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

[Owen]

Yes Owen , you have your own thread ATI vs. NVidia and there you are singing on 145 pages
the hymn of your unbeatable 8800 Nvidia graphiccard. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

A card I wouldn`t accept in my HTPC even if you send it to me for free with 10 bottle of Chateau Lafite 1993 included... and I told you in this thread why I wouldn´t ...


And so wouldn`t it be nice , if you come back into the ATI 2xx thread after you have tested an ATI yourself and not hijacking this thread to sing again ?

I would suggest take the cheapest one.. an HD 2400 for 50 $ , it was clearly better than my 8600 GTS i.

We have four new reviews now , where the reviewers (not only) prefer the picturequality of the 2xxx ATI cards over the 8xxxx series (like me) and its of limited value if you repeat and repeat again
that all these people are idiots and their setup is invalid...

I am really a bit tired ...

My post was a legitimate and polite response to an inaccurate statement made by another forum member; however your post contributes nothing and is simply an attempt to antagonise, which is inappropriate in any forum.

I really don’t understand why you think I am some kind of nVidia or 8800 zealot.
I replace my HTPC hardware very regularly, and have upgraded the video card 3 times in 18 months. Each time I purchase the best available option for my needs and I have no brand loyalties. Of the last 5 video cards in my HTPC’s, 2 have been ATI and 3 nVidia.
I would be happy to try a new 2xxx ATI card, but only when the level expansion issue has been resolved. If that happens, I will buy a 2600XT to test.
The 2400 is not an option for me, as it has proved to be marginal for demanding applications, as I originally suspected. I have been bitten by low end video cards before and I don’t need the aggravation.
I would quite happily go for a 2900XT if it proved to offer any advantage in video quality, but feed back on 2900 performance has been non existent so far.

You have stated your distain for “high end” video cards in HTPC applications, but your requirements for low power fanless operation are not shared by everyone. Remember it’s not going your HTPC so it’s not your concern.
You have also stated that you will replace your 2400 with a 256bit 2900 when they become available. I question why you would want to do that if your 2400 is damn perfect. :rolleyes:

[dj9]

Hi, how's the GPU % when you turn off Aero? I'm assuming you're using a 2400pro - if so dumping aero will drop the gpu % from 100%-ish to 65ish (or something similar, can't remember exact figures). For whatever reason, aero is gobbling gpu% even when you have a video taking up the whole screen, and this is more than the card can cope with.

I don't use Aero... GPU usage idles at 0.

[Richard Berg]

What kind of 1080i60 content are people trying to watch with this card? Sports? I'd love to record 1080i sports but ESPN and all similar channels are encrypted / OCUR only. Meanwhile, most shows on the main networks are film source.

------

I'm uploading the tweaked drivers to http://richardberg.net/bin/drivers - wait a few hours for them to finish. I'm also interested in putting together a guide / FAQ since right now our discoveries are spread out over two long threads. Here's a start: http://richardberg.net/Ati2x00Faq - doubleclick to edit

[dj9]

What kind of 1080i60 content are people trying to watch with this card? Sports? I'd love to record 1080i sports but ESPN and all similar channels are encrypted / OCUR only. Meanwhile, most shows on the main networks are film source.

The only non-movie (and by extension non-movie channel) 1080i content I have is a music video.

Actually, I have the season finale of Lost in 1080i50 H264. It plays fine with GPU utilization varying from 75-85%.. but the audio speedup makes it unbearable

[MikeSM]

What kind of 1080i60 content are people trying to watch with this card? Sports? I'd love to record 1080i sports but ESPN and all similar channels are encrypted / OCUR only. Meanwhile, most shows on the main networks are film source.

------

I'm uploading the tweaked drivers to http://richardberg.net/bin/drivers - wait a few hours for them to finish. I'm also interested in putting together a guide / FAQ since right now our discoveries are spread out over two long threads. Here's a start: http://richardberg.net/Ati2x00Faq - doubleclick to edit

Several of us who post here have Cable R5000-HD modded STB's and run with Sage. So we get the raw digital bitstream of cable digital programming, but no restrictions as with OCUR.

So we have a wide variety of MPEG2 source material we want to all work and work well.

Would you like me to record something and upload it to you? It would take quite awhile I think.

Thanks,
mike

[maxleung]

dj9: You could get around the audio speedup by using Reclock, enabling hardware sound acceleration, and enabling PAL slowdown. But you may have to use AC3Filter or some other filter that will decode DD5.1 before it gets resampled by Reclock.

[rgathright]

Being I am rebuilding my HTPC I will be getting a new version of Windows. Which version works the best with these cards?

bump

[J.B.]

Vista. It has new features like Enhanced Video Renderer (EVR) and DXVA 2, making GPU decoding finally work as it should. If you want more details but have little time just read every post made by arfster.

[arfster]

Here's another lovely little ATI problem:

PAL video/film detection doesn't work properly.

In other words, rather than the 25 original progressive frames/second on the disc, the card is happily taking a half-frame, and using all its fancy spatial-temporal deinterlacing to create 50fps. You can fix it by manually setting the decoder to weave of course, but that then affects all MPEG2. Yuck.

NTSC pulldown seems to work OK at least. The discs I'd tested so far were all NTSC it seems, so hadn't noticed. Credit to the deinterlacing trickery also - it's not _that_ noticeable. Given that it's essentially working with a 720*288 source, that's quite impressive.

Off to file (yet another) support ticket with ATI....

[RichB]

Here's another lovely little ATI problem:

PAL video/film detection doesn't work properly.

In other words, rather than the 25 original progressive frames/second on the disc, the card is happily taking a half-frame, and using all its fancy spatial-temporal deinterlacing to create 50fps. You can fix it by manually setting the decoder to weave of course, but that then affects all MPEG2. Yuck.

NTSC pulldown seems to work OK at least. The discs I'd tested so far were all NTSC it seems, so hadn't noticed. Credit to the deinterlacing trickery also - it's not _that_ noticeable. Given that it's essentially working with a 720*288 source, that's quite impressive.

Off to file (yet another) support ticket with ATI....

How is that working for you? I submitted a ticket on 7/7 and added more information on 7/9...

- Rich

[arfster]

How is that working for you? I submitted a ticket on 7/7 and added more information on 7/9...


Hehe, yeah I had quite a conversation with them about the colour expansion thing.

From their driver schedule it looks like they release an update about once a month, and their notes already refer to internal version 7.8. The beta on the website is almost halfway to 7.7 with its build number too. Unless it's an easy thing to fix, I guess we won't get anything on these issues this month.

[Craigger]

Hi, how's the GPU % when you turn off Aero? I'm assuming you're using a 2400pro - if so dumping aero will drop the gpu % from 100%-ish to 65ish (or something similar, can't remember exact figures). For whatever reason, aero is gobbling gpu% even when you have a video taking up the whole screen, and this is more than the card can cope with.

I had the same experience. With Aero turned on while playing an MPEG2 1080i video sourced clip my GPU would spike to 100% and I would get dropped frames. When I disabled Aero my GPU would spike to 65% and I would get smooth playback. This was using Zoom with the Cyberlink and EVR.

[magnusr]

How is that working for you? I submitted a ticket on 7/7 and added more information on 7/9...

- Rich

lol i had this problem on my old x1900gt. Reported it to ati 11th of april, they said set it to weave. Now its been months, new series of cards still same problem?

Problem never happend with NTSC, only PAL.

Here is from the ticket:

Ticket #737-1206920: Responded (Ghosting issues under vista x1900gt)

In the Catalyst Control Center, please go to the Video section, select video quality, and change it to BOB or Weave. Apply the settings and restest your tv and dvds.



Any reason not to run Vista X64 now with 2600XT and PowerDVD Ultra?

[Furious]

Great thread guys, got a lot of useful information out of here and will be trying out Arfster's tweaked vista package this evening with my 2400.

One bug I have consistently seen is with respect to custom resolutions. In order to actually use the overscan/underscan tweaker, you have to apply one of the 720p or 1080i presets and then you are able acesss the adjustments. For whatever reason, 90% of the time the button to access the overscan tool is greyed out and all the resolutions in the box disappear. The 10% of the time you are able to use it, CCC fails to save your custom resolution at least 60% of the time. It took about 1-2 hours of fiddling just to fix it...doh. Even then you need to have powerstrip running to force the custom resolution to progresssive at your desired frame rate (important as some sets just won't take 1080 at a given Hz). By the sounds of it the latest XP betas just have a slider tool accessible from within CCC, hopefully the same comes to vista as the current method is moronic, ableit not as bad as NVIDIA's, which forces an unsupported refresh rate regardless of what the current desktop res is set to :rolleyes:

Also be very careful to see what accessories come with your card, most partners are cheaping out and only providing the adaptor on select skus. ATI's engineers we spoke to have stated it's the only way to get sound to work with their cards. Sapphire can not provide accurate specs or package contents, so YMMV with their product.

[Richard Berg]

Installed the card. Question time!

Is it possible to make the VGA port the primary display? As soon as I enable the DVI port, all important UI (logon screen, start menu, etc) goes to that display. That sucks because it's hooked to a projector that's usually off for obvious reasons. More than once already I've gotten "stuck" and had to boot to safe mode.

Those of you having trouble with level expansion: have you tried both settings at the bottom of the Color submenu? If they don't affect PC vs TV levels, then what on earth do they do?

From the comments I'm gathering it's possible to use the Cyberlink decoder outside PDVD. Welcome news! - they used to lock their codecs back when I last used it years ago. What are you using to give the Cyberlink decoder priority? Radlight filter manager, custom graphs in ZoomPlayer, something else? Can it work inside Vista MCE?

I'll add your answers to the wiki (http://richardberg.net/Ati2x00Faq/) :)

[Richard Berg]

Several of us who post here have Cable R5000-HD modded STB's and run with Sage. So we get the raw digital bitstream of cable digital programming, but no restrictions as with OCUR.

So we have a wide variety of MPEG2 source material we want to all work and work well.

Would you like me to record something and upload it to you? It would take quite awhile I think.

Thanks,
mike
I record & archive ~30 basketball games a year from premium channels. (The rest I can get on clear networks.) If you want to take over be my guest :)

I would like to try some test clips, but I should be able to cap them myself assuming I get this QAM thing working.

[arfster]

Is it possible to make the VGA port the primary display?


Yes, that's what I do. Can't remember exactly how, try right-clicking on the displays in ccc, there ar eoptions there.


Those of you having trouble with level expansion: have you tried both settings at the bottom of the Color submenu? If they don't affect PC vs TV levels, then what on earth do they do?


They affect the rest of the display, everything but video basically. I'm on MCE levels, yet still seeing 0-255 with HD (not SD though), so it's clearly not working :-)


What are you using to give the Cyberlink decoder priority? Radlight filter manager, custom graphs in ZoomPlayer, something else? Can it work inside Vista MCE?


