
- no aspect ratio changes possible when using HA (I have a 1024x768 plama-> 4:3 resolution with 16:9 dimensions. Can't get 2.35:1 movies displayed correctly with vga connection)

[BertM]

I will have to see if I tested 480p or 480i... I thought I saw it on 480p on HD DVD. That may mean it is not isolated to adaptive deinterlacing, but also affected by pulldown. Still related to framerates and frame detection.

Hmm, maybe another issue: the behaviour appears to be different on 50Hz and 60Hz source material. I live in 50Hz land, were of course no pulldown is ever needed.

As I mentioned before, the shift is barely visible in 1080 source material 'cause of the small offset. With SD, being scaled to 1080lines, the shift is very obvious, but only in interlaced source material being motion/adaptive deinterlaced.

[hamish b]

getting some progress with a slight annoying occasional judder on my 2600xt
thought id post in case other people are having same probs

at 1920 1080p 48hz with powerstrip ive been getting this frame jump every15 to 30sec. thought it was ati drivers but worked out its powerstrip

for some reason powerstrip will only force 48hz on 1920 1080 not actually write it into the regestry for the card which usually results in a reboot. what i think its doing is just using the 25i or 29i on the ati reg and messing with that setting.


what i did was create a cusom res on powerstrip for 1920 1082p at 48hz and using pwerdvd to keep aspect ratio. this should scale it back to 1080p with2 left over blank lines,
powerstrip did a reboot and now with 1082, 48hz is in the ccc refresh box

so far its improved the judder a lot, still not 100% but a great improvement.

just now have to work a way for powerstripto do 1080p 48hz and put the refresh into the reg

[nstelmach]

Hmm, maybe another issue: the behaviour appears to be different on 50Hz and 60Hz source material. I live in 50Hz land, were of course no pulldown is ever needed.

As I mentioned before, the shift is barely visible in 1080 source material 'cause of the small offset. With SD, being scaled to 1080lines, the shift is very obvious, but only in interlaced source material being motion/adaptive deinterlaced.

I live in PAL land too, and I mainly watch SD-digital TV (MPEG2) and I was plagued with the red shift for a long time too.
It was most obvious on channels with a red logo or news channels with red news ticker boxes, as you would see red items shift up and then down again every once in a while while the rest of the picture remained in place/sync.

Now I saw this with my desktop scaled to 1080i 25hz with no overscan correction as I thought less processing would give better picture quality at the time.
But one day I decided to try the overscan correction in ccc and all of the sudden I had a much sharper picture on my 50" plasma (DVI) and most important the red shift has disappeared since that day no matter what I play in my HTPC.
I'm not sure exactly why, or if this would influence any others with this issue, but I suspect a hardware bug in the R(ed) vertical sync is causing this on some, but not necessarily all displays and HDTVs at different vsync rates.

This is just my 10-cent, Im far from an expert in this area.

I'm using:
HD 2600XT
7.10 + all reg. hacks
AVIVO MPEG2 decoder.
Vector adaptive DI.
VMC for playback
Connection to TV is DVI @ 1080i 25hz with overscan correction: 1832x1028.

[ExDeus]

Has anyone else had problems with PowerDVD causing a BSoD on ativvaxx.dll? ... Seems to be ok windowed but as soon as I go fullscreen with powerdvd it blue-screens...
Have you used my program to apply arfster's registry tweaks? Perhaps it's related to VForceMaxResSize not being set.

[ExDeus]

Hi, I read about enabling the Catalyst drivers for AGP versions of the cards ... Hacking the .inf files doesn't work her.

Anyone succeeded?

What happens when you try to install? Someone else contacted me about tweaking the INF file, but they were getting a 'Not enough space to install' error. I don't know what that error's about, but the change to the INF file is simply to allow the driver to support your card, so it only fixes a 'This card not supported' error.

[ryang]

Kinda solved the problem:

I installed the PDVD decoder as the 3rd mpeg decoder on the system (MS, AVIVO then PDVD), and now VMC will jump to the PDVD decoder for DVD instead of giving an error message, when AVIVO is preferred decoder.

But I would still have preferred to have VMC jump to the MS decoder as I don't really like PDVD (and all its bugs). I suspect it has something to do with the merrits of the decoders, but I can't figure out why VMC is behaving like this.

I agree; I wanted avivo to handle everything except dvds which I wanted the MS decoder to take care of. I didn't want any extra decoders clogging up my HTPC. You're right, it does have to do with the merits of the decoders. This is how I got it to work:

You'll need the following:
DSFMgr.zip (You'll need to google it)
DECCHECK (From Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=DE1491AC-0AB6-4990-943D-627E6ADE9FCB&displaylang=en))
VMCD.exe (http://mediacenterexpert.blogspot.com/2006/07/vista-media-center-decoder-utility.html)


1) Remove any decoders you don't want on the system (NVidia, PowerDVD)
2) Download DSFMgr.zip (I had to google it to find it)
3) Extract and run DSFMgr.exe
4) Find the Microsoft MPEG2 Video Decoder and click "Show Filter Properties"
5) Set the filter merit as high as it will go and click "Set New Merit"
6) Close that window
7) Find the Microsoft MPEG1/DD Audio Decoder and do the same as above
8) Close that window and exit the program
9) Open DECCHECK.exe and the Microsoft Video Decoder should be at the top of the list and the ATI Decoder right below it. If not, repeat the steps above.
10) Set the ATI decoder as the preferred decoder in DECCHECK.exe
11) Open VMCD.exe and choose the ATI decoder as the preferred video decoder and Microsoft MPEG1/DD decoder as the preferred audio decoder. Close it.
12) Open DECCHECK.exe and set the Microsoft Video Decoder as the preferred decoder. Close it.
13) Just to check, open up VCMD.exe and verify that the ATI decoder is the preferred video and Microsoft MPEG1/DD is the preferred audio decoder.
14) Now open up VMC and you should be able to view ATSC with no green screens and DVDs w/o the dreaded "Decoder Error".

