Any difference in PQ??

Yep, SD is noticeably cleaner and has a more stable image even with de-noise and sharpen off - HD is about the same. I also find the 4550 is much faster at locking on to video after hitting the 30sec skip button in VMC. :)

Cool, thanks for the heads up. I just ordered a HIS isilent HD4650, thought I'd go up to the 320 stream processors - and be dead silent. Guess I'll be selling my 2600pro on craigslist or something. will post reviews once received.

Recently, I've been experiencing a problem that I don't recall seeing mention of in this thread. When watching video, I'm seeing a horizontal line moving from the top to the bottom of the screen sort of like if vertical sync is off and the picture were rolling.

I'm using a Sapphire 3870 Toxic card in my HTPC which is running XP MCE 2005 SP2 and ATI Catalyst 8.3 (I think - need to double check that).

I recently replaced my 6 year old Mitsubishi 65" RPTV with a new Mitsubishi WD-65835 DLP. At the same time, I switched from connecting my HTPC via a DVI to VGA connector to using the ATI DVI to HDMI dongle. Prior to making this change, the problem did not exist. Since making this change, I haven't changed anything on the HTPC other than switching over to using the HDMI dongle and switching from 1080i to 1080p for the display resolution.

So far, I'm seeing the problem in TheaterTek with both DVD's and other media files - I'll be testing with BeyondTV, PowerDVD, and Arcsoft TMT to see if the problem exists across all software or not.

Any suggestions as to what might be wrong would be appreciated.

As far as I can find the latest AGP drivers are version 8.10 and are available at this site:

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=31625

I am successfully using the 8.10 version to play Blu-Ray's with my VisionTek 2600PRO AGP. I am running MCE 2005 using a Athlon XP 3200+ and PowerDVD 8 Ultra ver 2021U. However I am using SPDIF from the motherboard for my audio.

Thanks for your reply. But I have it all working again. I had go back to the drivers that came with the HIS video card but the 8.11 control center works with this as well.

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that AGP cards don't have HDMI audio. Do they even have HDMI ports on board? (mine, HD3850AGP has two DVI's with an adapter for HDMI)

My video card had the dvi port with the HDMI adapter. I still cannot get the audio to work when plugged directly into my onkyo 860 receiver, but it works fine when HDMI is first connected to my TV then using optical-out to the receiver. I don't think the onkyo 860 likes the AGP to HDMI converter for audio.

I'm using a Sapphire 3870 Toxic card in my HTPC which is running XP MCE 2005 SP2 and ATI Catalyst 8.3 (I think - need to double check that).
Correction - I'm using Catalyst 8.11.

So far, I'm seeing the problem in TheaterTek with both DVD's and other media files - I'll be testing with BeyondTV, PowerDVD, and Arcsoft TMT to see if the problem exists across all software or not.
I just ran some more tests. Arcsoft and PowerDVD do not give me the problem when playing Bluray disks. BeyondTV gives the same problem with some combinations of selected video renderer and whether hardware decoding is enabled. I did find that if I switch TheaterTek from VMR9 to Overlay the problem goes away.

There has been a "Horizontal Tearing" Bug @ 1080p (with interlaced content) since Catalyst v8.10 - ATi know about it but haven't fixed it yet. :(

There has been a "Horizontal Tearing" Bug @ 1080p (with interlaced content) since Catalyst v8.10 - ATi know about it but haven't fixed it yet. :(
Thanks - that could be it. If I get some time, I'll try going back to an older Catalyst version (pre-8.10) and see if the problem goes away.

The other problem I've been having, which is far less severe is that I've been unable to get the HDMI audio device to work. HDMI Audio isn't a selectable device in the Sounds and Audio Devices Properties -> Audio tab, but shows up in the Hardware tab as "ATI HDMI Audio". I've got another system in my bedroom with the same video card hooked up to a Panasonic plasma and the HDMI audio works fine, but it's running Vista. I'm suspicious that I'll need to upgrade my HTPC to Vista to get this to work - something I also plan to do, I just need to find the time to do it. As I recall, I switched to Catalyst 8.11 hoping it might help with the HDMI audio problem - I'm pretty sure I had been running Catalyst 8.3.

HDMI Audio has nothing to do with the catalyst drivers.

To get HDMI audio working properly it is just like the other ATI HDMI cards (I have tested this on HD2600Pro & HD4550); you must install the 27MB+ Realtek Software Pack 1st (2.12) and then install the 13MB Realtek AMD HDMI Driver (2.09) 2nd.

Until I did it in that order it wouldn't pass DD or DTS over HDMI or support multiple audio encoding frequencies (other than 48khz).

HDMI Audio Drivers are here: http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsCheck.aspx?Langid=1&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3

There has been a "Horizontal Tearing" Bug @ 1080p (with interlaced content) since Catalyst v8.10 - ATi know about it but haven't fixed it yet. :(
Switching back to Catalyst 8.3 has solved this problem - thanks for the info.

HDMI Audio has nothing to do with the catalyst drivers.
I had assumed that, but since it wasn't working I figured it couldn't hurt to try a newer Catalyst version :(.

To get HDMI audio working properly it is just like the other ATI HDMI cards (I have tested this on HD2600Pro & HD4550); you must install the 27MB+ Realtek Software Pack 1st (2.12) and then install the 13MB Realtek AMD HDMI Driver (2.09) 2nd.

Until I did it in that order it wouldn't pass DD or DTS over HDMI or support multiple audio encoding frequencies (other than 48khz).

HDMI Audio Drivers are here: http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsCheck.aspx?Langid=1&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3
I had installed those items (2.10 of the software pack) in the correct order - as I recall, it wouldn't allow them to install in the wrong order anyway. I also uninstalled them and installed the newer 2.12 and have the same problem. The ATI HDMI Audio device shows up fine in Device Manager, but isn't an available selection in the XP Control Panel -> Sounds and Audio Devices Properties -> Audio tab. I'm stumped on this one and if a fresh OS install is needed to get it to work, I'll switch to Vista while I'm at it.

I had installed those items (2.10 of the software pack) in the correct order - as I recall, it wouldn't allow them to install in the wrong order anyway. I also uninstalled them and installed the newer 2.12 and have the same problem. The ATI HDMI Audio device shows up fine in Device Manager, but isn't an available selection in the XP Control Panel -> Sounds and Audio Devices Properties -> Audio tab. I'm stumped on this one and if a fresh OS install is needed to get it to work, I'll switch to Vista while I'm at it.

I didnt realise you where using XP - sorry i cant be any help, I havent used XP with any of the ATI HD series video cards as my MediaPC is Vista.

Hi.

I've noticed ATI now has a forum for Catalyst discussion.
They seem to answer with "please direct this question to our Catalyst Support Program" quite a lot, however I wondered if it would be useful if we compiled a list of issues we have with Catalyst drivers regarding video playback and post it to this forum with an explicit topic title.

long-lasting bugs to include:

- inconsistent levels expansion between SD and HD
- no user option to enable or disable (and keep BTB and WTW) automatic expansion (btw, NVIDIA now provides this)
- Use of >= 720 vertical resolution to decide on 601 or 709 colour conversion, instead of something more logical like > 720 horizontal (or > 768 to take into account SD PAL sampled with square pixels).
- chroma upsampling quality issues (that thread at doom9)
- Can't choose pixel output format for DVI cards, although you can use a 3rd party DVI-to-HDMI cable which works perfectly but gets you stuck with only full range RGB.

I still have only a X1300 but I'm always pushing back my purchase of a 4xxx because I hope they will fix these issues and NVIDIA's range of cards is a bit obscure to me regarding features.

Do somebody here already has an account on ATI's forum?

Thats a great idea,

But we need to organize this is a little better.
We should compile an accurate list of all bugs, for those that have solutions we should add those aswell.

Each and everyone one of us should request a support ticket for each issue (the only way to get ATI to fix this bugs is to make them aware through the support chain)

I just raised a ticket to the catalyst crew for the horizontal tearing issue when using 1080p@50hz but im pretty sure they already know about it as per this note in the 8.12 release notes:

"Video corruption may occur when playing back 1080i MPEG2 content"

I didnt realise you where using XP - sorry i cant be any help, I havent used XP with any of the ATI HD series video cards as my MediaPC is Vista.
No worries - I'm planning on switching my HTPC over to Vista anyway (I have an extra license for Ultimate).

No worries - I'm planning on switching my HTPC over to Vista anyway (I have an extra license for Ultimate).

Cool, VMC is much better than XPMCE and well worth the upgrade - very easy to "upgrade" to more than 2 tuners too (I have 5 DVB-T :D ).

Cool, VMC is much better than XPMCE and well worth the upgrade - very easy to "upgrade" to more than 2 tuners too (I have 5 DVB-T :D ).
I actually don't really use the MCE features much and have 2 other systems in the house that have Vista Ultimate on them. I agree that VMC is a pretty big upgrade, so I may actually make use of it on the HTPC. My BeyondTV server has 7 HD OTA tuners though :D.

My BeyondTV server has 7 HD OTA tuners though :D.

Nice!! But then you guy's do have more channels worth recording than we do! :cool:

There has been a "Horizontal Tearing" Bug @ 1080p (with interlaced content) since Catalyst v8.10 - ATi know about it but haven't fixed it yet. :(
Well I'm stumped. I was previously running XP SP2 with a Radeon 2600 Pro, and didn't see this problem. Then I upgraded to Vista and a Radeon 4650 and while BluRay's and H.264 MKV's play fine, I'm getting this horizontal tearing on MPEG-2 playback in Sage TV. I've tried multiple video decoders and it doesn't help.

After reading your post I decided to uninstall Cat 8.12 and go back to 8.9 (which also meant putting the 2600 Pro back in since 8.9 doesn't support the 4650). Unfortunately I'm _STILL_ getting the tearing. So could there be another cause of this? I have an image of my working XP setup, but I hate to go back to it because BluRays look noticeably better on Vista with EVR...

Well I'm stumped. I was previously running XP SP2 with a Radeon 2600 Pro, and didn't see this problem. Then I upgraded to Vista and a Radeon 4650 and while BluRay's and H.264 MKV's play fine, I'm getting this horizontal tearing on MPEG-2 playback in Sage TV. I've tried multiple video decoders and it doesn't help.

After reading your post I decided to uninstall Cat 8.12 and go back to 8.9 (which also meant putting the 2600 Pro back in since 8.9 doesn't support the 4650). Unfortunately I'm _STILL_ getting the tearing. So could there be another cause of this? I have an image of my working XP setup, but I hate to go back to it because BluRays look noticeably better on Vista with EVR...

You need to completely uninstall the newer CC version first & reboot before reinstalling the older version - im putting up with it cause the 4550 is so much better at everything else than my 2600pro I can live with the occasional tearing.

You need to completely uninstall the newer CC version first & reboot before reinstalling the older version - im putting up with it cause the 4550 is so much better at everything else than my 2600pro I can live with the occasional tearing.

I did that. After reading your post I even went so far as to restore a disk image of a fresh Vista install that had never had any ATI drivers installed. I still see the horizontal tearing on 1080i MPEG-2 recordings. It shows up in the upper 1/4 of the screen, and the line will gradually drift towards the top of the frame only to reappear again later. This is a deal-breaker for me so the 4650 is going back and I guess I'll investigate NVidia cards.

Bugger, Im hoping it'll get fixed soon and am willing to live with it till then. :(

No worries - I'm planning on switching my HTPC over to Vista anyway (I have an extra license for Ultimate).
Oy - what was I thinking??? I decided to bite the bullet last night and started to install Vista Ultimate on my HTPC. Figuring it would be the most difficult piece to get right I decided to start with the video card drivers and get that piece working before putting the effort into install all of my other apps. I'm starting to think I should throw Vista out the window and switch back to XP Pro or XP MCE.

Prior to the OS switch, I had 1080p, 720p, and a custom resolution that eliminated the overscan on my Mitsubishi WD-65835 DLP set for regular desktop use. This was with Catalyst 8.3 (for XP, obviously). This also worked fine with Catalyst 8.11, but I had to go back to 8.3 because of the horizontal tearing discussed a few posts back.