I used Radlight, but anything that fiddles with priorites will work. Not only custom graphs, but MPC's preference thingy will work.

Dunno about MCE, but surely it should be possible. It's just a codec.

[MikeSM]

Also be very careful to see what accessories come with your card, most partners are cheaping out and only providing the adaptor on select skus. ATI's engineers we spoke to have stated it's the only way to get sound to work with their cards. Sapphire can not provide accurate specs or package contents, so YMMV with their product.

It appears from the newegg pics that the 2400pro comes with no HDMI adapter, but the 2600XT does.

Same is true for the 2600 series. Powercolor and others don't seem to have it.

Thanks,
Mike

[Richard Berg]

I did not get an HDMI adapter with my 2400 Pro. Already have a couple, luckily.

[arfster]

Just spotted an xpertvision 2600pro with internal HDMI, sounds like the way to go if you can't find which models have the dongle. Only 49 pounds too ($98), which is oddly cheaper than any 2400xt available here.

[magnusr]

Regarding 2600xt

Will HDMI receivers pass reolutions between 720p and 1080p? Or will it only pass 720p and 1080p? In this case Yamaha RXV-1700.

Since the 2000 series cant pass 5 channel pcm audio, can i disable the ati audio future in CCC? Wanna connect audio using analog cabling.

How is the 2600xt with powerdvd ultra 7.3 under vista 64bit? Still recommend 32bit? I have 4GB on the way togheter with my 2600xt gddr4.

[MikeSM]

I did not get an HDMI adapter with my 2400 Pro. Already have a couple, luckily.

Does a generic DVI to hdmi adaptor work with ATI onboard sound? I thought it was a special part?

thx
mike

[indieke2]

Would anybody would know a solution to my main problem:

No 48 hz, with HD in Powerdvd!


Now I got it working before I changed the registry as instructed above. I am not sure this is the cause. The newest Patch of PWDVD, gave me 4/3 in Powerdvd, so I reinstaled the previuous, complete version. So Maybe that has something to do with it.

Anyway, I bought this card for have HD, without parkingson. Now that problem seem mainly solved, but Jidder at 60 hz is unnecessary!

[reality_storm]

Haven't seen this yet, but I'm having problems getting Cyberlinks BD/HD advisor to recognize my system as being HDCP compatible with the 2400pro in MCE2005. Same problem with the 8500GT I bought, both of which advertised being HDCP compliant. My 8800GTX will work, but I am reserving that for use with my gaming rig, plus my CPU was having problems with Superman Returns, would play Scanner Darkly, but Superman would hangup and the CPU would shoot up to 100%. Any ideas?

[Richard Berg]

Does a generic DVI to hdmi adaptor work with ATI onboard sound? I thought it was a special part?

thx
mike
I don't know. I don't use HDMI sound.

indieke2: please be clearer. Are you talking about Arfster's registry changes or something else? Which version of PowerDVD works and which doesn't?

BTW, are you actually changing the refresh rate in the control panel or does PDVD do it for you when you go fullscreen?

[Andy o]

I did not get an HDMI adapter with my 2400 Pro. Already have a couple, luckily.

It seems only the ATI adapter will work for sound. By all means try yours and report, but my generic adapter doesn't seem to work. You can get the ATI one pretty cheap, I got it at something like 6.65 including shipping.

Check this. Don't know if the coupon is still valid though, it was earlier this week.

You need the dongle I'm afraid, $7 US on the ATI shop website.

http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=3526142

coupon code atill5off gets you 5% off that too and free shipping that costs almost as much as the adapter :D

Thanks to Sarvatt.

[Andy o]

Haven't seen this yet, but I'm having problems getting Cyberlinks BD/HD advisor to recognize my system as being HDCP compatible with the 2400pro in MCE2005. Same problem with the 8500GT I bought, both of which advertised being HDCP compliant. My 8800GTX will work, but I am reserving that for use with my gaming rig, plus my CPU was having problems with Superman Returns, would play Scanner Darkly, but Superman would hangup and the CPU would shoot up to 100%. Any ideas?

I'm also having problems with damn HDCP! But the advisor (1.0.1801.0) tells me that the graphics card and graphics card driver are "green". The one that's screwing my playback with PDVD 7.3 in Vista is "video connection type". I have a supposedly HDCP-compliant NEC LCD2690. Setting the HDCP cripple in the monitor's menu on or off doesn't do anything.

Now for the interesting part. I have another PC with Windows XP Pro SP2 and a X1900GT (which I'm not even sure has HDCP enabled, I think ATI got some flak for that didn't it) on the same monitor. Now with this one PowerDVD 7.3 does work! With or WITHOUT HDCP enabled in the monitor. Does XP override HDCP or what? In any case, I can't get my monitor to work with HDCP material and PDVD under Vista. I've tried every possible permutation between both computers, changing cables, DVI inputs, and still the same. Of course proper monitor drivers are installed. Any thoughts?

And something a bit OT. The NEC seems to max out at only 1280x720 when HDCP is enabled. Does this happen with other monitors too? I feel violated after I paid so much for this monitor. I wasn't gonna use it just for pictures.

[Richard Berg]

They affect the rest of the display, everything but video basically. I'm on MCE levels, yet still seeing 0-255 with HD (not SD though), so it's clearly not working :-)

Seems like the thing to do is set this switch to PC levels & calibrate your display accordingly. Should be pretty simple unless you have a CRT.

-----
FAQ updated with all info I could find - http://richardberg.net/Ati2x00Faq - if I missed something, feel free to add it :) The tweaked drivers are fully uploaded, in case I didn't mention that yet; no more RapidShare.de crap.

[arfster]

Seems like the thing to do is set this switch to PC levels & calibrate your display

Even if this was acceptable, I'd have to recalibrate every time I wanted to switch between SD and HD material :-) Anything <720 lines isn't expanded.

Then there's the fact that levels expansion is unnecessary processing, which can only harm image quality. It might not make much difference, but neither is it possible to do it losslessly.

[Richard Berg]

So video playback of SD material uses TV levels even with that option set to PC? Ick.

The extra headroom can improve quality if it's used throughout the filter chain. Easy to do when using ffdshow + avisynth. Not relevant for hardware acceleration unfortunately.

[arfster]

So video playback of SD material uses TV levels even with that option set to PC? Ick.


Yup - you can show it in real time with ffdshow, as soon as you resize above 719 lines you get brightness lowered, contrast up. Screenshots show it's then at 0-255. This always happens, regardless of decoder/format/renderer.

My best guess is the card has different routines to handle SD and HD, and the HD one is broken. Could be like this for performance, but I doubt it since there doesn't seem to be any quantum leap in gpu usage at that point. Perhaps more likely it's the result of switching from bt601 to 709 as it goes >719 lines (ie HD colour space for HD resolution), and the 709 routines are screwed up.

[RogueWarrior]

I have been watching this thread but a question I think has gone unanswered - maybe it is in a different thread - if so I am sorry. I am going to buy the 2600XT, but I want to make sure it will work with what I use.

I am using Vista Ultimate and do not yet have a HDDVD or BlueRay DVD drive. So I watch Divx files I get from my friends and normal terrestrial HD shows. Will this card work with Vista's built in decoder? I have installed ffdshow for Divx files. Will the board do mpeg 2 and Divx decoding on board the card - without any new decoders (like PowerDVD Ultra)?

Thanks!

[indieke2]

indieke2: please be clearer. Are you talking about Arfster's registry changes or something else? Which version of PowerDVD works and which doesn't?

BTW, are you actually changing the refresh rate in the control panel or does PDVD do it for you when you go fullscreen?

I am talking about these:

XP users may try :

DL .. "findreg "

This little app will determine the right string of your HD 2400 pro

Regedit >HKEY _Local_Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\

Now find the correspondent string that will look like this..... 68AACE4......

scroll down until you find :

DXVA_Only24FPS1080H264
DXVA_Only24FPS1080MPEG2
DXVA_Only24FPS1080VC1

change string from 1 to 0

__________

Right click ..enter : New DWORD

DXVA_NOHDDECODE ..........0
SORTOverrideFPSCaps ..........0
TRDenoise .............................0

HD 2400:

With new Cyberlink patch and beta 7.6 ( in this thread) :

H.264 DXVA

1080 i MPEG2 DXVA >20 Mbit @ 9 % CPU

Hardwarechanges:


I had to uninstall the latest Cyberlink patch and put back the latest full installation 2911, as on full screen I had 4/3 on my 16/9 display, once the movie was started in PWDVD (this in every rr).

Then I installed Powerstrip and put my refreshrate at 47.95. When I play movies in let's say KM player, everything is fine. But at this refreshrate in Powerddvd I get all kind of weird green flashes, and pixelisation, that makes it unbearable to watch.

Before the changes it seemed to work. As I came back to the original 2911 version, maybe it is the registry changes that is the reason? If i don't want any jidder, I have to output 47.95, as my Ruby will not accept 23.96....

Hope this is clear.

[butters2006]

Yes the 2600xt does work with the mpeg2 decoders that come with Vista. However you'll get very poor video quality unless you do the de-noise registry addition.



I have been watching this thread but a question I think has gone unanswered - maybe it is in a different thread - if so I am sorry. I am going to buy the 2600XT, but I want to make sure it will work with what I use.

I am using Vista Ultimate and do not yet have a HDDVD or BlueRay DVD drive. So I watch Divx files I get from my friends and normal terrestrial HD shows. Will this card work with Vista's built in decoder? I have installed ffdshow for Divx files. Will the board do mpeg 2 and Divx decoding on board the card - without any new decoders (like PowerDVD Ultra)?

Thanks!

[butters2006]

I received a Sapphire 2600xt video card last Friday. I spent this weekend fiddling around with it. I've experienced the same problems that others have: underscan, poor mpeg2 video quality, etc...

When playing protected content on Vista Media Center (i.e. HBO) the video card drivers appear to reset themselves every few seconds. This causes the screen to go blank for a second. Has anyone else experienced this? To be sure I went ahead and re-installed vista (the lengths we go through in hopes that we can actually trust a company to provide a quality product) - I had the same issue occur again.

I was going to wait until Catalyst 7.7 to be released to see if some of the other problems were going to be fixed but this constant driver reset while watching protected content is the last straw. This card will be heading back very soon.

To be honest, I'm quite disappointed with both ATI and nVidia (and most software companies). Ever since the "internet" revolution software quality has gone down the crapper because companies feel they can simply release a "patch" over the internet.

[Andy o]

I received a Sapphire 2600xt video card last Friday. I spent this weekend fiddling around with it. I've experienced the same problems that others have: underscan, poor mpeg2 video quality, etc...

When playing protected content on Vista Media Center (i.e. HBO) the video card drivers appear to reset themselves every few seconds. This causes the screen to go blank for a second. Has anyone else experienced this? To be sure I went ahead and re-installed vista (the lengths we go through in hopes that we can actually trust a company to provide a quality product) - I had the same issue occur again.

