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

[DJBlu]

Yup - but i dont think the 'scene' is remotely interested in providing us with compliant h.264 files for hd2x00 cards......Most I have contact with use 'other' hardware to play back their files.........IMHO.

There is no way to alter the encoded video - you will have to reencode it with super or something equivalent.

Maybe that will change with ati cards winning back the market share in the gaming realm.

If you're looking at scene releases - stick to 720p or encode your own for now .

J.

Lets not forget that the 20fps/1080p num_ref problem exists for GeForce card owners too.

[RedKnight]

Boogiem,

I am in the same boat - Sapphire 2600XT AGP in Vista - I was at least able to find a driver combination that would support DirectDraw, but no (noticeable) MPEG2 acceleration, even with registry key changes suggested earlier in this thread. Oddly enough the sample that appears for the deinterlacing within Catalyst appears to work properly, so I know the hardware itself is working properly.

What drivers are you on? The only drivers I could get to recognize my card is the Sapphire modified 7.10 drivers. 7.11 doesn't even recognize my card (its not even in the .INF file by default!)

Please drop me a message if you make any discoveries. I'm to the point where I think I'll pray for 7.12 to deliver me a working card.

[sid.leake@gdsonl]

Am I doing something wrong. I thought powerdvd 7.3 ultra plays avi files. They play perfect on WMP 11, but when I try to play on powerdvd it freezes with no picture or sound. DVD's play perfectly.

thx

[HT Slider]

Recently I incorporated an R5000HD USB port on our STB and I'm now using FireSTB to bring the unaltered mpeg-2 video into Vista Media Center. To my surprise, the image quality with our ATI HD2600XT was not as good as I was expected with 1280x720p and 1920x1080i content using the registry tweaks recommended in this thread.

What I found was for the direct HD mpeg-2 content that ATI's default settings were the best!!

Testing each setting individually I discovered these two "biggies":

- Enabling TRDenoise (or deleting the entry) cleaned up a lot of the HD content, especially the 1080i content and did not produce any ghosting or excessive blurring.
EDIT: With some very fast moving content in lower light environments there is still some ghosting so I have again added the TRDenoise=0 entry as I can't stand the "ghosting"; even at the expense of an increase in overall noise.
- Enabling DXVA_DetailEnhance (or deleting the entry) provided a more reasonable level of edge clarity.

My theory is that the STB itself already includes a lot of TRDenoise and DetailEnhance functionality as well as the actual PVR-250 capture card. With these two combined with the HD2600XT there is simply too much, but with the untouched mpeg-2 video, ATI has just the right amount included for our HD content.

Since I am still using the PVR-250 for SD content, I needed a solution that allowed me to leave TRDenoise enabled. I think the best way to deal with ghosting visible from TRDenoise is to turn off the temporal filter for the PVR-250 and leave the TRDenoise enabled with the video card. To turn it off with the PVR-250 I added the following registry tweaks:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Globesp an\Parameters\ivac15\Driver]
"FltDnrMode"=dword:00000000
"FltDnrSpatFltLevel"=dword:00000000
"FltDnrTempFltLevel"=dword:00000000 ;(this is the one that matters)

In addition to this I discovered:

- "UseBT601CSC"="1" makes no difference at all (I suspect Vista Media Center's use of EVR ignores this setting).
- "SORTOverrideVidSizeCaps"="2800000" and "VForceMaxResSize"="2800000" make no difference to CPU/GPU load (I suspect this may be related to our HDTV being a native 1920x1080i display, not 1080p or higher bandwidth)
- "DXVA_NOHDDECODE"="0" and "DI_METHOD"="5" didn't make any difference, but I left them in use. My thinking was that possibly with some higher bandwidth content these may have an effect?? (or maybe the HD2600XT has enough GPU power that hardware DXVA never gets turned off??)

I also decided to experiment to see if I could get rid of the very annoying "Posturization" issue with content captured with the PVR-250. It turns out that the recommended registry settings actually leave color vibrance and fleshtone at 25% (for some reason as soon as you turn them off, regardless of the registry settings, 7.10 re-enables them at 25%).

To get rid of the "posturization" issue 100% I found the only solution was to enable both color vibrance and fleshtone correction in CCC, but move both sliders all the way down to "1". With them enabled and at 1, there is not more "posturization".

You guys/gals may want to experiment with some of the above and see if it improves your image quality.

[karrih]

"Posturization" [snip...] 7.10 [snip...]

You guys/gals may want to experiment with some of the above and see if it improves your image quality.

I would recommend 7.11 drivers as the posterisation issue is considerably less obvious in those.

I guess it is always best to experiment with different settings as the best settings depend also on viewed material and display device used.

[dj4monie]

I just installed my Diamond HD2400 512MB AGP and Visiontek TV Wonder 650.

Install went smooth after I used RegClean to accidentally take out the cab drivers (oops), so I restored to a couple of days before just to make sure.

TV Wonder didn't go so smooth at first but then I figured out the WDM and UCI drivers were never installed.

After I did that, it works fine both CMC and MCE see the card (the NTSC side), MCE set up via S-video in and Direct TV.

I also downloaded the reg hack and that went fine.

Now the issues -

I can't use any of the latest driver builds, it says "Setup Can not find compatible card, setup with close now"

I get that with 7.9 and 7.11

I assume many of the HWA fixes have been included in the new builds, HELP!

Window video, Live TV or DVD looks super smooth and great, but enlarge to full screen (1900x1200) and it doesn't look great at all. I would say worst than the 9600XT AIW it replaced.

HWA via the TV Wonder 650 seems to be working - CPU useage is avg 24% (lowest shown usage was 19%)

I am using Anime as animation shows color errors alot better.

I am using the last Power DVD decoder.

[topcaser]

Hi,

i cant get Hardware acceleration for HD under Vista:
System Spec:
Vista 32
DVBViewer 3.8.0.0
Cyberlink Ultra, newest patch
Overlay
no registry tweaks
CCC7.11

HW: 2600XT

Had no problems under XP32. Is there anything i hvae to adjust in the registry?

[arfster]

- Enabling TRDenoise (or deleting the entry) cleaned up a lot of the HD content, especially the 1080i content and did not produce any ghosting or excessive blurring.
EDIT: With some very fast moving content in lower light environments there is still some ghosting so I have again added the TRDenoise=0 entry as I can't stand the "ghosting"; even at the expense of an increase in overall noise.


I think that's probably what most people think, although it depends on the quality of the source and how much movement there is. They are gradually improving things though.


- Enabling DXVA_DetailEnhance (or deleting the entry) provided a more reasonable level of edge clarity.


Same as above, depends on the source. It doesn't make a huge difference imo.

Note with the 7.11 crisis hotfix there are now sliders for both denoise and sharpen, replacing both the above.


- "UseBT601CSC"="1" makes no difference at all (I suspect Vista Media Center's use of EVR ignores this setting).


Expansion always works with EVR (regardless of decoder, or acceleration on/off), but the above only affects SD.


- "SORTOverrideVidSizeCaps"="2800000" and "VForceMaxResSize"="2800000" make no difference to CPU/GPU load (I suspect this may be related to our HDTV being a native 1920x1080i display, not 1080p or higher bandwidth)


Yeah, these aren't performance factors. Ignore them if you don't get the PDVD not-quite-fullscreen issue.


- "DXVA_NOHDDECODE"="0" and "DI_METHOD"="5" didn't make any difference, but I left them in use.


dxva_nohddecode is set to 0 by default for the 2600, so doesn't affect you. It's at 1 for the 2400 though, which kills mpeg2 HD acceleration

DI_METHOD only affects certain setup configs, particularly h264 (where it won't use best quality deinterlacing with the default auto setting, it just bobs). With Vista and a 2600, mpeg2 HD always uses best quality deinterlacing - although note there are some issues with the Cyberlink decoder with this combo, before 7.11.

[rdunnill]

I put together a media PC with the LG dual-format drive. When played back in PowerDVD Ultra, the preview portion of Chicago (Blu-Ray) displayed perfectly, but the content itself was choppy and the CPU usage was maxed at 100%. Looking at the PowerDVD configuration settings, hardware acceleration is unchecked while the content is playing. Forbidden Planet (HD-DVD) was even worse.

Will the 2400pro accelerate HDM playback, or do I need a higher end card? If so, which GPU? I don't want to keep pouring in money if success requires both high-end hardware and guru-level knowledge.

Particulars are as follows:
Vista Home Premium
Powercolor 2400Pro with latest Catalyst drivers
2gb RAM
AMD 3000+ (Socket 939)
PowerDVD Ultra OEM (hardware acceleration checked)

[arfster]

Hi,

i cant get Hardware acceleration for HD under Vista:
System Spec:
Vista 32
DVBViewer 3.8.0.0
Cyberlink Ultra, newest patch
Overlay
no registry tweaks
CCC7.11

HW: 2600XT



What format HD?

[Valnar]

I put together a media PC with the LG dual-format drive. When played back in PowerDVD Ultra, the preview portion of Chicago (Blu-Ray) displayed perfectly, but the content itself was choppy and the CPU usage was maxed at 100%. Looking at the PowerDVD configuration settings, hardware acceleration is unchecked while the content is playing. Forbidden Planet (HD-DVD) was even worse.

Will the 2400pro accelerate HDM playback, or do I need a higher end card? If so, which GPU? I don't want to keep pouring in money if success requires both high-end hardware and guru-level knowledge.

Particulars are as follows:
Vista Home Premium
Powercolor 2400Pro with latest Catalyst drivers
2gb RAM
AMD 3000+ (Socket 939)
PowerDVD Ultra OEM (hardware acceleration checked)

I think 117 pages later, it's safe to take out the 2400 model as a recommended video card. 2600Pro mininum.

-Robert

[djos]

Is anyone else getting Blocks of Red flashing or looking unstable when decoding MPEG2 in VMC using the standard MS codec for SD/HDTV? Im using Catalyst 7.11 and a GigaByte Radeon HD 2600 Pro 512MB Fanless via DVI-D.

[rdunnill]

I think 117 pages later, it's safe to take out the 2400 model as a recommended video card. 2600Pro mininum.

-Robert

Is that because the GPU genuinely cannot handle the load, or ATI has disabled acceleration (in which case they deserve to be sued)?

Are there *any* low-profile video cards capable of HD decoding that actually work as advertised?

[[Europe]Boogiem]

Boogiem;12431828']Hi all

I just bought a Saphire Radeon HD2600XT (AGP) for my old tinkertoy (Asus A7m266 MoBo with XP2000+ processor and nifty 384 Mb of RAM :D and an old 40Gb Maxtor disk running XP SP2 and streaming movies from the other PC on a DraftN WiFi-lan).

I thought I would start playing and transform it into o HTPC (probably a slow one, but want to see how it turns out with HD accel before i start to build a "real" HTPC).

Before buying the card I was running an old GF Ti4600 which worked...partly when running 1280*720 to my sony HS-50 PJ via RGB-HV (D-sub), allthough the processor peaked at 95-100 most of the time will playing movies (of course) and sound started to stutter after some minutes of watching 720p mkv files, but the picture was there and rolling on quite smooth...but sound out of synch and stuttering is no fun. At least i Managed to get DD5.1 to the SPDIF in the end via the convenient AC3-filter

I got my hopes up when I read some articles at Toms Hardware and other sites that the HD2600XT got full points for XP also for the AGP card and also unloaded the processor A LOT and at the same time got inverse telecine, motion adaptive deinterlacing and all the yummy stuff. I mean you have to bang up some bux to get all the options I read about in an external scaler/deinterlacer and it seems like the options are (allmost) endless with a HTPC.