After switching to Vista, I installed Catalyst 8.4 (for Vista) and rebooted to a blank screen. It turns out that Catalyst or Vista decided on a default resolution that my TV can't handle. I lugged the PC upstairs and connected it to my Panasonic plasma, switched to 1080p and took it back downstairs. After booting up, I had a picture with overscan. I created a custom resolution and got rid of the overscan. So far, so good. I tried switching to 720p and no picture. WTF??? So I figured that I'll just live with 1080p (720p is better for use of the desktop as everything is a bit bigger and easier to read from my seating position about 9 feet from the screen).

It was getting late, so I called it a night and shut the TV and my surround sound system off. The PC was left on.

This morning, I decided to try to knock off a few more things only to find that I again had no picture when I turned the TV and surround sound system back on. My first thought was that the computer had gone to sleep, but no response to keyboard or mouse. After a forced reboot, it came back with a picture again. I have now discovered that if I switch the TV or surround sound processor to a different input and back, the computer seems to select a different resolution that my TV is not happy with.

I went with Catalyst 8.4 because that's what I've been using with success on the PC in my bedroom connected to my Panasonic plasma. The 2 computers have identical Sapphire 3870 Toxic video cards.

The bottom output from the video card (the one closer to the motherboard connector) has a gray ATI HDMI dongle and is then connected to my Denon AVP-A1HDCI surround sound processor via HDMI. The Denon is then connected to one of the HDMI inputs on the TV. The HDMI cables are Blue Jeans Cable BJC Series-F2 cables. This exact configuration worked fine when the PC had XP MCE on it - the only changes are switching to Vista, a different version of Catalyst, and PowerStrip was installed when XP was installed, though I don't believe it was doing anything special with the resolutions I was using as it was mostly leftover from before the DLP set when I needed very custom resolutions for my previous Mitsubishi CRT RPTV.

So I guess the question is - is there anyway to lock the video card settings to 1080p rather than have it decide to switch to some other resolution? Do I perhaps need a custom monitor driver? Any other thoughts?

Oh and I installed the Realtek driver and ATI HDMI Audio driver and Windows is telling me that the HDMI connector is not hooked up, so it won't allow sound out. Ugh.

If I can't get these issues resolved, it's back to XP for this box :(.

So I guess the question is - is there anyway to lock the video card settings to 1080p rather than have it decide to switch to some other resolution? Do I perhaps need a custom monitor driver? Any other thoughts?This is a very common problem. You were lucky you had no similar problems under XP. You may find that disabling the "ATI External Event Utility" service helps. Otherwise you are into buying a "DVI Detective", which will prevent your PC from realising if the input source has been switched.

This is a very common problem. You were lucky you had no similar problems under XP. You may find that disabling the "ATI External Event Utility" service helps. Otherwise you are into buying a "DVI Detective", which will prevent your PC from realising if the input source has been switched.
The combination of installing PowerStrip and creating a custom monitor driver seems to have solved this problem. I suspect the monitor driver is what actually solved it.

The other problem I've been having, which is far less severe is that I've been unable to get the HDMI audio device to work. HDMI Audio isn't a selectable device in the Sounds and Audio Devices Properties -> Audio tab, but shows up in the Hardware tab as "ATI HDMI Audio".

Finally someone with the exact problem that I have..:confused:
Using XP Pro, this has definately worked earlier, but now the audio device is gone..

Anyone with a clue..?!?

I've been having problems getting HDMI audio to work, 720P resolutions working without PowerStrip intervening, and the HTPC switching back to a resolution my TV didn't like when switching inputs on my surround sound processor. Jong1 had suggested that I might need a DVI Detective to solve the resolution switching issue.

I was about to give up when I stumbled on the EDID Override Thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1091403) yesterday. This has solved all of the problems I was having. After getting the EDID for my TV and surround sound processor I created a custom monitor driver with EDID overrides. Now everything is working as expected. I have audio over HDMI, 720P is working fine without a need for PowerStrip, and the computer stays on the current resolution when I switch inputs on my surround sound processor.

For those having similar problems to what I described AND are using a surround sound processor (or receiver) between the PC and TV I strongly suggest you try the EDID override approach - it's easy, free, and has worked for a bunch of people so far.

Now I have to decide if I want to upgrade to a 4xxx series video card so I can get 7.1 LPCM audio over HDMI.

I recently upgraded to 8.12 and noticed that Vector Adaptive is gone from the de-interlacing methods. I had to go with Motion Adaptive. Anyone know why they did this?

Also, setting Pixel Format to Studio/Limited RGB works well for me. Only problem now is that if my set is off when I power up the HTPC and then power on the set after the ATI drivers loaded, I get nothing on-screen. Seems like a weird HDMI sync issue. This is with a Panasonic TH-58PZ800U.

I did a file compare on the appropriate GUID for each of the pixel formats and only two entries change. Here they are:

YCbCr 4:4:4
-----------

"GDOADJR6 DFP"=hex:00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,10,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,0 0,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

"CCPreview"=hex:30,00



YCbCr 4:2:2
-----------

"GDOADJR6 DFP"=hex:00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,10,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,0 0,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,04,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

"CCPreview"=hex:31,00



RGB Limited
-----------

"GDOADJR6 DFP"=hex:00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,10,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,0 0,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,08,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

"CCPreview"=hex:30,00



RGB Full
--------

"GDOADJR6 DFP"=hex:00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,10,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,0 0,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00, 00,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00

"CCPreview"=hex:31,00

In the first binary value only one byte changes - half way along the third line:

01 for RGB full
02 for YCbCr 4:4:4
04 for YCbCr 4:2:2
08 for RGB limited

Looking at the registry entries I did spot something else that might be useful. Sorry if it has been spotted and discussed before. It is an entry in "0000" and "0001". It is a DWORD entry "DFP_AddHDTVPixelFormats" with a value of "2" in all cases above on my system.

Beware though, on my system these new pixel formats are anything but perfect! I posted my experiences here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=15107510&postcount=86)

Any news on these findings?
Has anyone been able to turn them into working .reg files to switch between them all and tested that it works for non-dongle users?

I need some help before I lose my mind. I have either lost my mind or something is really broken…LOL

I built this about a year ago and it’s been pretty flawless and stable and I was really happy until five days ago when I started to get a black screen out of nowhere. It flashed to black then back again and it would do this slowly then increase in speed and at time my monitor would say no signal. My first thinking was a corrupt driver or I had managed to let something slip by and drop a bug.

The specs:
Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H
4MB
AMD 6400 3.2gh
ATI HD 2600 XT
LG Combo Drive
750HD
Vista 32
Westinghouse LVM-47W1
WinDVD9 plus

So here is what happens, or I should say started. First it would flash to a black screen and it was intermittent. But several times a minute. Then it would increase in frequency off then on etc. To the point I finally got a no signal and it was flashing about twice a second. But, if I chose another screen size it would stop and if I went to the log on/off screen it would stop. So to me it was not a monitor or hardware issue. I also swapped cables and went from my AV receiver to DVI to DVI in.

Ran the usual reg cleaners, etc., updated the driver and ATI Catalyst. Finally, decided after some research I could have a corrupt registry and a drive format was needed. So I decided to run Windows 7 beta. Same problem, at full screen 1920x1080 it would flash again and then just go black, but at a lower resolution like really low it was stable 1280x1024. I tried all sorts of drivers, ATI updates, MOBO driver updates, etc. So in a desperate move I loaded in XP and it went black as soon as I went to 1920x1080. But then I noticed a tick box on the ATI Catalyst that said “'Reduce DVI frequency on high-resolution displays” I tired that and it stopped the black screen and all was fine. Now I had never had to set this control before.

So I reload Vista again, load the new ATI drivers etc. Start at 1280x1040 and its fine. I change to 1920x1080 and it goes flashing black as expected. So I check the tick box and all is back to “normal”. I think I am ok now and go back to spending hours loading software. I get all ready to play a DVD and nothing, I mean at the bottom of the screen at the task bar I can see colors rolling. Then it locks up and give me a driver error. I try it again. Same thing. I now go back to 1280x1040 box un-ticked and the blu-ray plays fine at this resolution.

Well very oddly on a cold boot today I ran it again it played ok at 1280X1040, so I ran it up to 1920X1080 with the box un-ticked and so far it was working. The I ran a blu-ray and it loaded and came up but I have a lot of banding and pixelization at the bottom 25% of the screen and the video playback is very jerky and pixeilizes and the area of the task bar is all flickering with color.

Not sure if my card is drying or I have a driver/software problem

I am lost. Help! :eek:

Well, I got back this afternoon and had it up and running for about 15 minutes and then it flashed once, I was only doing a windows update d/l. The longer I left it on the more and faster it became. This is exactly how it started five days ago.

I am totally lost, I think it might be a heat related problem but if I hit "CRTL ALT DEL" and then go the shut down screen it stops. I can leave the shut down screen up and no flashing. Now to me that would say its not a hardware problem or over heating or it would continue. But if I hit cancel and exit this screen to the desk top it starts right back up again.

So I am just totally lost.

UPDATE: well, I decided I was going to open the case and take a peek at the card. Since I was going to head out and buy a new card anyways. But then (remember I did change cables and stuff before) I thought you know this card has two DVI outs, lets try the other...and so far...its been working fine. Will let you all know if this was the fix or not. <shrug>

So when the bloody hell are ATI going to let us change from 0-255 to 16-235? Nvidia do it already and it can be adjusted on the fly. It's a bloody handy thing to be able to do. But no, ATI forces you to use 0-255 and has 16-235 for material under 720P horizontal resolution. This is just retarded (which is why we have to use the registry hack.)

It's about time Ati picked up their game.

So when the bloody hell are ATI going to let us change from 0-255 to 16-235? Nvidia do it already and it can be adjusted on the fly. It's a bloody handy thing to be able to do. But no, ATI forces you to use 0-255 and has 16-235 for material under 720P horizontal resolution. This is just retarded (which is why we have to use the registry hack.)

It's about time Ati picked up their game.

it's there already the options are Full Range RGB and Limited Range RGB in the catalyst control center.

Are you so sure? I've fiddled with that and didn't notice any difference at all.

*Goes to check*

Are you so sure? I've fiddled with that and didn't notice any difference at all.

*Goes to check*

It's in the DTV section (cant remember exact location atm) in 8.12.

I makes a big difference when you have an ISF calibrated plasma - the colours end up oversaturated with full range and blacks get crushed.

I have my screen calibrated for the Full range because it's all the card has ever given me and still does. That Limited and Full option didn't do a thing.

Hopefully it actually works in 9.1 because I'd like to calibrate the screen with 16-235 and not have blacks and whites crushed.

Btw I tested in Media Portal VMR9 and PowerDVD 7 VMR7. Still getting clipped blacks and whites to 16 and 235.

I have my screen calibrated for the Full range because it's all the card has ever given me and still does. That Limited and Full option didn't do a thing.

Hopefully it actually works in 9.1 because I'd like to calibrate the screen with 16-235 and not have blacks and whites crushed.

Btw I tested in Media Portal VMR9 and PowerDVD 7 VMR7. Still getting clipped blacks and whites to 16 and 235.

Maybe you need to turn "use application" settings off for the colour setup and revert to "standard".

It makes a big difference in VMC as before I had to turn up the brightness and turn down the contrast to compensate.

Btw, im using a HD4550 now and never tried 8.12 on my 2600pro.

Maybe, I'll give it a shot. It seems to work for other people here?

Nothing I can do will give me 16-235. I can get it for SD without the reg hack but that's it.

On second thoughts tho, if I ever did manage to, it would make my desktop, thus my frontend, mediaportal all dark and look out of place. So I guess I have to settle for a happy medium.

it's there already the options are Full Range RGB and Limited Range RGB in the catalyst control center.


hey guys...i have used a DVI to HDMI adaptor to connect my palit 4850 to my sharp LCD...and catalyst recognizes my TV as DTV(DVI), and hence i don't have the option to switch between full/limited RGB...
How else can i fix the black crush prob? does reg hack really work?
pls help me in my thread....

