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

[BigMooose]

Are you sure its not reading limited settings options from the display?

I'd be surprised (but you never know!). It's a Phillips 42 inc LCD which CCC reports as capable of up to 85Hz but CCC only gives me the options stated in previous posts. I can use 720p@50 no bother and 1080i@25, which I guess for all HD broadcasts I can receive that's fine (BBC HD, oh and Luxe HD which I dont think I've ever spent more than a few secs watching :) ) However I want to get a Bluray drive and assume it would look much better with an 1080p setting than 1080i? But it doesn't cope very well playing 1080i@25 broadcasts when set to 1080p@60.

[tetsuo55]

Not quite the response you'd like, but as far as I know video playback with 1080p@50Hz doesn't actually work with any recent Catalyst drivers (including 8.3). It works at 24, 25, 30, and 60, but just gives a black picture with the occasional flicker at 50Hz. I've always had 50Hz as an option on my 2600pro (though as I said its little use for playback) without any tweaks or sneaky fiddles (or Powerstrip).

Are you sure its not reading limited settings options from the display?

Not true at all.

On my system it works perfectly

System:
XP sp2
Catalyst 8.3
HD2400pro AGP
REG_patches 0.12

Cable:
DVI <> HDMI

TV:
Sony 40D3500

Settings:
1920x1080@50hz, 1:1 pixels setting enabled on the tv

[goodsonr]

Hello ...

question about fan control on VisionTek 2400HD PRO AGP.... as in .. is there any.

I did a search and found that some had success controlling the fan on a Sapphire 2600 AGP using RivaTuner.

I modified the riva.cfg (V2.06) to enter the 2400 and got all the rivatuner menus .. went through the process of setting up fan-profiles - but no-go -- fan still blasts away at 100%.

RivaTuner shows its monitoring "something" in the fan-duty-cyle but I've no idea what... and reporting its reducing the % of duty-cyles.

So --- just wondering if anybody knows if the 2400 does have the circutry on board to modulate the fan or if RivaTuner is just blowing-smoke. If there is any reports of success, then I'll know to play a bit harder.

tks..

ron

[Rythan]

Hi, I've read and searched through a lot of this thread in the quest for an answer.

My basic question: Has anyone gotten 5.1 AC3 audio over the 2600XT HDMI connector in XP?

I'm running MCE 2005 on a K8N-GM2 as a HTPC. I just got an Onkyo 605 and a Palit HD 2600XT, along with the LG HD/Bluray combo drive with the hopes of reaching home theater nirvana. I'm using the OEM PowerDVD that came with the LG drive, updated to 7.3.

I've got a single HDMI cable going from the 2600XT to the Onkyo, and then an HDMI cable from the Onkyo to the TV. Watching a DVD with 5.1 sound gives me video and audio, but it's always 2ch stereo PCM. I've tried a variety of combinations of the Realtek/ATI HDMI drivers with no luck.

I've seen the previous posts describing how to get 5.1 AC3 to work in Vista, but have seen no mention of its use with XP. In all of the driver permutations I've tried, I've never seen SPDIF output show up in PowerDVDs audio configuration (unless I reenable my motherboard's onboard audio, in which case it's just talking about the onboard SPDIF, not the HDMI).

Any clues would be appreciated! I may throw Vista onto a spare computer just to see if I can make 5.1/PDVD/HDMI work in that setup. Sigh.

[ExDeus]

For those XP users that are interested, try adding these settings...

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Video\{9CE10 0A6-8864-410C-AA70-B7C846BF43BE}\0000\UMD\DXVA]
"ColorVibrance"=hex:30,00,00,00
"ContrastEnhancement"=hex:31,00,00,00
"Denoise"=hex:30,00,00,00
"Detail"=hex:31,00,00,00
"DI_METHOD"=hex:31,00,00,00
"TRDenoise"=hex:30,00,00,00
"Fleshtone"=hex:30,00,00,00
"WhiteBalanceCorrection"=hex:30,00,00,00
"TrueWhite"=hex:30,00,00,00

For Vista users, I believe that the settings would be strings and are set to "1" for on or "0" for off.

You may see a difference in movies by doing so... games I'm not sure about yet.

There are reasons some of us have spent a lot of time figuring out settings, their effects, and ways to add them for everybody (http://home.comcast.net/~exdeus/ati-hd2x00/).

Questions/notes:

1) Are these settings from an installation INF, or where are you getting ContrastEnhancement, Denoise, Detail, WhiteBalanceCorrection, TrueWhite?

2) That GUID ({####}) is specific to your machine; it won't work for anybody else.

3) ControlSet001 may be the active hardware profile on your machine, but not necessarily on others'.

4) 0000 may be the active output on your videocard, but it may not be on others'.

5) In XP, the settings work as strings; you don't have to mess with hex or dwords.

6) In XP, the UMD\DXVA subkey hasn't been used as it is on Vista. Where are you seeing that you should use it? Was it installed that way by a driver, or did you add it?

[ExDeus]

Hi, I've read and searched through a lot of this thread in the quest for an answer.

My basic question: Has anyone gotten 5.1 AC3 audio over the 2600XT HDMI connector in XP?

As discussed before (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11857551#post11857551):

I would try installing AC3Filter (http://ac3filter.net/) to make sure you are getting AC3 and DTS properly passed thru to SPDIF. There are a ton of settings, but mainly you want make sure the SPDIF tab has the options set to use SPDIF and pass thru AC3 and DTS. On the System tab, you can also make sure AC3Filter is used for the formats you want, and preferred on your system.

[Rythan]

Thanks, I did see those earlier posts, but they don't seem to relate to PowerDVD. I'll give AC3Filter a try and play something with 5.1 sound outside of PowerDVD, just to see if even that's possible.

- Edit/Update -

Installed Vista, installed PowerDVD, installed ATI HDMI driver, voila, 5.1 DD. Still nothing in XP.

I think I'll give up on 5.1 in PDVD on XP over HDMI - instead, I'll try getting the onboard sound's SPDIF to coexist with the HDMI 2.0 stereo, and use HDMI for straight to TV, and the SPDIF for times when I want the receiver on. Nothing's ever simple.

[Dee_NA]

There are reasons some of us have spent a lot of time figuring out settings, their effects, and ways to add them for everybody (http://home.comcast.net/~exdeus/ati-hd2x00/).

Questions/notes:

1) Are these settings from an installation INF, or where are you getting ContrastEnhancement, Denoise, Detail, WhiteBalanceCorrection, TrueWhite?

2) That GUID ({####}) is specific to your machine; it won't work for anybody else.

3) ControlSet001 may be the active hardware profile on your machine, but not necessarily on others'.

4) 0000 may be the active output on your videocard, but it may not be on others'.

5) In XP, the settings work as strings; you don't have to mess with hex or dwords.

6) In XP, the UMD\DXVA subkey hasn't been used as it is on Vista. Where are you seeing that you should use it? Was it installed that way by a driver, or did you add it?

I read somewhere where Ray Adams, the programmer of ATi Tray Tools said somethin about changing the Vista Avivo to XP Avivo in the database folder of the program. It seemed to me that by adding the UMD/DXVA folder was the only way the settings could be applied. Its possible I might've created an issue by doing such.

Sorry for any trouble I might've caused since I'm tryin to learn.

[SugoE]

Not quite the response you'd like, but as far as I know video playback with 1080p@50Hz doesn't actually work with any recent Catalyst drivers (including 8.3). It works at 24, 25, 30, and 60, but just gives a black picture with the occasional flicker at 50Hz. I've always had 50Hz as an option on my 2600pro (though as I said its little use for playback) without any tweaks or sneaky fiddles (or Powerstrip).

Are you sure its not reading limited settings options from the display?
Maybe it depends in which region you are. I'm in PAL land and 1080p@50Hz
works perfectly with my Sharp 46X20E on a HD2600Pro PCIe Vista32.
It looks like the Philips does not report 50Hz in its EDID correctly.

[wildchild22]

Would the Sapphire Radeon HD2600 Pro 512MB DDR2 AGP VGA DVI TV Out DIRECTX10 Video Card
provide perfect blu-ray and hd-dvd playback from an old barton 2500+ abit nf7-s . Using an agp version or should I scap the idea and buy a new mother board and cpu.
I can buy the card for around 100.00 cnd but the motherboard and cpu will run me around 300.00.


Are there any disadvantages with this card as apposed to a new cpu and motherboard.

[ExDeus]

I read somewhere where Ray Adams, the programmer of ATi Tray Tools said somethin about changing the Vista Avivo to XP Avivo in the database folder of the program. It seemed to me that by adding the UMD/DXVA folder was the only way the settings could be applied. Its possible I might've created an issue by doing such.

Sorry for any trouble I might've caused since I'm tryin to learn.
I'm not trying to be too harsh, just trying to get some information.

I'm not quite sure what you're saying about the Vista vs. XP Avivo, either.

You're saying you found the settings you posted before in the database folder for ATI Tray Tools?

[ExDeus]

FYI - I've updated "ATI HD2x00 Registry Tweaks" to "ATI HD Registry Tweaks" 0.13 to apply to all HD2000 and HD3000 series cards.

No material changes for anyone that has already used version 0.12, but I did make it clear that the settings can be applied to HD2000 or HD3000 cards, and there is now a prompt before adding HWUVD_ForceMPEG2, to make sure you only apply it for use with dual displays.

Changes:
Renamed and changed to apply to all HD2000 and HD3000 cards.
Added prompt to ensure user is aware of dual display circumstances necessitating HWUVD_ForceMPEG2.

[Dee_NA]

I'm not trying to be too harsh, just trying to get some information.

I'm not quite sure what you're saying about the Vista vs. XP Avivo, either.

You're saying you found the settings you posted before in the database folder for ATI Tray Tools?

Yeah, I think so. I went to change the Vista Avivo to XP Avivo and that is what came up. Not sure how it could work for others thats using XP though since XP and Vista both im guessin use strings.
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/6362/xpavivorm7.jpg

[memes_be]

As discussed before (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11857551#post11857551):

I would try installing AC3Filter (http://ac3filter.net/) to make sure you are getting AC3 and DTS properly passed thru to SPDIF. There are a ton of settings, but mainly you want make sure the SPDIF tab has the options set to use SPDIF and pass thru AC3 and DTS. On the System tab, you can also make sure AC3Filter is used for the formats you want, and preferred on your system.
I become crazy with this filters managment...Can somebody please help me with that : I have ffdshow audio decoder as prefered filter. When I read a dvd file I have 5.1 through SPDIF ok. Now I want to read a m2ts(avchd) file, I see with Graphedit that the prefered video filter is FFDShow Video decoder(not ok for HA) and FFDShow audio filter (ok for 5.1 spdif), and when I play IN GRAPHEDIT the m2ts file, it crashes and it's normal because it doesn't use the HA with FFDshow video and my processor is not strong enough to handle it, but before crashing I have for 1 second the 5.1 sound in my ampli so I see FFDshow audio is used as I want. BUT when I play the file with Powerdvd, I do have HA (perfect) and it doesn't crash BUT I have no 5.1 SPDIF, only PCM trough SPDIF...
So does anyone know why graphedit doesn't show me the correct filters prefered for Powerdvd...? I tried also with AC3 filter, Powerdvd seems not to use the prefered filters...