I will be (am) using Media Portal as a viewer (at least if I get it to work with HD decode) and have been running CCCP FFDShow until now, but I guess I have to change some things to apply Hardware accel of the 2600XT cause it is still at 100% when running MPEG, MKV-files and so on on media portal, zoom player or MPC.

After sitting here for 4 hours (5 in the morning now) reading about tweaks for Vista, PCIE-cards and so on I thought I would ask for some quick tips what to change just o get started.

I also read some things about AGP-cards not working with HW-HdAccel but I sure hope that is not true :-/

I guess just about anyone writing in this thread knows more than me about container, codes, demuxers and whatnot @:-/

Hope you can give me hint :-)

Regards
Boogieman

Boogiem,

I am in the same boat - Sapphire 2600XT AGP in Vista - I was at least able to find a driver combination that would support DirectDraw, but no (noticeable) MPEG2 acceleration, even with registry key changes suggested earlier in this thread. Oddly enough the sample that appears for the deinterlacing within Catalyst appears to work properly, so I know the hardware itself is working properly.

What drivers are you on? The only drivers I could get to recognize my card is the Sapphire modified 7.10 drivers. 7.11 doesn't even recognize my card (its not even in the .INF file by default!)

Please drop me a message if you make any discoveries. I'm to the point where I think I'll pray for 7.12 to deliver me a working card.


I downloaded my drivers from Sapphires driver homepage (http://www.sapphiretech.com/us/support/drivers.php) but its obvioudsly something more than just drivers to get the HW accel to work.
I have no accel neither or H264, Mpeg2, Mpeg4, WMV9....basically u have to do some tricks that i don not know about ... and asking about help for here on the forum.

Basically I think it stinks that ATI/AMD or subsuppliers say they have hardware accel when they cant tell you how to get it to work, or bundle the required software.
If you are not a HTPC guy with Forum-interest u would never benefit from the card.
Thus I think this series will die by the sheer problem to get HW accel to work, witohout being a genie or professor or genius :P

If anyone knwos the trick please give me a mess.

Regards
Boogieman

[originalsnuffy]

My HTPC can only accommodate a low profile card (and even then it required some modification to get it into the box). At least when I ordered a card, my only option was a 2400. I was able to find a silent card (fan less) which was nice.

In any event, the card actually does a halfway decent job with PowerDVD in my relatively low powered CPU system. I can play back HD material (HD DVD sourced), and usually only have a few minor glitches during playback.

Of course the playback is even better over the xbox 360...but that is no fun now, is it?

[rdunnill]

In any event, the card actually does a halfway decent job with PowerDVD in my relatively low powered CPU system. I can play back HD material (HD DVD sourced), and usually only have a few minor glitches during playback.How'd you manage that? My 2400pro offers no hardware acceleration at all. Registry tweaks?

[neiltoe]

Just curious I tried to scan through this thread and I'm feeling out of focus lol. I went by the Cyberlink advisor page and ordered a HD2400XT and now after reading as much as I can with out going crazy what results with or without reg edits can I expect? I won't be using HD Media anytime soon that is on my todo list but I think I will build a new PC for that since I am still using a P4. All I want is to be able to upscale my existing DVD library and not have to use any programs like AnyDVD. I like to not use any external programs if possible. So will I get a good clean stutter free and HDCP compliant output? Also I believe I understand that audio can only be passed through HDMI if I use the adapter. Does this mean if I was to find a DVI to HDMI with audio cable I still won't get audio? Is it specifically that adapter that enables the audio transport? Thanks in advance for your forgiveness because this thread is extremely long and answers vary.

[Siriusfilms]

Instead of running your E4400 at stock 2.0GHz you could easily overclock it up to 2.7-3.0GHz which will help with your CPU usage being so high and stuttering.
What Motherboard do you have?

I have a FOXCONN G9657MA. I belive it overclocks, but I'm not sure how stable. What would I want to change to OC? Just increase the CPU clock, right? Is there a magic number to change without overdoing it?

These "guts" (Mobo, CPU, etc.) replaced my previous Intel915 chipset Mobo with a 3.0GHz Hyper Threading CPU that was SO HOT, my system was at 70C whenever in moderate use. I LOVE the new cool running Core 2 Duo's. I think my E4400 2.0GHz runs cooler (35C) than you'd expect with it's lower 800MHz bus, than my E6600 2.4MHz with the 1066 FSB. Would overclocking take advantage of the available Chipset FSB speen currently not in use? I'm only concerned about much more heat, although I do have a great quality full copper Zalman CPC heatsink/fan. It's just my whole HTPC is in an entertainment cabinet that I have already mounted the PSU on the back and added an external 120mm exhaust fan. This was of course required by the 84Watt draw on the HORRIBLE P4HT CPU.

I have a ULTRA 500W PSU that delivers 40Amps on one 12V rail, which I've read (I believe in this forum) is better than 2 or 3 rails splitting the 12V amperage. I'm guessing I've got good power for what I need.

Is Overclocking really the best way to get my Blu-rays to play perfectly smooth, or should I look at upgrading to a 2600pro or 2600XT?

[karrih]

My HTPC can only accommodate a low profile card (and even then it required some modification to get it into the box). At least when I ordered a card, my only option was a 2400. I was able to find a silent card (fan less) which was nice.

In any event, the card actually does a halfway decent job with PowerDVD in my relatively low powered CPU system. I can play back HD material (HD DVD sourced), and usually only have a few minor glitches during playback.


I too managed for quite a while with 2400Pro but as the latest drivers with posterisation improvements werent so smooth with it for broadcast hd, I upgraded to 2600Pro. I guess I could have tried overclocking 2400.

I tend to agree that 2600Pro is a minimum recommendation.

[dj4monie]

Somehow my post disappeared...

Just having a problem with MCE using the Cat's Eye 150, has nothing to do with the ATI card(s).

I upgraded to Visiontek's build of 7.11 which they modified the .inf files as I understand it to work with HD 2xxxx series cards.

Well I got the AVIVO updated which allows me to set acceleration of 720p and 1080i content.

Once I get the VBox card running again, it should work out well. Concerned with the soft image I get with full screen SD content however, I don't remember it being quite this bad not that it was fantastic to start with but seemed a little shaper.

Do I still need a Power DVD Ultra Decoder to have the card accelerate OTA HD???

[hellbraker]

Hy,I just bought a new graphics card(RADEON HD 2600XT GDDR3 512 MB-ZALMAN Edition,PCI-E).I`m having Vista.I din`t have any other graphics card in my mobo before,as the graphics is integrated.On my first installation of the card,Vista automatically installed the drivers.But on reboot,my sysytem has slowed down so much,that it now takes almost 6 minutes to startup.Every thing has slowed down,even the mouse and the cursor.How ever if i take out the card and boot again,my PC is having no probs at all.The task manager always shows 100% CPU usage,with my new card. I tried un-installing the old drivers,disabling the onboard video,but all without any luck.In order for this card to work,i even changed my PSU to 670 WATTS as well. I changed the BIOS primary video adapter option to PCI-E also.Is my PC too old for this upgrade??Does any one know what`s goin on here?Any help really appreciated.
i`m having an Athlon 64 3200 2Ghz,1.5Gb RAM,ATI Xpress 200(Old one) integrated graphics.My mobo is MS-7184 VER:1.0.

I got this error when installing the card( i think it`s because of the 100% CPU usage as no process could be completed)
Product
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT

Problem
Could not load driver software

Date
29/11/2007 12:49

Status
Report Sent

Description
Windows was able to successfully install device driver software, but the driver software encountered a problem when it tried to run. The problem code is 21.

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: PnPDeviceProblemCode
Architecture: x86
Hardware Id: PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_9588&SUBSYS_200317AF&REV_00
Setup class GUID: {4d36e968-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}
PnP problem code: 00000015
Driver name: atikmdag.sys
Driver version: 7.1.1.646
Driver date: 06-07-2007
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.768.3
Locale ID: 6153

Files that help describe the problem (some files may no longer be available)
DMI59D5.tmp.log.xml
oem14.inf

Extra information about the problem
Bucket ID: 124433565

[J.B.]

...and use PowerDVD with hardware deinterlacing in options/video/advanced forced to 3C (vector-adaptive, the best) or 55 (motion-adaptive, next best). This avoids the enormous hit of mpeg2 HD decoding, which is around 50% GPU on a 2400pro or 35% on a 2600pro, but still gets you hardware deinterlacing.

Very interesting. This method works fine with MPEG-2 but have you tested if it works for AVC? I tested with this file (http://rapidshare.com/files/75605987/bundesliga_1080i50.ts.html) and an x1950 Pro in XP and deinterlacing doesn't work properly without dxva, no matter what I set the hardware deinterlacing method to in PDVD.

If the Cyberlink AVC decoder could be made to do proper deinterlacing without dxva this could solve many problems with watching live European HDTV with GPUs that don't support full AVC dxva.

[topcaser]

Hi,

i cant get Hardware acceleration for HD under Vista:
System Spec:
Vista 32
DVBViewer 3.8.0.0
Cyberlink Ultra, newest patch
Overlay
no registry tweaks
CCC7.11

HW: 2600XT

Had no problems under XP32. Is there anything i hvae to adjust in the registry?
What format HD?



It is live TV. I think it is MPEG2. Not sure about it.

[DJBlu]

I have done some more testing with x264 and found that if you want Hardware Acceleration on any H264/AVC HD stream encoded with x264 then the following fixes the 1080p(black screen) & 720p (slow down)

When encoding use the following.

1080p - Number of Reference frames must be equal to or less than 4
720p - Number of Reference frames must be be equal to or less than 8
Mixed Reference Frames must be false.
B Frames must equal 2
Adaptive B frames must be false

Happy encoding!

[ToughRowToHoe]

It would probably help a lot of people to start a new 2X00 thread with a FAQ including Arfster's video settings and explanations and ExDeus' install utility.

It should probably include a small section dealing with the audio limitations (PCM stereo, 5.1 AC3), the needed sound driver for XP (uses included UAA driver in Vista), how to set default Sound devices, the BIOs automatically disabling audio devices issue, and the dongle with its applicability (apparently works on all PCI-E/might work on some AGP YMMV). Maybe it should include a link to the discount code as well?

Other potential suggestions? Maybe the Rivatuner hack above? I guess a link back to this thread.

Arfster, could you be the one to start a new thread with a FAQ? I don't mean to foist anything on you, but you have put too much into this for it to be anybody else IMHO. An alternative is to ask protovision to turn his initial post on this thread into a FAQ. The one positive of ATI's driver development "process" is there will be little needed upkeep. :)

[ToughRowToHoe]

This post is compilation of the input of many individuals on this and other threads related to the ATI HD 2000 series cards (probably applies to the 3000 series as well). Hopefully it should help solve most audio problems on the ATI HD series cards:

ATI Knowledge Base Answer: 737-28867

In order to enable HDMI support on the Radeon™ HD 2000 series board through the DVI connector, AMD has designed a unique DVI-HDMI adapter...