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15578355#post15578355

thanks

hey guys...i have used a DVI to HDMI adaptor to connect my palit 4850 to my sharp LCD...and catalyst recognizes my TV as DTV(DVI), and hence i don't have the option to switch between full/limited RGB...
How else can i fix the black crush prob? does reg hack really work?
pls help me in my thread....

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15578355#post15578355

thanks

IIRC it's only available while running HDMI in CCC 8.12.

Somebody in this situation try one of the two registry options given above. They may well not work but we wont know until someone tries!

I have the ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro. Using one of the DVIs to HDMI to my big screen tv and working fine. But I would like to output to my other TV but need component output from my card. What is the best way to go about this? Can I use the other DVI port or do I have to use the S-Video out? My computer also has a built in Video out? Which has the best quality out and what type of adapter/cable do I need?

I have the ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro. Using one of the DVIs to HDMI to my big screen tv and working fine. But I would like to output to my other TV but need component output from my card. What is the best way to go about this? Can I use the other DVI port or do I have to use the S-Video out? My computer also has a built in Video out? Which has the best quality out and what type of adapter/cable do I need?

Don't know about you but my Gigabyte 2600 Pro came with an adapter box to allow component output out of the S-Video port on the video card. You need to use that.

I have the ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro. Using one of the DVIs to HDMI to my big screen tv and working fine. But I would like to output to my other TV but need component output from my card. What is the best way to go about this? Can I use the other DVI port or do I have to use the S-Video out? My computer also has a built in Video out? Which has the best quality out and what type of adapter/cable do I need?

In addition to what daMaster said:

Although the black round connector on the back of the card is labeled 'S-Video', it is actually a proprietary connector, your ATI card should have come with the adaptor that fits that connector and provides RCA type component video leads... mine did.

Yes I do have that adapter but the quality coming out of it is not very good as it is composite and not component quality. That is why I was asking if I can use the DVI port or the VGA video port and an adapter and have better quality?

Yes I do have that adapter but the quality coming out of it is not very good as it is composite and not component quality. That is why I was asking if I can use the DVI port or the VGA video port and an adapter and have better quality?

Here is a pic of the actual adapter that came with my Gigabyte 2600 Pro. It clearly has red/green/blue COMPONENT output, not COMPOSITE. Are you sure you're using the right adapter for your card???

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=130738&stc=1&d=1232649798

Component video should give you an excellant picture, almost as good as a digital signal.

This is a link to the ATI page that describes the HDTV adapters (the type I have is pictured second from the left).

http://ati.amd.com/products/hdtvadapter/index.html

When you say: not very good as it is composite and not component quality

What seems to be the problem, a more complete description would be helpful...

This is a link to the ATI page that describes the HDTV adapters (the type I have is pictured second from the left).

The second one from the left is the one I got with my Radeon 3470 HD but for some reason my Gigabyte 2600 Pro came with the different one I posted above.

The adapter that came with my card was the S-Video to composite, 1 RCA jack for the yellow video cable. That is why I said the quality is not very good. How do I go about getting one of those other cables? I can't find them anywhere. I am located in Canada.

The adapter that came with my card was the S-Video to composite, 1 RCA jack for the yellow video cable. That is why I said the quality is not very good. How do I go about getting one of those other cables? I can't find them anywhere. I am located in Canada.
You could try this: http://cgi.ebay.com/7-Pin-S-Video-to-Component-Adapter-ATI-X700-X800-NEW_W0QQitemZ370142340041QQcmdZViewItemQQptZPCA_Cables_Adapt ers?hash=item370142340041&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1 |293%3A1|294%3A50

Are you in Montreal? I'm sure you can find one at the local PC shops around here...

What about the AMD/ATI websie (inline store)?

Okay I got the cable but the color is off and I can't adjust it in the settings to make it right. So how do I tell if it is the cable or the card which is bad?

Okay I got the cable but the color is off and I can't adjust it in the settings to make it right. So how do I tell if it is the cable or the card which is bad?
Most likely it's the wrong cable for your card. In ATI Catalyst Control Center, do you see it detect a COMPONENT connection?

Okay I got the cable but the color is off and I can't adjust it in the settings to make it right. So how do I tell if it is the cable or the card which is bad?


Tioxide, a little more information would be helpfull rather then simply saying 'off'...

Then you say 'can't adjust it in the settings to make it right'... what are trying to adjust/fix?

Have you tried a different component color source connected to your display to make sure everything is OK from the display's perspective?

I bought this card well over a year ago to get an htpc running, and in frustration I abandoned the project. Well for some reason I have decided to attempt it again. I am at square 1 here and the results of dxva checker, if I am reading them correctly say I am getting no hardware acceleration at all. I have been skimming back through this thread for at least 5 hours now, but I will admit I haven't read all 200+ pages!


Specs:
MSI K8T MB
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
1.5gb ram
Visiontek 2400 hd pro agp (256)
Fresh install of vista ultimate as of last night.
8.11 drivers from visiontek website.
ATI 8.12 agp hotix.
then, all ATI drivers removed and original cd drivers installed (ati 7.6)

In dxva checker under the decoder device tab my first 5 devices show only 720x480. The device marked Modeh264 is blank.

Under the processor device tab I do show HD resolutions.

What am I looking for here? I assume the processor tab is simply software capabilities?

For test files I have one blue ray dvd, and I have downloaded some wmv files in both 720 and 1080P for test. Software for testing is power dvd 8 trial downloaded yesterday from cyberlink website, so should be the newest. And Klite codec pack including MPC (first the full version, then tried the mega)

I followed the instructions here to try and test h.264 acceleration:
http://ranpha.wordpress.com/page-1/
Of course I get no play back at all when I disable ff video and cyberlink h264 filter. I can only get any video if I enable them, with a cpu usage of 99-100% or by playing in media player 11, again software filter and 100% cpu usage.

I am sure these sound like very noob questions, but simply, is there a way I can use this box for my htpc with a blu ray rom player that I just bought? Otherwise I will just return the drive until I can afford an entirely new HTPC which will be god only knows when.

Are ATI HD Registry Tweaks still applicable for HD4850 & Catalyst 8.12?

I believe so, I use them on my 4550 with no problems.

No one tried the 9.12 drivers yet? I just downloaded them for Windows XP and am now trying to clean up the old mess to try with these ;-)

No one tried the 9.12 drivers yet?

they haven't been released yet.

I have a 2 year old ATI Radeon 2900XT and I use it specifically for HD playback, no games at all.

I would to know if upgrading to a better card will display better results in the playback of my Blu-ray movies, no matter what the cost of the card.

I particularly would like a card that has the option to do DNR (digital noise reduction) as with my current card I cannot use that feature, plus other features like Gamma, saturation etc. If there is such a card I'd love to know. My current card has all these features but not the DNR.

Also, if someone is familiar with this Radeon 2900XT I would like to know if they can assist me with the Gamma control, in the Catalyst Center when I click on the Gamma control it rises in these increments 1.00 - 1.10 - 1.20 - 1.45 - 1.70 - 2.20 and I don't know what I've done wrong, I used to be able to take it up .10 increments at a time but not anymore it just jumps from 1.20 to 1.45 then to 1.70 to 2.20 so if someone can help me fix this issue I'd appreciate it.

I actually do have a Noise Reduction feature but it doesn't work, any help is appreciated.

With regard to the question about video acceleration; my sense it that it is the playback software that invokes the acceleration. In my case, Arcsoft invokes the acceleration quite well...and I am happy with the image as VGA or the equivalent of 720 p (or what I believe is at that ragne). PowerDVD is generally OK at that definition level. My system, which is relatively underpowered, can't hack it at 1080i or 1080p. But then again...I get the impression that a lot of people have problems with these higher resolution levels (would love some comments along these lines).

I recently upgraded to 8.12 and noticed that Vector Adaptive is gone from the de-interlacing methods. I had to go with Motion Adaptive. Anyone know why they did this?

Also, setting Pixel Format to Studio/Limited RGB works well for me. Only problem now is that if my set is off when I power up the HTPC and then power on the set after the ATI drivers loaded, I get nothing on-screen. Seems like a weird HDMI sync issue. This is with a Panasonic TH-58PZ800U.

I'm having exactly the same problem after upgrading to 8.12 or 9.1. "VForceDeint = 6" method is no longer working for the above two Catalyst. Was able to enable vector adaptive on my 780G (HD3200) using the registry method under Catalyst 8.11 or below.
Anybody can get around the problem?

they haven't been released yet.

???

I downloaded them for Windows XP last friday. From the regular ATI download location?

Display driver, HDMI driver and Avivo codec series. All V9.12

???

I downloaded them for Windows XP last friday. From the regular ATI download location?

Display driver, HDMI driver and Avivo codec series. All V9.12

Ah, Xp not Vista, Vista is only 9.1 atm

No. The digit after the dot is the month. 9.12 will be in December this year. Either you downloaded 8.12 (December release) or 9.1 (January).

I have a 2 year old ATI Radeon 2900XT and I use it specifically for HD playback, no games at all.

I would to know if upgrading to a better card will display better results in the playback of my Blu-ray movies, no matter what the cost of the card.

I particularly would like a card that has the option to do DNR (digital noise reduction) as with my current card I cannot use that feature, plus other features like Gamma, saturation etc. If there is such a card I'd love to know. My current card has all these features but not the DNR.

Also, if someone is familiar with this Radeon 2900XT I would like to know if they can assist me with the Gamma control, in the Catalyst Center when I click on the Gamma control it rises in these increments 1.00 - 1.10 - 1.20 - 1.45 - 1.70 - 2.20 and I don't know what I've done wrong, I used to be able to take it up .10 increments at a time but not anymore it just jumps from 1.20 to 1.45 then to 1.70 to 2.20 so if someone can help me fix this issue I'd appreciate it.

I actually do have a Noise Reduction feature but it doesn't work, any help is appreciated.

Bump

Bump

Noise reduction works OK here using a 2600XT with catalyst 9.1.
What do you mean when you say it is not working.
Which OS / which Catalyst?

It looks like with 9.1 driver my ATI 4870 shows correct picture (0-255) of SD and <720 height HD videos in kmplayer with evr c/a renderer. However i have dull blacks in mpc HC with evr c/p. Have someone checked this already?

It looks like dynamic contrast feature in CCC does this. But after I ticked off this feature I've got nice picture in kmplayer nevertheless. So it's not dynamic contrast feature does this. Any responce? Thanks.

It looks like with 9.1 driver my ATI 4870 shows correct picture (0-255) of SD and <720 height HD videos in kmplayer with evr c/a renderer. However i have dull blacks in mpc HC with evr c/p. Have someone checked this already?

It looks like dynamic contrast feature in CCC does this. But after I ticked off this feature I've got nice picture in kmplayer nevertheless. So it's not dynamic contrast feature does this. Any responce? Thanks.

Where did you find that feature?
Cannort see it anywhere?

Hi.

I was finally greeted by ATI driver team incompetence this weekend when I finished building my new system with a 4650.

On the plus side, I have access to Vector Adaptive in all resolutions, all "image enhancements" are available but can also be disabled after a quick jump through the options of DXVA Checker, and when I set the pixel output to 4:4:4 YCbCr it sticks after a reboot so in a way I'm happy.

On the minus side, I get absolutely no hardware acceleration for anything.
I'm on XP and when I check with DXVA Checker, the only modes listed are IDCT MPEG2 (btw, where is your advertised full bitstream MPEG2 decode with the 4000 cards, ATI? Guess you don't have to actually implement advertised features when no big website tests them anyway...) and VC1, both in DXVA2, which is no use in XP.
There is simply not a single DXVA1 mode available for any codec.

This is a clean install with Catalyst 9.1 of an HIS 4650 that was first released in october, so it can't come from garbage left by previous drivers or things like that, it's just improper QA of driver development.

No amount of tweaking the registry options, even the VForcewhatever entries, or reinstalling DirectX, would re-enable DXVA1 modes.
I also tried switching the TV to the second output, didn't change anything. And I don't use multiple displays.

I figure as it's already the 16th I might wait for Catalyst 9.2, I can live without decode acceleration for the moment as long as I have deinterlacing, but it's sad these things keep happening even on fresh clean installs, especially since I already tried Cat 9.1 on my old X1300 and it was fine.