[taeboguy]

Hello all,

I just got a 2600 Pro not long ago. I was watching Resident Evil Blu-ray last night and twice during the movie the screen went black but the audio kept playing. When I exited PowerDVD there was an error about the driver crashing in Vista Ultimate and then it said it fixed the problem (which it did not because the screen was jacked up.) I am running the latest drivers (as far as I know). Anyone else have this problem? It is the first time I have seen the issue. I have played a couple of other BD disks with no trouble.

I did just upgrade to AnyDVD HD 6.4.xx. Maybe this is a problem?

Thanks!
P.S. the other thing I noticed was that when I play a movie with PowerDVD the video in Vista says it is switching the color scheme to BASIC. Not sure what that means.

[ExDeus]

@ arfster - Do you have any comment on these additional registry settings?

Yeah, I think so. I went to change the Vista Avivo to XP Avivo and that is what came up. Not sure how it could work for others thats using XP though since XP and Vista both im guessin use strings.
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/6362/xpavivorm7.jpg

[taeboguy]

Hello all,

I just got a 2600 Pro not long ago. I was watching Resident Evil Blu-ray last night and twice during the movie the screen went black but the audio kept playing. When I exited PowerDVD there was an error about the driver crashing in Vista Ultimate and then it said it fixed the problem (which it did not because the screen was jacked up.) I am running the latest drivers (as far as I know). Anyone else have this problem? It is the first time I have seen the issue. I have played a couple of other BD disks with no trouble.

I did just upgrade to AnyDVD HD 6.4.xx. Maybe this is a problem?

Thanks!
P.S. the other thing I noticed was that when I play a movie with PowerDVD the video in Vista says it is switching the color scheme to BASIC. Not sure what that means.

Nevermind. I figured it out. I did not have up to date drivers. I have done so much on my HTPC that I can't keep track of what I have and have not done.

[Dee_NA]

@ ExDeus - I finally figured out how those settings go into the right folder on a XP instead of the UMD/DXVA, but I'm still hoping Arfster will get back to us soon on if its an improvement on the Radeon HD series or not.

[chicodobrazil]

Would the Sapphire Radeon HD2600 Pro 512MB DDR2 AGP VGA DVI TV Out DIRECTX10 Video Card
provide perfect blu-ray and hd-dvd playback from an old barton 2500+ abit nf7-s . Using an agp version or should I scap the idea and buy a new mother board and cpu.
I can buy the card for around 100.00 cnd but the motherboard and cpu will run me around 300.00.


Are there any disadvantages with this card as apposed to a new cpu and motherboard.
Hi,

You can play back HD contents (VC-1 or H264) on an old barton 2500+ abit nf7-s configuration with a HD2600 Pro AGP as I've done it with my old XP2400+ msi K7T2Pro2 configuration. But with huge contents as Ratatouille (BR MPEG-4) at 40Mbps and analogic 5.1 PCM at 4Mbps, you'll not :(

So, I've just bought a brand new E4500 with a Gigabyte 8I865GME-775-RH to re-use my DDR1, my HD2600 Pro AGP under XP SP2. Everything is now perfect :D

Cheers :)

[arfster]

@ arfster - Do you have any comment on these additional registry settings?

Hrrm, not tried it, but those look to be nothing more than on/off switches for the various settings in umd/dxva. Whatever it is they've screwed up, because di_method isn't on/off. Several of the others aren't on/off either - wouldn't be surprised if they were setting the detail key to 1, when it's a 0-100 value.

[Dee_NA]

Hrrm, not tried it, but those look to be nothing more than on/off switches for the various settings in umd/dxva. Whatever it is they've screwed up, because di_method isn't on/off. Several of the others aren't on/off either - wouldn't be surprised if they were setting the detail key to 1, when it's a 0-100 value.

@ Arfster - That's Ray Adams for ya. I took what he came up with on the ati tray tools and got it to apply in the right folder, but like you said... the settings are on/off switches instead of what they shouldve been.

[millerbrad]

Just thought I'd mention that Realtek has finally updated their ATI HDMI Audio drivers. Too bad their download speed is ridiculously slow...

Realtek ATI HDMI Audio Device R1.89 (http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=14&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false)

Not sure what's changed, but I suspect the main update is SP1 compatability. When I installed SP1 with last year's driver still installed, audio wouldn't work in Media Center unless I reverted to the Microsoft HD Audio driver, then went back to the Realtek ATI HDMI Driver.

But, who knows.. maybe some other stuff may be fixed...

[millerbrad]

Any tricks for enabling Hardware Acceleration for fullscreen Flash video on the 2600 (i.e. Hulu or YouTube)?

All I get with HW Accel on is two triangles that fill the screen. With HW Accel off, fullscreen works OK, but there's quite a bit of tearing.

[Tiernan]

Speaking of HXVA...

I have a 2600Pro in MCE. I'm able to get correct audio and acceleration in PDVD (and WMP), but ONLY when displaying to the HDTV/single monitor setup. If I try to use a cloned setup, or extended desktop, I get audio and a black screen (or no response at all). I checked the registry to verify that the dual monitor fix is there (installed ExDeus' .12 tweak), but it appears that I'm still having the dual monitor problem. Is there something else about the registry settings and/or the CCC config that I should change to enable the dual-monitor setup?

[ExDeus]

Is there something else about the registry settings and/or the CCC config that I should change to enable the dual-monitor setup?
When you checked the registry, how did you know you were looking in the right key?

[Tiernan]

I checked in the registry (this was after applying your fix) that indicated:

"VForceUVDVC1"="1"
"VForceUVDH264"="1"

These should be the only entries like this in the registry, correct?

Now that I think about it, I didn't specifically check for "HWUVD_ForceMPEG2". Since this is specifically for MP4 playback, that shouldn't be relevant, should it?

[MikeZ06]

I have a 2600XT card with 8.3 Catalyst driver. I am using a DVI to HDMI dongle for my projector. The problem is when I use a DVI to VGA dongle to surf the internet using my monitor all that i get is just the background image on my desktop. I see the mouse and desktop background but thats it. I have no tool tray at the bottom to access anything. I have rebooted computer and still nothing. Can someone help? I would like to use my monitor at times when I don't want to boot projector for just casual browsing.

Thanks for any help in advance.

[arfster]

Now that I think about it, I didn't specifically check for "HWUVD_ForceMPEG2". Since this is specifically for MP4 playback, that shouldn't be relevant, should it?

Nope, not needed.

Try dloading this, and posting a screenshot pls (while 2nd screen connected):
http://bluesky23.hp.infoseek.co.jp/DXVAChecker_1510.zip

Does it change if you remove the two reg keys?

[hanugro]

Sorry all, I just got both 2400Pro and 2600Pro and both requires Microsoft HD Audio driver (seems for HDMI?). Where can I get this one as it is not in the installation disc. One of them got this installed because I use intel motherboard that also use the same driver. Also will installing the 2 sound device in 1 computer will create conflict or should I just disable one of them? Thanks for your info.

[pm_john]

Would the Sapphire Radeon HD2600 Pro 512MB DDR2 AGP VGA DVI TV Out DIRECTX10 Video Card
provide perfect blu-ray and hd-dvd playback from an old barton 2500+ abit nf7-s . Using an agp version or should I scap the idea and buy a new mother board and cpu.
I can buy the card for around 100.00 cnd but the motherboard and cpu will run me around 300.00.


Are there any disadvantages with this card as apposed to a new cpu and motherboard.


I have the exact same specs as you and took me nearly two days of trying different drivers and lots of reading to get it going. I can now able to play 80% of 720p as well as 1080p mkv files that I have tried using hardware acceleration. CPU usage is less than 10%. The other 20% that I cannot play are likely encoded beyond specs or before hardware acceleration came out.

Specs:
Abit NF7-S ver. 2 w/ latest bios (11/22/04)
AthlonXP Barton 2500+ (OC'd to 3200+)
2 gig of RAM
Sapphire 2600 Pro w/ 512 RAM, AGP
Windows xp sp2
400w ps (name brand)
24" LCD at 1920x1200

Here are the steps (from memory):
1. Install .net 3.0
2. Install directx 9.0c
3. Install Powerdvd 7.3
4. Go into bios, set AGP to 4x and AGP fast write capability enabled. (I tried to leave at 8x but CCC set it to 0x, don't know why but someone from another forum said set at 4x first, likely not compatible with nforce2 chipset?)
5. Install driver 4.32 from Sapphire’s site (8.432-071101a-057555E-ATI), then reboot system.
6. Go into device manager and downgrade the video driver, select the one from 8.42 folder (file from Sapphire’s site 8.42-070914a-053413E-ATI).
7. Reboot and go into bios and set agp to 8x.
8. Install Windows Media Classic v1.1.0.0 and configure for hardware acceleration (I don't think I am allow to add a link since I am a new user, pm me and I'll give you the link).
9. Run registry path ATI_HD_Reg_Tweaks_0.13
10. Rename 264dsse.dll to 264dsse.dll.old in C:\Program Files\CyberLink\PowerDVD\VideoFilter directory, then rename 264dsse2.dll to 264dsse.dll <- very important, I noticed if I don't do this, I get no hardware acceleration.
11. Reboot and everything should now work.

Note, I have not tested this again as I am not willing to mess up my setup, maybe on the weekend I'll try on second hard drive with another copy of Windows if there are any requests. I am also thinking step 6 may not be required but I remember I get no HA so I decided to downgrade thru device manager and it works right after.

Happy testing!!

[ExDeus]

I checked in the registry (this was after applying your fix) that indicated:

"VForceUVDVC1"="1"
"VForceUVDH264"="1"
What I'm asking is how do you know you entered them for the correct video card? Did you re-run the program to see if there were any other cards with a description matching yours? Did you check to see if the GUID in the CCC matches the GUID for the key you are looking under? It won't necessarily match, but it would be a good confirmation that you found the right place.

These should be the only entries like this in the registry, correct?
Define "like this". The only "VForce" settings would be added by the program, but if you have the right key, there should be many other settings under the same key that are added by the driver install.[/QUOTE]

[James Mos]

I have a 2600XT card with 8.3 Catalyst driver. I am using a DVI to HDMI dongle for my projector. The problem is when I use a DVI to VGA dongle to surf the internet using my monitor all that i get is just the background image on my desktop. I see the mouse and desktop background but thats it. I have no tool tray at the bottom to access anything. I have rebooted computer and still nothing. Can someone help? I would like to use my monitor at times when I don't want to boot projector for just casual browsing.

Thanks for any help in advance.

Sounds like you have your desktop extended and your projector is selected as your 1st display device. To see the taskbar and such on both display devices you would need to clone the two displays and then they will both display the same exact thing. The issue I have when I do that is that they have the same resolution so one doesn't look quite right. My projector is 1366x768 and my monitor is 1680x1050.

There are other people with much more experience than I so hopefully someone can chime in with a better resolution to your problem.

[Tiernan]

ExDeus - ok, last night I went through the the registry, following your instructions exactly, and verified that, per the CCC code, the relevant keys are set per your script.

Arfster - DLd the HDXA Tester, but every time I try and run it, I get an error indicating that components are missing. This PC has .NET 2.0 installed, so that does not appear to be the problem. Even re-downloaded the application from different sources. Same problem.