As ATI suggests above, the pin assignments on the ATI DVI to HDMI adapter are different than standard DVI to HDMI. You will likely not get sound over a standard DVI to HDMI cable or adapter.

Contrary to ATI's statement on the above listed support FAQ, this adapter likely works with all PCI-E cards. Many owners of AGP cards have reported difficulty enabling the DVI to HDMI sound feature (I believe most have been unable?). As always, your mileage may vary.

If you are trying to order the ATI replacement adapter in the U.S., the code Sarvatt posted many moons ago may still work (please let us know if not):
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=10998064&postcount=36

ATI Knowledge Base Answer: 737-28948

The integrated HD Audio codec of Radeon™ HD2xxx series does NOT support Multi-Channel Linear PCM (5.1). It supports 2-Channel LPCM and Multi-Channel AC3 5.1 Audio formats for HDMI output using DVI-HDMI adapter.

The card doesn't support uncompressed surround. It does handle Dolby and DTS 5.1 compressed.

ATI Knowledge Base Answer: 737-27794

After installing the drivers for the Radeon™ HD 2900 series graphics card, users may notice a (!) error in the Device Manager with an unknown device or an error with an ATI HDMI Audio device.

Solution:

To resolve this issue, please install the Microsoft UAA Audio Class System Driver and then the ATI HDMI Audio Driver, available from the links below.

1. Microsoft UAA HDMI Audio Class System Driver - English (required)

2. ATI HDMI Audio Driver


The above problem is not limited to 2900 cards. All 2x00 cards require the ATI drivers to enable DVI to HDMI sound under Windows XP.

ATI Knowledge Base Answer: 737-29037

Please note that the Microsoft UAA driver, which is included with Microsoft Vista, supports the HD Audio Device on above mentioned graphics cards. No additional HDMI Audio Driver is required to enable sound with Microsoft VISTA operating system.

If your motherboard has a Digital Output Device (SPDIF), VISTA recognizes this device as the default digital output device. You need to change the default device to HDMI. To do so, please follow the steps below:
1. Open "Control Panel" and double click on "Sound"
2. On "Playback" tab right click on "Digital Output Device (HDMI)" with the TV icon
3. Select "Set as Default Device"
4. Right click on "Digital Output Device (HDMI)" with the TV icon again and click on "Test"
5. You should hear sound from left and right speaker of your TV set
6. Click on "OK"


Quite a number of card owners have experienced problems outputting 5.1 surround over HDMI. First, make sure that you have set DTS and Dolby support under the "Supported Formats" tab. To do so:
1. Open "Control Panel" and double click on "Sound"
2. On "Playback" tab right click on "Digital Output Device (HDMI)" with the TV icon.
3. Select Properties.
4. Open the "Supported Formats" tab.
5. Put check marks in the DTS Audio and Doby Digital selections under Encoded formats and Press Apply.
6. Click "Test".
7. Click on "OK".

If you can still only output 2-channel LPCM, install the ATI HDMI Audio Device driver available on the Realtek site:

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=24&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false#High%20Definition%20Audio%20Codecs

Some card owners have experienced problems with their motherboards disabling onboard sound after installing a 2x00 card. If you lose your onboard sound after installing the ATI card and cannot locate it under the Sound applet noted in Step 1 above, enter BIOS during system boot and change the sound/audio option from Auto to Enabled.

Finally, the drivers haven't supported sound over both DVI outs since version 7.7. The DVI out closest to the motherboard should be the only one capable of carrying audio.

See Arfster's post for video settings and explanations: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=11659897&postcount=2121

[arfster]

If the Cyberlink AVC decoder could be made to do proper deinterlacing without dxva this could solve many problems with watching live European HDTV with GPUs that don't support full AVC dxva.

That should be possible with a little regtweaking within PDVD itself, but almost certainly not in a third party app using the cyberlink decoder. However, I think there's probably a way with ffdshow, will try later.

[mickwall]

I have done some more testing with x264 and found that if you want Hardware Acceleration on any H264/AVC HD stream encoded with x264 then the following fixes the 1080p(black screen) & 720p (slow down)

When encoding use the following.

1080p - Number of Reference frames must be equal to or less than 4
720p - Number of Reference frames must be be equal to or less than 8
Mixed Reference Frames must be false.
B Frames must equal 2
Adaptive B frames must be false

Happy encoding!

Great work DJ, hopefully everyone who encodes will start using this template!!! <please!!> :o

[Mastiff]

I have a problem adjusting colors on my HD2600 PCI-E. To get my CRT projector's image as corect as I can (since my expert guy with the color calibraiton equipment can't get here until some time in the spring!) I need to adjust saturation and hue with Digital Video Essentials test images and blue film in front of my eyes. But when I move the sliders, nothing happens in the test image, only in the small image in the CCC. Is there any way to do this without going totally mad? :D

[arfster]

That should be possible with a little regtweaking within PDVD itself, but almost certainly not in a third party app using the cyberlink decoder. However, I think there's probably a way with ffdshow, will try later.

To my surprise, it's the other way round. The ffdshow route fails, but if you use the cyberlink decoder with DXVA_Only24FPS1080H264=1 (or VForce24FPS1080H264 with cat7.8+) then it breaks acceleration, but hardware deinterlacing still works. Nice.

[J.B.]

To my surprise, it's the other way round. The ffdshow route fails, but if you use the cyberlink decoder with DXVA_Only24FPS1080H264=1 (or VForce24FPS1080H264 with cat7.8+) then it breaks acceleration, but hardware deinterlacing still works. Nice.

Sadly those regs don't have any effect on my x1950 Pro (Crysis driver), Cyberlink dxva continues working in all its blocky glory. But thanks for the ideas anyway. Basically it should be possible to use the Cyberlink decoder in software mode with forced weave and then connect that to the ffdshow raw filter and make ffdshow tell the GPU that it wants HW deinterlacing? Hmm, I wonder if could get anyone interested in adding that feature to ffdshow...

Anyway, sorry for my non 2x00 posts, carry on.

[DooMer_MP3]

Hi there, wondering if anyone can help. I have a reasonably poweful AMD x64 (single core) chip along with a ATI HD2400XT video card HTPC. I've been trying to play some Planet Earth 1080i .mkv clips... When doing so, I get some pretty badly stuttering video/sound. Basically, the ehshell.exe process is taking up about 90-100% CPU. I was under the impression that the HD2400XT chip would decode these gracefully. Am I missing something? I'm about to purchase a 1080p 42" TV, and don't want my MCE 2005 machine to crash to a halt when doing 1920x1080 resolution. Thanks!

[ToughRowToHoe]

Arfster, no worries. I'll just turn that post into an audio FAQ like your settings post. I hope it will be helpful if you do consider doing a new 2x00 thread/FAQ. Cheers.

[dj4monie]

Hi there, wondering if anyone can help. I have a reasonably poweful AMD x64 (single core) chip along with a ATI HD2400XT video card HTPC. I've been trying to play some Planet Earth 1080i .mkv clips... When doing so, I get some pretty badly stuttering video/sound. Basically, the ehshell.exe process is taking up about 90-100% CPU. I was under the impression that the HD2400XT chip would decode these gracefully. Am I missing something? I'm about to purchase a 1080p 42" TV, and don't want my MCE 2005 machine to crash to a halt when doing 1920x1080 resolution. Thanks!

HA! That's what I thought too... I have the Diamond 2400Pro AGP and no HWA anywhere save for DVD's.

I starting to think its decoder related....

However I was under the impression that between the TV Wonder 650 and the HD2400 both new in my old machine, something would accelerated OTA HD MPEG-2 (equal to your 1080i in many cases) and I get NOTHING but peaked CPU usage.

Already installed the reg hack, so that leaves me to believe its decoder. I used CMC that came with the TV Wonder and while can use both ATSC tuners when MCE is corrupted now and won't use any HD tuners, I still don't get HWA even using ATI's front end, strange.

[HT Slider]

Note with the 7.11 crisis hotfix there are now sliders for both denoise and sharpen, replacing both the above.

...

DI_METHOD only affects certain setup configs, particularly h264 (where it won't use best quality deinterlacing with the default auto setting, it just bobs). With Vista and a 2600, mpeg2 HD always uses best quality deinterlacing - although note there are some issues with the Cyberlink decoder with this combo, before 7.11.

Have you taken a look at the default settings with the official 7.11?

I uninstalled 7.10, cleaned out the ATI registry settings and then installed 7.11.

To my surprize TRDenoise=0 was already there and all of the other settings were already non-aggressive, including the excessive color enhancement and fleshtone being set to off.

Without a single registry tweak, 7.11 seems to include all of your recommended settings by default.

As you mentioned, it also has the "posturization" problem essentially resolved also.

I'm amazed that it took so long, but finally ATI does seem to have their driver working well for HTPC use (it was horrible, without registry hacks, prior to 7.11).

[HT Slider]

HA! That's what I thought too... I have the Diamond 2400Pro AGP and no HWA anywhere save for DVD's.

I starting to think its decoder related....

However I was under the impression that between the TV Wonder 650 and the HD2400 both new in my old machine, something would accelerated OTA HD MPEG-2 (equal to your 1080i in many cases) and I get NOTHING but peaked CPU usage.

Already installed the reg hack, so that leaves me to believe its decoder. I used CMC that came with the TV Wonder and while can use both ATSC tuners when MCE is corrupted now and won't use any HD tuners, I still don't get HWA even using ATI's front end, strange.

Prior to purchasing my genuine ATI HD2600XT, I purchased a Diamond "ATI clone" HD2600XT card.

That card was able to play video games just as well as the genuine ATI HD2600XT, but for some reason there was absolutely no DXVA hardware acceleration at all (not even DVDs). I even tried a second Diamond HD2600XT and it too had no DXVA at all. These were both installed in my HTPC running Vista and a GA-P35-DS4 Gigabyte motherboard (PCIe).

Although this makes little sense, with a huge 20" cooling fan blasting at the card it was able to get a little DXVA working, but only some features worked and the image quality was relatively poor (quite a few artifacts). The system was also prone to locking up during video playback.

As soon as I installed the genuine ATI HD2600XT, the image quality was greatly improved and it now had full DXVA support. For some reason the Vista "Windows Experience" rating went up by 0.1 points for the video card performance tests as well with the ATI card (although I didn't notice any change in gaming performance). With the genuine ATI card, the system has not locked up once running 24/7 for months.

The other huge improvement is the ATI card is virtually silent, while the Diamond clone was the noisiest card I've ever tried.

Is it possible Diamond has done something that screws up DXVA on all of their HD 2x00 series cards?

[djos]

Is anyone else getting Blocks of Red flashing or looking unstable when decoding MPEG2 in VMC using the standard MS codec for SD/HDTV? Im using Catalyst 7.11 and a GigaByte Radeon HD 2600 Pro 512MB Fanless via DVI-D.

Is anyone else getting this?

[HT Slider]

Is anyone else getting this?
Yes and it is quite annoying with some content, especially the CBC news when captured with our PVR-250.

For some reason HD content captured through the R5000HD doesn't have this issue.

Basically what I see is a portion of the image that is a constant color (typically red) bobs up and down by a small amount.

Most of the time this is with stationary video (background).