Hi,

I'm having problems with my 2600xt agp resuming from standby. My computer resumes fine, but the video signal doesnt seem to be passed to my tv. I'm using the 8.4 drivers and a dvi-hdmi cable. Has anyone else had a similar problem?

Hi,

I'm having problems with my 2600xt agp resuming from standby. My computer resumes fine, but the video signal doesnt seem to be passed to my tv. I'm using the 8.4 drivers and a dvi-hdmi cable. Has anyone else had a similar problem?

You might try updating your AGP drivers. The current AGP drivers (9.2) are available at this link:

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=31625

I have been using the XP Pro drivers with MCE 2005.

John

Hi,

I'm having problems with my 2600xt agp resuming from standby. My computer resumes fine, but the video signal doesnt seem to be passed to my tv. I'm using the 8.4 drivers and a dvi-hdmi cable. Has anyone else had a similar problem?

If it's XP, disable the ATI Hotkey Poller service. For Vista, disable the ATI External Event Utility service. This seems to fix the black screen from S3 resume for most people.

If it's XP, disable the ATI Hotkey Poller service. For Vista, disable the ATI External Event Utility service. This seems to fix the black screen from S3 resume for most people.

Yeah I gave that a shot. No luck. If I select the force tv detection checkbox but after I resume from s3 my desktop resolution is all screwed up and I ccc wont let me change the resolution settings back to 720p.

You might try updating your AGP drivers. The current AGP drivers (9.2) are available at this link:

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=31625

I have been using the XP Pro drivers with MCE 2005.

John

I'm using 8.4 because I thought that dxva was screwed up in later releases for agp cards. Does this release support dxva?

I just installed a PowerColor HD 2600XT into my P4 3.2 machine. I was debating whether to create a whole new HTPC or upgrade this one in an attempt to play 1080p (h264) stuff. I think I made the wrong decision.

Well, my "upgraded" computer now can't even play 720p h264 smoothly. I had a 5 year old 9200 128MB card that at least played that just fine. Looked good at 720p or 768p timings, however, couldn't get it to do a 1080p desktop on my Mits DLP to save my life.

So first of all, I want to change to a limited RGB color output, but apparently this option is only available in Catalyst on an HDMI display. I am using a DVI->HDMI cable, and Catalyst just sees it as a DVI. Maybe an adapter instead of a cable would solve this but I don't see why.

Does anyone know how to change the color range from 0-255 to 16-235 if Catalyst only shows "Digital Display (DVI) 3"? I have slight ghosting or ringing that I believe is caused by the white clipping, and my black levels don't look right.

As for drivers, ATI's site doesn't even list drivers for my card as it says 2600XT (PCIe) and there is no option for AGP. If I try to install any display drivers other than what came with the card it tells me my hardware is incompatible and exits setup. So I believe that is stuck at 8.5.

However, I was able to install the CCC from 8.12. Which I thought was odd.

I am gonna scrounge around for a DVI->HDMI adapter tomorrow, cause I am definitely not paying $7 plus shipping for an adapter that should have come with the card. But technically, I should be able to select the pixel format for DVI as well, so if anyone has any tricks that would be nice.

What is the current thinking on maximum resolutions for the 2400 and the 2600 units (in terms of 720p, 1080i, 1080p)?

I was under the impression that the 2400 units can't go beyond 720p or VGA...?

The 2600 definitely does 1080p just fine. That's the one thing I haven't had a problem with yet and the little custom resolution tool in Catalyst works like a charm. 1 million times easier to use than powerstrip, which I've been using for the last six years or so.

Can anyone break down the steps I need to do so that I can get hardware h264 acceleration for 720p/1080p video in Media player classic? My new HD 2600XT uses more CPU playing 720p than my almost six year old 9200.

If there is some version of MPC I need, fine, or if I have to use powerdvd, I might be able to live with that, but I bought this card specifically so I could watch 1080p movies, and my system can't even watch 720p smoothly now.

Ok using Halli and MPC-HomeCinema I now have dxva working for 720p video. Very nice to see 3-4% cpu util.

However, 1080p (actually the only video I have is 1920x800), says "not using dxva". It plays but at 90-100% CPU like it did before.

So what would cause my AGP 2600XT to dxva on 720p movies but not the larger size? I read somewhere there might be a limitation to Halli, but that doesn't seem right, since that would make the file unplayable altogether.

Any help would be appreciated.

I use PCI-E HD2600XT in Vista and can use DXVA for playback of H.264 content at home. Recently I am thinking of upgrading the display card at home (may be a HD4850) and move the HD2600XT card to my PC at workplace which has only PCI-E 1x slot. I read the forum that it is possible to cut the 16 PCI-E lanes down to 1 lane and the 2600XT should still work in PCI-E 1x mode. To make sure the card will work, I first put plastic tape on some of the connectors on 2600XT so as to make the 2600XT run at PCI-E 1x mode. I succeeded but soon discovered that DXVA is not used for playback of H.264 content (but DXVA is still used for MPEG2 decoding). I am using the latest Catalyst 9.2 driver. I tried the ATI HD Registry tweak but it does not help at all. If I remove some tape on the connectors so as to make the 2600XT runs at PCI-E 4x mode, the DXVA is used automatically for H.264 and MPEG2 contents.

Anyone has similar experience as mine and is there any solution for that?

As I have to cut the card to make it fit to a PCI-E 1x slot and once the card is cut there is no way to go back to higher PCI-E mode. If H.264 hardware decoding is lost then I have to think again if it is worth to cut the card.

So what would cause my AGP 2600XT to dxva on 720p movies but not the larger size?
Too many reference frames (Profile High@L4.1). 720p files that exceed the limits are rare, but 1080p files are common.

You can use AVInaptic (http://fsinapsi.altervista.org/) to see the num_ref_frames value.

Max reference frames (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12728994#12728994):
1920x1088: 4
1920x864: 5
1920x720: 6

1280x720: 9
1280x648: 10
1280x588: 11
1280x540: 12

1280x498: 13
1280x462: 14
1280x432: 15
1280x405: 16

Thanks Ex Deus. After reading some threads on Doom9, this is what I suspected. I am guessing it's going to be worthwhile to just build a new PC that can play 1080p in software. Processor horsepower can take care of a lot of issues.

I used Avinaptic and it shows it has 8 ref frames, which is greater than the 5.xomething max it would have.

Is it possible to convert it? Although I am sure it takes more flops than is worthwhile on a P4 3.2?

I have a Sapphire hd2600xt on vista 32 bit. Since 8.12 (i think) I've lost all the avivo video settings in the Catalyst control center. Basically all the options except deinterlace are "blocked" and grayed out. No update managed to fix this yet. I've tried with a clean install of 9.2 but the problem persists. Any ideas what could be causing this?

Look at the beginning of this thread. Download the vbs script and run the registry tweaks. Just add them all. Your options should be back.

nvidia VP2 and later hardware support H.264 at High Profile@L5.1 in Windows with Forceware 178.xx and later.

Too many reference frames (Profile High@L4.1). 720p files that exceed the limits are rare, but 1080p files are common.

You can use AVInaptic (http://fsinapsi.altervista.org/) to see the num_ref_frames value.

Max reference frames (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12728994#12728994):
1920x1088: 4
1920x864: 5
1920x720: 6

1280x720: 9
1280x648: 10
1280x588: 11
1280x540: 12

1280x498: 13
1280x462: 14
1280x432: 15
1280x405: 16

I did some searching around on doom9 and can't find instructions for reducing the number of reference frames (whether it's worth it or not).

Anyone have a good link?

I'd like to at least have the option.

I use PCI-E HD2600XT in Vista and can use DXVA for playback of H.264 content at home. Recently I am thinking of upgrading the display card at home (may be a HD4850) and move the HD2600XT card to my PC at workplace which has only PCI-E 1x slot. I read the forum that it is possible to cut the 16 PCI-E lanes down to 1 lane and the 2600XT should still work in PCI-E 1x mode. To make sure the card will work, I first put plastic tape on some of the connectors on 2600XT so as to make the 2600XT run at PCI-E 1x mode. I succeeded but soon discovered that DXVA is not used for playback of H.264 content (but DXVA is still used for MPEG2 decoding). I am using the latest Catalyst 9.2 driver. I tried the ATI HD Registry tweak but it does not help at all. If I remove some tape on the connectors so as to make the 2600XT runs at PCI-E 4x mode, the DXVA is used automatically for H.264 and MPEG2 contents.

Anyone has similar experience as mine and is there any solution for that?

As I have to cut the card to make it fit to a PCI-E 1x slot and once the card is cut there is no way to go back to higher PCI-E mode. If H.264 hardware decoding is lost then I have to think again if it is worth to cut the card.


I am of a view that my problem in DXVA @ PCI-E 1x mode is related to similar problem of jdwk with AGP version of the 2400 / 2600 chipset. Since last post I read other forums and discover a successful case of enabling DXVA for H.264 playback at 2400Pro PCI card. (conventional PCI but not PCI-E). The solution is extremely simple, just need to use catalyst 7.12 driver. As PCI and PCI-E is logically similar (while actually there is no difference in the driver used), I though it may work for my case (PCI-E @1x). I removed the Catalyst 9.2 driver, rebooted and installed the old 7.12 driver. To my expectation the DXVA worked like a charm, for HD H.264 clips on TotalMedia, PowerDVD and even dual screen. (but with PowerDVD it is very easy to crash)
I suppose the later Catalyst driver disable DXVA (bug or design) when the bandwidth available is less than PCI-E 4x mode. (My card at PCI-E 1x mode has no DXVA using Catalyst 9.2, but DXVA works fine at PCI-E 4x). As conventional PCI has even less bandwidth than PCI-E 1x, it is natural that no DXVA does not work.

I think JDWK may try the 7.12 driver (I am not sure if there is AGPHotFix for 7.12 available or not) and see it DXVA works on it.

Look at the beginning of this thread. Download the vbs script and run the registry tweaks. Just add them all. Your options should be back.

Thanks but this isn't it. The Avivo Video settings look exactly the same. I thought that some reg settings from the tweaks was confusing the later versions of CCC. I noticed that the Basic Color settings slider setting look different in the sense that Brightness (starting with 0) and Contrast, Saturation, Tint, Gamma (starting with 1) are on the far left. They used to be in the middle with this figures by default. Basically I'm unable to calibrate my display with the settings. The settings with the "enable" options can be checked but while the sliders move the values stays at 1 and they don't stay enabled after CCC is restarted.
Deinterlace works fine and hardware decoding works as it should.

I didn't find much about this problem around. Another thing that i noticed is that my only display is detected as number "2" while there is no number "1". As i know this isn't supposed to matter but oddly i noticed both things at the same time so i wonder if they are related.

I think JDWK may try the 7.12 driver (I am not sure if there is AGPHotFix for 7.12 available or not) and see it DXVA works on it.

It was just the reframes too high for that particular video. Watched a full movie in 1080p last night. It was a little stuttery, maybe I should try to get my card and tv to play nice at 24Hz. Not sure why 3:2 pulldown would be worse with Dxva than software, but maybe that's the case.

Since last post I read other forums and discover a successful case of enabling DXVA for H.264 playback at 2400Pro PCI card. (conventional PCI but not PCI-E). The solution is extremely simple, just need to use catalyst 7.12 driver.

Is that on XP or Vista? Can you post the reference link here?

Is that on XP or Vista? Can you post the reference link here?

Oh. I am not allowed to post links. But it is in Chinese so you may not understand anyway.

The guy uses Windows XP. The solution is rather simple.

To use DXVA in PCI cards, you should use catalyst 7.12 or 8.1 (for both XP and Vista), and you may also need to use the ATI_HD_Registry_Tweaks.

But the real cause of problem (no DXVA in H.264), after investigation and answer from moderator in AMD forum, is by design since Catalyst 8.2 to stop DXVA at low bandwidth. (i.e. PCI or PCI-E 1x mode).

but the real cause of problem (no DXVA in H.264), after investigation and answer from moderator in AMD forum, is by design since Catalyst 8.2 to stop DXVA at low bandwidth. (i.e. PCI or PCI-E 1x mode).