I noticed that, if I have the Extended desktop setup, I am able to start open a 720p MKV and play in PDVD, but if I move it to the HDTV (the Extended portion of the desktop), the PDVD display smears and/or goes black (can still hear sound). Does this seem to be multi-monitor-support-related, or perhaps HDCP-related?

[HT Slider]

I have a 2600XT card with 8.3 Catalyst driver. I am using a DVI to HDMI dongle for my projector. The problem is when I use a DVI to VGA dongle to surf the internet using my monitor all that i get is just the background image on my desktop. I see the mouse and desktop background but thats it. I have no tool tray at the bottom to access anything. I have rebooted computer and still nothing. Can someone help? I would like to use my monitor at times when I don't want to boot projector for just casual browsing.

Thanks for any help in advance.

Have you created the custom resolutions for the projector?

If not, once you have the PC using the projector, you need to right click on the background and start up the Catalyst Control Center in advanced mode. In there you'll find a tab for the projector display where you can setup the HDTV formats used and custom resolutions within those formats.

Select your preferred HDTV format, click apply format and then create a custom resolution that perfectly fills the screen. Apply this new resolution and delete the old default custom resolutions (just to make it cleaner). Do this for each HDTV format your projector supports.

Once this is done the PC will take advantage of these custom resolutions whenever standard PC resolutions or custom resolutions are in use and provide a perfectly filled screen.

If you select a standard HDTV resolution (1280x720 or 1920x1080 for example), the video card will revert to outputting spec compliant 720p, 1080i/p complete with overscan (missing perimeter). This is what you want for watching TV/movies/etc. since this gives you the best image quality and TV shows/movies are produced while complying with an overscan stayout region - specifically because TVs have overscan. Once you switch back to any PC resolution (eg. 800x600 or 1280x768), the video card will once again automatically provide overscan compensation and let you see the entire desktop.

If you search back several pages I posted more information on how this all works...

For more information on overscan read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overscan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe_area

[arfster]

I noticed that, if I have the Extended desktop setup, I am able to start open a 720p MKV and play in PDVD, but if I move it to the HDTV (the Extended portion of the desktop), the PDVD display smears and/or goes black (can still hear sound). Does this seem to be multi-monitor-support-related, or perhaps HDCP-related?

Not unless the stuff is HDCP protected, which mkv almost certainly won't be. The standard multidisplay bug stops acceleration on all monitors, so it's not that either.

What you have is probably a variation of an old problem, where DXVA accelerated stuff doesn't like being moved from display to display while running - possibly a Windows limitation? Try opening the app, moving it to the display you want, then starting playback.

[Tiernan]

Not unless the stuff is HDCP protected, which mkv almost certainly won't be. The standard multidisplay bug stops acceleration on all monitors, so it's not that either.

What you have is probably a variation of an old problem, where DXVA accelerated stuff doesn't like being moved from display to display while running - possibly a Windows limitation? Try opening the app, moving it to the display you want, then starting playback.

I can't absolutely verify it right now, but I believe I already tried that once. What I think I found is this: I can almost always/only get playback (with DXVA) if the Primary (PC) monitor is disabled AND I'm only playing on the HDTV. I havent gone through and tested every file format in every display configuration, but that SEEMS to be the configuration in which all the elements work as they should (this doesn't include the fact that there appear to be problems with MCE crashing when attempting to display thumbnails)

Could this result from vestiges of old drivers (this machine was using Nvidia 7100 chipset drivers for video before) and/or the initial Sapphire drivers not getting completely uninstalled when updating to 8.3?

[nathan118]

I built my HTPC back in November using a Radeon HD 2600xt and running Vista MCE (I believe I'm using catalyst 7.7 drivers). I was able to setup media center to do hardware acceleration of mpeg2 files (which was a necessity for playing back recorded over the air tv shows) but I've never gotten hw acceleration to work for avc/264 content. So here are my questions:

1) Is there a way to enable hw acceleration of 264 material through vista mce? Right now I play all my 264 material (mkv and mp4) through haali, and then use coreavc to decode. I've got a dual core cpu, so software decoding has been perfectly fine for now. But now I want to decode some interlaced 264 material, and like interlaced mpeg2 material, software decoding can't hold a candle to hardware acceleration. Anyone have success enabling 264 acceleration in mce? I've read a little about using cyberlink and mediaplayer classic home, but do these methods play nicely with mce?

2) The only other problem I have is that .ts files (mine are all mpeg2) can't skip ahead or back. I can play them and pause them, but I can't skip around. Has this been fixed with newer drivers? I can skip forward and back on program streams (.mpg) that are being hardware accelerated, but not with the .ts container.

Thanks in advance!

[dontbugme]

Hi all,

is there finally Hardware acceleration for x.264 encoded video in a .mkv container using a HD 2400 card? (e.g. using PDVD Ultra decoder?)

Sorry, I am reading through all of this for 4 hours now, but now I am totally confused... :( The problem is that 1080p content in x.264/mkv files needs lots of cpu time (70-80%), whereas VC-1 or h264/mp4 encoded 1080p stuff runs smoothly at max 10%...

Hope you can help me sort this issue out.

thanks and regards,
buggerr

[Bgnome]

Have you created the custom resolutions for the projector?


sounds to me that he is using the monitor as an "extended desktop" rather than an overscan issue. if your monitor supports the same resolution as the projector, i would try using the clone display option in ccc.

[HT Slider]

sounds to me that he is using the monitor as an "extended desktop" rather than an overscan issue. if your monitor supports the same resolution as the projector, i would try using the clone display option in ccc.

Re-reading his post I think you are probably right.

It still sounds strange though. Whenever I hook up a monitor to my HTPC and use the monitor I've never seen any overscan on the monitor...

[arfster]

New 8.3 hotfix:

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=33033

Build number is really up to date (61161), this will probably be pretty similar to 8.4

Tried it last night, no obvious HTPC fixes, no obvious new problems either.

[zippy64]

Hi, new here, I'm running an XP Pro on Intel i915G with GMA 900 which supports DXVA, which I think includes hardware support for MPEG-2 motion compensation. I've recently purchased a Sapphire 2600XT (256 DDR3) PCIe x16 and was wondering what kind of performance increase I should see (on MPEG-2). My understanding is the RV630 chip supports both MC & iDCT. Do I need to run the Registry Tweak to get HA? I thought UVD was just for VC-1 & H.264??? Currently testing with VMR7 & PDVD7.

thanks in advance...

[solon]

Unbelievable... I just checked back in to see where the conversation is at and the thread is 160 pgs!! You guys are awesome :eek: and speaking for the community I just want to say THANK YOU for all your work on such a frustrating project. Also: Arfster, why don't you work for ATI?? They/we could really use you in there. Or start your own driver business, hm? Maybe they would be open to outsourcing their driver coding...

[one_2go]

New 8.3 hotfix:
Tried it last night, no obvious HTPC fixes, no obvious new problems either.
Arfster, I loved your modded 7.9 Bio drivers and they gave me excellent PQ. I upgraded to 8.3 and Vista SP1. Now on the native resolution 1360x768 I get a washed out picture with terrible grey levels.

I increase the resolution to 1920 x 1080 and the black levels were fine. I finally uninstalled the 8.3 and went back to your special 7.9 versions.

[MikeZ06]

Thanks to everyone for the help and sorry for the late reply but I have been out of town. Using Clone in CCC seemed to fix the issue. I use 1280 X 720 on both my projector and pc monitor so it is working so far.

Thanks again for the help!

Mike

[ExDeus]

Arfster, I loved your modded 7.9 Bio drivers and they gave me excellent PQ. I upgraded to 8.3 and Vista SP1. Now on the native resolution 1360x768 I get a washed out picture with terrible grey levels.

I increase the resolution to 1920 x 1080 and the black levels were fine. I finally uninstalled the 8.3 and went back to your special 7.9 versions.
You tried 8.3 with or without the registry tweaks?

[juffi]

New 8.3 hotfix:

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=33033

Build number is really up to date (61161), this will probably be pretty similar to 8.4

Tried it last night, no obvious HTPC fixes, no obvious new problems either.

So far the latest driver giving me HA with my 2600PRO and XP is 7.11 Crysis hotfix. I have changed back to 8500GT before ATI get the drivers right. Nvidia gives me a little better overall PQ. It is a little frustrating to change the cards and drivers back and forth just to see that there is still no HA.

Is this new hotfix giving HA in 2600PRO and XP SP2?

[Moondust]

So far the latest driver giving me HA with my 2600PRO and XP is 7.11 Crysis hotfix. I have changed back to 8500GT before ATI get the drivers right. Nvidia gives me a little better overall PQ. It is a little frustrating to change the cards and drivers back and forth just to see that there is still no HA.

Is this new hotfix giving HA in 2600PRO and XP SP2?
Are you sure you're using the right software and configuration?

[juffi]

Are you sure you're using the right software and configuration?

Yes. As far as I know.

With 7.11 Crysis PowerDVD activates HA and Cyberlink codecs allow HA with other Directshow players.

With 7.12, 8.1, 8.2 and 8.3 PowerDVD and Cyberlink codecs use SW only decoding.

[Al Sherwood]

Yes. As far as I know.

With 7.11 Crysis PowerDVD activates HA and Cyberlink codecs allow HA with other Directshow players.

With 7.12, 8.1, 8.2 and 8.3 PowerDVD and Cyberlink codecs use SW only decoding.


Thanks for providing a clear list of which version work with PDVD and HA, I too have a HD2600Pro and need/want to retain HA.

I can't understand the reasons behind not allowing or disabling HA on the newer driver levels?

So, do I need to apply the Crysis hot fix, and is there only one version of it?

[HT Slider]

Yes. As far as I know.

With 7.11 Crysis PowerDVD activates HA and Cyberlink codecs allow HA with other Directshow players.

With 7.12, 8.1, 8.2 and 8.3 PowerDVD and Cyberlink codecs use SW only decoding.

One thing I found confusing with this thread is all of the confusing discussions on how only certain drivers activate HA.

As far as I'm aware, HA has worked with absolutely every single driver release, at least since something like 7.4 (the first one I tried), with my system.

I'm running a fully updated Vista and a PCIe ATI HD 2600XT.

We should probably ensure we state which OS, which video card and most importantly if AGP or PCIe is the interface for the card when we talk about getting HA working.

With Vista, a PCIe interface, and a 2600 card, HA (hardware acceleration) works with all of the official ATI drivers. There are some bugs with some of the drivers that cause issues with HD playback, but none of them simply don't work.

The AGP versions of these ATI cards definitely have lots of problems with HA not working, but PCIe versions, especially 2600Pro and better, typically don't.

EDIT: BTW, we use both Media Center (Recorded TV in 720p & 1080i) and PowerDVD 7.3 Ultra (HD-DVD/Blue-ray in 1080p). All of the drivers have provided HA with both MC and PDVD. Catalyst 8.1 had trouble with some Blue-ray movies, but again these are bugs, not an overall lack of HA. I have also not needed any registry tweaks at all to get HA working. The only ones I use are TRDenoise to get rid of the "ghosts" and the UseBT... to get greyscales in-line between Media Center and Media Player (and UseBT... isn't all that critical since we use Media Player hardly at all).