I was going to wait until Catalyst 7.7 to be released to see if some of the other problems were going to be fixed but this constant driver reset while watching protected content is the last straw. This card will be heading back very soon.

To be honest, I'm quite disappointed with both ATI and nVidia (and most software companies). Ever since the "internet" revolution software quality has gone down the crapper because companies feel they can simply release a "patch" over the internet.

I think the blame should go as well to the freaking MPAA and those of its ilk. HDCP is causing a lot of trouble with people's systems, and the drivers have unnecessarily to keep up. I am having trouble with Vista and all supposedly HDCP-enabled hardware and software. Not having any trouble with XP and the same software (Power DVD 7.3). And all this hassle only pisses off the average guy who woulnd't be pirating anyway. I just fixed it easily with Anydvd, and actually, now that I bought that, I am copying HD-DVDs to my hard drive for later watching while the movies are going back and forth in the mail (via blockbuster).

So in short. Freaking HDCP made me install AnyDVD, and now that I have it, I could easily pirate movies if I wanted to. If there was no HDCP, I probably wouldn't bother copying movies into my hard drive, because I would not see the need to install AnyDVD. Not saying it should have no protection (though I could say it) but something like HDCP is just moronic and unnecessary.

[originalsnuffy]

This thread has been helpful.

My HTPC is a HP slimline, which needs low profile PCI Express cards. I don't think it has a very capable power supply, but has enough to run at least some kind of add-in card.

I am assuming that I should get a card with either passive cooling or a low-profile and quite fan. I would also hopefully like to have the HDMI dongle included.

What card recommendations do you have? Fortunately, price wise it looks like both the 2400 and 2600 pricing is reasonable so that is not the issue, just the profile, cooling, power needs, and connectivity. Oh yes, this is a Vista machine.

Also; right now I'll be playing back .ts and .tp files for high definition. I am curious how many of you have successfully added either blue ray or hd dvd drives to your HTPC rigs, and what you are paying for the drives and required software.

[zzzozzzo]

My HTPC is a HP slimline, which needs low profile PCI Express cards. I don't think it has a very capable power supply, but has enough to run at least some kind of add-in card.

I am assuming that I should get a card with either passive cooling or a low-profile and quite fan. I would also hopefully like to have the HDMI dongle included.

This might be right up your alley, even has onboard HDMI

http://www.gecube.com/products-detail.php?prod_id=66443

[mine]

I am talking about these:

XP users may try :

DL .. "findreg "



I had to uninstall the latest Cyberlink patch and put back the latest full installation 2911, as on full screen I had 4/3 on my 16/9 display, once the movie was started in PWDVD (this in every rr).

Then I installed Powerstrip and put my refreshrate at 47.95. When I play movies in let's say KM player, everything is fine. But at this refreshrate in Powerddvd I get all kind of weird green flashes, and pixelisation, that makes it unbearable to watch.

Before the changes it seemed to work. As I came back to the original 2911 version, maybe it is the registry changes that is the reason? If i don't want any jidder, I have to output 47.95, as my Ruby will not accept 23.96....

Hope this is clear.

HI I

changing registry settings is always a bit risky
but these changes shouldn`t do any harm
they are tested on a 2400 HD
without any problems here

a.t.m . the drivers for the new hardware accelerated
graphiccards are flakey at its best on the green and red side
and current Cyberlink drivers aren`t overwhelming at all ...as well

I installed a 2600 Pro on a friends brandnew ASrock board yesterday and run in troubles even with a fresh XP install @ the installation level of the GC ....
had to remove the Creative X-FI to get the system to work properly and to change PCI slots of the soundcard 2 times.

A.t.m. we all are waiting for the new Catalyst 7.7 drivers , patches for the Cyberlink decoder and hopefully some new faces on the DXVA front (Mainconcept/Elecard is appearently working on support for ATis UVD engine and Nvidias 8xxx).
This would be good news as their H.264 decoder and encoding engine is not bad at all.

best

M

[originalsnuffy]

zzz...

Thanks for the pointer. The card you referenced would meet the bare minimum of my specs. I am holding on for a card with (hopefully) an included hdmi dongle and passive cooling.

[protovision]

I had some time on the weekend to experiment again with my HD 2400Pro, I'm still convinced that this card will be fine for me, since I don't game much, more concerned with HD playback.

- PowerDVD plays back HD streams more reliably than MPC, etc

- PowerDVD cannot play different audio tracks from video files (non-disk based) (? couldn't find audio track options)

- PowerDVD had perfect playback of The Frighteners HD DVD disk from HD DVD addon, no glitches, no overheating

- PowerDVD couldn't playback 'Ghost Rider' blu ray rip, got confused by audio track

- MPC would stutter, freeze on different streams, but occasionally would play files that PowerDVD couldn't (weird container, weird audio, etc)

- Had a couple of lock ups in MPC, where video would freeze, audio continued, and then 5 secs later BSOD, watchdog.sys error

- On some of the MPC freezes, I was able to exit MPC, RivaTuner still reported 100% GPU use, would have to reboot

So far, I'm pretty pleased, just hope to iron out the remaining bugs. I still haven't done any registry tuning, I'm starting to suspect that those registry settings might be too much for the passively-cooled cards, that's why sapphire left them off. With extra cooling/non-passive, those extra settings are probably good.

p.

[arfster]

The stuff you mention all sound like software issues to me. PowerDVD in particular has a bundle of troubles with many discs, it's simply not compliant enough with the various standards I guess.

As to the registry hacks: some are certainly deliberate restrictions on performance for stuff the 2400pro can't handle, but some are unnecessary (or at least restrict video the 2400pro can play quite easily). As an example, the 24fpsh264 one stops European 1080i50 h264 from being accelerated, but if you disable it then you find the card manages it at 40% max. Some others are also performance related, for example the 2400 has detail, fleshtone and colour enhancement all off, the 2600 has them at 50/25/25. Personally I'd just turn all of those off anyway....

By the way, I think the dxva_nohddecode (or whatever it was) will affect the 2600 also. This seems to be a driver error in that it defaults to 1 when the key doesn't exist, rather than to 0, disabling mpeg2 acceleration.

[indieke2]

HI I

changing registry settings is always a bit risky
but these changes shouldn`t do any harm
they are tested on a 2400 HD
without any problems here

a.t.m . the drivers for the new hardware accelerated
graphiccards are flakey at its best on the green and red side
and current Cyberlink drivers aren`t overwhelming at all ...as well

I installed a 2600 Pro on a friends brandnew ASrock board yesterday and run in troubles even with a fresh XP install @ the installation level of the GC ....
had to remove the Creative X-FI to get the system to work properly and to change PCI slots of the soundcard 2 times.

A.t.m. we all are waiting for the new Catalyst 7.7 drivers , patches for the Cyberlink decoder and hopefully some new faces on the DXVA front (Mainconcept/Elecard is appearently working on support for ATis UVD engine and Nvidias 8xxx).
This would be good news as their H.264 decoder and encoding engine is not bad at all.

best

M

Hi Mine, You have been very helpful, thank you.

If 48 hz, was working, I would have no problems, with the inconveniences the card gives me though. H 264 on 50 hz, is not such a problem, as these are broadcasts, and not so heavy on your system as BD. So 70-75 % is much, but I don't play it every day, and it doesn't stutter.

Mpeg is fine, except, that I get with the NVidia decoder, that works thanks to your registery chances, a white line. I use the same splitter (gabest) on my Nvidia 7600 system (only for bureaucratic work), and there the white line doesn't show.

I watched the "Pirates" BD and it was marvelous. "Pan", gave acceleration problems, but only once and a while. So things are not too bad, but just not stable yet.

[mule]

I just started a survey in the powerdvd thread of which i think is very important for all of us (especially for the 2400 owners and the ones which are planing to buy one of the new ati cards) in order to understand the limitation of the 2400 cards:

After applying the latest patch (3104a) their seems to be a split in two groups of user experiences:

The first group A has experienced some bad issues:
1.) Video shows blacks bars when switching to fullscreen
2.) Powerdvd switches off vista aero mode when playing hd content

The second group B has made experiences exactly the other way round:
1.) Video shows without black bars when switching to fullscreen
2.) Powerdvd doesn't switch off vista aero at any time

After some investigation it seems that group A are the owners of an ATI 2400 and group B are the owners of an ATI2600 or any other graphic card.

So it seems that the 2400 is limited by powerdvd in combination with the drivers.

In order to prove my investigation and to clear things up it would be rather nice if anyone could tell us to which group A or B you belong and which graphic card you own. Thanks in advance!

TheMule!

[egandt]

So I got my X2600XT today to replace an old x1800XL, installed it and all was fine Video works, but when I tried to install drivers for the on board "High Definition Audio Bus", I get no drivers found. What the F**k!, this is the same audio solution as the 2900XT so its been around for 4 driver revisions now, so why are no audio driver found!
At first since this card is for an HTPC I figured sub-par video performance was ok, but then to find that the built in audio solution has no drivers now that is plain CR*P!

I'm most upset right now and would return the card except that the retailer does not deserve to take a lost for AMDs fault, but simply put, stay away!, from this garbage!, I can not think of the last time I bought hardware that has such poor drivers. Please note I did not expect that the on board sound would work correctly, only that AMD would provide drivers that at least supported it.


:( Update 1: I have power-save set too 3 minutes, since if I'm not there why waste power, well after 3 minutes it will power save, but it will not resume. I had to reboot 3 times so far due to this problem. I get no logs, so I'm going to start a counter and see if its just the video which crashes or the entire PC, but since this is new and the x1800XL did not have the problem, I'm again very disappointed. the reiterate this card is CR*P, and I would suggest that no one else purchases one, I expect that unless the audio and now video problems are solved by Saturday this card will be going back. :(

:mad: Update 2: System crash when watching Video using Nvidia's Pure Video decoder, another crash using PowerDVD 7.3 build 2911 with acceleration turned on. So this card is not only unusable , but either plain broken or unstable so I'm going to have to pull it (can not risk messing up Vista so I will not even try it under that OS). :mad:

An annoyed customer,
Eric

PS: Thinking I'll purchase a Geforce 8600GTS (fanless), as maybe Nvidia can produce a stable usable card!

Also I have Owned an ATI 9800Pro, X800pro, x1800XL previously for this system, so its not like I have not dealt with ATI in the past without issues.

[derringdo]

Hi all, first time poster with a stupid question so please be nice :). I'm in the process of building a HTPC to hook up to my Samsung LED DLP and I'm trying to decide which video card to buy.

I'm considering getting the 2600pro based on what I've read about it so far. However I have one nagging doubt - I checked Sapphire's page for the 2600pro and their spec sheet says it only supports up to 1080i using hdmi over DVI.