Well I can read chinese:)
Funny thing is I do manage to get partial DXVA working with catalyst 8.6-9.2 on WinXP.
only up to mocomp, never seeing VLD as what hd2400 is supposed to be capable of.

Anyway I will bite the bullet and try 7.12 on a clean xp install and let you guys know the result.

Tried catalyst 7.12 on winxp. It really works. Installation is somewhat convoluted as older catalyst do not have the PCI string for PCI cards, so have to applied the AGP hack on INFs.

with my PCI powercolor HD2400 Pro, MPC video decoder works perfectly with 720p, but failed to work with 1080i/p. PowerDVD 8 decoder used to work with later catalyst now produce jittery image. But having a working VLD outweight every downside I guess.....

I connected my 40"D300A sony lcd tv to my pc by hdmi port with an hdmi cable(OMEGA brand made in china).i can use my pc and quality is same as vga port.but when i want use hdmi setup in tv menu.tv can not detect any hd device .

First post here so please forgive me for my ignorance but I have searched all over this thread for the driver version that most consistently works with a Powercolor 2600xt AGP on 32bit Vista that enables DXVA for h.264 and I can't seem to find any consistent answer. Any ideas?

DXVA checker registers hardware support for my card but the gpu is not utilized for rendering no matter what configuration of media software and codecs I use. I'm starting to run out of ideas for this.

Edit: I was using catalyst 9.2 agp hotfix when I did the dxva checker.

First post here so please forgive me for my ignorance but I have searched all over this thread for the driver version that most consistently works with a Powercolor 2600xt AGP on 32bit Vista that enables DXVA for h.264 and I can't seem to find any consistent answer. Any ideas?

DXVA checker registers hardware support for my card but the gpu is not utilized for rendering no matter what configuration of media software and codecs I use. I'm starting to run out of ideas for this.

Edit: I was using catalyst 9.2 agp hotfix when I did the dxva checker.

I haven't tried my 2600 on vista, but on xp catalyst 8.4 is the last driver that works properly for me regarding hardware accelerated playback.

Hello everyone. This is my first post on this site, and I'm not even sure it's in the right place. I currently have an Nvidea card (oops), and noticed that video won't open in full screen automatically on my t.v. (secondary video screen) in Vista or Windows 7 the way it does in XP. Nvidea calls this "full screen video mirroring" and says it will no longer be a feature because of the different architecture in Vista and Windows 7.

I have been reading that ATI cards are still able do this in Vista and Windows 7, and that it is called "Theater Mode." Is this correct? I am thinking of installing an HD 2600 Pro. Do you know if I will be able to double click on a video source that will automatically open full screen on my secondary monitor (t.v?)

Thanks for your help!

Ok, decided to just install Windows 7 as a last ditch effort for my 2600xt and it seems to be the best performance yet. But still not flawless. I get a consistent 15% load on the gpu and will occasionally spike between 60%-90%, but only for a second, while playing dxva enabled 1080p content. So an overall better result but it is consistently around 20fps. This happens on both the catalyst 9.2 agp hotfix and newly released 9.3 agp hotfix installs. Also on both, dxva checker says I have full dxva2 support for h.264. Any ideas to refine the driver and get it to fully offload onto the gpu?

Hello everyone. This is my first post on this site, and I'm not even sure it's in the right place. I currently have an Nvidea card (oops), and noticed that video won't open in full screen automatically on my t.v. (secondary video screen) in Vista or Windows 7 the way it does in XP. Nvidea calls this "full screen video mirroring" and says it will no longer be a feature because of the different architecture in Vista and Windows 7.

I have been reading that ATI cards are still able do this in Vista and Windows 7, and that it is called "Theater Mode." Is this correct? I am thinking of installing an HD 2600 Pro. Do you know if I will be able to double click on a video source that will automatically open full screen on my secondary monitor (t.v?)

Thanks for your help!

I used to run a HD2600Pro, but now have a HD3650, it worked for everything on XP and Vista, I do also recall that when I launched PDVD it would go to the secondary monitor.

In the ATI world you would set the appropriate resolution for each monitor, enable the TV and with 'extended desktop' I ran PDVD this way for years without any problems.


If you already have the HD2600, give it a try, but I will say that most of the problems I have ever run into were by changing things left and right within the same OS install. The current install I have (that works great) is on a fresh VISTA 32-bit system with the latest drivers for the intended hardware and the applications I wanted for my uses.

See the post (7851) at this link: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=16069700#post16069700

Hello everyone. This is my first post on this site, and I'm not even sure it's in the right place. I currently have an Nvidea card (oops), and noticed that video won't open in full screen automatically on my t.v. (secondary video screen) in Vista or Windows 7 the way it does in XP. Nvidea calls this "full screen video mirroring" and says it will no longer be a feature because of the different architecture in Vista and Windows 7.

I have been reading that ATI cards are still able do this in Vista and Windows 7, and that it is called "Theater Mode." Is this correct? I am thinking of installing an HD 2600 Pro. Do you know if I will be able to double click on a video source that will automatically open full screen on my secondary monitor (t.v?)

Thanks for your help!

Nvidia lies, Theater Mode does NOT even work on XP starting with the 8000 series cards, they just decided to not provide this mode. ATI works fine, I have used a X1950PRO and a 2600 PRO with XP and the Theater mode works just fine. I had read earlier that Theater Mode was not allowed in Vista due to DRM requirements, but that might have changed. Thus to be sure, I still use XP on my HTPC which runs with 2 monitors. I also get 1:1 pixel mapping with the ATI card and my Samsung 61 inch DLP HDTV.

Mike T

I did some searching around on doom9 and can't find instructions for reducing the number of reference frames (whether it's worth it or not).

Anyone have a good link?

I'd like to at least have the option.
You cannot reduce the number of reference frames - they are used in the encoding, so if you want an encoding with a different number of reference frames, you have to re-encode the video yourself (with inevitable loss of quality).

If you want to try to trick your decoder, you can change the level_idc flag in the stream, which is what tells the decoder the maximum specs to which the stream is supposed to comply.

See my thread on DXVA (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12728994#post12728994) for instructions on changing level_idc flags. Look for the section on "Retrofitting MKVs or other H.264 videos".

Note that if you set the flag to L4.1 when your stream is actually L5.1, you may get the video to play, but you may also see video corruption when the number of references exceeds L4.1 specs. L4.1 is designed to hold only so many references to so many frames in memory simultaneously. If you exceed that number, you get broken references.

Does anyone know exactly what the 3:2 pulldown option does in the CCC?

I assume it applies IVTC when needed. Does it apply IVTC to soft pulldown, hard pulldown, or both types of content?

I haven't tried my 2600 on vista, but on xp catalyst 8.4 is the last driver that works properly for me regarding hardware accelerated playback.

Check out my post #6348 above in this thread for additional information...

On Vista 32 I have a Diamond ATI HD3650 with Catalyst 9.2 and hardware acceleration (ATI Avivo) is enabled and working for both HDDVD and Blu-Ray.

Hi

Could someone do me a huge favor and upload the original sapphire drivers which came on the CD (I lost mine) for the 2400pro AGP. The reason I need them is because they seem to be compatible with XBMC which requires openGL 2.0 or higher.

Thanks,
Marcus

Hi,

i have a strange problem with dxva:

Useing 720p Dxva works like it should, but with 1080p there is no go.
Dxva-Checker reports ModeH264 and ModeVC1 not working (only a "-" ).
Now the strange thing, after playing a Blu-ray in Pdvd8 (1080p, yes in Pdvd it works) , everthing is working, even Dxva-Checker reports full Dxva support now but only as long i reboot.

Dxva tested with MPC-HC.

(XP Sp3, tried Cat 8.12 - 9.3, Ati 2600pro Pcie)

Any hints ?

Thanks,
mgl

Hi.

I was finally greeted by ATI driver team incompetence this weekend when I finished building my new system with a 4650.

On the plus side, I have access to Vector Adaptive in all resolutions, all "image enhancements" are available but can also be disabled after a quick jump through the options of DXVA Checker, and when I set the pixel output to 4:4:4 YCbCr it sticks after a reboot so in a way I'm happy.

On the minus side, I get absolutely no hardware acceleration for anything.
I'm on XP and when I check with DXVA Checker, the only modes listed are IDCT MPEG2 (btw, where is your advertised full bitstream MPEG2 decode with the 4000 cards, ATI? Guess you don't have to actually implement advertised features when no big website tests them anyway...) and VC1, both in DXVA2, which is no use in XP.
There is simply not a single DXVA1 mode available for any codec.

This is a clean install with Catalyst 9.1 of an HIS 4650 that was first released in october, so it can't come from garbage left by previous drivers or things like that, it's just improper QA of driver development.

No amount of tweaking the registry options, even the VForcewhatever entries, or reinstalling DirectX, would re-enable DXVA1 modes.
I also tried switching the TV to the second output, didn't change anything. And I don't use multiple displays.

I figure as it's already the 16th I might wait for Catalyst 9.2, I can live without decode acceleration for the moment as long as I have deinterlacing, but it's sad these things keep happening even on fresh clean installs, especially since I already tried Cat 9.1 on my old X1300 and it was fine.


I hate to burst your bubble, but if you have "absolutely no hardware acceleration for anything", then you are also likely not getting the benefit of any of the ATI/AVIVO deinterlacing modes, even if you can vary the settings, they won't be used by your dvd decoder. Your DVD decoder will be using its own software deinterlacing algorithm if it can't access the DXVA (hardware acceleration) features of the video card. The card's advanced deinterlacing modes are only used if hardware acceleration is successfully enabled by the decoder during playback.

/The REAL Joe

I just installed a PowerColor HD 2600XT into my P4 3.2 machine. I was debating whether to create a whole new HTPC or upgrade this one in an attempt to play 1080p (h264) stuff. I think I made the wrong decision.

Well, my "upgraded" computer now can't even play 720p h264 smoothly. I had a 5 year old 9200 128MB card that at least played that just fine. Looked good at 720p or 768p timings, however, couldn't get it to do a 1080p desktop on my Mits DLP to save my life.

So first of all, I want to change to a limited RGB color output, but apparently this option is only available in Catalyst on an HDMI display. I am using a DVI->HDMI cable, and Catalyst just sees it as a DVI. Maybe an adapter instead of a cable would solve this but I don't see why.

Does anyone know how to change the color range from 0-255 to 16-235 if Catalyst only shows "Digital Display (DVI) 3"? I have slight ghosting or ringing that I believe is caused by the white clipping, and my black levels don't look right.

As for drivers, ATI's site doesn't even list drivers for my card as it says 2600XT (PCIe) and there is no option for AGP. If I try to install any display drivers other than what came with the card it tells me my hardware is incompatible and exits setup. So I believe that is stuck at 8.5.

However, I was able to install the CCC from 8.12. Which I thought was odd.

I am gonna scrounge around for a DVI->HDMI adapter tomorrow, cause I am definitely not paying $7 plus shipping for an adapter that should have come with the card. But technically, I should be able to select the pixel format for DVI as well, so if anyone has any tricks that would be nice.

I'm pretty sure that you have to use the specific ATI adapter or the card won't enable HDMI. Granted, I hardly remember yesterday but this seems to have come up before.

Yes. And you need the specific version of the adapter for your card. There are at least two.

Wow someone finally answered this. Thanks for the replies.

I guess I'll just order it off of ATI's site to make sure I get the right one. I am in the process of upgrading my receiver for HDMI switching and multi channel PCM, so I want to make full use of it.

Here's a new question though. If I enable HDMI audio from the HD2600 can I still get sound from my Audigy at all? I want to be able to play music on my patio from my pc, but no receiver on the market will pass HDMI audio to a secondary zone due to HDCP specs.

I got a Compaq 8510p for my sister-- it has a 2600XT with ddr3-- so when I visit the family I have a computer I can play games on.

Its a great system. Runs cool, good battery, quiet, very respectable 3d.