I know the problem is with the HD2600XT because when I play the same dvr-ms files using any of our other 5 Media Center PCs, the problem doesn't exist. These other PCs are using ATI 9800Pro, Nvidia 5500 (2x), Intel 915, and Nvidia 6800 for graphics cards. Only the HD2600XT has the issue.

[dj4monie]

Prior to purchasing my genuine ATI HD2600XT, I purchased a Diamond "ATI clone" HD2600XT card.

That card was able to play video games just as well as the genuine ATI HD2600XT, but for some reason there was absolutely no DXVA hardware acceleration at all (not even DVDs). I even tried a second Diamond HD2600XT and it too had no DXVA at all. These were both installed in my HTPC running Vista and a GA-P35-DS4 Gigabyte motherboard (PCIe).

Although this makes little sense, with a huge 20" cooling fan blasting at the card it was able to get a little DXVA working, but only some features worked and the image quality was relatively poor (quite a few artifacts). The system was also prone to locking up during video playback.

As soon as I installed the genuine ATI HD2600XT, the image quality was greatly improved and it now had full DXVA support. For some reason the Vista "Windows Experience" rating went up by 0.1 points for the video card performance tests as well with the ATI card (although I didn't notice any change in gaming performance). With the genuine ATI card, the system has not locked up once running 24/7 for months.

The other huge improvement is the ATI card is virtually silent, while the Diamond clone was the noisiest card I've ever tried.

Is it possible Diamond has done something that screws up DXVA on all of their HD 2x00 series cards?

Its possible...

I don't know, the card is only 3 days old and that seems kind of silly that they would tout HD playback with nothing else added. Even with CMC (Cyberlink Power Cinema) I get no HWA and the TV Wonder 650 makes that claim and should work with it.

MCE is messed up, I am going to make an image of it and reformat the PC, I really hate to do this, but CMC no HWA, MCE I can't get my HD tuners to work after I mistakenly deleted all the cab drivers from the machine using Driver Cleaner and also any WMA content is fubard, it crashes windows and restart it.

I just want to confirm what I need to make HWA work and I guess its Power DVD Ultra...

Darn it ATI great hardware, messed drivers as usual - You think I would have learned after MMC with the AIW and using Kram drivers for MCE to see the AIW, what a mess - :)

[arfster]

Have you taken a look at the default settings with the official 7.11?

I uninstalled 7.10, cleaned out the ATI registry settings and then installed 7.11.

To my surprize TRDenoise=0 was already there and all of the other settings were already non-aggressive, including the excessive color enhancement and fleshtone being set to off.



I think you can't have cleared out all the areas it hides in the registry - remember there are backups. Trdenoise definitely isn't in the 7.11 install package.

[fdisker]

I think you can't have cleared out all the areas it hides in the registry - remember there are backups. Trdenoise definitely isn't in the 7.11 install package.

Agreed. Wasn't there for me either after a clean Vista install + 7.11.

[djos]

Yes and it is quite annoying with some content, especially the CBC news when captured with our PVR-250.

For some reason HD content captured through the R5000HD doesn't have this issue.

Basically what I see is a portion of the image that is a constant color (typically red) bobs up and down by a small amount.

Most of the time this is with stationary video (background).

I know the problem is with the HD2600XT because when I play the same dvr-ms files using any of our other 5 Media Center PCs, the problem doesn't exist. These other PCs are using ATI 9800Pro, Nvidia 5500 (2x), Intel 915, and Nvidia 6800 for graphics cards. Only the HD2600XT has the issue.

This is exactly what Im seeing too and it is only with digital TV - DVD's dont seems to exhibit this problem and it never occurred when I was using my on-board Radeon x1250 adaptor! :confused:

Btw, it is particuly noticable in cartoons with lots of solid red areas like the Simpsons and especially South Park.

Hopefully ATI will fix it in 7.12.

[HT Slider]

I think you can't have cleared out all the areas it hides in the registry - remember there are backups. Trdenoise definitely isn't in the 7.11 install package.

That's annoying.

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that since they haven't figured out what settings are needed to make the cards display properly for at least 2 years (excessive denoise) that there is no reason for ATI to ever figure it out...

Do you know where the driver gets it settings from?

I searched for TRDenoise and only noticed it in the backup control sets. I also made sure the settings were wiped out from where I had manually created them. Admittedly I didn't run a registry cleaner (I'm always concerned they will wipe out something they shouldn't since most are written for XP, not Vista).

[cynic64]

I have a new Velocity Micro system with an HD 2600 XT in it. I'm using HDMI out over the DVI/HDMI connector and I've noticed that if I have the HDMI cable plugged in when the system boots it never makes it out of the BIOS text part of boot. I can keep the cable unplugged and the system will boot fine and will output video fine if I hook up the HDMI cable later. This seems like some kind of problem with the 2600's BIOS and HDMI link, anybody seen anything like this?

[wiak]

Radeon HD 3870/3850 missing
Radeon Moblity HD series missing

as far i know only PCI Express edition of Radeon HD cards support audio via DVI>HDMI Dongle

this is due to AGPs bandwidth

i think the audio chip inside the HD chips are pci express based to

the Radeon HD series wasnt made for AGP anyway so, you must be missing somethings like audio

[dj4monie]

I am not sure if its been covered specifically but (and I searched) but I can't seem to find any information about the successful use of Elecard's MPEG Player or their DVD Player to get the decoder(s) that force ATI's AVIVO cards to HWA DXVA and it states on their web site its Vista approved, so it MUST work.

Its cheaper than Power DVD Ultra solution and since I have no plans to add an HD-DVD player and will purchase a PS3 soon, would this work for MY applications where I am using VGA(with a DV-I adapter) in and send my audio via Optical out to my new surround sound system?

[Rew452]

VisionTek has released new drivers for HD2600XT!

Has anyone tried them yet??

Does anyone know how to limit language support to only English? Since they usually install all.

Thanks
Rew

[millerbrad]

Yes and it is quite annoying with some content, especially the CBC news when captured with our PVR-250.

For some reason HD content captured through the R5000HD doesn't have this issue.

Basically what I see is a portion of the image that is a constant color (typically red) bobs up and down by a small amount.

Most of the time this is with stationary video (background).

I know the problem is with the HD2600XT because when I play the same dvr-ms files using any of our other 5 Media Center PCs, the problem doesn't exist. These other PCs are using ATI 9800Pro, Nvidia 5500 (2x), Intel 915, and Nvidia 6800 for graphics cards. Only the HD2600XT has the issue.

I see it too, on both ATSC and NTSC. for ATSC, it's in both SD (480i) and HD (1080i). It's much more noticable in SD -- the colors seem to "bob" up and down with alot more distance.

For me, if video is 100% stationary (static screen) there is no bob. If ANYTHING moves on the screen, it becomes apparent. It's pretty noticable when watching the weather on my local news. The TV station has a logo with a red square in it. When they show the radar without animation, the logo looks fine. When they animate the radar, the red block starts jumping up and down.

Not sure if it's apparent in DVDs. I'll need to watch one of my wife's Disney cartoons and check, I guess.

Also, it may only be on interlaced content. I don't think I've ever noticed it on FOX-HD (720p). I output video at 1080p from my 2600XT.

I'm still using the 7.7 drivers (I need my dual HDMI output), so your results may vary.

[dj4monie]

VisionTek has released new drivers for HD2600XT!

Has anyone tried them yet??

Does anyone know how to limit language support to only English? Since they usually install all.

Thanks
Rew

I have them and it didn't ask for language.

AVIVO settings are in place

Enable 720p and 1080i HWA, but I have to a decoder that supports that.

Try after a nap its 5am here!

[Rew452]

I have them and it didn't ask for language.

AVIVO settings are in place

Enable 720p and 1080i HWA, but I have to a decoder that supports that.

Try after a nap its 5am here!

Yes You are right but if you look at the install it installs all languages which is what I would like to limit it to English only.

Thanks
Wayne

[ToughRowToHoe]

I see it too, on both ATSC and NTSC. for ATSC, it's in both SD (480i) and HD (1080i). It's much more noticable in SD -- the colors seem to "bob" up and down with alot more distance.

For me, if video is 100% stationary (static screen) there is no bob. If ANYTHING moves on the screen, it becomes apparent. It's pretty noticable when watching the weather on my local news. The TV station has a logo with a red square in it. When they show the radar without animation, the logo looks fine. When they animate the radar, the red block starts jumping up and down.

Not sure if it's apparent in DVDs. I'll need to watch one of my wife's Disney cartoons and check, I guess.

Also, it may only be on interlaced content. I don't think I've ever noticed it on FOX-HD (720p). I output video at 1080p from my 2600XT.

I'm still using the 7.7 drivers (I need my dual HDMI output), so your results may vary.

millerbrad, I too have the problem with red shift. I thought someone posted an ATI notice stating that ATI hoped to fix it in the 7-12 driver release. I haven't searched this thread or the ATI site to confirm this. Of course I won't believe it until I see it anyhow. Based on what you said earlier I also don't think you'll ever see dual HDMI support again in these ATI drivers so I suspect you'll be forced to make a compromise. Er, I guess I should rephrase that, you'll be forced to make "another" compromise...

Edit: I think a few people mentioned that turning off pulldown detection eliminated red shift? I did a search. I was right. I believe I tried it with the same result. See: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11925171#post11925171
And: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11656583#post11656583

[millerbrad]

millerbrad, I too have the problem with red shift. I thought someone posted an ATI notice stating that ATI hoped to fix it in the 7-12 driver release. I haven't searched this thread or the ATI site to confirm this. Of course I won't believe it until I see it anyhow. Based on what you said earlier I also don't think you'll ever see dual HDMI support again in these ATI drivers so I suspect you'll be forced to make a compromise. Er, I guess I should rephrase that, you'll be forced to make "another" compromise...

Edit: I think a few people mentioned that turning off pulldown detection eliminated red shift? I did a search. I was right. I believe I tried it with the same result. See: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11925171#post11925171

And: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11656583#post11656583

Hmm.. I remember those posts, but I guess I wasn't familiar enough with the terminology to know that's what my problem was. I'll give the pulldown detection suggestion a try. Thanks!

If things get too annoying, I'll probably need to invest in an HDMI splitter one of these days and upgrade my drivers... But, if I can get rid of red shift, I'm honestly pretty happy with the 7.7 drivers (although I have yet to dive into Blu-Ray or HD-DVD... that may change things).

[ToughRowToHoe]

HA! That's what I thought too... I have the Diamond 2400Pro AGP and no HWA anywhere save for DVD's.

I starting to think its decoder related....

However I was under the impression that between the TV Wonder 650 and the HD2400 both new in my old machine, something would accelerated OTA HD MPEG-2 (equal to your 1080i in many cases) and I get NOTHING but peaked CPU usage.

Already installed the reg hack, so that leaves me to believe its decoder. I used CMC that came with the TV Wonder and while can use both ATSC tuners when MCE is corrupted now and won't use any HD tuners, I still don't get HWA even using ATI's front end, strange.

HWA for AGP may get fixed in the 7-12 driver release: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12361175#post12361175

[ToughRowToHoe]

I thought someone posted an ATI notice stating that ATI hoped to fix it in the 7-12 driver release. I haven't searched this thread or the ATI site to confirm this. Of course I won't believe it until I see it anyhow.