[sdheda]

I am currently running a HD3650 in my HTPC and I have this nagging problem. Sometimes while viewing a movie, the video will pause and speed up quickly for a split second. This happens in mkv's and DVD's. I am using MPC-HC (and all of its internal decoders) as my player.

Any suggestions on how to fix this problem?

Also I have another problem when setting the output on MPC to EVR. When I do this it appears as though a row of pixels from the bottom of the screen show up on the top. The same goes with the right and left portions. I have resorted to using the EVR Custom as the output, which solve the problem. However, I want to use MediaPortal as my frontend, and this problem is present when selecting the EVR as the output. Has anyone else experienced this?

Edit: I wanted to add that I am running Vista Ultimate x64 SP1, and my display is a 1080p Panasonic plasma. I have not done any of the registry tweaks, but could the VForceMaxResSize = 2800000 fix my second problem?

[Maier2505]

Yes. As far as I know.

With 7.11 Crysis PowerDVD activates HA and Cyberlink codecs allow HA with other Directshow players.

With 7.12, 8.1, 8.2 and 8.3 PowerDVD and Cyberlink codecs use SW only decoding.

Hi, juffi !

That is not true...

I have 2600pro PCIe and running HW acceleration under Vista and XP SP2 with 8.1,8.2 and 8.3 using Cyberlink 7.0 deluxe with mpeg2 and H.264...

Under XP with overlay and multi monitor also under DVB Viewer.

Under Vista with EVR and single Monitor also under DVBViewer.

But I am using 720p because of my beamer format.

Best regards

maier2505

[Al Sherwood]

One thing I found confusing with this thread is all of the confusing discussions on how only certain drivers activate HA.

As far as I'm aware, HA has worked with absolutely every single driver release, at least since something like 7.4 (the first one I tried), with my system.

I'm running a fully updated Vista and a PCIe ATI HD 2600XT.

We should probably ensure we state which OS, which video card and most importantly if AGP or PCIe is the interface for the card when we talk about getting HA working.

With Vista, a PCIe interface, and a 2600 card, HA (hardware acceleration) works with all of the official ATI drivers. There are some bugs with some of the drivers that cause issues with HD playback, but none of them simply don't work.

The AGP versions of these ATI cards definitely have lots of problems with HA not working, but PCIe versions, especially 2600Pro and better, typically don't.

EDIT: BTW, we use both Media Center (Recorded TV in 720p & 1080i) and PowerDVD 7.3 Ultra (HD-DVD/Blue-ray in 1080p). All of the drivers have provided HA with both MC and PDVD. Catalyst 8.1 had trouble with some Blue-ray movies, but again these are bugs, not an overall lack of HA. I have also not needed any registry tweaks at all to get HA working. The only ones I use are TRDenoise to get rid of the "ghosts" and the UseBT... to get greyscales in-line between Media Center and Media Player (and UseBT... isn't all that critical since we use Media Player hardly at all).

This is quite interesting, I am one of those who tried a few newer versions of 7.x and found that HA in PDVD did NOT stay checked after the movies started.

I am running a fully updated Vista Home Premium based HTPC with a HD2600Pro PCIe video card. I connect to the primary monitor by way of a VGA connection, and when I run the BenQ W9000 projector it connects by way of a HDMI cable on the secondary monitor connection.

[arfster]

One thing I found confusing with this thread is all of the confusing discussions on how only certain drivers activate HA.

As far as I'm aware, HA has worked with absolutely every single driver release, at least since something like 7.4 (the first one I tried), with my system.

I'm running a fully updated Vista and a PCIe ATI HD 2600XT.


Yup - same here with that setup. Have tried XP too, HA worked there also.

The exceptions I know of are dualmonitor from 8.1 (7.12?) onwards, which there's a regfix for, at least with VC1/h264 (mpeg2 bit wobbly).

Also, with the 2400 and mpeg2 HD files don't accelerate by default (regfix), and 2400+bluray mpeg2 (no fix).

[arfster]

This is quite interesting, I am one of those who tried a few newer versions of 7.x and found that HA in PDVD did NOT stay checked after the movies started.

I am running a fully updated Vista Home Premium based HTPC with a HD2600Pro PCIe video card. I connect to the primary monitor by way of a VGA connection, and when I run the BenQ W9000 projector it connects by way of a HDMI cable on the secondary monitor connection.

Tried the dualmonitor regfix? With 8.1+ you'll see no acceleration unless you do that.

By the way, PDVD doesn't really do much with regards to acceleration - it just requests the drivers/card to do the necessary, and they either work or don't. In the latter case, it's almost always the drivers at fault.

If you have HA problems, try dloading DXVA Checker and posting a screenshot of what it produces. So much more info to work off :-)

[Al Sherwood]

Tried the dualmonitor regfix? With 8.1+ you'll see no acceleration unless you do that.

By the way, PDVD doesn't really do much with regards to acceleration - it just requests the drivers/card to do the necessary, and they either work or don't. In the latter case, it's almost always the drivers at fault.

If you have HA problems, try dloading DXVA Checker and posting a screenshot of what it produces. So much more info to work off :-)

No I have not tried the dualmonitor regfix, every thing has been working so far, is it part of the registry tweeks? Also with respect to HA, I knew PDVD didn't do it but rather the card, but that is why I would like it to be on. :)

As for HA problems with my HTPC, only that most of the versions of CCC that I have tried don't seem to keep it checked after PDVD starts playback. :(

So... are you saying I need the dual monitor regfix for this?

Also I would be happy to run the DXVA checker, where do I get it?

Much appreciated!

[arfster]

So... are you saying I need the dual monitor regfix for this?


Yeah, if you have two monitors it's a must for acceleration with 8.1-8.4 at least.


Also I would be happy to run the DXVA checker, where do I get it?


http://bluesky23.hp.infoseek.co.jp/index.html#DXVAChecker

You'll also need the visual c++ package, although a lot of people ave that installed already.

If you could upload a screenshots fgrom the above to imageshack or the like, it gives a much better idea of what you're talking about.

[videonub]

hi again, I am trying to switch over to vista ultimate and i can not get HA to work properly. I have been able to use xp fine but in vista i can not get HA to work with 720p mkv files. I have been trying to use MPC-HC and i only get a black screen no matter what output setting. I have tried both mpc video decoder and PDVD codec. VC-1 works with PDVD player but not MPC. I am using 8.3 catalyst with the 8.3 agp hot fix and reg fix. Strangely I can't get 8.3 catalyst from ati site to install even after i edit the inf file get the Ol' no installable components line. I had to use manufacture ccc. I would like to avoid the mess of installing and reinstalling catalysts so any help would be appreciated.

[Al Sherwood]

Originally Posted by Al Sherwood
So... are you saying I need the dual monitor regfix for this?

So is this part of the registry tweeks for ATI cards, or something separate?


Yeah, if you have two monitors it's a must for acceleration with 8.1-8.4 at least.

http://bluesky23.hp.infoseek.co.jp/index.html#DXVAChecker

You'll also need the visual c++ package, although a lot of people ave that installed already.

If you could upload a screenshots fgrom the above to imageshack or the like, it gives a much better idea of what you're talking about.

I will try to get this on and get a screen shot... Thanks

[one_2go]

You tried 8.3 with or without the registry tweaks?
Yes I tried your version 0.13 registry tweaks but it did not help. I uninstalled everything using the save mode & drivercleaner.net proggy. Then reinstalled 8.3 and just used the Use601BT registry tweak but still grey levels were horrible at the native resolution.

Ever since updating Vista to SP1 the grey levels at the native resolution of 1360 x 768 for my Sony KDT 32d3000 display are washed out. I now have to play everything with a desktop resolution of 1920x1080.

A few others from abhdtv.net also have gone back to 7.9 because of this issue.

Anyone else experiencing this after SP1 update.

[vurt72]

Anyone gotten HD2400PRO AGP to work in XP or Vista with a Nforce2 motherboard? If so, which drivers (nforce and ati) did you use?

I've tried both vista and xp now and neither work with this card for me on my Asus A7N8X-X motherboard. XP will just restart the computer after driver install (i get a black screen when i reach XP, then it restarts). Vista doesnt seem to recognize the card (its possible to install the drivers but they wont register with the OS/card; there's not ati CP, card is still listed as standard VGA and thinks its up to date if i try to change this driver to the ATI driver).

[egandt]

Ok so I have a 1080P monitor (ie 1920x1080 at 60Hz), however, while pure DVI in does do 1:1 Pixel mapping, if I use the ATI adapter, then it is not a 1:1 mapping, in fact it is not close (50 to 80 pixel border is formed around the image). Also the image display is popping, ie the edges are flashing (this normally happens when the cable is bad, or the signal is weak/messed up), however the cable is fine, and the output works if I use DVI.

The problem is that I need HDMI so that I can use the ATI on board sound to the receiver.

Any suggestions?
ERIC

Update: Fixed the borders, even though the HMDI was going to a monitor it kept setting the over scan to 10%, had to upgrade my drivers, then now it no longer over scans, but the pixel popping is still in full force. I also gave a standard DVI to HDMI cable (not from ATI), same pixel popping issues.

I've tried 2 HDMI adapters and 2 separate cables always with the same result.

Update2: If I have a PC connected via HDMI and I switch from A (which is the HTPC to B which is a DVD Player), then PC assumes that the monitor was disconnected and disables it (if I was to use DVI this does not happen), is there a way around this issue (as it is a major one, since I want to leave the HTPC running and using other inputs. Also if the Receiver is off and the HTPC is started then the HDMI output is disabled forever (until I restart the HTPC),.
Basically HDMI needs to appear as a monitor connection and not a TV connection as the ATI driver seem to suck when it assumes that the output is to a TV and not a monitor!

[videonub]

Hi arfster i was just wondering how you repeatedly install and reinstall catalyst software. Do you roll back with system restore or a similar idea. Or do you just do the tedious task of uninstalling with driver cleaner and such. Also do the hotfixes for agp(8.1,8.3) effect HA or just directx gaming.

Thanks for all your help

[arfster]

Hi arfster i was just wondering how you repeatedly install and reinstall catalyst software. Do you roll back with system restore or a similar idea. Or do you just do the tedious task of uninstalling with driver cleaner and such. Also do the hotfixes for agp(8.1,8.3) effect HA or just directx gaming.


Uninstall all via control panel, reboot, driver cleaner, install new. Does the trick - drivercleaner catches everything (at least for ATI, it might be useless for other stuff for all I know).

New drivers don't do anything I noticed - the "8.3 hotfix" is more than just an AGP fix though, they're effectively 8.4. Don't touch 8.1 btw, it sucks.

[pm_john]

Anyone gotten HD2400PRO AGP to work in XP or Vista with a Nforce2 motherboard? If so, which drivers (nforce and ati) did you use?

I've tried both vista and xp now and neither work with this card for me on my Asus A7N8X-X motherboard. XP will just restart the computer after driver install (i get a black screen when i reach XP, then it restarts). Vista doesnt seem to recognize the card (its possible to install the drivers but they wont register with the OS/card; there's not ati CP, card is still listed as standard VGA and thinks its up to date if i try to change this driver to the ATI driver).

I've got my 2600 pro agp to work with nforce2, see post #4781. It wasn't easy.

[juffi]

Hi, juffi !

That is not true...