I'll be hooking up the HTPC to the TV via a DVI->hdmi cable and would like to be able to display 1080p. Is Sapphire accurate in saying that I can only display up to 1080i with the 2600pro?

Also, if anyone can give me reasons not to buy the 2600pro and get something else instead, please do!

[originalsnuffy]

Derringdo--

Looks to me like buyers of the 2400 and 2600 will have to suffer through some issues as ATI gets their software act down. So I guess it depends how patient you are. My ATI experience in the past is that they eventually get everything fixed, but it takes time.

[derringdo]

Derringdo--

Looks to me like buyers of the 2400 and 2600 will have to suffer through some issues as ATI gets their software act down. So I guess it depends how patient you are. My ATI experience in the past is that they eventually get everything fixed, but it takes time.

Thanks for the reply, that's pretty much what I figured. I'll have to trust in ATI to get their stuff together.

Now I just need to confirm that the 2600pro can do 1080p over a dvi->hdmi cable - can anyone confirm? My TV is HDCP compliant if that matters.

[arfster]

1080p? Easily - the 2400xt can accelerate HD video to 2 screens that size at once :-)

Sapphire really should have made this clear - due to the deinterlacing needed, 1080i source material is actually hugely harder on the cards' hardware than 1080p.

[autoboy70]

Only if you are outputting progressive scan. If you output at 1080i it doesn't need to deinterlace.

[indieke2]

I just started a survey in the powerdvd thread of which i think is very important for all of us (especially for the 2400 owners and the ones which are planing to buy one of the new ati cards) in order to understand the limitation of the 2400 cards:

After applying the latest patch (3104a) their seems to be a split in two groups of user experiences:

The first group A has experienced some bad issues:
1.) Video shows blacks bars when switching to fullscreen
2.) Powerdvd switches off vista aero mode when playing hd content

The second group B has made experiences exactly the other way round:
1.) Video shows without black bars when switching to fullscreen
2.) Powerdvd doesn't switch off vista aero at any time

After some investigation it seems that group A are the owners of an ATI 2400 and group B are the owners of an ATI2600 or any other graphic card.

So it seems that the 2400 is limited by powerdvd in combination with the drivers.

In order to prove my investigation and to clear things up it would be rather nice if anyone could tell us to which group A or B you belong and which graphic card you own. Thanks in advance!

TheMule!

2400 Sapphire pro and experience is indeed A. I went back to the previous edition of Pwerdvd and it is fine!

[RichB]

I just replaced my 2400Pro with a 2600Pro512MB. The 2400 Pro never worked for me with hardware acceleration. I installed the card with the same drivers and Vista32 did not recognize the hardware. So much for the drivers being the same.
I had to uninstall them.

First I tried 7.5 that came with the card. No go, green flashes with powerDVD. Then I installed the hotfix release of 7.6 and it worked like a champ. MPEG2, VC1, AVC all play without any problems.

The expansion problem is there. I get the best result by unchecking application controlled in the AVIVO settings and moving the brightness to 7.

The fan is very quiet. I really cannot hear the fan. It appears to be speed controlled since it turned off and on during boot.

- Rich

[butters2006]

To combat the underscan I tried the 1080 29i setting in Catalyst. This fixed the underscan however something has changed that causes my drivers to restart themselves everytime I play video - not just protected content video either. Every few seconds, while playing video, my screen goes black and comes back on with the display showing 1080i/p.

This is ridiculous and much worse than the nVidia issue I was having where the driver wouldn't wake from sleep properly.

In addition, if I happen to turn my monitor on after my computer the computer appears to "forget" the resolution that it was last set at and defaults to a lower resolution.

Eh, just blowing off some steam, but this reflects poorly on ATI and AMD products. As of right now I have no interest in continuing my support for AMD cpus... :(

[Andy o]

To combat the underscan I tried the 1080 29i setting in Catalyst. This fixed the underscan however something has changed that causes my drivers to restart themselves everytime I play video - not just protected content video either. Every few seconds, while playing video, my screen goes black and comes back on with the display showing 1080i/p.

Are you positively sure that there's no "scaling options" option in your CCC? There you can set underscan to zero. Do you have the hotfix installed? I was having the same trouble with a Sharp 1080p LCD, but the options were there after all, so either I was blind or the hotfix put that option there. I don't really remember if the option was there with 7.6. It seems the options will only appear when you connect an HDTV and it's properly recognized by the driver, so you may need to click on "detect display" and/or restart Windows. If your TV isn't detected, that might be the problem.

They never should have done underscan by default. If you don't install the CCC, and use, say ATI Tray tools, I don't think there's an option to disable it, at least until they update ATI Tray Tools or you mess with the registry.

[marling]

Trying to get my Mits HC5000 LCD proj to connect with a Powercolor 2600Pro.
And the only way seems to be with Ati's DVI to HDMI adapter (the dongle)that came with the card.
The problem for me is that it is very tight behind my Htpc and i want to use a angled dvi/hdmi adapter that i allready have.
But it doesent work.
The 2600 does connect with my Pio plasma however , any way i connect it.
So the only problem is my HC5000.
I dont even get the boot screen unless i connect it via "Ati's dongle".

I have a 8800GTX that connects to the HC5000 without a problem via a DVI to HDMI cable.

Greatfull for any help!!
Regards

[originalsnuffy]

The promo code for the ATI dongle does really help in ordering the ATI dvi-hdmi adaptor. I ordered one on general principles...the odds are that whatever card I order, I probably won't end up with the adaptor included. And I did not want the adaptor to be the key variable in my product choice. Not that I have that many choices in low profile cards...looks like there are two or three so far.

[arfster]

I just replaced my 2400Pro with a 2600Pro512MB.

.....

The fan is very quiet. I really cannot hear the fan. It appears to be speed controlled since it turned off and on during boot.


Hi - what brand is this? The fans seem to vary an awful lot :-) More generally, what's the rivatuner gpu % looking like? I'm interested to compare with my 2400xt - might buy a 2600pro for the other machine in future.

For comparison purposes, any chance you could post a screenshot of what your regedit umd/dxva key contains? Would help in seeing what the difference between models is, as I'm curious if it changes automatically post-install.

[RichB]

Hi - what brand is this? The fans seem to vary an awful lot :-) More generally, what's the rivatuner gpu % looking like? I'm interested to compare with my 2400xt - might buy a 2600pro for the other machine in future.

For comparison purposes, any chance you could post a screenshot of what your regedit umd/dxva key contains? Would help in seeing what the difference between models is, as I'm curious if it changes automatically post-install.

SAPPHIRE 100207L Radeon HD 2600PRO 512MB GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102152)

I will get back to you on the GPU usage and registry information.

- Rich

[RichB]

For comparison purposes, any chance you could post a screenshot of what your regedit umd/dxva key contains? Would help in seeing what the difference between models is, as I'm curious if it changes automatically post-install.

Here are the registry images for the 2600.
I first installed the 7.5 drivers supplied by Sapphire, then
I installed the Hotfix 7.6 drivers.


- Rich

[Andy o]

SAPPHIRE 100207L Radeon HD 2600PRO 512MB GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Video Card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102152)

I will get back to you on the GPU usage and registry information.

- Rich

I'm also taking a look at those suckers. When my Zalman VNF100 gets to me I'll see if it fits in my HTPC case, and if it does, bye bye to my 2400pro it is, and I'll get one of these 9600 pros and stuff the fanless cooler there.

Let us know if any troubles.

Thanks.

[Andy o]

By the way, is anyone getting really horrible artifacts with their 2400 pro and DVI and HDMI connection? With a generic HDMI adapter I'm getting the most horrific artifacts and jittering. Unwatchable. This is with all HD-DVDs I've tried (Babel, Casino, 12 Monkeys, Planet Earth, Flags of our Fathers), directly from the drive, or ripped, AVC or VC-1. I've tried everything, even reinstalled my whole Vista thing. Reinstalled video drivers (7.6 and hotfix) and nothing.

The weird thing is that it's happening much worse with the HDMI adapter, but with the 8500GT that I tried before the HDMI connection was flawless. It also happens via direct DVI digital, but less so. Not seen it via VGA yet, so I'm thinking maybe my card is defective, if none of you guys are having any trouble like this. I will see if the ATI HDMI adapter fixes it, but I don't think so.

[arfster]

Here are the registry images for the 2600.
I first installed the 7.5 drivers supplied by Sapphire, then
I installed the Hotfix 7.6 drivers.


Thanks. Little weird there, those look like 2400 settings - you shouldn't have dxva_only24fps, sortoverride and co on a 2600 install. Similarly, the detail/denoise settings are those of a 2400.

Looks like the 2400 settings haven't been overwritten (seen that myself), or perhaps the driver package is misdetecting your card as a 2400. It'd probably be worth deleting the entire key, along with 0/1/2/3, unininstalling the drivers then reinstalling.

You're also missing dxva_nohddecode 0 (although perhaps that isn't needed on a 2600) - if mpeg2 HD acceleration doesn't work that's why.

[SAFOOL]

The main reason I ordered the 2600xt was for the hdmi with audio and you guys are telling me it doesn't work? It also sucks to hear that there are so many video problems with these boards too. Anyone know neweggs poilcy if I refuse delivery?

[RichB]

More generally, what's the rivatuner gpu % looking like?

I am running an AMD 4600+ with cool and quiet enabled. Playing content the CPU is never running at full speed. It runs mostly a 1Gig, and sometimes at 1.8Gig, but never at 2.4Gig. The CPU % is at 30 to 40% so you should probably cut that in half.

I could not play Chris Botti live with my 8500+ even with hardware acceleration enabled. Plays fine with the 2600.



VC1 The Bourne Supremacy: GPU is 10 to 14%, Temp: 51c.
VC1 Serenity: GPU is 8 to 12%, 50c.

MPEG2: Stargate and House of Flying Daggers: 24 to 30%, GPU 51c

AVC Pirates 2: GPU is 25%, 52c.
AVC Chriss Botti Live: GPU 34%, 53C.

I have not tried any Interlaces content yet.

Also, the colors look better to me. The faces were a bit ruddy with the 2400, and the color is more natural. I cannot be 100% sure since I cannot A/B compare, but this is a fantastic card.

There is less banding than my 8500GT. I would love to see what this card looks like if the fix the video level problem.

For HTPC, I would highly recommend the 2600Pro. I am not sure if the 512MB is needed but for $5, why not.

- Rich

[RichB]

I'm also taking a look at those suckers. When my Zalman VNF100 gets to me I'll see if it fits in my HTPC case, and if it does, bye bye to my 2400pro it is, and I'll get one of these 9600 pros and stuff the fanless cooler there.

Let us know if any troubles.

Thanks.