I've found that if the Nvidia decoder or other dvd decoders are installed, they interfere with the dvd burning in vista. This allows me to compress and burn without any problems. Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.

ryang

[mike infinity]

Thanks, but the problem is that I no longer have a physical device to load the drivers against. .

I had to reboot my machine, enter cmos before startup, and re-enable the on board audio from there. After a re-boot, vista could now see the realtek audio device again.

[mike infinity]

I'm using:
HD 2600XT
7.10 + all reg. hacks
AVIVO MPEG2 decoder.
Vector adaptive DI.
VMC for playback
Connection to TV is DVI @ 1080i 25hz with overscan correction: 1832x1028.

I get stuttery playback with this same setup (except the TV is 1080i at 30Hz with overscan correction)....especially on camera pans, etc. I have to use 720p to get decent playback with any player (especially powerdvd with HW accelerated h.264 material).

Is it just me?

[Gaizka]

Hi,

I have try anything: reinstall Windows XP, install Windows Vista Ultimate Edition.. but not hw acceleration in H264 content.

My CPU is Atlon XP 2000+ with 1Gb of RAM and 2400 Pro AGP version.
PowerDVD Ultra patched and drivers on 7.7 package.

Avivo accelaration checked on powerdvd but dxva "not in use" in information tab.

100% CPU usage and 20-30% GPU at 525Mhz on H264 movie trailers for example

I think we need BIOS update for this cards

Regards

[nstelmach]

I agree; I wanted avivo to handle everything except dvds which I wanted the MS decoder to take care of. I didn't want any extra decoders clogging up my HTPC. You're right, it does have to do with the merits of the decoders. This is how I got it to work:

You'll need the following:
DSFMgr.zip (You'll need to google it)
DECCHECK (From Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=DE1491AC-0AB6-4990-943D-627E6ADE9FCB&displaylang=en))
VMCD.exe (http://mediacenterexpert.blogspot.com/2006/07/vista-media-center-decoder-utility.html)


1) Remove any decoders you don't want on the system (NVidia, PowerDVD)
2) Download DSFMgr.zip (I had to google it to find it)
3) Extract and run DSFMgr.exe
4) Find the Microsoft MPEG2 Video Decoder and click "Show Filter Properties"
5) Set the filter merit as high as it will go and click "Set New Merit"
6) Close that window
7) Find the Microsoft MPEG1/DD Audio Decoder and do the same as above
8) Close that window and exit the program
9) Open DECCHECK.exe and the Microsoft Video Decoder should be at the top of the list and the ATI Decoder right below it. If not, repeat the steps above.
10) Set the ATI decoder as the preferred decoder in DECCHECK.exe
11) Open VMCD.exe and choose the ATI decoder as the preferred video decoder and Microsoft MPEG1/DD decoder as the preferred audio decoder. Close it.
12) Open DECCHECK.exe and set the Microsoft Video Decoder as the preferred decoder. Close it.
13) Just to check, open up VCMD.exe and verify that the ATI decoder is the preferred video and Microsoft MPEG1/DD is the preferred audio decoder.
14) Now open up VMC and you should be able to view ATSC with no green screens and DVDs w/o the dreaded "Decoder Error".

I've found that if the Nvidia decoder or other dvd decoders are installed, they interfere with the dvd burning in vista. This allows me to compress and burn without any problems. Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.

ryang

I actually figured it out yesterday and posted an update to one of my initials posts 3 hours ago hehe;), but I must say this is a great summary for others who want a simple and clean codec setup in VMC. Good work man!

I must say with my setup I'm close to perfection for TV, DVD and XVID/DIVX, but then again I haven't really started on the whole BD/HD DVD thingy yet...

[robgrobg]

I had to reboot my machine, enter cmos before startup, and re-enable the on board audio from there. After a re-boot, vista could now see the realtek audio device again.

Hmm, thanks for the tip. Not sure if I checked that first time around or not. Would seem strange that it would get disabled automatically, but I guess stranger things have happened. thx... -Rob

Holy crappolla!!! It worked! Thanks a ton, eh!!! I'll tell you how I missed it the first time thru... the default setting in the BIOS for the on-board audio is "AUTO", and I figured "good enough". Obviously when the BIOS detects the HDMI device it then decides to disable the on-board sound. I changed it to "ENABLED" and order is restored.

You guys rock. Thanks to all for the tips... especially that last one. :-)

[sosuke3]

Have you used my program to apply arfster's registry tweaks? Perhaps it's related to VForceMaxResSize not being set.

Just tried it. Still bluescreens.

[s174955]

To my question on hacking the .inf Catalyst files for installing AGP cards:

What happens when you try to install? Someone else contacted me about tweaking the INF file, but they were getting a 'Not enough space to install' error. I don't know what that error's about, but the change to the INF file is simply to allow the driver to support your card, so it only fixes a 'This card not supported' error.

I don't get an error, after hardware detection, the installation just only allows me to install the 'catalyst install manager'.

[Gaizka]

For AGP version, catalyst 7.9 and 7.10 drivers need .inf file modifications.
I have install 7.9 and 7.10 on windows XP SP2 correctly but overdrive does not work and can't overclock the card.