I haven't searched the ATI support site, but I don't see anything posted over here on a fix for red shift in the 7.12 release. I may have it confused with ATI hoping to fix the posturization problem. Either way, it is still the same waiting game with no particularly good chance that it'll be fixed anytime soon.

[coolhd]

Guys,
I have the Diamond HD 2400 Pro. I am only getting hardware acceleration for MPEG. No HWA for AVC or VC-1.
Also my machine keeps crashing after around 10 minutes of play time and sometimes even when just browsing without playing the video.

I have tried the old ATI CC drivers and also the new 7.11 drivers, with and without the Registry Tweaks from arfster's post.

My machine specs are
AMD XP 6400+
2 GB Ram
Sharp 46 inch LCD TV connected through HDMI
Nero Showtime for playing HD/Bluray files

Did I get a lemon with this Card ? Also do we a clear winner in these ATI HD 2XXX cards for HTPC use or is the race still on ?

Please reply

Thanks

[HT Slider]

Guys,
I have the Diamond HD 2400 Pro. I am only getting hardware acceleration for MPEG. No HWA for AVC or VC-1.
Also my machine keeps crashing after around 10 minutes of play time and sometimes even when just browsing without playing the video.



When I had the Diamond HD 2600XT, not only did HWA for AVC or VC-1 not work, but it also crashed regularly.

With the ATI HD2600XT the system is 100% rock solid stable.

I was reading through the Knowledge Base at ATI yesterday and I noticed an article about certain 3rd party HD2x00 cards not performing properly and crashing regularly. It sounds like they are going to try to fix the issue through a software update, but that sounds like a hack to me...

I'm not an expert on which cards are of high quality, but after some research I had decided to either go with an HIS HD2600XT ICEQ or a genuine ATI HD2600XT. The HD2600XT definitely has more video processing capability than the 2400's and both the HIS ICEQ and ATI cards seem well build (based on Internet reviews). I'm sure there are other quality cards (including Sapphire), but personally I'm going to stay away from Diamond. I've now owned 3 flaky Diamond cards, all of them having stability and overheating issues.

One thing for sure, I compared the Diamond HD2600XT (ATI clone) to the genuine ATI HD2600XT and the difference was very significant. The ATI card used much larger capacitors, coils and a relatively huge heat sink. The Diamond card was also missing at least half a dozen components (mainly resistors and small capacitors) compared to the ATI card. The Diamond card that I had was actually a clone of an ATI card. Basically the box was a complete copy of the genuine ATI box and the card didn't say Diamond on it anywhere, but it did have ATI all over it. The only place it said Diamond was one side of the box stated something like ATI logos and packaging used by Diamond under permission of AMD. When I tried to get tech support through ATI I was told the card wasn't an ATI card, wasn't certified to comply with ATI requirements and wasn't supported by ATI. I wasn't impressed to find out it wasn't an ATI card (especially considering it was both sold as and priced as a genuine ATI card by Future Shop in Canada).

[arfster]

VisionTek has released new drivers for HD2600XT!

Has anyone tried them yet??


Extracted and had a look, they're release 8.432-071101a-055414C. That's newer than the official 7.11, and comparable to the the crisis hotfix drivers, which are 8.43.1.1-071113a-055589E-ATI.

These are different development cycles though, as the date/build number is newer on the crisis ones - eg from the .inf it looks like there are no denoise/detail sliders in the visiontek drivers, so that's maybe a feature planned for 8.1 (ie january release), and the crisis hotfix perhaps an early beta of that. However, the visiontek ones might actually have a few more bugfixes, as they have a newer version number (8.432). At a guess, they probably won't help for HTPC stuff, as the key dlls are newer on the crisis ones.

If anyone wants to test them please post results, I don't really have time for that atm. Besides, official 7.12s are just round the corner.

[Rew452]

Extracted and had a look, they're release 8.432-071101a-055414C. That's newer than the official 7.11, and comparable to the the crisis hotfix drivers, which are 8.43.1.1-071113a-055589E-ATI.

These are different development cycles though, as the date/build number is newer on the crisis ones - eg from the .inf it looks like there are no denoise/detail sliders in the visiontek drivers, so that's maybe a feature planned for 8.1 (ie january release), and the crisis hotfix perhaps an early beta of that. However, the visiontek ones might actually have a few more bugfixes, as they have a newer version number (8.432). At a guess, they probably won't help for HTPC stuff, as the key dlls are newer on the crisis ones.

If anyone wants to test them please post results, I don't really have time for that atm. Besides, official 7.12s are just round the corner.

Thanks for taking a look but When you say around the corner, any good guess as to when? If they are a week or so no sense in playing.

Rew

[millerbrad]

Thanks for taking a look but When you say around the corner, any good guess as to when? If they are a week or so no sense in playing.

Rew

7.12 = Released in 2007, Month 12 -- they've historically been released mid-month.

So, any day now.

[DJBlu]

7.12 = Released in 2007, Month 12 -- they've historically been released mid-month.

So, any day now.

I wouldn't hold your breath, they took an age to release 7.11's 21st Nov 2007, I'd be suprised if we see them this side of Christmas.

How bad is it that we are eagerly awaiting new drivers to make the product we bought do what it should of out of the packet.

Mind you it can't be as bad as the wait we are going to have for HWA from Cyberlink with 720p & 1080p with x264 encoded streams.

[arfster]

Mind you it can't be as bad as the wait we are going to have for HWA from Cyberlink with 720p & 1080p with x264 encoded streams.

It might be the UVD isn't actually capable of decoding particularly complex h264 :-( If you run some x264 in software and look at the CPU, it sometimes uses more than the hardest Bluray, due to the very high number of reference frames used and other options for compressing it heavily.

Just speculating though.

[DJBlu]

It might be the UVD isn't actually capable of decoding particularly complex h264 :-( If you run some x264 in software and look at the CPU, it sometimes uses more than the hardest Bluray, due to the very high number of reference frames used and other options for compressing it heavily.

Just speculating though.

I was thinking the same thing, however.

There are two points to look at, one is the fact that cl264dec.ax filter with a version number less than 2 can decode anything @ 720p which means the UVD can cope with this at least.

The other point is that it isn't just ATI cards that have this problem but the geforce cards do too.

We can but hope it is a software problem.

[Dave Baumann]

What software are you using? My understanding is that the mainline players are only using hardware acceleration from Blu-ray or HD DVD optical sources at the moment; H.264 encoded files are not supported with acceleration.

[arfster]

What software are you using? My understanding is that the mainline players are only using hardware acceleration from Blu-ray or HD DVD optical sources at the moment; H.264 encoded files are not supported with acceleration.

The PDVD codec supports acceleration for all h264, except those that use extreme settings such as >4 ref frames (and some other stuff, someone a few pages back figured out exactly what). Unfortunately this includes most x264 encodes.

If you encode with Nero8 recode it accelerates perfectly though.

[DooMer_MP3]

Ok, I've been trying to do some reading in this thread, and it is LONG. I'd be really grateful if someone could clear up a few things for me. My stats:

- AMD Single Core 939 64bit 2.0GHz
- 1GB RAM
- Sapphire fanless HD2400XT
- MCE 2005
- K-Lite Codec Pack

First off, I have one of the afflicted bad BIOS Sapphire HD2400XTs. It doesn't get recognized as a valid HD series card without doing some tweaking. Is there a new BIOS I can flash onto it? Do the new driver packs handle this? What exactly do I need to tweak in the registry to make the newer drivers like the card? I haven't installed drivers since August, so I forget.

What should I have installed as far as codecs/players to try and get some hardware 264 acceleration working? Which tweaks seem to be working? Specifically with mkv files...

Thanks!

[Oddish]

I'm trying to get a Sapphire Radeon HD 2400 Pro (AGP) running on Vista (32bit). I've tried Sapphire's drivers as well as ATI's drivers (versions 7.11 and 7.7). All of them result in a bluescreen after restart. I have to restart in safe mode and uninstall the card in the device manager to get the computer started again.

Any suggestions?

I've obviously started a ticket at ati's support, but they're not exactly lightning fast.

[Strecker25]

I have an athlon xp 4400 dual core with an lg combo drive and the powercolor HD2600XT 512mb ddr3 card yet when playing blu ray or hddvd discs cpu usage is at 100% and riva tuner says the gpu is at like 13%. Im a little stumped here, ive applied the tweaks and hardware acceleration is enabled in pdvd ultra? anyone any idea?

heres my system info while playing pirates3 bluray

Player Information:
Player Region Code: Not Specified
Current Drive: E:

Display Information:
Video Mode: Progressive
Display Mode: DirectShow
FourCC Code: NV12
Surface Type: Hardware Video Accelerator (DxVA)

Audio Attributes:
Audio Coding mode: Dolby Digital
Sampling Rate: 48kHz
Number of Audio channels: 2.0
Bitrate: 224 Kbps

Hardware Information:
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+ running at 2309 MHz
3DNow! Technology: In Use
Enhanced 3DNow! Technology: In Use
3DNow! Professional Technology: In Use
IA MMX Technology: In Use
IA Streaming SIMD Extensions: In Use
IA SSE 2: In Use
Video Accelerator: DirectX VA (not in use)
Multispeaker Audio Device: Speakers (Realtek High Definiti (not in use)
SPDIF Output Device: Not Detected

[JaiJoseph]

When I had the Diamond HD 2600XT, not only did HWA for AVC or VC-1 not work, but it also crashed regularly.

With the ATI HD2600XT the system is 100% rock solid stable.

I was reading through the Knowledge Base at ATI yesterday and I noticed an article about certain 3rd party HD2x00 cards not performing properly and crashing regularly. It sounds like they are going to try to fix the issue through a software update, but that sounds like a hack to me...

I'm not an expert on which cards are of high quality, but after some research I had decided to either go with an HIS HD2600XT ICEQ or a genuine ATI HD2600XT. The HD2600XT definitely has more video processing capability than the 2400's and both the HIS ICEQ and ATI cards seem well build (based on Internet reviews). I'm sure there are other quality cards (including Sapphire), but personally I'm going to stay away from Diamond. I've now owned 3 flaky Diamond cards, all of them having stability and overheating issues.

One thing for sure, I compared the Diamond HD2600XT (ATI clone) to the genuine ATI HD2600XT and the difference was very significant. The ATI card used much larger capacitors, coils and a relatively huge heat sink. The Diamond card was also missing at least half a dozen components (mainly resistors and small capacitors) compared to the ATI card. The Diamond card that I had was actually a clone of an ATI card. Basically the box was a complete copy of the genuine ATI box and the card didn't say Diamond on it anywhere, but it did have ATI all over it. The only place it said Diamond was one side of the box stated something like ATI logos and packaging used by Diamond under permission of AMD. When I tried to get tech support through ATI I was told the card wasn't an ATI card, wasn't certified to comply with ATI requirements and wasn't supported by ATI. I wasn't impressed to find out it wasn't an ATI card (especially considering it was both sold as and priced as a genuine ATI card by Future Shop in Canada).
Were in the same boat... I got mines from Future Shop also, worked fine for about a week and now it wont let me play much games, only for about 10 - 15 mins and BANG!! Black Screen I've been trying to find a fix for this issue and so far theres nothing.. I was thinking of taking my card back to future shop, either to get an exchange for the same card to see if it will happen again or just get my money back.. I had vista installed and Media Center 2005 and I thought it was the OS or the drivers I tried all different combinations on both and its useless for me.