I have had no problems. Let me know of the fan works ;)

- Rich

[arfster]

VC1 The Bourne Supremacy: GPU is 10 to 14%, Temp: 51c.
VC1 Serenity: GPU is 8 to 12%, 50c.
MPEG2: Stargate and House of Flying Daggers: 24 to 30%, GPU 51c
AVC Pirates 2: GPU is 25%, 52c.
AVC Chriss Botti Live: GPU 34%, 53C.


These are about the same as the 2400xt, which is about what you'd expect given they cost the same and have the same memory bandwidth. The 2400pro figures were typically almost half as much again (ie pirates was mid 30s, VC1 discs were 15%ish).

Interlaced content is the big question mark, that's what really hurts :-)

Also, the colors look better to me. The faces were a bit ruddy with the 2400, and the color is more natural.


Hrrrn. In the Catalyst control panel, are fleshtone correction and colour vibrance on?

[RichB]

Hrrrn. In the Catalyst control panel, are fleshtone correction and colour vibrance on?

Yes, but I experimented with them on and off and they did not seem to do anything.

- Rich

[arfster]

Yes, but I experimented with them on and off and they did not seem to do anything.


OK - that reg screen you posted before was with them off. Maybe that was the remnants of the 2400pro settings, and 0000 or 0001 are your 2600pro's?

[RichB]

OK - that reg screen you posted before was with them off. Maybe that was the remnants of the 2400pro settings, and 0000 or 0001 are your 2600pro's?

I do not think so, I uninstalled and deleted the key. Unfortunately, Vista automatically re-installed the hardware, so I deleted the key again then installed the hotfix and I have less settings in there.

Then I upgraded to PowerDVD 3104 and with both, I can no longer play Chris Botti Live. Also, 3104 gave me black bars with my 2600 until I deleted the key.

After I do the System Restore to get back to the system this morning. It appears that the clean install broke HW acceleration for Botti Live.

There is probably some registry setting that I need to put back.

- Rich

[jim808]

Does anyone know if the ATI HDMI dongle makes a difference in producing sound. When I purchased this card I also bought a dvi to hdmi cable. Doesn't work.

Before I go wasting any more money; I just wanted to see how any of you are getting sound.

It might seem like a small problem compared to some of the video issues, but I too also bought this card because of its stated audio feature.

[maxleung]

jim, the ATI HDMI dongle is different from the standard DVI->HDMI dongles. You need the ATI one to get audio - none of the standard ones will work.

[bgbop15]

anyone else having an issue with the sapphore 2400pro where the cyberlink boots screen for HD-DVDs kinda gives horizontal lines across the screen? THe movie playback is perfect, but this issue is just weird

[rgathright]

Are any of these cards actually "plug and play" just to get a desktop and the internet? Even after I re-install the MyHD card are all of the redoing of settings necessary just to get HD-OTA? I know I would have to set up the correct resolution for my HDTV.

[jim808]

Thanks for the reply. I guess I'll have to order it from ATI, sucks for me since no free shipping to Hawaii using the code from page 10.

Any ideas about getting it for free. Its not really right considering it should come with the card.

[Richard Berg]

You could try to convince an AVS forum member who doesn't use HDMI audio to send you his.

[maxleung]

jim, my understanding is that some graphics card vendors will supply the dongle on certain models.

I know that the Sapphire 2400 Pro card does NOT come with an HDMI dongle. However, I believe the Sapphire 2600 Pro and XT cards will, and it is likely the Sapphire 2400XT will have one too. However, vendors have been known to lie on their spec-sheets. Best advice I can give others is to wait for someone else to get the card and tell us about it here. :)

jim, good luck finding an official dongle at a reasonable price. Any chance you can return the card and "upgrade" to one that has the dongle?

[RichB]

I know that the Sapphire 2400 Pro card does NOT come with an HDMI dongle. However, I believe the Sapphire 2600 Pro and XT cards will, and it is likely the Sapphire 2400XT will have one too. However, vendors have been known to lie on their spec-sheets. Best advice I can give others is to wait for someone else to get the card and tell us about it here. :)


I have the Sapphire 2600Pro and it works great. I could not get the 2400Pro to work at all with HW Accel. However, neither have an HDMI dongle included.

- Rich

[Dessie]

Changed from a 2400pro to a 2600xt and I now have hardware accel on MPEG2 blu-rays. Can the people who have a 2600 with a fan tell me what the card temp is reading in the ccc panel for you.
The reason I am asking is that the 2400pro had a temp at around 36c but the 2600xt is showing me a temp of 60c.

Thanks

[arfster]

Changed from a 2400pro to a 2600xt and I now have hardware accel on MPEG2 blu-rays.

Would you mind doing a cut/paste of your entire PDVD info tab during mpeg2 BD playback? Might help explain some things.

Thanks

[arfster]

The Sappire 2400pro doesn't have the dongle, but the Sapphire 2400xt does. I believe that's kinda typical - someone I know was hunting for a 2600pro with a dongle and couldn't find any (although he uncovered one with internal HDMI).

[mule]

I bougt two Sapphire 2400pro (in germany). Each one had a sticker "HDMI Adapter" on the frontside of the package and the hdmi-dongle inside. But i also heard from some people also owning a Sapphire 2400pro that there is also a version of this card without the sticker and without the dongle. Maybe Sapphire just produced a limited quantity of 2400pro including the dongle?

TheMule!

[arfster]

Weird, maybe different countries have them depending on availability. For the record, mine are in Britain.

[protovision]

anyone else having an issue with the sapphore 2400pro where the cyberlink boots screen for HD-DVDs kinda gives horizontal lines across the screen? THe movie playback is perfect, but this issue is just weird

I see that too, a bunch of horizontal lines in groups down the screen for a few secs, then usually clears up when the file starts playing.

I also get it sometimes when I have a video file selected in an explorer window, I think in this case Windows is trying to parse the file for length or a thumbnail, and the cyberlink codec is starting briefly. Just a guess, and since it usually goes away, not concerned so far...

p.

[kbsmoker]

Can you do dual view with these card in vista like you can with a Nvidia card?

[RichB]

Changed from a 2400pro to a 2600xt and I now have hardware accel on MPEG2 blu-rays. Can the people who have a 2600 with a fan tell me what the card temp is reading in the ccc panel for you.
The reason I am asking is that the 2400pro had a temp at around 36c but the 2600xt is showing me a temp of 60c.

Thanks

The 2400Pro is ranging from 49 to 54C in my HTPC.

- Rich

[Richard Berg]

Mine was closer to 70C, in a hot ambient (nearly fanless) HTPC case.

[arfster]

2400pro was around 35-40C, when it was in the airpath of a push fan (near silent one though). Without that it's around 55-65. Add around 5 degrees for the XT.

[marling]

I had the Sapphire 2400 pro , but since it only had two Dvi's on paper only and not in the real world i returned it.
Now i have a Powercoler 2600 pro.
Havent had a single freeze or reboot since i put it in , and i didnt reinstall windows XP.
Just did a reinstall of the Ati driver.
The powercolor 2600 pro that i have came with the dongle.
And strangely enough , the dongle is the only way to connect to my Mits HC5000 proj.
The 2400 pro didnt have this problem , it connected right away.
And the 2400 came without the dongle.

I my opinion the 2600 have the best PQ.
Less noise and just seems more relaxed.
However you can hear the fan working.

[originalsnuffy]

It looks like right now if I want low profile the solution must be 2400 pro. There is one fanless option based on looking at Newegg; the rest have a fan. Some online reviews indicated that the fan is not sensing CPU load but runs at a constant rate. The fanless solution (Sapphire I think) looks like it might stick up out of the card to a degree that I am not sure that it will fit in my machine.

Does anybody have experience with Newegg's return policy? I am tempted to purchase the fanless version first...but don't know how reasonable they will be if I need to return it for the HIS version or powercolor or something similar.

Anybody have a favorite brand between these three?

[Rickd]

Just on the levels issue can't you use ffdshow "levels" to correct this?

That's what other did in the past

Also what is this card like at ffdshow with the avisyth seesaw etc turned on for DVD?

Does it lower the cpu required to drive this?

[maxleung]

You can't use ffdshow to fix the problem. The ATI card/drivers already clips 16-235 and expands to 0-255. So if you attempted to do that with ffdshow you get double conversion and lose even MORE levels.

Example: FFDShow takes 0-255, clips to 16-235, then expands to 0-255. THEN ATI takes the 0-255, clips that to 16-235, then expands to 0-255. You wrecked your picture - effectively taking 0-255, clipping to 32-215, then expanding that to 0-255! Massive banding and everything is a mess. Game over.

[Dessie]

Would you mind doing a cut/paste of your entire PDVD info tab during mpeg2 BD playback? Might help explain some things.

Thanks

Here you go. This was from Enemy of the State Blu-ray.

Player Information:
Player Region Code: Not Specified

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

Audio Attributes:
Audio Coding mode: LPCM
Sampling Rate: 48kHz
Number of Audio channels: 5.1
Bitrate: 4608 Kbps

Hardware Information:
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6300 @ running at 2800 MHz
3DNow! Technology: Not Detected
Enhanced 3DNow! Technology: Not Detected
3DNow! Professional Technology: Not Detected
IA MMX Technology: In Use
IA Streaming SIMD Extensions: In Use
IA SSE 2: In Use
Video Accelerator: DirectX VA (in use)
Multispeaker Audio Device: Auzen X-Meridian 7.1 (in use)
SPDIF Output Device: Auzen X-Meridian 7.1 (not in use)

[leorange]

You can't use ffdshow to fix the problem. The ATI card/drivers already clips 16-235 and expands to 0-255. So if you attempted to do that with ffdshow you get double conversion and lose even MORE levels.

Example: FFDShow takes 0-255, clips to 16-235, then expands to 0-255. THEN ATI takes the 0-255, clips that to 16-235, then expands to 0-255. You wrecked your picture - effectively taking 0-255, clipping to 32-215, then expanding that to 0-255! Massive banding and everything is a mess. Game over.

Hi, I am a new member.

I got the same problem as Rickd through DVI to HDMI of LCD TV.
How could I fix it?

leorange

[Andy o]

You can't use ffdshow to fix the problem. The ATI card/drivers already clips 16-235 and expands to 0-255. So if you attempted to do that with ffdshow you get double conversion and lose even MORE levels.

Example: FFDShow takes 0-255, clips to 16-235, then expands to 0-255. THEN ATI takes the 0-255, clips that to 16-235, then expands to 0-255. You wrecked your picture - effectively taking 0-255, clipping to 32-215, then expanding that to 0-255! Massive banding and everything is a mess. Game over.


I'm not sure those numbers are correct, the 32-215 ones, but that's not the point of your post anyway...

Another thing. I understand, if the video is natively coming with 16-235 levels, that expansion could cause posterization, but I don't get where the clipping is coming from. If it's just expansion, there should be no clipping. And also, if it's being done in say a 10-bit conversion, then it's not really that bad. In that case posterization should be all but non-existent.