[mefromfl]

Hi, I just upgraded to the latest driver for the my 2600hd, When i use spdif on powerdvd, my video is moving very slowly, like frame skipping. When i don't use spdif on my powerdvd then video plays fine. I don't know if this a ati driver issue or powerdvd. I have reinstalled powerdvd and still same result, i'm using powerdvd 7.3.3 What is the best software for playing dvd by the way?

[digitlman]

I am glad that ATI has finally admitted theres issues with getting software to play h264 with avivo acceleration working on AGP cards.

However i just wanted to re-interate to people that the AGP cards do accelerate hd-dvd and bluray movies, VC1 and Mpeg4-AVC both play flawlessly on my agp card in XP with my old slow 1.8ghz cpu i have 15%cpu on vc1 and higher 60-80% on 35mbit AVC.

even though powerDVD accelerates movies perfectly it does not do any file acceleration.

this is simply a software issue that there are no programs out there that use avivo on H264 files. at least none that i can find....

[BertM]

Arfster:

Here's the example of the colour shift issue, from screenshot you made earlier this year.

I think this clearly shows the problem.

regards, Bert

[wozio]

BertM:

Are you sure this is red shift? For me it looks like strong edge enhancement.

regards
Piotr

[mjcumming]

Hi all,

I have the 2600XT. I am trying to get an image to show up on my Westy 37" LCD via HDMI without any luck.... :(

VGA works without any problem. Trying HDMI, Vista and the ATI Control Panel see the Westy (or if I run it via my Denon AMP HDMI for switching). But there is no image showing up. Do I need the ATI HDMI adapter... or will a DVI to HDMI cable work (what I am trying now).

Also, does audio work over HDMI using Vista?

[ExDeus]

Hmm, maybe another issue: the behaviour appears to be different on 50Hz and 60Hz source material. I live in 50Hz land, were of course no pulldown is ever needed.
Arfster:

Here's the example of the colour shift issue, from screenshot you made earlier this year.

I think this clearly shows the problem.

regards, Bert
BertM:

Are you sure this is red shift? For me it looks like strong edge enhancement.

regards
Piotr
Yeah, I'm sure it's red-shift I'm seeing with my setup. It's clearly related to framerate detection, and it's not nearly as slight as in those screenshots. I will try to get a screenshot of my own.

I tested 480i NTSC video (29.97fps) content with pulldown detection ON, and I saw huge, intermittent flashes of red-shift. I turned pulldown detection OFF, and I saw normal playback without red-shift.

I haven't seen the same effects on 1080i content, but for the most part I watch telecined film content requiring pulldown, whereas the video content just needed simple deinterlacing.

Changing deinterlacing methods or turning auto on didn't affect the red-shift. So as reported before, when using NTSC material, it appears to be caused by pulldown detection.

[ExDeus]

For AGP version, catalyst 7.9 and 7.10 drivers need .inf file modifications.
I have install 7.9 and 7.10 on windows XP SP2 correctly but overdrive does not work and can't overclock the card.
For Vista, the INF file requires modification to work for AGP cards.

For XP, the INF file and two INI files require modification.

Did you modify the INI files to make sure all driver components were installed correctly?

[ExDeus]

Hi, I just upgraded to the latest driver for the my 2600hd, When i use spdif on powerdvd, my video is moving very slowly, like frame skipping. When i don't use spdif on my powerdvd then video plays fine. I don't know if this a ati driver issue or powerdvd. I have reinstalled powerdvd and still same result, i'm using powerdvd 7.3.3 What is the best software for playing dvd by the way?
Did you install the HDMI audio driver? If you want to use SPDIF, it's best not to have the HDMI audio device.

Either way, make sure in Device Mgr, under 'System devices', the Microsoft UAA Bus Driver is disabled. When it was enabled, I had numerous hardware interrupts that consumed all available CPU cycles.

I prefer PowerDVD for HD-DVD/DVD playback.

[ExDeus]

even though powerDVD accelerates movies perfectly it does not do any file acceleration.

this is simply a software issue that there are no programs out there that use avivo on H264 files. at least none that i can find....
Not sure what you mean by 'use avivo on H264 files'. If you mean a DirectShow player that will use the AVIVO H264 decoder, then any DS player will do, you just need a file that reports "H264" as the FourCC. The AVIVO decoder does not support "avc1", "h264", or "x264" FourCCs. avc1 is the most common FourCC for H264, and MKV files, by default, don't report a FourCC because they use an internal CodecID. Try an AVI file with a FourCC of "H264".

On a related note, I have gotten DXVA to work with the Cyberlink decoder for (some) MKV and TS files, though only TS in PowerDVD.

[ExDeus]

Hi all,

I have the 2600XT. I am trying to get an image to show up on my Westy 37" LCD via HDMI without any luck.... :(

VGA works without any problem. Trying HDMI, Vista and the ATI Control Panel see the Westy (or if I run it via my Denon AMP HDMI for switching). But there is no image showing up. Do I need the ATI HDMI adapter... or will a DVI to HDMI cable work (what I am trying now).

Also, does audio work over HDMI using Vista?
If you are using two displays, go into the CCC and make both are enabled in the Display Mgr (right-click on the monitor icon and select Enable, if not).

If you only have the Westy connected, make sure you have the HDMI input for the PC selected on the TV and reboot the computer. The ATI card will detect the connected displays, and for some TVs/swicthes, the correct input needs to be selected while booting to Windows and logging in.

If you want audio over HDMI, then you will need the ATI HDMI adapter. Vista will have the required HD Audio bus driver, but you will need to install the HDMI audio driver. If you just want video, then any DVI->HDMI adapter will do.

[tinners]

Sorry for being a bit stupid but I am pretty new to this game. (Hence this is my first ever post :))

I am trying to get ripped m2ts movie files from my Bluray discs to play in my directshow player (eventually MCE but currently just trying Media Player Classic).