[HT Slider]

Were in the same boat... I got mines from Future Shop also, worked fine for about a week and now it wont let me play much games, only for about 10 - 15 mins and BANG!! Black Screen I've been trying to find a fix for this issue and so far theres nothing.. I was thinking of taking my card back to future shop, either to get an exchange for the same card to see if it will happen again or just get my money back.. I had vista installed and Media Center 2005 and I thought it was the OS or the drivers I tried all different combinations on both and its useless for me.

I would definitely take the card back.

You won't be getting a replacement from them though. Future Shop has stopped carrying the Diamond "ATI clone" line of 2x00 cards for some reason (maybe they figured out they are junk).

BTW, I tried to submit about 4 different on-line reviews (even using different e-mail addresses) for that card on the Future Shop web site. In each review, I stated that the card was not an actual ATI card (Future Shop was selling them as genuine ATI cards). Interestingly Future Shop screened all of my reviews and not one review ever showed up on-line.

I've attached a picture of the box that the Diamond card came in. I couldn't believe that Diamond had copied the ATI packaging completely, selling the card as an ATI card; yet the card wasn't even certified by ATI to perform as an HD 2600XT, nor was ATI able to provide any tech support for the card as Diamond had used a non-compliant board layout and non-compliant components (ATI told me that the board didn't comply with ATI's specs, wasn't an ATI card, and because of this there was no tech support available by ATI). I have to admit I was really PO'd to find all of this out after paying almost twice what most 3rd party HD 2600XT's were selling for. Luckily Future Shop refunded me without a hassle.

It's definitely buyer beware when it comes to these 2x00 series video cards. Take a look at that box (everyone) and tell me how Diamond can get away selling a sub-quality, semi-functional card as a genuine ATI card. Its too bad because this sort of thing can really make a bad name for ATI. I also suspect that a significant number of you having trouble with your 2x00 series cards are likely having trouble because too many corners were cut to drop the manufacturing costs and the cards are not entirely functional.

[djos]

millerbrad, I too have the problem with red shift. I thought someone posted an ATI notice stating that ATI hoped to fix it in the 7-12 driver release. I haven't searched this thread or the ATI site to confirm this. Of course I won't believe it until I see it anyhow. Based on what you said earlier I also don't think you'll ever see dual HDMI support again in these ATI drivers so I suspect you'll be forced to make a compromise. Er, I guess I should rephrase that, you'll be forced to make "another" compromise...

Edit: I think a few people mentioned that turning off pulldown detection eliminated red shift? I did a search. I was right. I believe I tried it with the same result. See: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11925171#post11925171
And: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11656583#post11656583

Cheers, Thanks for the tip. :)

[madshi]

What software are you using? My understanding is that the mainline players are only using hardware acceleration from Blu-ray or HD DVD optical sources at the moment; H.264 encoded files are not supported with acceleration.
Hey Dave, do you happen to be the ex Beyond3D Dave Baumann who's now employed by ATI? :)

[Babel-17]

Dave Baumann, I just downloaded an Apple HD (720p) h264 file and it played fine in MPC with truly excellent HA. Pretty much just using the filters installed by QuickTime Alternative, Haali Media Splitter, PowerDVD's h264 decoder, and MPC's default internal filters other than its Matroska Muxer (using Haali Media Splitter instead). Ummm, MPC uses realplayer's AAC audio decoder but you can set it to use its own.

My videocard is a Visiontek HD2600 Pro (agp). I'm running on Windows XP SP2.

General #0
Complete name : C:\gilmour_720p.hdmov
Format : QuickTime
Format/Info : Quictime movie
Format/Family : MPEG-4
File size : 151 MiB
PlayTime : 4mn 8s
Bit rate : 5099 Kbps
StreamSize : 158 KiB
Movie name : David Gilmour
Encoded date : UTC 2007-10-29 22:17:35
Tagged date : UTC 2007-10-29 22:18:08
Copyright : ©2007 EMI Records
Comment : All Rights Reserved

Video #0
Codec : H.264
Codec/Info : H.264 (3GPP)
PlayTime : 4mn 8s
Bit rate : 4969 Kbps
Width : 1280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display Aspect ratio : 16/9
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.211
StreamSize : 147 MiB
Encoded date : UTC 2007-09-19 00:24:49
Tagged date : UTC 2007-10-29 22:18:08

Audio #0
Codec : AAC LC
Codec/Info : AAC Low Complexity
PlayTime : 4mn 8s
Bit rate : 124 Kbps
Bit rate mode : CBR
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : L R
Sampling rate : 44 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
StreamSize : 3.68 MiB
Encoded date : UTC 2007-09-19 00:24:49
Tagged date : UTC 2007-10-29 22:18:08

I used MediaInfo in Text mode to grab that.

http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en

[Dave Baumann]

Hey Dave, do you happen to be the ex Beyond3D Dave Baumann who's now employed by ATI? :)
Mostly. Except I'm employed by AMD! :p

[somedude22]

In a last desperate attempt to solve this problem, I went into CCC and changed from the best looking deinterlacer, vector-adaptive, to the absolute worst one, weave. Now, bear with me... You will see the ATI flag and think there is no way in h*ll that this is going to look good, because it is completely distorted and looks like spaghetti. Well, it should not, but actually looks much better than V-A. The action is much smoother and clearer, crisper. Jaggies almost gone.


Did anyone ever come to a solution for this problem? I just installed a 2600XT on Vista32 with the Crysis hotfix drivers, and I am seeing the exact same phenomenon. This is happening on 1080i60 content. The jaggies are abundant when using automatic, adaptive, motion adaptive, or vector adaptive mode.

Here is a screenshot illustrating this, on vector adaptive mode. The jaggies are most apparent in the lower corners on the diagonal lines of the banner.

[madshi]

Mostly. Except I'm employed by AMD! :p
Heh... :p Nice to see you posting here. Are you personally interested in HTPC stuff? I'm wondering whether you would have any influence on ATI/AMD driver development? E.g. it would be awesome if we could collect a small list of most important things that should be fixed for ATI/AMD HTPC use and which you could forward to driver development? Just say "no" if this is not possible or if you don't want to do it for whatever reason. Just testing the waters... :D

[xb1az3x]

I apologize in advance if this has been answered earlier in the thread. So I just got my HTPC up and running, specs are:

ASUS P5K-VM
Core 2 Duo e6550
Sapphire HD2600XT
2G Memory
Vista Ultimate 32

TV is a Sony 55a3000

The computer is connected to the tv through the ATI DVI to HDMI converter.

The initial problem was that it was being underscanned badly but that was easily adjusted in CCC. So I fixed that and now the right, top, and bottom of the screen line up beautifully right to the edge of the screen. The left side of the desktop however is 1/2-1" off of the left edge of the screen. Is there an easy fix for this? Is this the fault of the TV or computer?

Thanks

[bgbop15]

has anyone been able to get audio over hdmi in xp/mce2005 with the sapphire 2400pro yet?

[hulinning2]

Hello guys,

Both of these cards MSI RX2600XT-T2D512EZ and Sapphire Radeon HD 2600XT Ultimate are passive cooling.

I decided to replace my Sapphire HD2400XT with one of those, but I am a bit concerned about theire dimensions.

Is there anyone that actually owns one of these two cards so he can inform us about their dimensions ??

Thanks a lot.

I got HD 2600XT from Sapphire at newegg. I think the size is just normal video card without extra thickness. I put it in my Dell GX280 PCIe 16 without a problem with other cards sit besides. The performance is also good when watching movies at different video formats from HD 1080P to SD movies

[hulinning2]

I apologize in advance if this has been answered earlier in the thread. So I just got my HTPC up and running, specs are:

ASUS P5K-VM
Core 2 Duo e6550
Sapphire HD2600XT
2G Memory
Vista Ultimate 32

The initial problem was that it was being underscanned badly but that was easily adjusted in CCC. So I fixed that and now the right, top, and bottom of the screen line up beautifully right to the edge of the screen. The left side of the desktop however is 1/2-1" off of the left edge of the screen. Is there an easy fix for this? Is this the fault of the TV or computer?

Thanks

I got Sapphire 2600xt too but I do not have to adjust anything to make the Windows fit with my HDTV. I got JVC HD61z575 model 720P.
My PC is
Sapphire HD2600XT
2.5G Memory
Vista Ultimate 32
Dell GX280 2.8 GHz
All of my movies are from a another Dell served as a Media File server and all working nicely without a hitch

[mav0100]

Did anyone who has a Visiontek AGP card install the new Visiontek drivers and have any luck getting HWA to work? Still no dice for me.

System specs

P4 2.2 GHz
Asus P4B266C
1.5 GB RAM
Visiontek HD2400 Pro AGP
Windows Vista Ultimate 32 Bit

[leeperry]

anyone using these cards with ICC profiles ?

I have one old CRT, and one videoprojector and they both have a profile.

but when I use a hotkey to switch between the 2 devices twice, then my CRT is using my videoprojector ICC profile :(

[tencom]

According to ATI website ATI is now aware of the no hardware accelaration with the AGP versions of HD2600 and HD 2600 video cards and a solution is forthcoming and is expected with the release of V 7.12 driver software later this month.

[mav0100]

According to ATI website ATI is now aware of the no hardware accelaration with the AGP versions of HD2600 and HD 2600 video cards and a solution is forthcoming and is expected with the release of V 7.12 driver software later this month.


I've seen that. However, Visiontek cards use drivers directly from Visiontek and not ATI. Visiontek just released their new drivers yesterday. However, Visiontek does not note if they based their drivers off of the 7.11 or 7.12's from ATI. Just checking to see if any other Visiontek card owners had any luck with the Visiontek drivers just released. I still haven't seen a drop of HWA from the new drivers from Visiontek and wanted to know if any other Visiontek owners got different results. Any other Visiontek owners care to chime in?

[tencom]

Visiontek drivers are edited versions of the ATI software. ATI appears not to support the the AGP versions of the HD2x00 series Visiontek and other third party vendors for ATI based chipsets apparently take it upon themselves to edit the drivers to work with AGP based video cards. I believe as described by "ARFSTER" it is just a matter of changing a few lines in the inf. Driver files.

[doctorcilantro]

I tried to go back to XP x64 SP2 with the knowledge that the MS UAA HD Audio DEvice has to be disabled (if your getting 70% cpu usage), but this OS still doesn't like the drivers provided by HIS and the hack to get anyythin newer than 7.10 from ATI working frags my system.....

Bottom line....no DXVA with x64 XP and other weird issues to boot.....

DC

[dj4monie]

I uninstalled the HD2400 for the time being and got a Geforce 7600GS AGP.

I Reformated my drive and installed a fresh version of MCE 2002 but when I tried to install the Rollup 2 disc...

I had horrid NET Framework issues with installing Rollup 2 (disc or online) and I said screw it after spending 5 hours trying to get Rollup 2 to see NET Framework (any version) and install. The reg hack that forces Rollup to see Framework I couldn't get to work from the Command Prompt.

I put on Vista instead...

Now I find out the decoders are not switchable really without some hacking as well

I did install Win DVD 8 Platinum as they claim HWA acceleration support with ATSC streams (ie: accelerating HD MPEG-2). I managed to use the old decoder check utility to change the video decoder, but so far its a no-go.