I have 2600pro PCIe and running HW acceleration under Vista and XP SP2 with 8.1,8.2 and 8.3 using Cyberlink 7.0 deluxe with mpeg2 and H.264...



I hope that would be the case for me, too.

I installed 8.3 and the latest hotfix. I was hoping that the dualmonitor regfix would help.

No hardware acceleration.

My card is MSI RX2600PRO - T2D256EZ/D2 PCIe.
Attached DXVAChecker screenshots.

[Maier2505]

Hi, juffi !

Sorry, I am not the DXVA checker specialist...

I am using a HIS 2600pro passive cooled PCIe Card.

XP/SP2

overlay Monitor 1 1028x764, 1080i to Beamer

Latest Cyberlink7.0Deluxe patch (was important to me, out of the box version did not run with HA!)

I started with 8.1 and had HA with every version running.

But I have my trouble getting VISTA free of stuttering...

Best regards

maier2505

[ExDeus]

I hope that would be the case for me, too.

I installed 8.3 and the latest hotfix. I was hoping that the dualmonitor regfix would help.

No hardware acceleration.

My card is MSI RX2600PRO - T2D256EZ/D2 PCIe.
Attached DXVAChecker screenshots.
H264 and VC1 don't appear to be accelerated... though I'm not running Vista, so I don't know if that looks normal.

Have you tried applying ALL the registry settings from arfster, installed by my program?

[Dee_NA]

@ arfster - Few questions since I'm running a Radeon HD 2400 Pro:

1) What is the difference in quality between DXVA_MPEG2 and when dxva_nohddecode is applied?

2) Will adding DisableDualView to the registry fix anything since im only using my monitor?

3) I'm guessin that DVPF_DeblockOn is intended for the much older cards?

[arfster]

@ arfster - Few questions since I'm running a Radeon HD 2400 Pro:

1) What is the difference in quality between DXVA_MPEG2 and when dxva_nohddecode is applied?


Shouldn't be any :-) It's just acceleration.


2) Will adding DisableDualView to the registry fix anything since im only using my monitor?


Not afaik.


3) I'm guessin that DVPF_DeblockOn is intended for the much older cards?


Looks like it - the drivers support a whole bundle of different cards, and many of the settings are really ancient (like dxva_nodhddecode!).

[Dee_NA]

Ok, cool! Thanks!

[tetsuo55]

Does anyone know if the HD3xxx UVD was improved in any way over the HD2xxx UVD?? and if so what was changed/improved

[juffi]

H264 and VC1 don't appear to be accelerated... though I'm not running Vista, so I don't know if that looks normal.

Have you tried applying ALL the registry settings from arfster, installed by my program?

I used your program version which was dated 16.10.2008 in my computer. I guess it might be v0.9. Looks like the only real differences are the dualmonitor tweaks.

Edit: I'm running XP.

[arfster]

I think the tweaks won't actually help, as your drivers are reporting no support for vc1/h264 acceleration at all, not even in SD. Unfortunately, I've no idea why that is - it's like there's some fundamental hardware clash, like the AGP folks get.

[xboy360]

Is there VC1/H264 hardware acceleration in Vista64 with the ATI drivers?


Also, is there anyway to get the video card to output YCbCr instead of full range RGB over a HDMI or DVI->HDMI cable?

[audiolab1]

Hi ExDeus,

I uninstalled the old versions of all of the ATI software and installed the latest Catalyst 8.3 package last night.
I tried to run your registry tweaks vbs and everything worked fine, including detection of my 2400Pro, until it tried to make registry changes. I got an error of "you do not have permission to make changes/ check that UAC is disabled or prompt for approval".
I'm very new to Vista and have no idea how to change regsitry write permissions. I am running Vista (32) as a single user/administrator so there should not be any restrictions from that end.
Any ideas?
Thanks!


FYI - I've updated "ATI HD2x00 Registry Tweaks" to "ATI HD Registry Tweaks" 0.13 to apply to all HD2000 and HD3000 series cards.

No material changes for anyone that has already used version 0.12, but I did make it clear that the settings can be applied to HD2000 or HD3000 cards, and there is now a prompt before adding HWUVD_ForceMPEG2, to make sure you only apply it for use with dual displays.

Changes:
Renamed and changed to apply to all HD2000 and HD3000 cards.
Added prompt to ensure user is aware of dual display circumstances necessitating HWUVD_ForceMPEG2.

[ToughRowToHoe]

Hi ExDeus,

I uninstalled the old versions of all of the ATI software and installed the latest Catalyst 8.3 package last night.
I tried to run your registry tweaks vbs and everything worked fine, including detection of my 2400Pro, until it tried to make registry changes. I got an error of "you do not have permission to make changes/ check that UAC is disabled or prompt for approval".
I'm very new to Vista and have no idea how to change regsitry write permissions. I am running Vista (32) as a single user/administrator so there should not be any restrictions from that end.
Any ideas?
Thanks!

I believe UAC can be activated in Vista even on single user machines. (If it active, you are asked to confirm changes through an extra dialog box.) Go to Control Panel, User (User Accounts?) to access the UAC check box. After unchecking the box, Vista will prompt you to restart.

[ricabullah]

Still registry tweaks?
Regards.

[tvted]

I'm hoping one of you gents can possibly provide me with some opinions/facts re the 2600PRO AGP for BD playback.

Currently I've an OC'd 2500 thinking its a 3200+ running on an ASUS A7N8XE Nforce2 board with ZP and ffdshow, driving a 720P Panasonic PJ. I use this in a Constant Height setup with ZP doing the required vertical stretch for 2.35 SD source. I'm a little frustrated with not being able to scale (stretch) BD source as I do not have a scaler and my PJ can only stretch SD source. So before I build a new HiDef HTPC or buy a scaler (a new pj is likely to come late this year) I would like to try BD HTPC playback now.

If I read some of the posts in this thread correctly, some of you have had success with HD playback with the class of CPU mentioned above coupled with a 2600 PRO which is capable of handling HA for VCI and h264. I would be running it with possibly PowerDVD and YXY (for the vertical stretch) over XP and outputting 1080i to my pj from BD source. If successful it would save the hair I've left and buy me some time before I irrationally throw money at the darn thing before the time is right. No fancy processing required other than the ability to run YXY with whatever player I choose.

Any input or suggestions would be helpful.

ted

[Bgnome]

I'm hoping one of you gents can possibly provide me with some opinions/facts re the 2600PRO AGP for BD playback.

Currently I've an OC'd 2500 thinking its a 3200+ running on an ASUS A7N8XE Nforce2 board with ZP and ffdshow, driving a 720P Panasonic PJ. I use this in a Constant Height setup with ZP doing the required vertical stretch for 2.35 SD source. I'm a little frustrated with not being able to scale (stretch) BD source as I do not have a scaler and my PJ can only stretch SD source. So before I build a new HiDef HTPC or buy a scaler (a new pj is likely to come late this year) I would like to try BD HTPC playback now.

Any input or suggestions would be helpful.

ted

I am currently running an athlon64 3200+/1 gb dual channel/Asrock 939 Dual SATAII with a Lite-on DH-401S BD-drive, HD 2400 PRO AGP, x1800 GTO PCI-E, running XP Pro, Power-DVD 7.3 3730, AnyDVD, Catalyst 8.3s + hotfix.

After fiddling with it for about a week, I can run BDs at around 30-40% CPU using dxva. I am currently outputting at a resolution of 1440x900 on my 47" rp-crt and have not had a problem. 720p trailers I have downloaded run fine without dxva, but most of the 1080p stuff I grabbed does not play very well in MPC-HC. I have not tried to reencode or anything like that nor do I know how to mess with filters and such. ISOs of BDs mounted with Daemon Tools work in PDVD for me as well.

It is a fairly weak machine by today's standards but I think it might be comparable to your situation. If you are willing to futz with seemingly endless driver installations and removals then you can probably get it working to your satisfaction.

[audiolab1]

Thank you so much, that did it!
Oh what fun, fumbling around with a new OS!


I believe UAC can be activated in Vista even on single user machines. (If it active, you are asked to confirm changes through an extra dialog box.) Go to Control Panel, User (User Accounts?) to access the UAC check box. After unchecking the box, Vista will prompt you to restart.

[audiolab1]

OK, this might be the wrong thread for this, but in keeping with other users of this series of ATI GPUs I figured it might get me some good advice.

I am running an Intel Q6600 quad-core with 3GB ram, 2 x 320GB hard drives, Windows Vista Home Premium, and an HD2400Pro.
For a number of years I was using a basic system and playing back all of my video files (mostly DiVX avi's) using GOM player.
Now that I have a new machine with a capable video card to output 1080p to my Sony 50A2020 SXRD, I'd like to start fresh with the best software and codecs for multiple video formats. Instead of installing tonnes of codec packs, I'm looking for guidance on the best front end and support for it. So far I have GOM installed and have played a little with MPC-HC and Media Center. Strangely enough, Media Center has trouble with many file types out of the box, including DiVX.
My wish list would simply be to have the ability to play back avi's (DiVX), mkv's, DVDs, HDDVDs and allow for future Blue-ray playback with the best quality. Any recommended settings for the appropriate software would also be appreciated. This machine is used only for downloads and for HTPC use, so processor usage is not much of a concern.
I have all the latest ATI drivers, software, and registry changes from this thread applied.
Now I just want to stop tweaking and start watching!
Many thanks for your suggestions!

[tetsuo55]

I'm hoping one of you gents can possibly provide me with some opinions/facts re the 2600PRO AGP for BD playback.

Currently I've an OC'd 2500 thinking its a 3200+ running on an ASUS A7N8XE Nforce2 board with ZP and ffdshow, driving a 720P Panasonic PJ. I use this in a Constant Height setup with ZP doing the required vertical stretch for 2.35 SD source. I'm a little frustrated with not being able to scale (stretch) BD source as I do not have a scaler and my PJ can only stretch SD source. So before I build a new HiDef HTPC or buy a scaler (a new pj is likely to come late this year) I would like to try BD HTPC playback now.

If I read some of the posts in this thread correctly, some of you have had success with HD playback with the class of CPU mentioned above coupled with a 2600 PRO which is capable of handling HA for VCI and h264. I would be running it with possibly PowerDVD and YXY (for the vertical stretch) over XP and outputting 1080i to my pj from BD source. If successful it would save the hair I've left and buy me some time before I irrationally throw money at the darn thing before the time is right. No fancy processing required other than the ability to run YXY with whatever player I choose.

Any input or suggestions would be helpful.

ted

i have the same system it works perfectly, but you probably cannot combine DXVA with YXY

[xboy360]

What's YXY?

[xboy360]

What's the point of having a 2600XT or in fact any other video card that claims full hardware acceleration of MPEG-2, VC-1, H.264 codecs when the video card themselves don't include these codecs and is dependent on third party to support the card (and not support Vista64)?

FFDSHOW is great, all you need for that is a fast quad core :)


ALSO:
NVIDIA lets you choose the color space and RGB range:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=13540463#post13540463

Where is this equivalent option with our ATI 2600 cards?

Or is there an equivalent setting from within Vista?