I have applied the reg tweaks (thanks!) and want to know if there's a way to ensure my 2400XT accelerates the file playback. I have a mix of VC1, Mpeg2 and Mpeg4

I have been using the instructions here
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=129030

But am just getting the following:
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/4427/vc1kb4.th.jpg (http://img142.imageshack.us/my.php?image=vc1kb4.jpg) http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/3834/mpeg4jg7.th.jpg (http://img89.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mpeg4jg7.jpg) http://img292.imageshack.us/img292/4023/mpeg2bc1.th.jpg (http://img292.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mpeg2bc1.jpg)
Thanks

[ToughRowToHoe]

Yeah, I'm sure it's red-shift I'm seeing with my setup.

I have red shift also.

[speedyrazor]

Hi, I have just purchased an ATI HD 2400 PCI-E graphics card for use on my Media Centre, Mediaportal, PC and my 32" HD ready LCD. As I am in the UK I want my ATI graphics card to output either 720p50 or 108025i, unfortunatley I only have the option to select either 720p60 or 108030i. So I opened a support ticket with ATI and this was their response:

"Unfortunately, the driver only has support for 720p60 and 1080i30. Please provide feedback to the Catalyst Team to request a feature for future releases of the catalyst driver."

This, quite frankly, STINKS. I don't rea;;y want to go down the Powerstrip road, I only want 720p50 or 108025i support from within ATI control panel. Could somebody post a tweak of some kind to enable this feature please?

Kind regards,
Kev.

[karrih]

This, quite frankly, STINKS. I don't rea;;y want to go down the Powerstrip road, I only want 720p50 or 108025i support from within ATI control panel. Could somebody post a tweak of some kind to enable this feature please?


At least I am using 720p50 mode with Sapphire HD2400Pro. Can't recall doing anything special, there was some selection for 'partially supported modes' that I enabled, or perhaps it was forcing HDTV modes that did the trick for me.

[digitlman]

Not sure what you mean by 'use avivo on H264 files'. If you mean a DirectShow player that will use the AVIVO H264 decoder, then any DS player will do, you just need a file that reports "H264" as the FourCC. The AVIVO decoder does not support "avc1", "h264", or "x264" FourCCs. avc1 is the most common FourCC for H264, and MKV files, by default, don't report a FourCC because they use an internal CodecID. Try an AVI file with a FourCC of "H264".

On a related note, I have gotten DXVA to work with the Cyberlink decoder for (some) MKV and TS files, though only TS in PowerDVD.

when i said Avivo, i meant hardware acceleration. i can not play a h264 encoded or wmv9 file and have my 2600 card accelerate it.

if you have it working could you PLEASE share your settings with us?

[arfster]

Hi, I have just purchased an ATI HD 2400 PCI-E graphics card for use on my Media Centre, Mediaportal, PC and my 32" HD ready LCD. As I am in the UK I want my ATI graphics card to output either 720p50 or 108025i, .....

Using a Sagem 50hz 720p screen with cat7.7:

http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/921/clipboard01ke1.th.jpg (http://img155.imageshack.us/my.php?image=clipboard01ke1.jpg)

I've never had to do anything with any driver, it's just another standard resolution

[BertM]

BertM:

Are you sure this is red shift? For me it looks like strong edge enhancement.

regards
Piotr

It is red shift, or better colour shift (every colour is affected).

I am using overlay to watch video, so I can't take screenshots, but I can take some photo's...
Avivo.jpg is a shot from a German SD channel showing the colour shift.
ffdshow_chroma_shift.jpg is the same picture, but now with the earlier mentioned luma shift (vertical -2, horizontal -1) enabled.
The picture is of course awful due to screen resolution and camera resolution, but still the difference in colour shift is obvious.

We're talking 50Hz SD, 720*576i upscaled to 1920*1080p.
DXVA_DetailEnhance is enabled, Detail set to 1 on a scale of 1 - 100. But the effect is exactly the same with DXVA_DetailEnhance set to 0. TRDenoise set to 0, no picture enhancements on the TV.

[ToughRowToHoe]

It is red shift, or better colour shift (every colour is affected).

Just red on mine.

[speedyrazor]

OK, I changed the connection to my TV from VGA to HDMI and after a reboot all the PAL HDTV resolutions appeared..... so much for the ATI support, they know nothing.

[ExDeus]

It is red shift, or better colour shift (every colour is affected).
Just red on mine.
Just red here, too.

[mdv]

Which card do you have?

Mark

I am glad that ATI has finally admitted theres issues with getting software to play h264 with avivo acceleration working on AGP cards.

However i just wanted to re-interate to people that the AGP cards do accelerate hd-dvd and bluray movies, VC1 and Mpeg4-AVC both play flawlessly on my agp card in XP with my old slow 1.8ghz cpu i have 15%cpu on vc1 and higher 60-80% on 35mbit AVC.

even though powerDVD accelerates movies perfectly it does not do any file acceleration.

this is simply a software issue that there are no programs out there that use avivo on H264 files. at least none that i can find....

[rotelmania]

I asked this question few months ago but nobody answer my question yet. I would like to know if you can get the true HD or dtsHD audio when you connect the HDMI on the graphic card to a receiver that can decode trueHD or DTS HD signal?

[Valnar]

I usually don't do this, because I hate to be the newbie on any given topic, but this thread got too big to start from the beginning.

I just now bought an ATI (Sapphire) HD2600 Pro in AGP. This is to revitalize a P4 2.8Ghz Intel HTPC. My current card is an older ATI 9600 Pro running whatever release of ATI drivers that made the thing sing at the time. I use SageTV and TheaterTek normally, but bought the latest PowerDVD for the HD capabilities. It's running WinXP SP2.