I am trying to AVOID spending more money at this point.

That's 2 video cards and a new sound card in less than 10 days. I haven't taken the ATI card back because I have 30 days to return it and if by some miracle ATI comes up with 7.12 and it finally supports all levels of HWA with ATSC streams, I might put that in or take it back.

The 7600GS was discontinued and only $89

I might return the Diamond HD2400 to Fry's for a Visiontek HD2600 from CC as its actually cheaper than the Diamond card, same DDR2 memory and faster core.

I like the Vista interface better than MCE 2005 so this might stay as well, I just want Hardware Acceleration!

[dj4monie]

Did anyone who has a Visiontek AGP card install the new Visiontek drivers and have any luck getting HWA to work? Still no dice for me.

System specs

P4 2.2 GHz
Asus P4B266C
1.5 GB RAM
Visiontek HD2400 Pro AGP
Windows Vista Ultimate 32 Bit

Yes that was the first thing I did before I reformated the drive and installed Vista instead of MCE 2005 (Rollup 2 install issues). Yep, still no HWA no matter what you do. ATI Overdrive in CCC reports a paltry 4% GPU load when watching OTA HD and I was using the Elecard plug-in for WMP and HWA is enabled (in ATI CCC).

The story is still the same -

720p (KABC, KCET-PBS LA) smooth as butter
1080i (KCBS, KNBC, KTTV-FOX LA) stutter still, not horrible no sound clipping (thanks 24-bit Montego DDL) but "jerky" motion continues; Sports makes it worst

As I said in my earlier post, all I want is smooth 1080i playback and I shouldn't have to buy a new PC to do this...

[tj21]

I recently bought fanless MSI Radeon 2600 XT (RX2600XT-T2D256E/D4) as a replacement for Radeon x1600 PRO. I am connecting the card to my Panasonic AE900 with 10 meter PROFIGOLD PGV1110 - HDMI-A - DVI-D dual link cable. However I cannot get any picture on my Windows XP HTPC. With the old x1600 PRO the DVI-HDMI connection worked fine (1280x720). With the new one I get picture only in VGA compatible mode and during boot post screens. I tried the newest MSI drivers, the newest Catalyst drivers and Microsoft drivers. The result was always the same. However I could get picture with analogue VGA cable.

The DVI-HDMI adapter was not included.

The specs of the card say:

DVI/HDMI Features
- Fully compliant with the DVI electrical specification.
- Fully integrated DVI/HDMI Interface
- Supports one single link DVI or one HDMI link (HDMI output on single-link TMDS1 only).
- Meets Vista logo requirements.
- 1650 Mbps/channel with 165 MHz pixel clock rate per link.
- Supports industry standard EIA-861B video modes including 480p, 720p and 1080i. For a full list of currently supported modes, contact your AMD CSS representative.

I see no problem here as my DVI-HDMI cable has all the pins.

Anybody has any advise what else to try? Is it faulty card? Incompatible cable? Driver problem? Should I just return the card and buy different?

Thanks

Tomas

[RockySpieler]

I recently bought fanless MSI Radeon 2600 XT (RX2600XT-T2D256E/D4) as a replacement for Radeon x1600 PRO. I am connecting the card to my Panasonic AE900 with 10 meter PROFIGOLD PGV1110 - HDMI-A - DVI-D dual link cable. However I cannot get any picture on my Windows XP HTPC. With the old x1600 PRO the DVI-HDMI connection worked fine (1280x720). With the new one I get picture only in VGA compatible mode and during boot post screens. I tried the newest MSI drivers, the newest Catalyst drivers and Microsoft drivers. The result was always the same. However I could get picture with analogue VGA cable.

The DVI-HDMI adapter was not included.

The specs of the card say:



I see no problem here as my DVI-HDMI cable has all the pins.

Anybody has any advise what else to try? Is it faulty card? Incompatible cable? Driver problem? Should I just return the card and buy different?

Thanks

Tomas


I suggest that 10m (30 feet) could be too long for the connection. Not all HDMI / DVI circuits are created equal, and even though your previous card could handle the 10m length, perhaps the MSI RX2600xt cannot.

Can you test the setup with a shorter cable?

I have the same card (512mb version), and have no issues but only have a 3m cable.

I have used various connection methods:-

1) 3m DVI (single link) to HDMI,

2) 3m HDMI to HDMI with a std DVI to HDMI adapter

3) 3m HDMI to HDMI with the black ATI DVI to HDMI adapter (to enable audio on my TV).

Initially I did have issues where I had to ensure that the TV was turned on, and the HDMI input selected prior to turing on the PC, otherwise I would not get any picture. This is probably a characteristic of my TV (Toshiba 42X3030D), more than an issue with the MSI RX2600XT (I am using cat 7.11 / XP SP2).

[mav0100]

Visiontek drivers are edited versions of the ATI software. ATI appears not to support the the AGP versions of the HD2x00 series Visiontek and other third party vendors for ATI based chipsets apparently take it upon themselves to edit the drivers to work with AGP based video cards. I believe as described by "ARFSTER" it is just a matter of changing a few lines in the inf. Driver files.

I guess since Visionteks drivers didn't fix the HWA issues I'll need to wait until the 7.12 ATI drivers come out and edit the inf, since ATI is aware of the AGP/HWA issues and perhaps Visiontek is not. It will be nice to actually be able to utilize my new HDTV. I bought the HD2400 to upgrade the Media Center since I just got a new 42" Vizio 1080p LCD TV. The TV is great. Just lacking HD content from Time Warner. :(

[ralimi]

I'm trying to enable audio via my DVI/HDMI connection. I'm using the ATI dongle, but so far I'm not having any success.

Here's my setup:

- HDTV: Sony KDS-R50XBR1
- Graphics adapter: ATI Radeon HD2400 PRO (128MB, PCI-E)
- PC: Dell Inspiron 530
- OS: Vista Home Premium

The video came up without any problem and looks great, but I'm not able to get any sound. The Vista device mgr shows Realtek HD audio as
working properly. But no audio appears to be going over the HDMI connection; I'm only getting sound on the local PC speakers. I don't see any
options to enable audio via HDMI. I updated Catalyst Control Center but that only resulted in CCC no longer working. Several attempts at removing and reinstalling CCC didn't help. I suppose something must be hosed up with registry entries .

Questions:

1) Is a working CCC required for HDMI audio, or can I just remove it and forget about it?

2) Is there a Vista setting I have to tweak to enable the ATI audio? A different driver?

Any ideas would be much appreciated.

Bob

[thor240z]

ralimi/Bob,

I'm using the 2600xt so it might not be exactly the same, but one thing to check that I initially missed was...

when bringing up the sound adapters in Vista, you can test the different sound drivers, which it appears you did. However, you need to make it the default. I suggest you double-check that there is a little check-mark on the HDMI sound driver.

[ReEpAaPaA]

Hello..really curious how to get HD acceleration going in PowerDvd 7XX when playing a HD DVD.. Below are my specs and even with Hardware Acceleration checked in the PowerDVD settings, I still get 90% or more utilization in Task Manager. I have applied the tweak reg file. Any help would be appreciated as I thought I had the horsepower to run HD / Bly ray content.

Vista 32
1 GB Ram
T2500
2600XT PCIe
PowerDVD 7XX w/HD Patches
LG HD DVD / Blu Ray combo Player
DVI -> HDMI output
All hardware HDCP Compliant
Latest Catalyst and Vivo drivers / codecs

[dj4monie]

Hello..really curious how to get HD acceleration going in PowerDvd 7XX when playing a HD DVD.. Below are my specs and even with Hardware Acceleration checked in the PowerDVD settings, I still get 90% or more utilization in Task Manager. I have applied the tweak reg file. Any help would be appreciated as I thought I had the horsepower to run HD / Bly ray content.

Vista 32
1 GB Ram
T2500
2600XT PCIe
PowerDVD 7XX w/HD Patches
LG HD DVD / Blu Ray combo Player
DVI -> HDMI output
All hardware HDCP Compliant
Latest Catalyst and Vivo drivers / codecs

RTFF!

[[Europe]Boogiem]

Is Hardware acceleration possible for AGP cards at all?

Have Sapphire Radeon HD2600XT AGP

If yes, what software do I need to take advantage of the HW decode besides the normal drivers for the G-card?
- Nero8 recode ?
- Power DVD Ultra?

Best regards
Boogieman

[ReEpAaPaA]

RTFF!

What an extremely helpful post....a link might be nice.

[tj21]

I suggest that 10m (30 feet) could be too long for the connection. Not all HDMI / DVI circuits are created equal, and even though your previous card could handle the 10m length, perhaps the MSI RX2600xt cannot.

Can you test the setup with a shorter cable?


You were right on the money. I tried a shorter cable and although the cable was not dual link it worked. It is pitty because I don't want to buy new cable because it costs the same as new graphics card.

While I had the shorter cable connected I tried if the HW acceleration works. All my HD DVD movies are ripped on media server to MKV container with muxed text subtitles and I found it is not possible to display the subtitles with directvobsub and have HW acceleration. So I am returning the card and will wait until the subtitle problem is solved.

[one_2go]

What an extremely helpful post....a link might be nice.
Listen all of us are tired of scrolling through posts that ask the same question that has been answered a few pages back. If you don't have the time to do that what makes you think that your time is more valuable then ours.

Go start at page 110 and I guarantee you your question will be answered several times.

[reggie14]

Listen all of us are tired of scrolling through posts that ask the same question that has been answered a few pages back. If you don't have the time to do that what makes you think that your time is more valuable then ours.

Go start at page 110 and I guarantee you your question will be answered several times.

Give the guy a break. This thread is ridiculously long. You can't effectively search the thread anymore because searching for anything related to hardware acceleration will give you tons of hits. I hate it when threads get this long in a forum.

By the way, I'm not having any problems, but I (quickly) looked at the messages since page 110 and I didn't find anything that looked like it would help him. I don't doubt there's a solution somewhere in this thread (maybe even in those last 10 pages), but I do question how reasonable it is to expect someone to find it.

[ReEpAaPaA]

Give the guy a break. This thread is ridiculously long. You can't effectively search the thread anymore because searching for anything related to hardware acceleration will give you tons of hits. I hate it when threads get this long in a forum.

By the way, I'm not having any problems, but I (quickly) looked at the messages since page 110 and I didn't find anything that looked like it would help him. I don't doubt there's a solution somewhere in this thread (maybe even in those last 10 pages), but I do question how reasonable it is to expect someone to find it.


Thanks reggie14 I appreciate the post. Thats is exactly why I posted the question. I have been scouring this thread, and yes using the search as well, but as you said it is hard to find something when a thread is soooo long. Is it too hard just to post a link to a FAQ if it exists? Some people would rather flame then help. And I never said once that my time is more valuable than anyone elses.... so DO NOT put words in my mouth.

[millerbrad]

Still on the 7.7 drivers, so maybe this is old news...

I disabled pulldown detection, and this got rid of red shift on NTSC SD material. Unfortunately, it's still evident in 1080i ATSC. NBC-HD has been putting a Santa hat on their logo lately, and I notice that it still jiggles up and down.

[ExDeus]

Still on the 7.7 drivers, so maybe this is old news...