[tvted]

i have the same system it works perfectly, BARTON Core?
but you probably cannot combine DXVA with YXY

Unfortunately that would defeat the purpose of what I'm trying to do, since I would need HA with such a wimp of a CPU. I know of others on AVS who are using YXY for aspect control but their boxes are tricked out. Ithought it was more an issue of the particular player software in use - ArcSoft plays nicely and PowerDVD has apparently been fixed, WinDVD apparently still has issues per this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=13449607&postcount=2). I guess this means asking a few more questions.

Care to Download (http://www.keohi.com/keohihdtv/htpc/yxy/yxy.html) and give it a try?;)

Thanks to those who offered some input. I guess I've to decide whether to wait for a 8300/G45 based board (ulitimatly I want LPCM over HDMI) or waste $100 (what it costs in Canada) since the drive at least would be reusable to check this out.

ted

[xboy360]

With Nero Showtime you can force specify an aspect ratio for the DVD to be played back. Could that be used instead of YXY ?

[tvted]

What's YXY?

Aspect Ratio control, see here (http://www.keohi.com/keohihdtv/htpc/yxy/yxy.html) if interested. It is useful in a Constant Height Front Projection (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=554901) setup. Currently its the only method I know of that allows for Vertical Stretch of 2.35 HD source in an HTPC.

ted

[tvted]

With Nero Showtime you can force specify an aspect ratio for the DVD to be played back. Could that be used instead of YXY ?It would have to work with HD source, I use ZP for SD.

ted

[xboy360]

It would have to work with HD source, I use ZP for SD.

ted

I can get MPEG2 HW acceleration in Vista64 with showtime.

[xboy360]

Aspect Ratio control, see here (http://www.keohi.com/keohihdtv/htpc/yxy/yxy.html) if interested. It is useful in a Constant Height Front Projection (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=554901) setup. Currently its the only method I know of that allows for Vertical Stretch of 2.35 HD source in an HTPC.

ted

Oohhh I see...useful when I upgrade to a projector :)

[tvted]

Oohhh I see...useful when I upgrade to a projector :)
Some pjs currently support an "Anamorphic" mode for HD. OPPO has suggested they will support Aspect Control in their upcoming BD player. Anamorphic lens add ons and setups are growing though it is still a niche. In the future I hope that software player providers will build such a mode into their players.

But I've 'jacked this thread enough with my egocentric concerns. My apologies to all.

ted

[xboy360]

Some pjs currently support an "Anamorphic" mode for HD. OPPO has suggested they will support Aspect Control in their upcoming BD player. Anamorphic lens add ons and setups are growing though it is still a niche. In the future I hope that software player providers will build such a mode into their players.

But I've 'jacked this thread enough with my egocentric concerns. My apologies to all.

ted


If you use FFDSHOW you can resize and adjust the pixel aspect ratio to whatever you like, and that will do what you want also.

[tvted]

If you use FFDSHOW you can resize and adjust the pixel aspect ratio to whatever you like, and that will do what you want also.

This is all about Blu-Ray source for me. I've no issues with SD.

I would need to build a new box to take greater advantage of ffdshow than I do (RESIZE, DENOISE) now anyway as its a CPU killer and would have my Barton core for a snack.

ted

[Roussi]

This is all about Blu-Ray source for me. I've no issues with SD.

I would need to build a new box to take greater advantage of ffdshow than I do (RESIZE, DENOISE) now anyway as its a CPU killer and would have my Barton core for a snack.

ted
I believe aspect ratio can be adjusted with MPC-HC (Pan&Zoom, number pad), including for DXVA accelarated video; not sure about any restriction, though.

[tvted]

I believe aspect ratio can be adjusted with MPC-HC (Pan&Zoom, number pad), including for DXVA accelarated video; not sure about any restriction, though.

Its been a while since I played with MPC. Any issues with VC1 and H264? I assume codecs would have to come from another source?

ted

[Bgnome]

mpc-hc has a built-in decoder capable of dxva. you can grab the recent build here:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1118095#post1118095

[Ingram]

mpc-hc has a built-in decoder capable of dxva. you can grab the recent build here:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1118095#post1118095

Make sure you use EVR renderer with this. I just discovered last night that all of a sudden MKV files I had that didn't run with HA enabled were suddenly. I realised it was because I had switched to EVR.

Some files work in VMR9 but all of them work with HA and EVR.

NFI why.

[originalsnuffy]

OK, I gave in. I backed everything up and reinstalled vista from the ground up. Catalyst 8.3 went in just fine. Put softpack 1 in, and am now copying back all the files. Then on to reinstalling antivirus, powerdvd, anydvd, office, nero, and itunes. No fun, but gotta do it.

[locutus266]

Hello folks,

I have been reading through threads in this forum a couple of days now, because I have problems with my HTPC and DXVA acceleration in PowerDVD as well as Media Player Classic.

I observed the following behavior:

Sometimes, when I try to use MPC with its built-in MPC Video decoder which is capable of accelerated H.264 playback through DXVA, it would crash right away. (Testing with a 720p H.264-coded mkv file) When this is the case, DXVA doesn't work under PowerDVD either: After the program starts, the DXVA checkbox is checked, but gets disabled and unchecked once HD playback begins. In other situations (Windows sessions) however, DXVA seems to work perfectly in PowerDVD and also in MPC (although with crappy tearing in the latter).

However, I think, I may have found the root of the problem or at least come near it (read on).

My system has the following specs:

AMD Athlon X2 CPU
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H with AMD780G chipset
Radeon HD 3200
Windows XP 32-bit, everything up-to-date
Media Player Classic Homecinema 1.1.0.0
PowerDVD 7.3, Patch 3730a
ATI Catalyst 8.3
TV: Toshiba 42Z3030D connected over HDMI
"ATI Smart service" disabled
"ATI Hotkey Poller" disabled

As of now, I can't seem to track the error down completely, but I have observed the following things:

1. When I set my TV to another video channel or turn it off, boot up Windows (I am using auto-logon), then set the TV to the right HDMI source again (after Windows competely came up), fire up PowerDVD, it won't initialize DXVA correctly. I can only assume that this is a communication issue between TV and PC, maybe HDCP is involved, too. I don't experience this behavior with MPC and DXVA (strange enough).

2. MPC never crashes BEFORE I run PowerDVD in any scenario. If PowerDVD can't initialize DXVA correctly (see above), it seems to mess up DXVA capability completely for the remaining Windows session. When DXVA works under PowerDVD (Only if TV is set to PC-HDMI source during bootup), it doesn't seem to mess up DXVA.

So the conclusions are:

1. Please be sure to have your TV setup correctly BEFORE you start your PC. Judging from my observations, that might well have an effect on DXVA at least when using crappy PowerDVD, which implements all that HDCP hassle customers have to go through).

2. During testing: Never ever start PowerDVD and then test other applications concerning DXVA capabilities as PowerDVD (or potentially any other software) can mess up things, so that your tests give you incorrect results, which lead to wrong conclusions. Same goes for standby and hibernation. Always have a clean reboot, before running an application and judging it towards its capabilities.

Please also ensure, you set the BIOS option (I don't recall its name) to "HDMI/D-SUB" instead of "DVI/D-SUB". Unless, I set that to HDMI, I was unable to get sound over HDMI under Wndows XP! Might also have influence on other things, such as DXVA and HDCP. Who knows...

From my point of view, it seems that lot of things have influence on DXVA at the moment. These are still to be resolved by the manufacturers and developers. Of course ATI customer support is useless, I had contact with them on other occasions, but never was satisfied with it. As for PowerDVD... well it's commercial software, so what do you expect (?)

Actually I am not impressed with DXVA as I read about problems concerning this feature everywhere on the internet, but the thing is that I need the acceleration during the playback of Blu-ray media, because my CPU isn't that powerful. The correct function of HDCP or DXVA seems to be very fragile state at the moment. It only works in certain scenarios and that's also why so many people are complaining about it. Personally, I think in the current implementation it's completely useless and poorly conceived and judging from other posts, nVidia customers don't seem to be better of at all.

Before my current setup, I made the wrong decision to buy an ASUS P5E-HDMI with Intel G35: PowerDVD always FORCED DXVA for me, which resulted in choppy playback. Disabling it might have solved the issue, because I had a rather powerful CPU installed that would have been able to decode the material on its own, but PowerDVD wouldn't let me deactivate it.

Well, this is it for now.

- Locutus

[enxian]

hi!

i have a problem i can open 1080p files but i have slow down on hi-def videos. i play 720p but there is a tiny slow down.

my system are:
Windows Xp Media Center
Motherboard PCCHIPS M861G/ VIA K8M800
Socket 754
CPU Sempron 2800+ at 1.6ghz
512Mb Ram
Visiontek RADEON 2400PRO 256Mb AGP 8X.
Fast Writes- Disable

Catalyst 7.7

if i put more RAM like 1520Mb, the video plays better? i need to OC the processor?

any suggestion?

[bxw689]

I have a HTPC with the Sapphire Radeon HD 2400XT connected via HDMI to an Onkyo TX-SR705 receiver. I can't seem to get the HDMI audio and video to function at the same time. For some reason, I can only hear sound on the receiver from the HTPC when the HDMI cable from the receiver to the TV is disconnected. When the hdmi out from the receiver is connected to my TV, I see the video from the pc, but the sound cuts off and the receiver says no signal for audio. When I unplug the cable from the TV, the sound comes back on. Has anyone else experienced this kind of problem. When I plug the HDMI cable from the PC directly to the TV, the video and audio work fine. Any help that you can provide is appreciated. Thanks!

[JimmyFace]

Does DXVA2 work on XP for 1080p files? I can't accelerate 1080p files using MPC HC with EVR. I'm talking about a DXVA conforming 1080p file. I can accelerate it with overlay (assuming this is DXVA1) but not EVR.

A friend claims to have a non-conforming 1080p MKV file playing fine with PowerDVD HA on Vista (I assume DXVA2), but when I try that file on my machine with XP I can get HA but it is tearing a lot and unwatchable (assuming DXVA1). I was wondering if this was a DXVA2 thing.

DXVA2 + 1080p (non-conforming MKV) = HA plus perfect playback.
DXVA1 + 1080p (non-conforming MKV) = HA plus tearing and crap playback.

DXVA2 + 1080p + XP = Can't be done on XP period?
DXVA2 + 1080p + Vista = Even non-conforming MKV files work?

By conforming 1080p MKV files I mean H.264 encoded to 4.1 profile.

Can anyone speak to this?

[arfster]

Non-4.1 files never accelerate (the hardware doesn't support it), & EVR needs Vista for h264 acceleration.

[JimmyFace]

Non-4.1 files never accelerate (the hardware doesn't support it), & EVR needs Vista for h264 acceleration.

You're referring to 1080p specifically right?

Because MPC HC with the EVR option in XP appears to work fine with 720p.

I am assuming that DXVA2 and EVR are tied together.

Found this in another forum posted on March 22, 2008:
Just one other thing for people to remember - if you are using Vista you *must* use EVR if you want hardware acceleration.

EVR supports DXVA2 and PowerDVD also supports DXVA2.

DXVA was the original hardware acceleration under XP using VMR9 however while Vista supports DXVA it will not deliver hardware acceleration. If you're running Vista and use VMR9 your system will not be able to take full advantage of the hardware offloading.