Coming from digital phography, I understand what "expansion" can do, but how would I go about testing video expansion in my PC? Which software, content, etc? I do notice that when I choose "overlay" in Media Player Classic the picture looks with more contrast than VMR9, and all other applications that use overlay (PowerDVD) will also show this. But this is in both my PCs, one with a Sapphire X1900GT and the other my new HTPC with the HD 2400pro.

[arfster]

Coming from digital phography, I understand what "expansion" can do, but how would I go about testing video expansion in my PC? Which software, content, etc?

The usual way is to printscreen, paste into a photo app, and check a particularly dark or bright pixel. You can even use mspaint for this: pick colour off the toolbar, select a pixel, alt c, alt e, alt d, look at the RGB values. Video black is 16/16/16, video white is 235/235/235 (obviously you'll know this from your background, but for the benefit of some others who might not).

With the new ATI cards (and possibly some of their other models?) and Vista, anything >720 vertical lines resolution gets expanded to 0-255. Anyone who gets this should post a ticket at support.ati.com so it gets fixed faster :-)

[Andy o]

The usual way is to printscreen, paste into a photo app, and check a particularly dark or bright pixel. You can even use mspaint for this: pick colour off the toolbar, select a pixel, alt c, alt e, alt d, look at the RGB values. Video black is 16/16/16, video white is 235/235/235 (obviously you'll know this from your background, but for the benefit of some others who might not).
I do know what the numbers mean, but I didn't know those are the limits for video. Is there any reason why that is? I know with photography there is a noise floor, so the darkest is not going to zero either, but the whitest just before clipping, and clipped, is 255.

With the new ATI cards (and possibly some of their other models?) and Vista, anything >720 vertical lines resolution gets expanded to 0-255. Anyone who gets this should post a ticket at support.ati.com so it gets fixed faster :-)

Yeah, I realized just as much. If it's "only" that, though, then there should be no clipping, and just whites will be brighter and blacks will be darker. If the conversion is indeed being made in 10-bit or more, to me that overall is a pretty innocuous, if not a good thing, though. But, I don't use projectors and stuff, so for those who wouldn't wanna recompress the levels to 16-235 it should be an annoyance, so I do agree that at least the option to turn that off should be available.

[Owen]

The issue of video levels has been a hot topic in the past and rigorously debated on this forum. While properly produced video is normally constrained to nominal levels of 16-235, there was never an intention to make 16-235 hard limits. Information does exist beyond those limits and it should not be simply cut off or clipped.

[one_2go]

...someone I know was hunting for a 2600pro with a dongle and couldn't find any (although he uncovered one with internal HDMI).
Can you please give me a link or an idea about the card with an internal HDMI connection. I am having the difficulty another member has namely space behind the HTPC for dongle plus HDMI cable.

Thanks

[arfster]

Can you please give me a link or an idea about the card with an internal HDMI connection. I am having the difficulty another member has namely space behind the HTPC for dongle plus HDMI cable.


http://www.tweaktown.com/news/7749/palit_goes_hdmi_on_hd_2600_pro/index.html

They sell under the name Xpertvision in some countries.

[one_2go]

Thanks for the link and I can see the HDMI port. Absolutely makes sense remove the TV out socket and stick a HDMI socket there. I looked at the Xpertvision site but the picture was so small that you could not make it out.

Now the only thing left to know is how will they handle the HD - Audio tracks. I will be receiving in a few days the Pioneer BDC-202BK plus I do have the Giga Byte mobo GA-G33-DSR2 which has on board HD-Audio decoding with 5.1 or 7.1 analogue connections. However I have heard that the on-board audio decoding is not very clear and may introduce buzzing. Any idea on that?

It is somewhat a real pain to get the high bit level audio from BD discs into a audio system.

[Andy o]

I just tested the ATI HDMI adapter. The generic adapter I had didn't pass any sound.

First thing to mention is that for it to work, you need to set HDMI as default in Windows sound options, in Control Panel. I tested it in Vista x86, but it should be the same in XP.

The ATI adapter works well, I didn't get any glitches. But I tested it on a stereo TV, though, and its properties in Vista shows it only outputs stereo (I guess PCM). There is a section in Vista Sound options where you can choose which signal can your external decoder take, and you can choose Dolby, DTS or Windows Media, But I don't think this card can actively output anything like that, because it would have to have a Dolby, DTS or Windows Media encoder, a la DD Live or DTS Interactive. And I don't see any Dolby or DTS logos anywhere.

So if the only format it can output is stereo PCM, then it pretty much sucks. The only thing left for it not to suck would be that it's capable to pass through the digital unprocessed audio, like Power DVD does with S/PDIF connections, which would make a lot of sense and wouldn't require any decoders/encoders in the card itself. But the software has to be able to find the HDMI digital output and use it, and so far I don't know any program that does, and even more so, the HD-DVD and blu-ray playback program I have (Power DVD 7.3) doesn't support HDMI output (yet?).

So my take is that unless your player supports direct HDMI output like many players do with S/PDIF, then it's probably a nice gimmick, but right now it's pretty useless. It will only save you one cable (the stereo cable) and that's it. Unless someone has gotten it to work in 5.1 channels?

By the way, my 2400 pro is going back. I think it's defective. I just can't get past the horrible artifacts when ouputting HD-DVDs (ripped or not) through DVI, either through direct DVI-D, or with analog DVI to VGA adapter, or with any of my two DVI-HDMI adapters. With all permutations of the three versions of PDVD 7.3 and Catalyst 7.6 and hotfix. I don't think it happens when ouputting through the VGA port.

[one_2go]

The Palit 2600 Pro looks excellent. The review of this site is actually very good.

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1140/1/page_1_introduction/index.html

They rate the 2600 Pro higher then the XT version and one of the reasons is the HDMI connection that the XT does not have. But they are not mentioning the 5.1 decoding unlike the HIS card. Isn't it fun to be on the bleeding edge.

Edit: Silly me but that is what you want the raw audio stream sent via HDMI to your AMP/Receiver with HDMI input (like the Onkyo) and let it do the decoding and switching. Job done. Now if that is what it does is another story.

[mickwall]

Having read through this and all the other 2xxx series threads i'm still not sure what the ideal purchase is for me?

I have no interest in games, i want to be able to run ALL HD content to my plasma (1280 x 720, it downscales 1080p) and my htpc will be based around a e440 core 2 duo.

Scan in the UK have the full range of Sapphire cards.

The 2400Pro and 2400XT appear passively cooled, whereas the 2600 range and above have fans, ideally i'd like silence, but its not the be all and end all.

The 2600Pro is nearly double the price of the 2400Pro..... and for what?

My question really is "which model should i go for?". I know its a cheap card, but i'd like to know it will be semi-future proof for the next year or so playing any format i can throw at it.

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

[bialio]

I'd look at the NVIDIA 8400GS also - it's priced in the same range as the 2400pro and has similar capabilities. I have owned both and I personally have had better luck with the 8400GS. But I'm only watching usa broadcast HD (1080i mostly, with some 720p thrown in) on a 720p monitor.

[red5goahead]

The 2400Pro and 2400XT appear passively cooled, whereas the 2600 range and above have fans, ideally i'd like silence, but its not the be all and end all.

The 2600Pro is nearly double the price of the 2400Pro..... and for what?


Asus Ati 2600 Pro have a big and very quiet fan. the same fan is used on other asus card based on nvidia gpus. few friends from pchs.it forum said this info some days ago.

[arfster]

There's an Asus silent 2600pro too, seen it for sale on some UK website.

[magnusr]

I got my 2600xt. Up and running vista x64 now. Catalyst 7.6

The ati 2600xt does pass video through my hdmi receiver at 1360x768 :)

- Playing HD-DVD using PowerDVD Ultra 7.3 with latest patch gives a blink every 20-40 seconds or so (its like a blink or a frame missing, dunno). Anyone got a Clue?

Playing 720 and 1080p wmv hd in media player works fine.

Changing resolution is very bugy. Can cause the entire computer to freeze.
Dual monitor also seems to be very buggy when changing settings. Swapping monitor one with 2 etc. Can cause the entire computer to freeze.

I would say these drivers is like alpha, not even beta.

[arfster]

Yeah, the drivers are not very good. The dual monitor thing caused NVidia all sorts of problems at first, so they're following that route pretty reliably (as well as the broken levels bug, the vista driver has stopped responding bug......).

Theatre mode has nice potential for HTPCs though - I can imagine using a touchscreen mirrored onto one.

[magnusr]

Yeah, the drivers are not very good. The dual monitor thing caused NVidia all sorts of problems at first, so they're following that route pretty reliably (as well as the broken levels bug, the vista driver has stopped responding bug......).

Theatre mode has nice potential for HTPCs though - I can imagine using a touchscreen mirrored onto one.

I just dont understand that theese drivers passed microsofts whql test...

[egandt]

I tried 4 different systems today at work, Vista, XP, XP 64 and Linux with an x2600XT and here is what I found, trying the same test at home on Vista and x64 resulted in the same.

Linux does not have drivers (fair as there are none on the AMD site)
Vista 32bit: Works fine
XP 32bit: Seems fine
XP x64: crashes all the time

So there you have it with 7.6 drivers x64 seems completely broken. Since I can not wait on 7.7 drivers I'm sending back my card.


ERIC

[bgbop15]

I just dont understand that theese drivers passed microsofts whql test...

paying $10,000 to M$ = passing M$ whql test

[Richard Berg]

Mine was closer to 70C, in a hot ambient (nearly fanless) HTPC case.
I take it back. My temps are more like 88-90C.

[Rick Guynn]

OK, finally got my 2600XT (DDR3). The good news is that it works great at offloading HDDVD. With an A64 3000+ running at stock speed, I am now at about 20% avg CPU on VC1 material. I don't currently have any AVC to test.

The bad news is that I cannot seem to get hardware decoding to work on SD DVD. The 'example' flag video in the CCC is not animated, so I think something is definitely worng there, and no matter what I set the deinterlacing mode to in the CCC, it makes no difference on the HQV DVD. It looks horrible. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers with no effect. Deinterlacing still does not work and the flags still don;t move.

Anyone have a suggestion?

*edit*
I may have jumped the gun a bit. It does appear that the deinterlacing is working. It just doesn't perform as well on the HQV DVD as my 7600GT did. In practical use, it does appear to do a decent job. I would have expected better from it on the HQV tests, though.

I did have something weird happen though. Right after I exited ZoomPlayer, the screen went black like the drivers were reinitializing or something, but it didn't come back on. I rebooted, the screen came back, but 5 seconds after hitting the desktop it did the same thing. So I went to safe mode and unuinstalled the drivers, rebooted and reinstalled. Then I couldn't get the Control center to appear. No icon in the tray, and using the start menu shortcut didn't work. I tried a couple rounds of reinstalling the drivers (using DC in between) and still couldn't get CCC to work. I finally tried the previous version of the drivers, and it works now.