Here's a new question though. If I enable HDMI audio from the HD2600 can I still get sound from my Audigy at all? I want to be able to play music on my patio from my pc, but no receiver on the market will pass HDMI audio to a secondary zone due to HDCP specs.I think when you want to do that you will need to reconfigure your player, or failing that default sound device, to output via your sound card and then reconfigure your AVR to use s/pdif rather than HDMI as source. I guess you could eliminate the second step by setting up your sound card as a separate source in your AVR, but then you would not have a picture on your TV when listening to music and disconnecting the screen could have other undesirable HDCP releated consequences.

Yeah, all this content protection is a PITA!

Thanks. That's what I figured I would need to do, which is a pretty big pain. I'll probably just keep using my Audigy, since the only thing I really need HDMI audio for would be blu-ray and I have a PS3 for that.

I am still going to build a new HTPC at some point, as I want a smaller AV looking case, and I have a Quad Core just laying around not being used.

I am curious if I get a board that has integrated audio and HDMI connector if it'll downmix to even analog simultaneously while playing 7.1 PCM out the HDMI. Lot of boards out there now too.

Thanks. That's what I figured I would need to do, which is a pretty big pain. I'll probably just keep using my Audigy, since the only thing I really need HDMI audio for would be blu-ray and I have a PS3 for that.

I am still going to build a new HTPC at some point, as I want a smaller AV looking case, and I have a Quad Core just laying around not being used.

I am curious if I get a board that has integrated audio and HDMI connector if it'll downmix to even analog simultaneously while playing 7.1 PCM out the HDMI. Lot of boards out there now too.


Hmmm, why would you want a 7.1 track from the HDMI and analog at the same time?

On my Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H from what I can find you have to choose the 'default' from one of the following: Digital Output Device (HDMI), Speakers (analog) or Realtek Digital Output (SP/DIF)...

I wouldn't want them at the same time, but I don't want to have to go into my system settings just to listen to music on the patio.

I wouldn't want them at the same time, but I don't want to have to go into my system settings just to listen to music on the patio.

Ahhh, now I understand, this is probably where a device like the Rio Receiver comes in handy, playback of MP3 or WMA from files on your PC via an ethernet connection.

There are current players available, but for some reason my searches aren't returning much (obviously searching on the wrong item).

ATI has moved the site where the current AGP drivers are available. The new site is:

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/CatalystAGPHotfix.aspx

I guess because ATI does not officially support AGP they refer to the drivers as "AGP Hotfix"

I am using the XP Pro driver with my MCE 2005 installation.

John

Thanks but this isn't it. The Avivo Video settings look exactly the same. I thought that some reg settings from the tweaks was confusing the later versions of CCC. I noticed that the Basic Color settings slider setting look different in the sense that Brightness (starting with 0) and Contrast, Saturation, Tint, Gamma (starting with 1) are on the far left. They used to be in the middle with this figures by default. Basically I'm unable to calibrate my display with the settings. The settings with the "enable" options can be checked but while the sliders move the values stays at 1 and they don't stay enabled after CCC is restarted.
Deinterlace works fine and hardware decoding works as it should.

I didn't find much about this problem around. Another thing that i noticed is that my only display is detected as number "2" while there is no number "1". As i know this isn't supposed to matter but oddly i noticed both things at the same time so i wonder if they are related.

I saw the same thing when trying CAT 9.1-9.3, the tweaks would not enable the sliders or tick boxes for any of the enhancements (edge enh., denoise, color enh, skintone, advanced deinterlacing, pulldown - they were either missing completely, or shown but greyed out/disabled), and the enhancements that did show up were mislabeled, with the numbering on sliders that's supposed to show 0-100 showing 0-1 instead, and some with labels in the wrong place from where they used to be. This was on a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2HP motherboard with the 780G chipset (HD 3200 IGP) on WinXP Pro 32 SP-3.

I suspect that the 9x version of the CAT suite has different reg settings, at least for some cards, and therefore is nolonger compatible with the tweaks as they are now. Possibly people who have applied the reg. tweaks to the CAT 9.1-9.3 drivers and who 'believe' them to be working maybe are only lucky using a card that is fully compatible with the drivers themselves and the drivers actually are enabling the settings, not the tweaks (maybe, I don't know for sure).

I've filed a trouble ticket with AMD/ATI to this effect, and they have indicated that the missing CCC sliders and settings for the HD 3200 with Cat 9.1-9.3 is a known issue which is expected to be addressed in a future update. Filing a similar trouble report with Gigabyte got the same response, although they were bolder in saying the fix would be included in the NEXT (v-9.4) update. I'll believe it when I see it.

We'll have to wait and see if anyone figures out for sure whether the tweaks are indeed still compatible with the new CAT 9x or not, and if so, which boards they work with, cause they're sure not working with the HD 3200...

Cheers,
The REAL Joe

I wouldn't want them at the same time, but I don't want to have to go into my system settings just to listen to music on the patio.

You could probably use a batch file to switch audio sources. Set it up as an icon.

FWIW, I recently tried Cat 8.12, 9.1 and 9.2 with my 2600 (because I had brain freeze on how bitstreaming 5.1 works). I had problems with all three maintaining my 1080p resolution settings. My TV is hooked up through an Onkyo 604. On resuming from sleep or reboot it would return to 1080i or 720p in all three even though CC correctly showed the TV's max resolution and frequency.

While I have to force 1080p initially with both Cat 8.4 and 8.6, it does retain the setting in both. Cat. 8.6 produced green macro blocking on HD material in TMT so I went back to 8.4 which is what I was using to begin with.

I saw the same thing when trying CAT 9.1-9.3, the tweaks would not enable the sliders or tick boxes for any of the enhancements (edge enh., denoise, color enh, skintone, advanced deinterlacing, pulldown - they were either missing completely, or shown but greyed out/disabled), and the enhancements that did show up were mislabeled, with the numbering on sliders that's supposed to show 0-100 showing 0-1 instead, and some with labels in the wrong place from where they used to be. This was on a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2HP motherboard with the 780G chipset (HD 3200 IGP) on WinXP Pro 32 SP-3.

I suspect that the 9x version of the CAT suite has different reg settings, at least for some cards, and therefore is nolonger compatible with the tweaks as they are now. Possibly people who have applied the reg. tweaks to the CAT 9.1-9.3 drivers and who 'believe' them to be working maybe are only lucky using a card that is fully compatible with the drivers themselves and the drivers actually are enabling the settings, not the tweaks (maybe, I don't know for sure).

I've filed a trouble ticket with AMD/ATI to this effect, and they have indicated that the missing CCC sliders and settings for the HD 3200 with Cat 9.1-9.3 is a known issue which is expected to be addressed in a future update. Filing a similar trouble report with Gigabyte got the same response, although they were bolder in saying the fix would be included in the NEXT (v-9.4) update. I'll believe it when I see it.

We'll have to wait and see if anyone figures out for sure whether the tweaks are indeed still compatible with the new CAT 9x or not, and if so, which boards they work with, cause they're sure not working with the HD 3200...

Cheers,
The REAL Joe

The reg settings have changed since the CCC did (i think it was as early as 8.12) at least this is how it seems to me. I think the tweaks don't have any effect anymore since then.
It's interesting that we have the same problem on different generation of cards and different OS.

I think when you want to do that you will need to reconfigure your player, or failing that default sound device, to output via your sound card and then reconfigure your AVR to use s/pdif rather than HDMI as source. I guess you could eliminate the second step by setting up your sound card as a separate source in your AVR, but then you would not have a picture on your TV when listening to music and disconnecting the screen could have other undesirable HDCP releated consequences.

Yeah, all this content protection is a PITA!

I am curious if I get a board that has integrated audio and HDMI connector if it'll downmix to even analog simultaneously while playing 7.1 PCM out the HDMI. Lot of boards out there now too.
You should be able to get analog audio from your soundcard and use the HDMI audio for Blu-ray, as jong1 described. Some AVRs continue to pass video over video connections if you switch to an audio-only source, too, so you might not lose video even if you use a single zone on the AVR.

All you need is software for music playback that allows you to switch the audio output device - Winamp, ZoomPlayer, etc.

Connect the HDMI output to your AVR, then set the Windows default sound to use the HDMI device. PowerDVD uses the default sound device, so then I believe you set the audio to SPDIF in PowerDVD. You then get computer sounds and BD/DVD over HDMI. Note that the last time I checked the ATI HDMI connection only supports AC3/DTS in 5.1-7.1. PCM is 2.0 audio only, so no PCM 7.1.

Connect your Audigy analog output to the AVR, then set whatever software you want for music on the patio to use your Audigy as the audio output rather than the Windows default sound device. I think you could actually do both simultaneously if your AVR allows Zone 1 to use HDMI while Zone 2 uses analog.

I have the HD 2600XT card using the 9.3 drivers from ATI. This may see like a dumb question but how in the world do I set the resolution to 1980i at 60HZ? I open catalyst and go to HDTV and see options for 1080p60 1080i at 30hz BUT nothing at 1080i at 60HZ.... Please someone help me.

I have the HD 2600XT card using the 9.3 drivers from ATI. This may see like a dumb question but how in the world do I set the resolution to 1980i at 60HZ? I open catalyst and go to HDTV and see options for 1080p60 1080i at 30hz BUT nothing at 1080i at 60HZ.... Please someone help me.
There's no such thing as 1080i at 60Hz. The "i" means interlaced, which will be 30Hz, while the "p" means progressive, which will be 60Hz.

60 fields per second = 30 frames per second

I have finally got this card VLD accelerating h.264 @ 1080p. FYI the following are needed:
1) catalyst 7.12 - 8.1
2) Haali media splitter
3) Cyberlink PowerDVD 8

(1) will not recognize this card directly. Hack on INF similar to the AGP hack is required.
(2) Not all mov/mp4/mkv spliter will output DXVA compatible stream. Haali is the only one proved and ture.
(3) Cyberlink h.264 decoder only works with minimal SSE2 CPU. Older CPU requires swapping the "264dmmx.dll"/"264dsse.dll" with "264dsse2.dll". Also PDVD 9 do not work.

Please help!!

I have had 2400 Pro for about a year now and until recently it has worked great. I just connect an HDMI cable from the card straight to my Sony TV.

Just recently my cpu began crashing so I reformatted everything and decided to finally upgrade to Vista (32 bit). Well now I can't get my audio to work. The video is just fine, and after reading through these posts I tried some tactics and was able to get audio for all of 5 seconds before my CPU froze up and I had to restart. I haven't heard a peep since.

I'm currently upgrading the version of CCC but am unconvinced this would help.

Please let me know what info you need from me to help!!

****UPDATE************THE CCC UPGRADE ACTUALLY WORKED!!!!!!!!!!!!**********************

JAB

I have a Visiontek AGP ATI 2500PRO I get Blu-Ray playback with XP32 but not with XP64 all on the same computer I tried v 8.11. hotfixs 9.3 and 9.4
and get audio and a blank screen. The Cybrylink advisor says that the LCD display is not HDCP compatable which it is, could this mean the video card 64 bit driver is not HDCP capable? Is anyone familiar with this problem and advise if a solution exists

I have a Visiontek AGP ATI 2500PRO I get Blu-Ray playback with XP32 but not with XP64 all on the same computer I tried v 8.11. hotfixs 9.3 and 9.4
and get audio and a blank screen. The Cybrylink advisor says that the LCD display is not HDCP compatable which it is, could this mean the video card 64 bit driver is not HDCP capable? Is anyone familiar with this problem and advise if a solution exists

Sounds to me like you are on the right track suspecting the video card drivers. I used to get HDCP errors with 32bit XP MCE and would have to use AnyDVD. Finally ATI updated their drivers and the problem went away.

Hi!

I'm trying to connect the hd 2600 xt with my onkyo 805.

My motherboard (Asus p5ad2-e-premium) also has an onboard sound card which I had previously optically connected. Now I want to but the sound on the video card to run via HDMI.