[tvted]

i have the same system it works perfectly, but you probably cannot combine DXVA with YXY

I think I'm going to purchase the 2600PRO and run a few tests before I purchase a player. At the very least it will free up some CPU for ffdshow with SD DVD so all would not be to no avail. If its a no go, any drive I purchase would get stuffed in a new HTPC anyway so overall this is a means of forestalling that for a few months.

I do know that others have successfully run YXY with HA but not with these specific cards and of course their setup is not as aged and feeble as mine.

I'm assuming you are running a BARTON core on an NForce2 setup with XP_SP2 so can you tell me what type of CPU usage you get with VC1 and AVC encoded BD or HD DVD if possible?

Thanks for your input btw.
ted

[nathan118]

Tonight I bit the bullet and decided to try and get 264 acceleration working. Before I start, here's my specs.

Dual-Core Allendale
Vista 32-bit
Radeon 2600xt Pci-E

On my HTPC I use media center as my front end. Back in November when I put the thing together, I got mpeg acceleration by installing the avivo pack, and using deccheck and vmcd.exe to set the primary decoder to the ati decoder. This was great! All my interlaced HD recordings were deinterlaced beautifully, and I was a happy man.

With mpeg acceleration taken care of, I've been using CoreAVC for my 264 material, and until now that's been perfectly fine. No bluray or hddvd drive, so mainly 720p or 1080p material, which the dual core processor can handle fine. But last month I bought a new videocamera (canon hv20) and I had a new problem. The native output of the camera is interlaced, and to avoid crappy deinterlacing in the editing program, I had two choices: either render 1080i mpeg2, or 1080i AVC. I found that interlaced AVC material was beautiful on the PS3. It could deinterlace the AVC encoded videos perfectly.

Moving to the HTPC though, CoreAVC couldn't hold a candle to the hardware deinterlacing of the PS3. It could play them, but the deinterlacing abilities in software are always terrible. I finally bit the bullet to try and get 264 acceleration working on the HTPC so I could watch the home movies on it. After spending hours reading this thread, I tried it tonight, and it was 100x easier than I thought. Here's what I did.

1) Uninstalled catalyst completely using control panel/uninstall.
2) Uninstalled CoreAVC (no other 264 decoders installed).
3) Reboot
4) Installed Catalyst 8.3 and Avivo Package 8.3
5) Installed PowerDVD Ultra 7.3.3723
6) In the options of PowerDVD, I checked use hardware acceleration.
7) Using Haali as my splitter, I opened one of my 1080i mp4 files.

TADA! GPU utilization is at around 25%, cpu at around 15-20%, and it is deinterlaced PERFECTLY. I never realized that installing PowerDVD would install the decoder needed for 264 material, and that media player (and media center) would make use of it. No registry entries required.

Maybe all this seemed like a no-brainer to some people, but I'm just happy to have mpeg2 and 264 material accelerated. Interlaced material is no longer a problem!

[tetsuo55]

I think I'm going to purchase the 2600PRO and run a few tests before I purchase a player. At the very least it will free up some CPU for ffdshow with SD DVD so all would not be to no avail. If its a no go, any drive I purchase would get stuffed in a new HTPC anyway so overall this is a means of forestalling that for a few months.

I do know that others have successfully run YXY with HA but not with these specific cards and of course their setup is not as aged and feeble as mine.

I'm assuming you are running a BARTON core on an NForce2 setup with XP_SP2 so can you tell me what type of CPU usage you get with VC1 and AVC encoded BD or HD DVD if possible?

Thanks for your input btw.
ted

AthlonXP 2600+ Barton @ 2ghz
a7n8x deluxe(nforce2)
Club3d HD2400pro AGP


No hardware acceleration:
1080p content:
100%CPU on all h264, VC1 streams, heavy sturrering.
100%CPU on mpeg2 HD, almost watchable (some frames drop)

720p content:
80-100%CPU, all HD content watchable (using CoreAVC 1.5)

DXVA enabled(Powerdvd/MPC-HC):
1080p content: 10-30% CPU
730p content : 5-25% CPU

PowerDVD uses 2x as much cpu as MPC-HC, these numbers are with regular audio tracks, HD audio tracks take up a lot more CPU, but you should be able to enable the most demanding mix of audio and video and stay under 80% cpu

[arfster]

You're referring to 1080p specifically right?

Because MPC HC with the EVR option in XP appears to work fine with 720p.


Yup - that's cos most 720p files are 4.1 compliant. They need to have a stupendously large number of ref frames not to be, but 1080p only needs 4 or 5 to break the limits (which most do, or at least did until recently when people started bothering about dxva compliance)


I am assuming that DXVA2 and EVR are tied together.


Yup. You can squeeze it into XP, and some people have hacked things to get acceleration there too (no idea how), but apparently h264 doesn't work. Not sure there's much point to all this, tbh.


DXVA was the original hardware acceleration under XP using VMR9 however while Vista supports DXVA it will not deliver hardware acceleration. If you're running Vista and use VMR9 your system will not be able to take full advantage of the hardware offloading.

That's only true in Vista for h264 - with mpeg2 and VC1 you can use Vista+VMR9+acceleration. This only mattered much in the early months of Vista when a lot of apps didn't support EVR yet (notably DVBviewer), but now pretty much everything does - I think Nero is the only important exception. If you've got the choice, in Vista there's not much point in using VMR9 at all.

Basically Vista is natively dxva2, so when it gets dxva1 acceleration calls it translates them in realtime, so vmr9+acceleration can work. However, for some reason it can't do this for h264, so for that dxva2 (and thus EVR) are compulsory if you want acceleration.

[JimmyFace]

Very helpful Arfster, thank you.

[tvted]

AthlonXP 2600+ Barton @ 2ghz
a7n8x deluxe(nforce2)
Club3d HD2400pro AGP

DXVA enabled(Powerdvd/MPC-HC):
1080p content: 10-30% CPU
730p content : 5-25% CPU

PowerDVD uses 2x as much cpu as MPC-HC, these numbers are with regular audio tracks, HD audio tracks take up a lot more CPU, but you should be able to enable the most demanding mix of audio and video and stay under 80% cpu

Magical. That is what I'm currently getting for SD DVD decode with a 6600GT and ffdshow. on a 2500 running at 2.1 Ghz

I will now show this to my wife and blame you for my upcoming expenditure. ;)

Are you using the 2400 over HDMI for audio or SPDIF out from the NForce? I haven't an HDMI AVR as of yet and was planning to remain as is for now. I'm assuming PowerDVD or MPC-HC allows for selection of any registered audio device.

Thanks, ever so much.
ted

[tetsuo55]

Magical. That is what I'm currently getting for SD DVD decode with a 6600GT and ffdshow. on a 2500 running at 2.1 Ghz

I will now show this to my wife and blame you for my upcoming expenditure. ;)

Are you using the 2400 over HDMI for audio or SPDIF out from the NForce? I haven't an HDMI AVR as of yet and was planning to remain as is for now. I'm assuming PowerDVD or MPC-HC allows for selection of any registered audio device.

Thanks, ever so much.
ted

I have an X-Fi directly connected to my speakers, so i use analoge out in PowerDVD and AC3filter decode for MPC-HC

[Daddymem]

I've scoured the internet for help, I know this isn't HTC related, but I was hoping someone here can help. I haven't found any conversations about this card and the same problem. Here goes:

My company recently upgraded our computers to lenovo thinkcentres with ATi Radeon HD 2400 Pro 512 mb graphic cards. All of us are experiencing horrible display of text on them. I'll explain my setup but monitor brands and sizes vary throughout the company. We are an engineering firm so CAD is important (and looks fine) but we also write a lot so text has to look good too. Any text with mutliple vertical lines (such as the ill) show orange blobs behind them, faint but visible. All text is just a little blurry. We have tried new drivers, various settings on the monitors, Clear Type settings, calibration programs, but nothing seems to work. Graphics seem fine for images and video. Haven't really run it through the works since this is a work environment. ACAD and Sketchup look fine, it is just text. Some webpages end up with very blocky text that will sharpen and get blocky again as you move the window around the desktop.

My setup:
Sceptre X20G-Naga3 (on the digital port)
1680x1050, 60 Hz

Dell 1907FP (on the analog port)
1280x1024, 60Hz

Diamond ATi HD2400 PRO 512MB PCIE Mfg# DIA-2400PRO512PESB

Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2
E6550@ 2.33 GHz
3.00 GB RAM

Drivers for the monitors are installed and the most current.

I did not spec this machine out, it is just plopped on my desk. I cannot use this every day without getting a splitting headache, same goes with my colleagues. We are ready to take back our old computers. Any advise or help will be greatly appreciated and may save the IT guys neck :P

[Puwaha]

1) Uninstalled catalyst completely using control panel/uninstall.
2) Uninstalled CoreAVC (no other 264 decoders installed).
3) Reboot
4) Installed Catalyst 8.3 and Avivo Package 8.3
5) Installed PowerDVD Ultra 7.3.3723
6) In the options of PowerDVD, I checked use hardware acceleration.
7) Using Haali as my splitter, I opened one of my 1080i mp4 files.

TADA! GPU utilization is at around 25%, cpu at around 15-20%, and it is deinterlaced PERFECTLY. I never realized that installing PowerDVD would install the decoder needed for 264 material, and that media player (and media center) would make use of it. No registry entries required.

Maybe all this seemed like a no-brainer to some people, but I'm just happy to have mpeg2 and 264 material accelerated. Interlaced material is no longer a problem!

Hmmm.... what about standard DVD content? If I use the AVIVO decoder with my 2400Pro, Vista Media Center complains that there is a decoder error when I try to play a DVD.

As it stands now, I have to switch to the MS-decoder for DVDs and back to the AVIVO decoder if I want to watch broadcast HD MPEG2 content. The MS-Decoder gives me green-screens on HD MPEG2 content.

Obviously, this is not very wife friendly. Anyone have any suggestions? I tried one of the PowerDVD builds, but none of the decoders seemed to give full acceleration in HD MPEG2 content.


Even my old Radeon 8500LE was better at MPEG2 decoding... what's the deal with this broken 2400Pro?

[Puwaha]

Just one other thing for people to remember - if you are using Vista you *must* use EVR if you want hardware acceleration.

EVR supports DXVA2 and PowerDVD also supports DXVA2.

DXVA was the original hardware acceleration under XP using VMR9 however while Vista supports DXVA it will not deliver hardware acceleration. If you're running Vista and use VMR9 your system will not be able to take full advantage of the hardware offloading.


Ok... I've seen this stated several times. How would I know if I am using DXVA2/EVR versus DXVA/VMR9?

How could I test this?

[arfster]

Ok... I've seen this stated several times. How would I know if I am using DXVA2/EVR versus DXVA/VMR9?

How could I test this?

The player decides - for instance WMP always uses EVR in Vista, as does PDVD in file mode (although for Bluray/HDDVD it's using some other unknown, possibly a custom built renderer for security). Some of them will let you change it, like MPC or Theatertek.

[Puwaha]

The player decides - for instance WMP always uses EVR in Vista, as does PDVD in file mode (although for Bluray/HDDVD it's using some other unknown, possibly a custom built renderer for security). Some of them will let you change it, like MPC or Theatertek.


In the case of Vista Media Center... what decides? Is it the decoder, the driver, a combination of the two?