[Richard Berg]

Has anyone gotten WMV acceleration to work? Just as someone reported earlier, it works great on VC1 HDDVDs but won't accelerate standalone files. I can't even get the Cyberlink decoder to hookup to WMV files in Graphedit, much less turn on the acceleration feature.

On the plus side, using the Cyberlink decoder for H264 files works fabulously. It even plays my 60fps High Profile torture clips from the other thread :)

[mine]

I take it back. My temps are more like 88-90C.

Way to high Richard . In a similar thread in another (german) forum people found that some problems with this card arise @ temps > 65 C (black screens - artefacts)

I use the passive HD 2400 card in a very critical case (Silverstone LC 16 quieted with magic fleece) and 2 known "heaters " 1 Skystar 2 DVB/S , 1 Creative X-Fi .

Fans: 1 Yateloon DS-12 silent in -fan @ 900 rpm and 2 Yateloons 80 mm out-fans@ 900 rpm.

Temps ambient : 28 C a.t.m. :

Temps card › :
SD DVB/S - DVD : norm : 38 C max. 42 C.... OC 580/460 max. 46 C
3D 2006 loops : ... max 60 C
HD 1080i / 20 MBit MPEG2 norm : 48 C ..... max: 52 C

[magnusr]

I tried 4 different systems today at work, Vista, XP, XP 64 and Linux with an x2600XT and here is what I found, trying the same test at home on Vista and x64 resulted in the same.

Linux does not have drivers (fair as there are none on the AMD site)
Vista 32bit: Works fine
XP 32bit: Seems fine
XP x64: crashes all the time

So there you have it with 7.6 drivers x64 seems completely broken. Since I can not wait on 7.7 drivers I'm sending back my card.


ERIC

6 days to new drivers... Ill give them a chance with 7.7 first :)

[arfster]

7.7 betas are already lealed, although they didn't do anything for me. Not too surprising though, their development cycle means current bugs will only appear in next month's release.

[Endre]

I've been searching but found nothing concerning 5.1 LPCM capability. AMD claims it can pass through 5.1 AC3 bitstream. What's the sense in that? Even integrated audio solutions have digital output doing the same.

My options are 2600Pro and 8600GT right now, and this can be a deciding factor, since 8600GT is by far faster and doesn't have HDMI, but if I can't output uncompressed multichannel audio, HDMI has no advantages any more.

Thanks!

[moshmothma]

7.7 betas are already lealed, although they didn't do anything for me. Not too surprising though, their development cycle means current bugs will only appear in next month's release.
Aww, so no levels fix :( Dissapointing....

[arfster]

Yeah, but no surprise. They're currently working on 7.9 from what I hear, and 7.8 is in testing.

Quick fix for the levels thing: use vmr9 with hardware acceleration off. Useless for broadcast stuff obviously since you get no deinterlacing, and it doesn't work with EVR. Unfortunately for me, EVR is needed to stop tearing.

[one_2go]

I've been searching but found nothing concerning 5.1 LPCM capability. AMD claims it can pass through 5.1 AC3 bitstream. What's the sense in that? Even integrated audio solutions have digital output doing the same.

My options are 2600Pro and 8600GT right now, and this can be a deciding factor, since 8600GT is by far faster and doesn't have HDMI, but if I can't output uncompressed multichannel audio, HDMI has no advantages any more.

Thanks!
Look at it from the end solution first. For me I want a Receiver that switches HDMI inputs. That is the end solution for my sound and video.

At present a solution for switching glorious sound & fabulous video doesn't exist yet. I am not even sure it is on the drawing board. But even if not you want to switch HDMI. Who knows what card or combinations of cards will do this trick pumping out HD video & HD audio. But if the rest is set up then it is just a matter of changing the HTPC configuration, cabling is in place Receiver is in place, just the darn HTPC is not playing ball.

[Andy o]

Guys, I need some wisdom here...

My Sapphire 2400pro is going back. I couldn't get rid of the artifacts on HD-DVDs via DVI/HDMI with any combination of drivers/software or changing cables/monitors/adapters even cooling down the card (which is passive) with a fan and the case open.

So, it's going back to newegg. Now, I'm wondering if there's any content that will really stress the GPU without it being a driver issue. I mean, there is some content like MPEG2 that is stressing my 2400pro, even just regular dvds, but if I disable Aero the GPU usage backs down to 50% or so. So I am thinking this could be a driver issue. The GPU is even getting topped with regular progressive content DVDs.

If it's a driver issue, I'll get the Powercolor 2400 pro with passive cooling. That one seems better, at least has one heatpipe and seems smaller.

If not a driver issue, I will need a more powerful GPU, and I'll wait for better passive 2600 pro solutions. In the meantime, I am running a passive 8500GT I bought almost mistakenly, but in the end decided to keep it (will put it in a friend's PC).

The thing is that I want the smallest and lightest possible, I don't need extra power. I just want enough power.

Any clues are appreciated, thanks.

[Mevlock]

Guys, I need some wisdom here...

My Sapphire 2400pro is going back. I couldn't get rid of the artifacts on HD-DVDs via DVI/HDMI with any combination of drivers/software or changing cables/monitors/adapters even cooling down the card (which is passive) with a fan and the case open.



I had EXACTLY the same issue with EXACTLY the same card. A Sapphire 2400 pro. I'm sending mine back too. However I've already bought a replacement, an Asus EAH2400 Pro. This card however works perfectly fine. On the Sapphire I got very high gpu temps without my case cover on and artifacting on VC1/h.264 HD-Dvd's and Blu-Rays.

The Asus is a much better card, it's slightly bigger with a slightly bigger heatsink and a ton more capacitors on the card. It runs much cooler, 30-35 with my case cover on! The sapphire eaisly hit 65-70. I think there's either a bad batch of the Sapphire cards out there or it's just a flawed design full stop by Sapphire.

[arfster]

Andy: are you in PAL land? 50hz DVDs max out the card because there's a catalyst bug that misdetects them as video. The card then tries to do full-blast vector adaptive deinterlacing, which is really hard going as it fails to find any interlaced material, keeps hunting even deeper, fails repeatedly, and then tries to deinterlace what's there. Repeat ad nauseum and you have a really heavy load.

On top of this, the issue with Aero+interlaced gets triggered, eating yet more GPU. If you turn off Aero and force weave, suddenly you're at 10% GPU (at least in EVR apps like PDVD or WMP, VMR9 apps are inefficient in Vista).

For stressing the GPU, there are two main factors: interlacing, and output resolution. Even then, deinterlacing 1080i 40mbit to a 1920*1080 screen will max at 70% or so. Bitrate doesn't seem to be a big factor, strangely enough.

[Andy o]

Thanks both for the answers.

I have also taken a look at the Asus card, but the Powercolor one seems nicer, I'll try that one.

Arfster, I am in NTSC-world, but I think it's probably the same problem. I remember reading a post by you before, I think also in response to one of my posts, but playing with pulldown and deinterlacing didn't really work. I'm not positively sure that I tried just forcing weave, but in any case, it's not my biggest problem with this card. What worked somewhat was disabling Aero though, but I'd rather not have to disable it.

By the way, in PowerDVD 7.3, how do you set up your deinterlacing options? In hardware deinterlacing I can only read weave and bob, and then the other options are just strings of hexadecimal characters, like registry strings. Some of them work OK, but I have no idea which kind of deinterlacing it is. It happens with both my ATI 2400 and my 8500GT.

Thanks again.


EDIT: Hmm I was confused, I had seen the Asus 8500 GT card, which also seems nicer than my Gigabyte 8500GT, which is pretty heavy and big. The Powercolor one seems nice small and light. Heatpipes rock.

[magnusr]

7.7 betas are already lealed, although they didn't do anything for me. Not too surprising though, their development cycle means current bugs will only appear in next month's release.

7.7 beta for vista x64 where?

[magnusr]

I've been searching but found nothing concerning 5.1 LPCM capability. AMD claims it can pass through 5.1 AC3 bitstream. What's the sense in that? Even integrated audio solutions have digital output doing the same.

My options are 2600Pro and 8600GT right now, and this can be a deciding factor, since 8600GT is by far faster and doesn't have HDMI, but if I can't output uncompressed multichannel audio, HDMI has no advantages any more.

Thanks!

As far as i understood earlier from reviews the card does not support LPCM 5.1 over hdmi. Just oldstyle 5.1 ac3 etc.

Myself I use a hdmi cable to my Yamaha rxv-1700. But since the ati card cant pass LPCM I use a analog 5.1 cable connection to my amp. So I set my amp to multi channel in and video source to feed from hdmi 2 when multi channel is selected.

[arfster]

Leaked 7.7 here:

http://www.station-drivers.com/page/ati%20catalyst.htm

Your risk, don't bother if you have a stable setup and aren't familiar with registry cleaning in case it goes wrong :-) I installed them on Vista32, haven't seen any problems or anything relevant fixed either.

Chances are an official release will be out very soon anyway - ATI tend to release every month, which leaves 12 days max.

[arfster]

Discovered something pretty major for deinterlacing: our cards are lying to us! We all use auto deinterlacing settings in CCC, and checking (eg in vmr9 proppage stats) revealed the card was claiming to be using vector-adaptive. Turns it it wasn't, it's dumping down to one of the lower quality modes because it's running out of power. If you force max quality deinterlacing, 1080i is too much for the 2400pro. Note that forcing VA in CCC does nothing, it still drops in modes as it finds itself running out of power, and it continues to misreport itself as using VA.

Ergo: don't buy the 2400pro if you play 1080i mpeg2 video (1080i 24fps films are OK at 55%ish). It's just enough for 1080i 16mbit h264 though (85%ish) with Aero off - mpeg2 processing in the 2400/2600 is really inefficient.

Out of time atm, need to run more tests on my 2400xt later, it might just be enough it seems.

[gbcrush]

Discovered something pretty major for deinterlacing: our cards are lying to us! ...

Out of time atm, need to run more tests on my 2400xt later, it might just be enough it seems.

A very nice, if unfortunate find! Arfster, I know you do this for your own sake, but I'm very interested in what you find regarding the 2400XT since I'll be purchasing soon. I think there will be clicking of some "add to cart" buttons come Sunday night :D

[gbcrush]

Looks like that Sapphire 2400pro is getting all sorts of bad news. Lately it seems to be with cooling too.

So, does anyone else have trouble with any other sapphire card? I'm specifically interested in their 2400 *XT* passively cooled card...the heatsink fins dont look much better than the 2400 pro.


Related:
I'd love to see the powercolor 2400pro design on the 2400XT...getting heatsink/fins to the backside would be good, as it'll be closer to a nice big fan I've got planned. Anyone see a 2400XT or 2600pro like that around?