Can somebody recap please the best drivers and/or mods to make this card work best in XP with hardware acceleration? I assume I would want to load the modified/corrected drivers from the beginning, so I'm asking now before putting the card in.

Thanks,
Robert

[kk_nadella]

I have a question for ASUS EAH2600Pro owners... Have any one of you tried to connect it to a HDTV using a DVI-HDMI cable, successfully?

I have this wierd issue that I dont get any display until VISTA logon screen when I use a DVI-HDMI cable. But when I used the DVI-HDMI adapter provided with the card and a HDMI-HDMI, I am able to see all the messages right from the BIOS screen. Is this is a common problem with this card?

Thanks in advance,
Kiran.

[Rick Guynn]

I asked this question few months ago but nobody answer my question yet. I would like to know if you can get the true HD or dtsHD audio when you connect the HDMI on the graphic card to a receiver that can decode trueHD or DTS HD signal?

No.

[h8redv2]

I´m in 50 Hz land too and I´m getting this dreaded red color shifting.
Running a dvb-c card in my htpc, using vista and screen is 1080p @ 50hz.

Tried all kinds of deinterlacing none makes any difference.

Can someone elaborate why changing to 24p and watching a hd-dvd I experience judder every 2 seconds ?

When switching to 24p. I can see the mouse becomes a bit slow in it´s reactions, when panning across the desktop.

But movie playes fine, exept the occasional juder.

Does 24hz require extra horsepower ?

Intel 3.4 Ghz, 2GB DDR2, ATi HD2600xt

[mike infinity]

I am trying to get ripped m2ts movie files from my Bluray discs to play in my directshow player (eventually MCE but currently just trying Media Player Classic). I have applied the reg tweaks (thanks!) and want to know if there's a way to ensure my 2400XT accelerates the file playback. I have a mix of VC1, Mpeg2 and Mpeg4

for my m2ts files (from a sony hd handycam), only powerdvd will accelerate the playback (and shows a huge improvement in video quality...perfectly smooth as long as my output is set to a progressive mode). I believe windvd will do the same.

Unless I am missing something (and i hope I am), there are no other programs that will use HW acceleration on these cards.

If someone can enable HW acceleration in MPC or other players (not just the avivo codec), I would really appreciate some guidance.

[madshi]

for my m2ts files (from a sony hd handycam), only powerdvd will accelerate the playback (and shows a huge improvement in video quality...perfectly smooth as long as my output is set to a progressive mode). I believe windvd will do the same.

Unless I am missing something (and i hope I am), there are no other programs that will use HW acceleration on these cards.

If someone can enable HW acceleration in MPC or other players (not just the avivo codec), I would really appreciate some guidance.
Using MPC here and it accelerates my h264 Blu-Ray and HD DVD rips just fine. Doesn't work for VC-1, though. And I haven't even bothered to check MPEG2 cause its a walk in the park for today's PCs, anyway.

[gtgray]

I have a question for ASUS EAH2600Pro owners... Have any one of you tried to connect it to a HDTV using a DVI-HDMI cable, successfully?

I have this wierd issue that I dont get any display until VISTA logon screen when I use a DVI-HDMI cable. But when I used the DVI-HDMI adapter provided with the card and a HDMI-HDMI, I am able to see all the messages right from the BIOS screen. Is this is a common problem with this card?

Thanks in advance,
Kiran.

I can't speak to the ASUS card but I had a very similar experience with an 8600GTS and my HP DLP... It would scramble the bios and text screens but make video in Vista. Even in Vista though it would not do 1920x1080P at 60HZ. It would do it at 50Hz which caused its own set of problems. I would check to see if you have the lates bios for your card. I had a 7600GT that worked fine in the bios screens and worked fine in XP but had the same issues with Vista as the 8600... so bios, drivers, os, and your particular TV set may all introduce compatability issues.

[gtgray]

I´m in 50 Hz land too and I´m getting this dreaded red color shifting.
Running a dvb-c card in my htpc, using vista and screen is 1080p @ 50hz.

Tried all kinds of deinterlacing none makes any difference.

Can someone elaborate why changing to 24p and watching a hd-dvd I experience judder every 2 seconds ?

When switching to 24p. I can see the mouse becomes a bit slow in it´s reactions, when panning across the desktop.

But movie playes fine, exept the occasional juder.

Does 24hz require extra horsepower ?

Intel 3.4 Ghz, 2GB DDR2, ATi HD2600xt

It could be an issue with the implementation of 24P on your particular display. My HP DLP gets some tearing and judder when fed 24P a supposedly supported frequency. I have not tried 48P as I am not quite sure how to go about implementing that with the ATI drivers. I have seen 50hz and that did weird judder things and I know my diplay is pal compliant.

[gtgray]

I have asked this before, now I am trying again.

Has anyone been able to fit a quiet 3rd party fand to an HD2600PRO? I tried to download the ATITOOL 0.27b beta as suggested earlier but this is a dead link. This Visiontek card has the loudest fan in my house short of my AC system which btw is rediculously loud.

[mike infinity]

Using MPC here and it accelerates my h264 Blu-Ray and HD DVD rips just fine.

I can't get this to work with my h.264 mt2s handycam files (get 80%+ cpu using mpc and juddery playback when panning). The Cyberlink pdvd acceleration works flawlessly on the same files (less than 5% cpu, buttery smooth playback at all times).

I am uncertain if MPC is accelerating other file formats, but because it doesn't work with my h.264 m2ts files I figure its decoding is SW only.