For instance... if I use the MS-decoder with my 2400pro and any driver other than the 7.7 catalysts... I'll get a green-screen in HD MPEG2 within Media Center. But in WMP, it will play fine. But I can't use the 7.7 catalysts because that same HD MPEG2 video will stutter within VMC, but play fine in WMP!

Doesn't VMC use WMP?

If not... how do I verify that VMC is using EVR?

[tvted]

I've just purchased the Sapphire 2600PRO AGP version. Unfortunately I didn't realise the AGP version does not support what HDMI facilitates. Its not a grand woof in this application, which is a vainglorious attempt to bring an older Athlon box up to snuff for BD playback with DXVA and aspect control via YXY for my Constant Height HT. HDMI isn't going to buy me anything that DVI and SPDIF won't in this case.

So before I begin the next stage of this hapless saga, can anyone advise with respect to any issues encountered with the latest CATALYST drivers? The Sapphire site indicates Catalyst 8.3 HOTFIX for AGP cards. I've been unable to find anything on the ATI site that states other than PCI-E, So I guess its safe to assume there are differences in the drivers for each slot type, and the only source I should trust is Sapphire?

If any of you know of issues with the aforementioned drivers kindlly hold my hand (figuratively of course ;))

ted

[enxian]

anyone can tell me if my system runs 1080p or 720p?

or what i need?

in 1080p i see like slow images with audio playing fine.
in 720p i see a frame drops but i can see it.

[Bgnome]

installing 8.3 catalyst after a driver cleaning and then the 8.3 hotfix is a good place to start.
http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=33033

with my visiontek 2400pro agp i do get the "pci device" for the hdmi audio so show up under device manager and can install the microsoft uua driver. however, i don't have any equipment that takes hdmi audio nor do i have the dongle so i haven't really messed with that.

[nathan118]

Hmmm.... what about standard DVD content? If I use the AVIVO decoder with my 2400Pro, Vista Media Center complains that there is a decoder error when I try to play a DVD.

As it stands now, I have to switch to the MS-decoder for DVDs and back to the AVIVO decoder if I want to watch broadcast HD MPEG2 content. The MS-Decoder gives me green-screens on HD MPEG2 content.

Sounds like you have other problems if the ms-decoder is giving you a green screen. The ms-decoder worked for me before, it was just terrible at deinterlacing. I don't play dvds, so I don't know if they work.

[tvted]

installing 8.3 catalyst after a driver cleaning and then the 8.3 hotfix is a good place to start.
http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=33033

with my visiontek 2400pro agp i do get the "pci device" for the hdmi audio so show up under device manager and can install the microsoft uua driver. however, i don't have any equipment that takes hdmi audio nor do i have the dongle so i haven't really messed with that.

Thanks for the link. Why the need for 8.3 intially? I'm making the assumption that the drivers on the Sapphire site *are* the patched 8.3? Luckily I keep my HTPC as a minimum install so a fresh XP though a pain is not daunting.

I'm in the same situation re an HDMI AVR as you, and my PS3 occupies my PJ HDMI. The PC will be DVI to VGA should she work. My hope is it does and I will be able to put off a complete build until the HDMI LPCM dust settles - G45 or NVidia 8300 on uATX and I've a new AVR to take advantage.

ted

[nathan118]

So my big 264 acceleration post has been tested, and it's not all roses. In a previous post I was able to get the cyberlink 264 decoder to work.

The 1080i 264 content that accelerated great was made with Vegas Video using Bluray presets, so it was probably a very compliant video. Unfortunately trying to play a bunch of 264 mkvs wasn't as successful. Out of about 10 videos, only half worked. I believe this is what people have mentioned about the cyberlink decoder not playing nicely with out of compliance videos.

So for now I'm back to my previous setup. If I could somehow only use the cyberlink decoder for interlaced 264 videos, and then use coreavc for everything else I'd be golden, but I don't think that will happen. My home movies are all mp4 containers, and my 720p theatre movies are mkv, so I don't know if I could do anything with that.

I was however able to fix my .ts files not being able to fast forward or rewind (skip forward and back). In graphedit I was using the nerosplitter on .ts files apparently, so I reinstalled haali and made sure mpeg-ts was checked. Using haali the video starts with a black screen, but if I pause and then hit play (or skip back after it starts) then the video appears and I have full skip forward and back control. Is there a better splitter for .ts files than matroska I should try so the video appears immediately?

I guess now I have everything working like I want except for 1080i AVC/264 material. I suppose I won't complain about that.

[arfster]

Unfortunately trying to play a bunch of 264 mkvs wasn't as successful. Out of about 10 videos, only half worked. I believe this is what people have mentioned about the cyberlink decoder not playing nicely with out of compliance videos.


That's the hardware unfortunately, not the decoder. The only area where the decoder is deficient is wrt compliant stuff that hasn't been flagged with a level, so the decoder assumes 5.1 and refuses acceleration.

[sdheda]

I just installed Vista Ultimate x86 SP1, and I am having a problem with EVR output. I am trying to setup MediaPortal as my frontend, but when I select EVR as the output type it appears as though a row of pixels from the bottom of the screen show up on the top. The same goes with the right and left portions.

If I use MPC and set its output to EVR it also does the same thing. However if I set it to EVR Custom, it does not. The problem is that MediaPortal does not offer this option as the output type.

Does anyone know why this is happening, and if there is a solution to this?

[cwchiang]

I have an LCD projector hooked up to the VGA (monitor on DVI) of my Gigabyte 2400pro, and the resolution keeps reverting to 1280x1024. Is there a known problem with dual displays? (I also can't get the overlay controls working in Ffdshow, but that may not be related.) I'm running the 8.3 Catalyst drivers and XP Pro.

[warlockuk]

There was someone posting a few dozen pages back who said they had an ATI HD2400 Pro and when it was HD-accellerating he just got a black screen. Anyone find a workaround for that?

I have a 3.2GHz P4 running on an socket 478 mobo with an ATI HD-2400 AGP, Catalyst 8.3, the latest reg. tweaks (1.13?) Cyberlink PowerDVD (or whichever one it was that does HDXA) and MPC-HD... it seems if I use the PowerDVD plugin I can watch 720p MKVs but no hardware acceleration and if I use the plugin for MPC-HD as detailed a few pages back I get hardware acceleration but a black screen and the transport bar doesn't show the video as actually playing...

So... yeah. Any of this seem familiar? I've read pretty much every page on this thread over the last few months and can't find any configuration that works for me. Might have to try putting Vista Basic or something on the PC, I dunno...

[videonub]

Hey guys i have some 720p x264 mkv files that i am playing with MPC-HC and since I am running vista i have to use EVR mode. When using EVR(vista / .net3) I am unable to change the aspect ratio and what i really like doing is playing these videos with the zoom to wide screen setting, under pan&scan. Changing these settings does nothing to the video. I can't use EVR custom because this causes the screen to go black, which I assume is normal. I am hoping there is something I can change within MPC-HC because i like the internal video decoder, but I would be willing to use a different player if need be.

Thanks

[Puwaha]

Sounds like you have other problems if the ms-decoder is giving you a green screen. The ms-decoder worked for me before, it was just terrible at deinterlacing. I don't play dvds, so I don't know if they work.


I've even tried the Cyberlink decoder, but it green screens on me as well. The only decoder that doesn't green-screen is the AVIVO one on my machine. Apparently it's a known issue by ATI:

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=27622

But obviously, they aren't interested in fixing is since its been an outstanding issue since June of 2007.


I was hoping that someone here had experienced the same problem and came up with a solution of a certain driver/decoder combination that would work for them.

[Puwaha]

I have finally found something that works for me. If anyone else is having the green-screen problem with the MS-Decoder, check this Microsoft Hotfix:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943195/en-us

The Cyberlink decoder still goes green on HD MPEG2 video, so I guess this really only applies to the MS-Decoder.

[JimmyFace]

There was someone posting a few dozen pages back who said they had an ATI HD2400 Pro and when it was HD-accellerating he just got a black screen. Anyone find a workaround for that?

I have a 3.2GHz P4 running on an socket 478 mobo with an ATI HD-2400 AGP, Catalyst 8.3, the latest reg. tweaks (1.13?) Cyberlink PowerDVD (or whichever one it was that does HDXA) and MPC-HD... it seems if I use the PowerDVD plugin I can watch 720p MKVs but no hardware acceleration and if I use the plugin for MPC-HD as detailed a few pages back I get hardware acceleration but a black screen and the transport bar doesn't show the video as actually playing...

So... yeah. Any of this seem familiar? I've read pretty much every page on this thread over the last few months and can't find any configuration that works for me. Might have to try putting Vista Basic or something on the PC, I dunno...

There are a handful of 720p MKV files that will do this for me. Even after I change their IDC to 4.1 and it's this exact behavior. But you would be pretty unlucky to have this replicated for multiple MKV files. That's what the PowerDVD decoder does when it can't accelerate it.

If it's just the one file you might want to find a file that you know is DXVA compliant.

I've also read that if there are any other filters like FFDShow or others in there you may need to specifically block them as they affect the ability of the decoder to accelerate.

[Siptang]

I have noticed that there are alot of ati hd radeon2600pro users here and hopefully you guys can help me.

My problem is this.

I have 3 gigs of ram, lg bd and hd dvd rom drive, c2d 6700, msi 2600pro and so andso computer. I have it hooked up to my 1080p toshiba via dvi-hdmi adapter and hdmi cable from there to tv. I'm trying to watch my hd dvd or blu ray but with no success and it's frustrating the crap out of me.

I'm using, power dvd 7.3 ultra to play the movies and I have downloaded the adviser from the site and it tells me that video connection is digital without hdcp, now why is this? Specs clearly states that this is hdcp compatible and is hdtv ready...
Also I'm using the latest catalyst drivers as well as 800w psu so I thihnk those I'm covered.


Any input will be greatly appreciated.

Siptang

[warlockuk]

There are a handful of 720p MKV files that will do this for me. Even after I change their IDC to 4.1 and it's this exact behavior. But you would be pretty unlucky to have this replicated for multiple MKV files. That's what the PowerDVD decoder does when it can't accelerate it.

If it's just the one file you might want to find a file that you know is DXVA compliant.

I've also read that if there are any other filters like FFDShow or others in there you may need to specifically block them as they affect the ability of the decoder to accelerate.
Hmm... I deactivated VobSub as that was breaking it and forcing it back into software... what I might do is remove FFDShow and every filter I don't want doing anything entirely and go from there...

...aaand that did it. I uninstalled FFDShow (which was part of some codec pack) and now all my 720P vids work in MPC-HC with 10-20% CPU usage.

Cheers!

[Maier2505]

I have noticed that there are alot of ati hd radeon2600pro users here and hopefully you guys can help me.

My problem is this.

I have 3 gigs of ram, lg bd and hd dvd rom drive, c2d 6700, msi 2600pro and so andso computer. I have it hooked up to my 1080p toshiba via dvi-hdmi adapter and hdmi cable from there to tv. I'm trying to watch my hd dvd or blu ray but with no success and it's frustrating the crap out of me.

I'm using, power dvd 7.3 ultra to play the movies and I have downloaded the adviser from the site and it tells me that video connection is digital without hdcp, now why is this? Specs clearly states that this is hdcp compatible and is h