I disabled pulldown detection, and this got rid of red shift on NTSC SD material. Unfortunately, it's still evident in 1080i ATSC. NBC-HD has been putting a Santa hat on their logo lately, and I notice that it still jiggles up and down.
As this issue is so obviously related to framerate detection, do you see it with film-based or video-based content? What effect does changing the deinterlacing method have?

I haven't seen the red-shift on HD ATSC content of any kind, and I usually have auto off with VA manually set, and pulldown detection on.

I only see red-shift on video-based NTSC SD material, and if I disable pulldown, it goes away.

In PDVD, I do still see other deinterlacing issues with SD material. Every deinterlacing method aside from weave, including the auto setting, produces artifacts (a blurring b/w the frame fields). Using weave shows interlacing artifacts, as it's not really deinterlacing anything. I haven't yet played around with all the possible combinations with the deinterlacing options inside PDVD.

[dj4monie]

Listen all of us are tired of scrolling through posts that ask the same question that has been answered a few pages back. If you don't have the time to do that what makes you think that your time is more valuable then ours.

Go start at page 110 and I guarantee you your question will be answered several times.

Cha-Ching!

If you have wife and kids or spend 60% of your time playing FPS then ignore this post. But if I have time to re-format a 320gb drive, buy another graphics card to see if that will solve my problem, spend roughly 6 over a 12 hour period including going to work trying to find out what combination of hardware or software will solve my simple problem of being able to watch OTA HD content without spending money on a new machine, and I have time to read 90% of this thread, hey SO DO YOU.

If you have PCI-e HWA is enabled, no problems.

If you have an AGP interface and an older CPU, your in trouble.

Forget Blu-Ray and HD-DVD for a moment if Hollywood was remotely putting anything out there I really want to watch in those formats I would have bought a new machine earlier this year.

The issue with these cards (the AGP version) is that hardware acceleration is not enabled because from what I can tell ATI never intended the HD2xxxx series GPU's to HWA with AGP since they felt that was limiting, hogwash!

We as a collective has screamed at ATI to make a driver set that will enable HWA on the AGP card as most of us here have aging systems and don't want to invest just yet into new hardware.

Understanding the whole HTPC got its legs from people putting their older hardware to work.

There is light at the end of the tunnel and maybe this because I don't have a girlfriend and don't date anybody worthy of my free time so I have had a chance to look at this.

You can put together a HTPC that will play any of the current HD formats for around $400 for a Home Built if you have an OS already.

For about $600 you can buy a pre-built from Dell or HP/Compaq that will play OTA content as long as you don't get Intel graphics... You'll need to add a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD or combo drive and about 3G of memory if your on a 32-bit Vista or MCE system and you shouldn't have any problems with either Geforce 6150 or even better Geforce 7050 on-broad GPU.

As it stands I'm close to my wits end, the bowl games will start next week and the NFL playoffs are 2 weeks away, not to mention the NBA locally with the Lakers and Clippers and the NBA via ESPN on ABC after the first of the year.

I want to solve this NOW and I have considered building another system, even though getting just one of these cards to do HWA under Vista will cost much less and get me at least another 2-3 years out of this system.

[one_2go]

But if I have time to re-format a 320gb drive, buy another graphics card to see if that will solve my problem, spend roughly 6 over a 12 hour period including going to work trying to find out what combination of hardware or software will solve my simple problem of being able to watch OTA HD content without spending money on a new machine, and I have time to read 90% of this thread, hey SO DO YOU.
Hear, Hear

I have been scouring this thread, and yes using the search as well, but as you said it is hard to find something when a thread is soooo long. Is it too hard just to post a link to a FAQ if it exists? Some people would rather flame then help. And I never said once that my time is more valuable than anyone elses.... so DO NOT put words in my mouth.
On the top right corner under the page number listing is the link "Search this thread" click on it and enter into the box
acceleration PowerDvd "HD DVD"
you get less then 2 pages, now that wasn't that hard was it.

[xb1az3x]

NM. Got it fixed well enough, adjusted the picture position and them upped the overscan a bit, lost a little bit of the top of the screen but its good enough.

[millerbrad]

As (red shift) is so obviously related to framerate detection, do you see it with film-based or video-based content? What effect does changing the deinterlacing method have?

I haven't seen the red-shift on HD ATSC content of any kind, and I usually have auto off with VA manually set, and pulldown detection on.

I only see red-shift on video-based NTSC SD material, and if I disable pulldown, it goes away.

In PDVD, I do still see other deinterlacing issues with SD material. Every deinterlacing method aside from weave, including the auto setting, produces artifacts (a blurring b/w the frame fields). Using weave shows interlacing artifacts, as it's not really deinterlacing anything. I haven't yet played around with all the possible combinations with the deinterlacing options inside PDVD.

I don't know about film vs. video. I'll just say that I noticed the red shift when watching the NBC show "Journeyman". I don't have BluRay/HDDVD, so all of my HD content is ATSC.

The NTSC red shift was blatant and distracting. It came out and punched you in the face. Luckily, disabling pulldown eliminated it.

What I view (maybe incorrectly) as ATSC HD red shift isn't so obvious, and you really need to be looking for it to notice it. I assume because something bouncing up-and-down between 2 lines of resolution in 1080i is less noticable than in 480i.

Maybe it's only reproducable with my setup...

Sapphire 2600XT with 7.7 Arfster tweaked CCC
Resolution set at 1080p
Watching on a Panasonic 720p plasma
Using Vista's default Microsoft video decoder

[mtallent]

Listen all of us are tired of scrolling through posts that ask the same question that has been answered a few pages back. If you don't have the time to do that what makes you think that your time is more valuable then ours.

Go start at page 110 and I guarantee you your question will be answered several times.

Please don't reference posts by page number, as you can change the number of posts per per page. For example this thread has 61 pages for me, so I have no page 110.

Mike T who does search the posts by number, but it is not easy

[millerbrad]

Over the weekend I installed the Vista SP1 RC. I have a feeling that we'll get busy in here again when it's released, because it killed my 2600XT's sound. I use the Realtek ATI HDMI Audio driver.

After SP1, system sounds worked, but I'd get an error message when trying to play video or audio in Media Center or Media Player. I tried to report this to Microsoft, but their bug report tool crashed after I spent 20 minutes putting together a bug report.

I did manage to get it fixed, at least...

1) Opened up to the ATI HDMI Device in Device Manager and used the "Update..." button to manually change the device over to the Microsoft HD Audio Device.
2) Again went into Device Manager, and this time let it automatically update the device drivers. It chose the Realtek ATI HDMI Drivers that were already installed, but this time they worked.

[Dgephri]

I have the ATI 2600HD Pro, and tried using the HDMI audio driver to my Onkyo 705.

In Vista-32 (no SP1 yet for me) I seem to only get the option for Stereo in the Driver configuration.

In PowerDVD (3319a) I tried using the "SPDIF-out" option and I get sound but in "Direct" mode on my Onkyo doesn't seem to have any multichannel properties.

When I pick PIIx or THX, I do get 7.1 right away, but I'm not sure if the HDMI is giving that, or if it's getting matrix'd UP by the reciever itself.

Any other tips?

[djos]

I don't know about film vs. video. I'll just say that I noticed the red shift when watching the NBC show "Journeyman". I don't have BluRay/HDDVD, so all of my HD content is ATSC.

The NTSC red shift was blatant and distracting. It came out and punched you in the face. Luckily, disabling pulldown eliminated it.

What I view (maybe incorrectly) as ATSC HD red shift isn't so obvious, and you really need to be looking for it to notice it. I assume because something bouncing up-and-down between 2 lines of resolution in 1080i is less noticable than in 480i.

Maybe it's only reproducable with my setup...

Sapphire 2600XT with 7.7 Arfster tweaked CCC
Resolution set at 1080p
Watching on a Panasonic 720p plasma
Using Vista's default Microsoft video decoder

It does it with 576i@50hz and also 1080i@50hz via DVB-T so it isn't just an ATSC bug.

[ToughRowToHoe]

I have the ATI 2600HD Pro, and tried using the HDMI audio driver to my Onkyo 705.

In Vista-32 (no SP1 yet for me) I seem to only get the option for Stereo in the Driver configuration.

In PowerDVD (3319a) I tried using the "SPDIF-out" option and I get sound but in "Direct" mode on my Onkyo doesn't seem to have any multichannel properties.

When I pick PIIx or THX, I do get 7.1 right away, but I'm not sure if the HDMI is giving that, or if it's getting matrix'd UP by the reciever itself.

Any other tips?

I have the same issue. I don't use HDMI sound, but stereo is currently the only output option for my ATI HDMI output under the Sounds applet. I used to be able to pass AC3 surround per the ATI specs.

According to "Filmerit" my Microsoft MPEG-1/DD Audio Decoder is broken. It doesn't decode DTS so I assume Filmerit is right. I am currently using AC3Filter instead. I wonder if the problem is related to the broken codec?

FYI, PIIx (Dolby Prologic IIx) is a stereo to multichannel conversion program: "A newer Dolby Pro Logic IIx system is also now available, which can take stereo and Dolby Surround (sometimes called Dolby Stereo Surround) source material and up-convert it to 6.1, or 7.1 channel surround sound. Dolby Pro Logic IIx also takes signals intended for Dolby Pro Logic II, and up-converts them to a 6.1 or 7.1 channel surround sound."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_Pro_Logic#Dolby_Pro_Logic_IIx

THX is a quality assurance program: "THX-certified theaters provide a high-quality, predictable playback environment to ensure that any film soundtrack mixed in THX will sound as near as possible to the intentions of the mixing engineer."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thx

[ToughRowToHoe]

Is the Microsoft MPEG-1/DD Audio Decoder supposed to be able to decode DTS? DTS is one of the input pin types, but according to Windows Media Developer Center, it "decodes MPEG-1 audio, MPEG-2 audio, and Dolby Digital audio."

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb736088.aspx

[DooMer_MP3]

I just uninstalled 7.8 and went to 7.11 last night on my 2400xt PCIe. However, now any time I start my computer, I get the crash "send/do not send" message from: "Catalyst Control Centre: host application". It also happens when I try to run CCC manually. This kind of sucks because I use CCC to overscan since 1920x1080 won't take up the entire screen on my TV. Anyone know why this might be happening?

[tman247]

I've just been through the last 40 pages of this thread looking for confirmation of the following problem. Setup is Sapphire PciE 2600XT, Vista 32-bit, CCC 7.11 with ExDeus reg fixes, and PDVDU 7.3.3104a outputting @720p.

If I play an AVC encoded blu-ray (from Pioneer BDC-202), h/w acceleration doesn't work (unchecked and greyed in PDVDU). CPU on X2 4200+ at 90-100%.

If I play a VC-1 encoded blu-ray, h/w accel is fine (checked, but greyed in PDVDU). CPU at ~10%

If I play an MPEG2 blu-ray, h/w accel is also fine in PDVDU.

If I play an MPEG2 blu-ray from HD, h/w accel ALSO works in PDVDU. I didn't think PDVDU accelerated any HD based content!

If I play a VC-1 encoded blu-ray from HD, h/w accel doesn't work.

Anyway, the real question is, is PDVDU AVC (h264) decoding broken in 7.11? I had all acceleration working fine in arfsters 7.7's, but the picture is much better in 7.11.

I know 7.12's are imminent, but is there a fix now?

[arfster]

I'v