Any advice on MPC settings? I have tried everything I can think of to enable hw accelrated playback...nothing yet

[kk_nadella]

I can't speak to the ASUS card but I had a very similar experience with an 8600GTS and my HP DLP... It would scramble the bios and text screens but make video in Vista. Even in Vista though it would not do 1920x1080P at 60HZ. It would do it at 50Hz which caused its own set of problems. I would check to see if you have the lates bios for your card. I had a 7600GT that worked fine in the bios screens and worked fine in XP but had the same issues with Vista as the 8600... so bios, drivers, os, and your particular TV set may all introduce compatability issues.

Glad to hear that you are getting atleast something!! The problem I am facing is that I dont get any BIOS display at all. It is totally blank until I see the login screen. I dont even see the Windows Energy logo just before the login screen comes up. :mad: But after it comes up, I was able to everything (1080p, 720p) etc...

I have checked out Asus site for BIOS updates to the card. None available. (May be thats why there is a $10 rebate on the card!). Prior to this I had a sapphire 2400 pro, which worked just fine with the DVI-HDMI cable I mentioned in my previous post. I am beginning to wonder if ASUS is using some kind proprietary interface, which works only with the supplied ATI DVI-HDMI adapter.

I have even updated the BIOS on my MB... No use... The card (EAH2600Pro) refuses to show BIOS prompts with a DVI-HDMI cable. Which makes me wonder if there are differences in DVI-HDMI cables itself... Like may be 1.1 1.2 1.3...

[madshi]

I can't get this to work with my h.264 mt2s handycam files (get 80%+ cpu using mpc and juddery playback when panning). The Cyberlink pdvd acceleration works flawlessly on the same files (less than 5% cpu, buttery smooth playback at all times).

I am uncertain if MPC is accelerating other file formats, but because it doesn't work with my h.264 m2ts files I figure its decoding is SW only.

Any advice on MPC settings? I have tried everything I can think of to enable hw accelrated playback...nothing yet
It's not MPC or PowerDVD which is doing the acceleration. It's the h264 decoder you're using. Please check which h264 decoder MPC is using on your PC. Try adding the PowerDVD h264 decoder to the "external filters" setting and set it to "preferred".

[kk_nadella]

Is it just me or does the CPU usage actually go down when one makes a switch from HD2400 to HD2600 (for playing WMV VC-1 content)?

I have an E2140 running @2.4Ghz. Earlier (with 2400 + 7.10 + Vista + arfster's tweaks) I observed that my CPU usage used to hit the roof (90-95%). Now I recently swapped it out with an EAH2600pro and now I see the CPU usage hovering in the 50-60% range for the same WMV VC-1 content!!

[mike infinity]

Try adding the PowerDVD h264 decoder to the "external filters" setting and set it to "preferred".

I did this (in fact, I had done it some time ago). Still getting no HW acceleration from MPC. At least thats what I assume since powerdvd gives me <5% cpu and smooth playback on mt2s from my HD video camera while MPC gives me 60%+ cpu and juddery playback on exactly the same files.

I have just installed a gigabyte 2600xt to replace my 2400pro. I still get the same jittery playback whenever the card is set to 30i output regardless of the player/codec.

Any ideas?

[arfster]

I did this (in fact, I had done it some time ago). Still getting no HW acceleration from MPC. At least thats what I assume since powerdvd gives me <5% cpu and smooth playback on mt2s from my HD video camera while MPC gives me 60%+ cpu and juddery playback on exactly the same files.


If you're in Vista, you need to use EVR as the renderer for h264 acceleration. In PDVD that's the default so it would be working regardless.

[ExDeus]

when i said Avivo, i meant hardware acceleration. i can not play a h264 encoded or wmv9 file and have my 2600 card accelerate it.

if you have it working could you PLEASE share your settings with us?

Unless I am missing something (and i hope I am), there are no other programs that will use HW acceleration on these cards.

If someone can enable HW acceleration in MPC or other players (not just the avivo codec), I would really appreciate some guidance.

Can somebody recap please the best drivers and/or mods to make this card work best in XP with hardware acceleration? I assume I would want to load the modified/corrected drivers from the beginning, so I'm asking now before putting the card in.
DXVA will work for H264 with the AVIVO or Cyberlink decoders in a DirectShow player, but not necessarily on all files encoded with all codecs. Perhaps Sony AVCHD files cause issues similar to some x264 files, preventing DXVA.

No special magic for the HD2600 (I never got the HD2400 to work):

Download drivers. I have had good luck so far with the ATI 7.10 drivers. DXVA works and I haven't had any VPU crashes when browsing the web (which previously was a persistent problem). If you need to install them for an AGP card, see my page (http://exdeus.home.comcast.net/ati-hd2x00/#AGP) for instructions on how to edit the driver package. Download ATI HD2x00 Registry Tweaks as well, and run it after you install the driver but before you reboot.

Set your DS player to use your chosen decoder. Brief instructions for MPC were posted above, I posted instructions for ZoomPlayer (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11772733#post11772733) where I added the AVIVO, Cyberlink, MainConcept and Nero decoders.

[madshi]

I did this (in fact, I had done it some time ago). Still getting no HW acceleration from MPC. At least thats what I assume since powerdvd gives me <5% cpu and smooth playback on mt2s from my HD video camera while MPC gives me 60%+ cpu and juddery playback on exactly the same files.

I have just installed a gigabyte 2600xt to replace my 2400pro. I still get the same jittery playback whenever the card is set to 30i output regardless of the player/codec.

Any ideas?
My first idea would be that you read my comment again and answer all my questions... :) E.g. you didn't answer this one:

"Please check which h264 decoder MPC is using on your PC."

Having the PowerDVD decoder setup as preferred doesn't guarantee that it's really used.