Unfortunately I have the following problem now: I can't control the sound chip on the graphic card. In Device Manager everything looks like this: (sry it's german)
http://www1.picfront.org/picture/RrE7XIksYk3/thb/sound1.jpg ('http://picfront.org/d/RrE7XIksYk3/sound1.jpg')

http://www1.picfront.org/picture/D7gaScHGtev/thb/sound2.jpg ('http://picfront.org/d/D7gaScHGtev/sound2.jpg')

http://www1.picfront.org/picture/boBDLlrM/thb/sound3.jpg ('http://picfront.org/d/boBDLlrM/sound3.jpg')

When I try to install the ATI HDMI Driver the following happens:
1.:http://www1.picfront.org/picture/C10kEsLvEq/thb/sound1.jpg ('http://picfront.org/d/C10kEsLvEq/sound1.jpg')

2.:http://www1.picfront.org/picture/GcrIsZsBDw/thb/sound2.jpg ('http://picfront.org/d/GcrIsZsBDw/sound2.jpg')

3.:http://www1.picfront.org/picture/meYfbBqM/thb/sound3.jpg ('http://picfront.org/d/meYfbBqM/sound3.jpg')

Idea anyone? :confused:

I had a Diamond 2600XT256PE3 working fine but I bought a new hard drive and after the new install I do not have the "ATI HD Rear Audio Output" option in my sounds and audio properties.

I also do not have an entry of "ATI Function Driver for High Definition Audio - ATI AA01" under device manager sound controllers that is on my old hard drive installation.

Would anyone know what might have gone wrong during the new install and how to correct it so that I have the option of the ATI HD audio rear output?

Is there any option to activate the post processing for HD 720p material under dxva? I've an Asus HD 3850 and Vista . Dxva work fine but edge-enhance seems off. even color vibrance I guess. :confused:

I hate to burst your bubble, but if you have "absolutely no hardware acceleration for anything", then you are also likely not getting the benefit of any of the ATI/AVIVO deinterlacing modes, even if you can vary the settings, they won't be used by your dvd decoder. Your DVD decoder will be using its own software deinterlacing algorithm if it can't access the DXVA (hardware acceleration) features of the video card. The card's advanced deinterlacing modes are only used if hardware acceleration is successfully enabled by the decoder during playback.

/The REAL Joe
I can assure you that was the case. For example, when playing a 1080i TV feed, Vector Adaptive worked but the decoding was done entirely in software (confirmed by comparing the CPU usage between the PowerDVD decoder and Gabest decoder).

And on a side note, I think the behavior you described (need DXVA to use the VMR deinterlacing) is limited to the PowerDVD decoder.

Anyway that's not a problem anymore as it was fixed by upgrading to Cat9.4 (didn't try 9.3 but I think it was fixed on that release).
Based on other forum posts, it looks like it was an issue limited to 4650s under XP.

I post this here, maybe someone had the same issue:

I have a 2600 Xt card. Now I always used the Spdif for sound.
As I learned thanks to you, friendly people to use eac3to, and code in flac, I want to use my HDMI output to go to my denon amplifier.

I used to original dongle. I know you can use that one only to have sound. I got no sound or image using this. I do get image, when I use another one, not from Ati.

So I concluded it was broke. Bought a new original Ati dongle. Same thing.
Is there something to be activated, what is happening? There are two dvi outputs, is there one to choose over the other?

Should I keep this card, or would it be better to buy another one. Some are Ati lovers, other Nvidia...

I also went in to the sound properties of my Xp computer,and set the sound to the Ati card.

No sound or image with the original dongle, neither on the amp as a direct connection to the monitor!

In résumé :

The sound option out does shop up in "audio proprieties".
Windows and Ati HDdrivers installed.
Video on other adaptors, none on the original Ati one, and of course no sound!

The amp, neither monitor is reconised by the cc when the ati dongle is used, it is with another dongle

I have two original Ati dongles, one I just bought. Other delivered with the card.

The only thing I see is that the ATI dongle should be activated, been loosing 3 days to fine a solution!

Hi,

I have a number of mkv's that have a 5.x H.265 profile.
These break the DXVA support as current 9.4 Catalyst Drivers only support H.264 decoding up to profile 4.1 - i.e. lots of green flashing etc using Vista Home Premimum, PDVD9 decoder, HA/DXVA & EVR.
mkv's play fine under PDVD9 software decoder & EVR.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12728994#post12728994

However as the notes at the end of this post indicates the NVIDIA drivers have removed this limitation.
http://nunnally.ahmygoddess.net/watching-h264-videos-using-dxva/

I've read, but can't find again, that ATI experiemented with removing the 4.1 liminatation in a catalyst driver release candidate for 9.2 or 9.3
Does anyone know about this?
Know where I can find the approriate 9.2/9.3 RC?

Thanks, Neeto.

I have been trying new ATI drivers always reverting to the old 8.4 drivers. This time it worked!! :) ATI finally managed to produce a driver that does not break DXVA on my system. I've installed version 9.5 and it works fine.

On the other hand, as Neeto remarked, it seems Nvidia has now the upper hand by allowing videos with more reference frames to be played on their cards. I'm seriously considering buying one of these Nvidia cards as they're much cheaper than upgrading my ultra-silent and eco-friendly old system.

Read through the forum and not found my answer.

I'm having issues cloning my VGA monitor and HDMI Plasma TV...

I've tried many setting and multipe troubleshooting issues but it seems like I'm doomed to order a new card. Here is the specific issue.

I can only do one at a time at the proper resolution. I have to physically unhook the VGA monitor cable for the tv to be recognized by the computer. When the TV is hooked up by HDMI on it's own it is perfect, but I need the capability of both being on at the same time. I hook up the VGA after that and now I'm cloned, but the resolution displayed on the TV is about 760 x 480 (Guess) and it doesn't even scroll of fit to screen when I play some dvd content. I've tried all the settings and force detections but it just doesn't want to work. This seemed like a good low end card for my applicaiton of a kitchen/home main pc, hooked up to the licing room wall mounted TV in the living room. Anyone know the issue? I have all newest drivers too.

Could it be a power supply problem since it's just a stock HP PSU?

Thanks,
J

Read through the forum and not found my answer.

I'm having issues cloning my VGA monitor and HDMI Plasma TV...

I've tried many setting and multipe troubleshooting issues but it seems like I'm doomed to order a new card. Here is the specific issue.

I can only do one at a time at the proper resolution. I have to physically unhook the VGA monitor cable for the tv to be recognized by the computer. When the TV is hooked up by HDMI on it's own it is perfect, but I need the capability of both being on at the same time. I hook up the VGA after that and now I'm cloned, but the resolution displayed on the TV is about 760 x 480 (Guess) and it doesn't even scroll of fit to screen when I play some dvd content. I've tried all the settings and force detections but it just doesn't want to work. This seemed like a good low end card for my applicaiton of a kitchen/home main pc, hooked up to the licing room wall mounted TV in the living room. Anyone know the issue? I have all newest drivers too.

Could it be a power supply problem since it's just a stock HP PSU?

Thanks,
J

dirtdiver70 (fan of The Unit?),

You don't mention which card you have , however if it is one of the cards profiled in this thread you should be able to get it running in a dual monitor config. The PSU will not be the issue.

You mention "clone", have you tried extended desktop? Normally this is the way I run this type of setup, you can run the VGA as the primary monitor (1) and "extend" the desktop (2) onto the HDMI connected plasma TV. I ran my HD2600Pro this way for years. And I still use the same process on my HD3650

Within the Catalyst manager you can enable the secondary display as well as set the display resolution individually for each display.

dirtdiver70 (fan of The Unit?),

You don't mention which card you have , however if it is one of the cards profiled in this thread you should be able to get it running in a dual monitor config. The PSU will not be the issue.

You mention "clone", have you tried extended desktop? Normally this is the way I run this type of setup, you can run the VGA as the primary monitor (1) and "extend" the desktop (2) onto the HDMI connected plasma TV. I ran my HD2600Pro this way for years. And I still use the same process on my HD3650

Within the Catalyst manager you can enable the secondary display as well as set the display resolution individually for each display.


I just had the same problem with my new beamer. I was unable to extend the desktop with the ATI control centre. I finally solved the problem by doing this via the standard windows display settings.

Hey!

I currently have two HD3650 pcie cards and they both perform well. I'm getting a projector and was considering using my media server to supply a feed to it.

The media server is an older P4 3.0Ghz with 2Gig of DDR Ram and it has an AGPx8 slot.

Are the AGP versions of the HD3650 stable now? I remember page upon page of problems with the AGP cards in the past. I was wondering if they had improved the drivers for it so I could HW accelerate my HDDVD and BlueRay material.

Thanks!

Hey!

I currently have two HD3650 pcie cards and they both perform well. I'm getting a projector and was considering using my media server to supply a feed to it.

The media server is an older P4 3.0Ghz with 2Gig of DDR Ram and it has an AGPx8 slot.

Are the AGP versions of the HD3650 stable now? I remember page upon page of problems with the AGP cards in the past. I was wondering if they had improved the drivers for it so I could HW accelerate my HDDVD and BlueRay material.

Thanks!

As far as I know the the fastest last available AGP card is the "SAPPHIRE 100228L Radeon HD 3850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X HDCP Ready". I am using one with a Dual Core AMD Opteron 180 (2.4Ghz), PowerDVD 8 Ultra and MCE 2005. I am getting perfect playback of Blu-Ray's and DVD's. HW Acceleration is enabled in Power DVD. I have AMD Cool & Quiet enabled and the cores run at 1.1Ghz playing Blu-Rays. They are available at Newegg.

billqs there is also a newer 4650 agp card by Gigabyte (sorry can't insert link due to first post) its at newegg.
probably serve your needs better as you are on single core and, the 4650 gpu would offload decoding H.264/BD a bit better than 3650,but its not confirmed yet. as it's not even been reviewed by a credible source that I am aware of.
I'm contemplating on getting this myself for a dedicated htpc for one of my old P-4's

Here is my setup

Win XP sp3 with HD2600 XT connected to 19" LCD monitor via DVI -> VGA adapter. Using catylst 9.6 drivers and CCC. 2nd DVI connection using the DVI -> HDMI adapter to AVC receiver then to 58" plasma.

I'm getting stereo sound via HDMI but not DD or DTS yet. I'm using MPC-HC for playback of h.264 and VC-1 files. Playback on main monitor is fine. If i'm using clone feature to 2nd monitor I can also see the video on the plasma.

My problem is when I use "extend desktop to 2nd monitor" and move the playback to this screen I can't see any video.

Any ideas on how to fix this?

Here is my setup

Win XP sp3 with HD2600 XT connected to 19" LCD monitor via DVI -> VGA adapter. Using catylst 9.6 drivers and CCC. 2nd DVI connection using the DVI -> HDMI adapter to AVC receiver then to 58" plasma.

I'm getting stereo sound via HDMI but not DD or DTS yet. I'm using MPC-HC for playback of h.264 and VC-1 files. Playback on main monitor is fine. If i'm using clone feature to 2nd monitor I can also see the video on the plasma.

My problem is when I use "extend desktop to 2nd monitor" and move the playback to this screen I can't see any video.

Any ideas on how to fix this?

Sounds suspiciously like an HDCP handshake problem for the " no video" did you try it without the AVR? or another display as the secondary?

Here is my setup

Win XP sp3 with HD2600 XT connected to 19" LCD monitor via DVI -> VGA adapter. Using catylst 9.6 drivers and CCC. 2nd DVI connection using the DVI -> HDMI adapter to AVC receiver then to 58" plasma.

I'm getting stereo sound via HDMI but not DD or DTS yet. I'm using MPC-HC for playback of h.264 and VC-1 files. Playback on main monitor is fine. If i'm using clone feature to 2nd monitor I can also see the video on the plasma.

My problem is when I use "extend desktop to 2nd monitor" and move the playback to this screen I can't see any video.

Any ideas on how to fix this?

Go to display settings and click on the second monitor (Plasma) and choose "extend my desktop" and set resolution to the native resolution of the Plasma, like 1920X1080. Then open the ATI control Center and select advanced mode. go down to AVIVO setting and open it. Make sure that the computer monitor is selected at the top window as the display device. Select the Theater mode tab under AVIVO and go to the secondary monitor setting and select "theater mode full screen". With this setting the media player will be located on your computer monitor playing in a small window and the Plasma will be displaying the video automatically in full screen mode. If this does not work then open the options tab in MPC-HC while it is playing a file and go to the output tab and make sure the "renderer" is either "overlay" or VMR7, VMR9 will not work in this mode. Also if you want to have 1:1 pixel mapping on the Plasma if it is capable of 1080P then you should select overlay renderer as you may not get true 1:1 pixel mapping with VMR7, I never have.