[derringdo]

Ergo: don't buy the 2400pro if you play 1080i mpeg2 video (1080i 24fps films are OK at 55%ish). It's just enough for 1080i 16mbit h264 though (85%ish) with Aero off - mpeg2 processing in the 2400/2600 is really inefficient.

Any idea how the 2600pro will perform for this? Just bought one today (a Sapphire) but won't be able to use it until some time next week when the rest of the parts for my system arrive.

[mule]

The just leaked 7.7 betadrivers (V8.391) seem to be older than ones that can be officially found on the ati support site (V8.395).

TheMule!

[magnusr]

The just leaked 7.7 betadrivers (V8.391) seem to be older than ones that can be officially found on the ati support site (V8.395).

TheMule!

LOL ATI just released 7.7. Thx mate. You saved me that beta download :)

Vista x64: Did not fix the hd-dvd blinking in powerdvd ultra with latest patch (maybe its a powerdvd thingy).

Any leaked 7.8 drivers for vista x64?

[Richard Berg]

Yeah, should've known things would get too hot. I didn't have any intake or exhaust fans running -- just the CPU cooler.

I plugged in the intake fan, quickly dropped case ambient to near room temp and GPU down to 61-63C. The fan itself (Scythe 120mm 900rpm) is very quiet but I preferred it unplugged because it makes the case resonate -- rubber screws help but don't eliminate it :( Luckily, while it was annoying in my "computer room" where I installed the fan, it's not audible in my HT rack from the listening positions.

----

Folks installing the 7.7 drivers, I'd doublecheck that it's not overwriting Arfster's registry keys. In fact, I'm not going to touch the new builds until someone confirms that they fix an issue I care about.

[autoboy70]

Discovered something pretty major for deinterlacing: our cards are lying to us! We all use auto deinterlacing settings in CCC, and checking (eg in vmr9 proppage stats) revealed the card was claiming to be using vector-adaptive. Turns it it wasn't, it's dumping down to one of the lower quality modes because it's running out of power. If you force max quality deinterlacing, 1080i is too much for the 2400pro. Note that forcing VA in CCC does nothing, it still drops in modes as it finds itself running out of power, and it continues to misreport itself as using VA.

Ergo: don't buy the 2400pro if you play 1080i mpeg2 video (1080i 24fps films are OK at 55%ish). It's just enough for 1080i 16mbit h264 though (85%ish) with Aero off - mpeg2 processing in the 2400/2600 is really inefficient.

Out of time atm, need to run more tests on my 2400xt later, it might just be enough it seems.


I always kinda wondered about this. The card always seemed to hover around 90% maximum no matter what I threw at it. I guess it was just switching down. I didn't know how to change it. I'm looking forward to your tests with the 2400xt and others with the 2600pro then. I don't feel bad that I got this 2400pro. It was so cheap that it really doesn't matter and it was fun to play with. It still does better than my old 7300LE!

[gbcrush]

Anyone seen this set of benchmarks?

http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/443/5/

HQV scores. I noted that Tech Repor also gave the 2400XT a 55, and the 2600s a 100. What's with that...better noise reduction and deinterlacing on 2600 hardware perhaps?

Can anyone speak to the change in image quality goibng from a 2400, to 2600? I know we had some switchers (Rick B?) but I dont know if whatever bug someone experienced might've affected IQ too.

[MikeSM]

Discovered something pretty major for deinterlacing: our cards are lying to us! We all use auto deinterlacing settings in CCC, and checking (eg in vmr9 proppage stats) revealed the card was claiming to be using vector-adaptive. Turns it it wasn't, it's dumping down to one of the lower quality modes because it's running out of power. If you force max quality deinterlacing, 1080i is too much for the 2400pro. Note that forcing VA in CCC does nothing, it still drops in modes as it finds itself running out of power, and it continues to misreport itself as using VA.

Ergo: don't buy the 2400pro if you play 1080i mpeg2 video (1080i 24fps films are OK at 55%ish). It's just enough for 1080i 16mbit h264 though (85%ish) with Aero off - mpeg2 processing in the 2400/2600 is really inefficient.

Out of time atm, need to run more tests on my 2400xt later, it might just be enough it seems.

Really? Everyone seems to be reporting decent success and good IQ. How did you confirm it's lying?

Thanks,
Mike

[arfster]

Anyone seen this set of benchmarks?

http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/443/5/

HQV scores. I noted that Tech Repor also gave the 2400XT a 55, and the 2600s a 100. What's with that...better noise reduction and deinterlacing on 2600 hardware perhaps?


The denoising is a registry setting, where the deinterlacing difference in HD must surely be down to the power thing I mentioned above.

Just found a neater way of demoing this: get some 1080i mpeg2 video, play in PDVD, the gpu is around 50-60% in rivatuner. Then go into pdvd video/advanced, switch the hardware deinterlacing to 3C5323C1-6FB7-44F5-9081-056BF2EE449D (aka VA), and watch the % max out. You can just get away with motion adaptive (552C etc), the second best option, if you overclock the 2400pro a little (watch your temps though!). The 2400xt has enough power for VA, since it's so much faster.

However, for some reason the 2400 cards both seem to ignore whatever setting you use in CCC a lot of the time - kinda irritating as it means only PDVD can be used. There are also some odd bugs here I can't quite pin down. Might be the 2600pro is the way to go, simply to get around ATI's software problems. Alternatively it might be possible to regtweak things to use your choice of deinterlacing.


By the way, the new drivers appear to be the same as the leaked ones (build for both is 4971x, the x being the OS version).

[gbcrush]

Just found a neater way of demoing this: get some 1080i mpeg2 video, play in PDVD,....

- kinda irritating as it means only PDVD can be used. There are also some odd bugs here I can't quite pin down. Might be the 2600pro is the way to go, simply to get around ATI's software problems. Alternatively it might be possible to regtweak things to use your choice of deinterlacing.
.

Very interesting.

Especially since I've been considering going with the default MS included MPEG2 decoder for a little bit, being that most of my content is likely to be SD at this point. Figure between that and FFDshow (which, as I read it now, the new 2400/2600 has no bearing on) I'll be good to go...without the headache of overlapping decoders. Plus, they seem to have some compatability and patch issues at this moment too.

I mean, I may go with PDVD Ultra at some point, especially if I decide to go HDDVD/BD with this box... but I figure I purchase that right away, and don't make use of it, it's wasted money.

Sorry, getting off track here. I suppose the question is does anyone know what will affect the MS decoder in vista? I take it denoise and deinterlace settings will.

[arfster]

By the way, for those thinking of the Sapphire 2400XT passive: make sure you have good airflow. Did a few test runs with the vector adaptive forced on, and was rewarded with a BSOD.

[SAFOOL]

My 2600xt just arrived and upon reading the box I see it requires a 400 watt power supply. I thought these cards were suppose to require very little power? I know there is no way my ACER has that much power.

[autoboy70]

It is just a way for ATI to protect themselves in the event that your power supply sucks and can't suppy it's rated power. You should not have any problems running a 2600XT with whatever power supply you have, unless you pulled it out of a 10 year old Compaq.

[Owen]

Discovered something pretty major for deinterlacing: our cards are lying to us! We all use auto deinterlacing settings in CCC, and checking (eg in vmr9 proppage stats) revealed the card was claiming to be using vector-adaptive. Turns it it wasn't, it's dumping down to one of the lower quality modes because it's running out of power. If you force max quality deinterlacing, 1080i is too much for the 2400pro. Note that forcing VA in CCC does nothing, it still drops in modes as it finds itself running out of power, and it continues to misreport itself as using VA.

Ergo: don't buy the 2400pro if you play 1080i mpeg2 video (1080i 24fps films are OK at 55%ish). It's just enough for 1080i 16mbit h264 though (85%ish) with Aero off - mpeg2 processing in the 2400/2600 is really inefficient.

Out of time atm, need to run more tests on my 2400xt later, it might just be enough it seems.


It seems my concerns about the 2400 cards ability to cope with advanced 1080i deinterlacing have been vindicated. I also predicted that the card would limit its processing to maintain smooth playback at the expense of video quality. :D

Powerful game oriented cards may seem like overkill in a HTPC, but for demanding video applications their processing power does become useful.
I never get lock ups or BSOD, and never see the extreme operating temperatures that the passively cooled cards seem to generate. If you have to put in a fan to cool the passive card, why go passive in the first place? The heavy duty cooling systems on high end cards don’t work hard with video and are normally very quiet. They also discharge hot air out through the back plain, rather then recycle it into the case which then has to be removed by more powerful or multiple case fans.

Basically there is no free lunch, you get what you pay for.

[ricabullah]

Hi!
Today i put a 2400 Pro for trial.
Vista Home Premium (currently updated)
Power DVD Ultra 7.3.3104.0
Driver 8.380.0.0

And CPU usage is %40 with an E 6600 +2*1GB RAM while it was just %5 with 8600 GTS.

What is happening?

What is wrong with me?

[Andy o]

Thanks arfster, this stuff was exactly the kind of thing I was worried about.

About the 2600 cards, it would be cool if people listed nice looking ones, so we can check them out. I have found several, which unfortunately aren't for sale yet, but I'll probably be getting one of these.

HIS 2600pro or XT with Isilence III

MSI also has a 2600 with heatpipe passive cooling, but it's an XT. I'm willing to bet that they'll also come out with a pro though.

Gigabyte also has some 2600XT passive solutions, but they don't seem to use heatpipes and are very heavy, if my Gigabyte 8500GT is any indication. I'll probably pass on these.

Anyone knows other vendors offering passive 2600's (preferably pros and with heatpipes, for me)?

[ricabullah]

Here is a capture:


http://img55.imageshack.us/img55/5841/astraoutly5.jpg

???????

[arfster]

Owen: I concede, partially true :-) The 2400pro certainly can't do VA deinterlacing on 1080i mpeg2 at present, but that's potentially solvable by improving decoding efficiency - it manages it with 1080i h264 after all, something no NVidia card can do incidentally ;) The hardware is just about capable, it just needs another 20% with 1080i mpeg2 and it's there. The 2400xt shows what's possible with the same setup, and tbh has too much power. ATI should have made a card midway between the two, and we'd be sorted.

As for the points about passive cooling, I have some sympathy with that. For most people the rest of the system wlll be louder, or other elements like display fans or even external noise. Some with very sharp ears and and a disposition to detest extraneous noise will find them worthwhile though.

However, for low end cards like the 2400pro or xt, there's really no excuse, as they really aren't kicking out much heat. The passive heatsinks are simply badly made though, and by past experience I bet they're mounted badly with way too much thermal grease. The temps aren't even remotely high, which makes me think that some other element of the card isn't making proper contact with the heatsink. Of course, it isn't helping that they used basically the same passive design for the xt as the pro, despite 1/3rd higher clock a