Furthermore as arfster said, you need to use EVR in Vista. In XP hardware acceleration also works with VMR9 (that's what I'm using). Also make sure the hardware accerelation is activated in the Cyberlink h264 decoder inside of MPC.

[Valnar]

DXVA will work for H264 with the AVIVO or Cyberlink decoders in a DirectShow player, but not necessarily on all files encoded with all codecs. Perhaps Sony AVCHD files cause issues similar to some x264 files, preventing DXVA.

No special magic for the HD2600 (I never got the HD2400 to work):

Download drivers. I have had good luck so far with the ATI 7.10 drivers. DXVA works and I haven't had any VPU crashes when browsing the web (which previously was a persistent problem). If you need to install them for an AGP card, see my page (http://exdeus.home.comcast.net/ati-hd2x00/#AGP) for instructions on how to edit the driver package. Download ATI HD2x00 Registry Tweaks as well, and run it after you install the driver but before you reboot.

Thanks for the reply. I'll try this all out tonight. 'Seems to simple for a 88 page thread. ;)

-Robert

[ExDeus]

Is it just me or does the CPU usage actually go down when one makes a switch from HD2400 to HD2600 (for playing WMV VC-1 content)?

I have an E2140 running @2.4Ghz. Earlier (with 2400 + 7.10 + Vista + arfster's tweaks) I observed that my CPU usage used to hit the roof (90-95%). Now I recently swapped it out with an EAH2600pro and now I see the CPU usage hovering in the 50-60% range for the same WMV VC-1 content!!
I would say DXVA wasn't working with the HD2400.

[ExDeus]

Thanks for the reply. I'll try this all out tonight. 'Seems to simple for a 88 page thread. ;)

-Robert
It's taken 88 pages to make it that simple. ;)

[kk_nadella]

I would say DXVA wasn't working with the HD2400.

Did you mean I was not able to enable it in the 2400? or is it a problem with 2400 in general?

[kk_nadella]

Has anybody been able to use EVR Custom Spec successfully in MPC?

Even when I set the output to EVR Custom Spec or EVR (Vista / .Net), MPC ends up using VMR9 Renderless. I dont have a clue why this is happening!

EDIT: Now I know why... I thought I had replaced all copies of MPC 6.4.9.1 with MPC MC 1.0.11.0 but I didn't. I was playing the videos with MPC 6.4.9.1, which doesnt have support for EVR

[mike infinity]

If you're in Vista, you need to use EVR as the renderer for h264 acceleration. In PDVD that's the default so it would be working regardless.

Sorry if this has been done to death and I just can't find it...but how can set EVR as the default renderer in MPC or VMC or wmp?

I am using vista.

Thanks

[arfster]

Sorry if this has been done to death and I just can't find it...but how can set EVR as the default renderer in MPC or VMC or wmp?

I am using vista.

Thanks


In WMP EVR is always used, and I think in VMC also (can't test that though). In MPC you select it under options, playback/output, select EVR/Vista.

[salajm]

I have asked this before, now I am trying again.

Has anyone been able to fit a quiet 3rd party fand to an HD2600PRO? I tried to download the ATITOOL 0.27b beta as suggested earlier but this is a dead link. This Visiontek card has the loudest fan in my house short of my AC system which btw is rediculously loud.

I have Zalman VF-900 CU on Palit HD 2600 Pro and can recommend it

[mike infinity]

In WMP EVR is always used, and I think in VMC also (can't test that though). In MPC you select it under options, playback/output, select EVR/Vista.

I am using 6.4.9.1 MPC. I don't see an EVR/Vista option on the list in playback/output. I am also not getting HW acceleration for my m2ts h.264 files under vmc or wmp while it works for the same files in powerdvd.

[topcaser]

I have asked this before, now I am trying again.

Has anyone been able to fit a quiet 3rd party fand to an HD2600PRO? I tried to download the ATITOOL 0.27b beta as suggested earlier but this is a dead link. This Visiontek card has the loudest fan in my house short of my AC system which btw is rediculously loud.
I have got a Palit 2600XT and it is controlable via AITTool 2.7beta. google for this version. It is worth to search for it. Decrease the speed of the fan to 30% and it is not hearable anymore. Temps are reasonably at 65-67degrees then.

[arfster]

I am using 6.4.9.1 MPC. I don't see an EVR/Vista option on the list in playback/output. I am also not getting HW acceleration for my m2ts h.264 files under vmc or wmp while it works for the same files in powerdvd.

Ahh, sorry, you need a newer version. They're now called "MPC Home Cinema" in sourceforge:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=170561


If you're not getting acceleration in WMP it's probably not using the cyberlink h264 codec (PDVD almost always uses its own codecs, other apps might not). In MPC you can easily see what codec is in use, and force a particular one to be preferred.

[The Jedi]

I asked this question few months ago but nobody answered my question yet. I would like to know if you can get the true HD or dtsHD audio when you connect the HDMI on the graphic card to a receiver that can decode trueHD or DTS HD signal?
No.


So, looking at ATI's Support Knowledge Base, this page (http://support.ati.com/ics/support/KBAnswer.asp?questionID=28948) indicates that this audio is simply SPDIF. It supports two channel lossless PCM, or 5.1 channel AC3. F'n A, all this HDMI hype for nothing more than SPDIF. I guess yeah, it might be synchronized better using one cable, but that may be all there is to say about it. So they get us to buy it this year, and then next year (hypothetically) they'll come out with graphics cards with an actual approved 16-pin HDMI Audio link header to support what the motherboards have now.

I was looking at this Zotac brand of GeForce cards with the same kind of SPDIF through DVI through an HDMI adapter idea. (They can't even be found in the USA.) But I figured I needed to go with a Radeon HD to get the full Blu-Ray / HD-DVD audio support. I guess the Radeon really is no better.

I guess the state of PC high def disc audio is "maybe updated software will come out supporting it" and "maybe the nicer graphics cards will eventually support an HDMI audio link".

[mike infinity]

DXVA will work for H264 with the AVIVO or Cyberlink decoders in a DirectShow player, but not necessarily on all files encoded with all codecs. Perhaps Sony AVCHD files cause issues similar to some x264 files, preventing DXVA.

The Sony AVCHD files work like a charm under powerDVD in vista. As it does with powerDVD in xp on my nvidia 7800 gs agp card with purevideo HW acceleration.

[mike infinity]

Ahh, sorry, you need a newer version. They're now called "MPC Home Cinema" in sourceforge:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=170561



Thanks!

I tried it...now the CPU utilization is down to 5-10%...but the video is HORRIBLY choppy and full of what look like de-interlacing artifacts.

[Mr.M]

A cry for help to those of you in PAL land:

Are you all able to get perfect playback with hardware acceleration in interlaced SD at 50Hz in Vista Media Center? (for UK users, can you watch BBC News 24 or Sky News without the tickers jumping at all?)

I've never had any problems in XP MCE using the PowerDVD 7.3 decoder, but I can't do it for love nor money in Vista Media Center. I'm very worried that there's some issue with playback at 50Hz in Vista Media Center when using AVIVO, as I've got the same results with the MS, ATI and PowerDVD decoders.

I'm happy to leave Vista until I upgrade the card, but I'd like some reassurance that it works for you all with the newer generation!

[pc1984]

"Originally Posted by gtgray
I have asked this before, now I am trying again.

Has anyone been able to fit a quiet 3rd party fand to an HD2600PRO? I tried to download the ATITOOL 0.27b beta as suggested earlier but this is a dead link. This Visiontek card has the loudest fan in my house short of my AC system which btw is rediculously loud."

According to this site
http://www.quietpc.com/ie-en-eur/products/ati-vga
If you really want quiet, the Zalman VNF100 Fanless Heatpipe VGA Cooler fits.

You can see the cooler here:
http://www.quietpc.com/ie-en-eur/products/ati-vga/vnf100

[mike infinity]

Update:

I have finally resolved the HW acceleration and the AVCHD m2ts h.264 files with MPC. (with thanks to arfster). I'm sure this has been done before and posted here somewhere, but here it is:

I had to install the new MPC cinema and enable the vista/evr setting. I then had to set the deinterlacing in CCC to vector adaptive. It now works in MPC as it does in powerdvd.

The downside: Now MPC hangs when I try to playback .mkv files (for example). Back to the drawing board for that issue...talk about a convoluted world of codecs. Anyone else get this?

[arfster]

The downside: Now MPC hangs when I try to playback .mkv files (for example). Back to the drawing board for that issue...talk about a convoluted world of codecs. Anyone else get this?

That's a standard bug, unfortunately. It's not mkv as such that's the problem, but x264 - hardware acceleration of (almost all) x264 content either results in the 20fps bug, or a hang. The exact same thing happens with the Nvidia 8500 and 8600. Normal h264 content is fine.

Opinion is divided on whether this is a timing error with the powerdvd codec, or nonstandard encoding from x264. It's kinda hard to find out, because no codec other than PDVD's can do VLD h264 acceleration (ie total offload, as per the ATI 2400/2600 and Nvidia 8500/8600).

[uzziel]

Update:

I have finally resolved the HW acceleration and the AVCHD m2ts h.264 files with MPC. (with thanks to arfster). I'm sure this has been done before and posted here somewhere, but here it is:

I had to install the new MPC cinema and enable the vista/evr setting. I then had to set the deinterlacing in CCC to vector adaptive. It now works in MPC as it does in powerdvd.

The downside: Now MPC hangs when I try to playback .mkv files (for example). Back to the drawing board for that issue...talk about a convoluted world of codecs. Anyone else get this?

Yup if you are trying to play those mkv files with DXVA enabled your not gonna be able to play them, disable DXVA when playing those files and it should work it does for me.Hope that helps in some way.

[mike infinity]

This Visiontek card has the loudest fan in my house short of my AC system which btw is rediculously loud."

You should have a listen to the diamond 2600xt...you almost need ear protection like those guys use on the tarmac at the airport....way too annoying for HTPC (especially since the fan seems to always be at a maximum rpm, regardless of the application)

I returned mine and purchased the gigabyte 2600xt with the passive cooler...No noise at all (and it was cheaper).

[Gaizka]

Hi there,

i'll try Windows Media Classic with EVR/.net 3.
Remember i can't HW videos with h264 on my 2400Pro AGP card
I don't have Blueray nor HDDVD player so i just open Trailer Movies files.
My actuall configuration is: XP sp2 Powerdvd 7.3 Ultra patched

[dicko2]

I've scanned through this entire thread and to say I'm confused is an understatement.

Here's the situation.
I'm using vista Media Center primarily to watch OTA ATSC TV.
I bought a 2400pro card. Iworks OK, picture is far and away better quality than the 7900GT video board I used to use. However, it has de-interlace problems. Horrible combing whenever there's any kind of horizontal motion.

I'v ebeen trying to figure out how to turn hardware acceleration and read all about the DVXA_NOHDDECODE reg hack. Adding that key, in several places in the reistry did nothing for me. GPU is around 30% w & w/o the hack. Maybe there's more fluctuation in the reading with the hack in place.

So I decide the board isnt powerful enough and I buy a 2600xt. Low and behold I get the identical problem only it seems to be much worse with the more powerful card. Not to menti