I have found this to be the best way to play files as you do not have to drag the player to your Plasma screen. Note that if you try to play a Blu-Ray disk with Power DVD it has to be dragged to the second display as it will not play on two monitors at the same time. I am not sure Vista will allow this mode either and I know that Nvidia 8000 series cards also stopped supporting the 2 monitor playback also.

Mike T

Go to display settings and click on the second monitor (Plasma) and choose "extend my desktop" and set resolution to the native resolution of the Plasma, like 1920X1080. Then open the ATI control Center and select advanced mode. go down to AVIVO setting and open it. Make sure that the computer monitor is selected at the top window as the display device. Select the Theater mode tab under AVIVO and go to the secondary monitor setting and select "theater mode full screen". With this setting the media player will be located on your computer monitor playing in a small window and the Plasma will be displaying the video automatically in full screen mode. If this does not work then open the options tab in MPC-HC while it is playing a file and go to the output tab and make sure the "renderer" is either "overlay" or VMR7, VMR9 will not work in this mode. Also if you want to have 1:1 pixel mapping on the Plasma if it is capable of 1080P then you should select overlay renderer as you may not get true 1:1 pixel mapping with VMR7, I never have.

I have found this to be the best way to play files as you do not have to drag the player to your Plasma screen. Note that if you try to play a Blu-Ray disk with Power DVD it has to be dragged to the second display as it will not play on two monitors at the same time. I am not sure Vista will allow this mode either and I know that Nvidia 8000 series cards also stopped supporting the 2 monitor playback also.

Mike T

Thanks, that fixed my problem. Also, when I selected spdif for the audio filter it will now output DD and DTS correctly to my receiver over HDMI

Will the AGP HD 2600 work with windows 7? Which drivers? The regular windows 7 or the AGP hotfix?

Thanks

Sorry, but haven't looked at this thread in a while. I have to do re-install of my system for a variety of reasons and wanted to know if the "ATI HD Registry Tweaks" were still required or even useful with the latest CAT 9.6 drivers?

Sorry, but haven't looked at this thread in a while. I have to do re-install of my system for a variety of reasons and wanted to know if the "ATI HD Registry Tweaks" were still required or even useful with the latest CAT 9.6 drivers?I had to use the VForceMaxResize (and one or two others that I can't remember) for my HD3200 IGP.

Sorry, but haven't looked at this thread in a while. I have to do re-install of my system for a variety of reasons and wanted to know if the "ATI HD Registry Tweaks" were still required or even useful with the latest CAT 9.6 drivers?

You don't mention which hardware or OS you are using, but if it is Windows XP then ranpha recommends 9.4 specifically (http://nunnally.ahmygoddess.net/watching-h264-videos-using-dxva/). It works pretty well on my system with most L4.1 mkvs, without any registry tweaks, especially in overlay mode.

I'm having some nasty stuttering video issues on just my local CBS affiliate. I suspect it's a pulldown issue. If I enter "411 More Info", I can see that the source framerate keeps jumping up & down in-sync with the stuttering.

Any ideas how to fix this? This channel is essentially unwatchable during Prime Time (but it's totally fine when syndicated/non-HD programming is on).

Have tried 9.6 and the leaked 9.7 drivers... no luck. Viewing in 720p resolution (I can't get overscan adjusted when I try 1080p).

Anyone have an AGP 2600HD Pro working under Win7?

I've one residing on an older Nforce2 Mbd working with CCC 9.3 on XP. With W7 I get an error message indicating the driver has quit and recovered (apparently this was an issue with Vista as well). This happens both with a vanilla 7 install or with CCC 9.7 for Win7. I realize the Hotfix for AGP cards on CCC 9.7 is not available yet but I am soliciting experiences.

ted

I put a 3450 card into the slimline PC....so if anybody want to buy a noise free (NO FAN) 2400 low profile card (PCI-E) with the ATI dongle.... make me an offer.

Hi!

I've got an Ati X600 but I found this thread very useful. I'm running XP Sp3. At first, I applied the reg fixes that appear somewhere in this thread, but in later pages I read that they cause no effect anymore. Is this true?

In CCC, I can see some sliders that I couldn't before, but they're stuck at "1" and I can't seem to move them.

I just want some advice because the default config gave me such poor quality. The "UseBT601" works and makes a huge difference. I just want to know if it's the only thing that should be ticked in "DXVAChecker". I would appreciate if somebody told me how to revert the DXVAChecker settings to default. Also, what config should I use in CCC.

Thanks in advance

Anyone able to enable DxVA with H264 on Windows Xp and Ati HD 2400?
The only version I can use is 8.8, which works with DxVA with an old version of the ATI tweak script (but not with the latest...)

Thanks for any help the forum members can offer. I've read about 20 or so pages of this 200+ page thread.

I'm trying to hook up my PC which is running XP SP2 to my Panasonic THC42HD18 plasma. My PC has a Sapphire HD 2400 Pro. My mail goal is to have a functioning monitor to watch movies.

I hooked a Video-S cable from card to TV. All it does is flicker. My guess is because the refresh rate is not set to 60hertz. The Panasonic doesn't appear to have a VGA adapter. I'm reading where a DVI to HDMI cable will not work with this if you want sound. My card did not come with a dongle.

My idea is to get this setup working thru a DVI/HDMI cable. Anybody have a checklist/cookbook as to what I need to do?

My card did not come with a dongle.
You can get one off ebay for under $10 delivered. Use the keywords 'ATI DVI HDMI Adapter'.

You can get one off ebay for under $10 delivered. Use the keywords 'ATI DVI HDMI Adapter'.

Or you can buy them off NewEgg, but it'll cost you more for shipping...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814999007
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814999004

Just make sure you buy the adapter made specifically for the 2xxx series, and not the 3xxx or 4xxx series video cards. Buying the wrong adapter will usually mean that you can't pass sound over HDMI.

Sorry to bring this back up but I have a question. I have a 2600 XT card and I want to get 24p when i watch movies (mkv's). I have a sony bravia w5500 that is connected with pc via hdmi lead. Is 24p enabled by default on this card or do I have to activate it?

FYI ... TAGS: TEARING, HD2400, DXVA, MPC-HC, XP SP3, WIN7

HTPC build hardware: Intel P4 2.8 HT , Gigabyte 8IPE1000G, Sapphire HD2400 PRO AGP and 80GB IDE H.D.

Initial setup was on win xp sp3 after sapphire 9.4 drivers install and reg tweak settings applied HA worked... but tearing was all over, no matter what content and settings with latest MPC-HC SVN build.

[SOLUTION] damp win xp for good and install win 7 RC1 with Sapphire 9.9 vista agp driver - tearing is gone HA working again with reg tweaks and everyone are happy.

Hope it gonna help someone....

Finally upgraded to 50" plasma and my HTPC has unleashed it's full power with Radeon 2600XT. DVI->HDMI @ 1080p works wonders on Pentium Dual Core E2180(2GHz) with 1GB DDR2@800MHz. absolutely no tearing/issues. Oh, by the way, that's 1080p streaming over 1Gbps home LAN.
Long live Avivo HD!

Anyone have an AGP 2600HD Pro working under Win7?

I had AGP 2600 HD working in Windows 7 during the beta period. I had to do some fenagling but finally got it to work with my 64-bit install. I believe I was using the Vista Hotfix drivers in the end, although I remember spending a fair amount of time hacking .INI files so it is possible that I did that with some other drivers.

Anyway, you can do it, if you happen to work it just so. Sorry I can't be more specific...it was several months back that I did all that voodoo.

Anyway, you can do it, if you happen to work it just so. Sorry I can't be more specific...it was several months back that I did all that voodoo.

Thanks for taking the time to respond. Its on an older 32-bit box that I only occasionally use -I simply wanted to make it work because I like 7.

I simply turned off AERO and the box stopped acting recalcitrant -at least as far as the amount of time I've spent with it recently.

Again, thank you for taking the time.
ted

I'm having some nasty stuttering video issues on just my local CBS affiliate. I suspect it's a pulldown issue. If I enter "411 More Info", I can see that the source framerate keeps jumping up & down in-sync with the stuttering.

Any ideas how to fix this? This channel is essentially unwatchable during Prime Time (but it's totally fine when syndicated/non-HD programming is on).

Have tried 9.6 and the leaked 9.7 drivers... no luck. Viewing in 720p resolution (I can't get overscan adjusted when I try 1080p).

Did you ever resolve this annoying problem? I have the same problem with my local CBS in Houston, TX. I use an nvidia 9300 based onboard video. The only drivers that work with this card are v185.85, and that too only if I don't reboot after installing the drivers.

I have a spare radeon 2600HD that I was planning to use, but after looking at this thread, seems I like I should stick with my nvidia.

Anyone know if ExDeus's reg tweaks are still required for the HD4000 series cards in Win7 RTM? I install CCC9.8, and wondered if they are still needed.

I know i'm stirring the pot with an old issue that's probably been put to rest, but I am in a similar situation and came across this as a difinitive end to speculations. Basically, I just got a HD2400 AGP card with problems passing audio over HDMI with the ATI adapter. AFter some research, it seems it's an AGP specific problem and no real solution. But alas, Someone, after 2 years of a product introduction, has figured out a solution to solving this. It ain't pretty, involves some heavy duty mobo BIOS modding and tweaking. Not for the faint of heart. Anyways, here is the link to the info for those even slightly intellectually curious on the issue:

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?p=1631326

Anyone know if ExDeus's reg tweaks are still required for the HD4000 series cards in Win7 RTM? I install CCC9.8, and wondered if they are still needed.

I'm wondering too, but also what are the right default settings to use to get proper video levels when feeding a 1080p display with HDMI on 9.10 or 9.11. The previous recommendations with 9.4 seem to result in a washed out image for me.

Thanks!

the problem with audio of hdmi is that agp doesn't have it.

only the hd4650 agp will do audio...

i also have the hd2400pro agp, and they don't have the sound card built on...

so sorry man, your crap out of luck unless you spend the cash to get a 4650 agp

I'm wondering too, but also what are the right default settings to use to get proper video levels when feeding a 1080p display with HDMI on 9.10 or 9.11. The previous recommendations with 9.4 seem to result in a washed out image for me.

Thanks!

Much to my surprise I got proper video levels and working hw acceleration without using any reg tweaks with 9.11 driver and HD2600Pro. There even seems to be dialog where you can choose between PC and video levels, I had no need to try it, but perhaps you could check it out?

Has anyone successfully enabled 24p with Radeon 2600XT?

The TV in question is Panasonic TX-P50V10E.
It's connected to my HTPC via HDMI (on HTPC side I use DVI->HDMI adapter).
The GPU inside HTPC is Radeon 2600XT, this model to be precise:
Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H (http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/VGA/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2586)

OS is Windows 7 Professional.

Here's the thing:
On TV's native 1920x1080 resolution at 60Hz refresh rate, the picture is wonderful: properly "filled" (no overscan, a perfect size, even checked it with a little program called Checkemon) and very very sharp. tack sharp.
All playback works without a hitch but...since this is a 24p capable TV, I wanted to try 24p for my blu-ray movies and MKVs.
So I switched to 1920x1080p@24Hz and...problems!
The picture did not properly fill the screen, instead there were HUGE black bars on all sides and the picture had considerable loss of sharpness.
Then when I tried to revert back to 60Hz, nothing! The picture remained awful.
Only after couple of restarts of both the TV and the HTPC did I manage to return the picture to it's original pristine condition (1920x1080@60Hz).
I tried every mode possible (THX,Dynamic,Cinema...) and Overscan on/off, no change.

What seems to be the problem? Why isn't the picture tack-sharp and perfectly filled as it should be?

Device manager shows the TV under display device as "Generic plug and play display" or something like. In catalyst drivers it says the same but then adds something like: [Panasonic Plasma TV].

Anyone had any similar problems? Solutions?

Much to my surprise I got proper video levels and working hw acceleration without using any reg tweaks with 9.11 driver and HD2600Pro. There even seems to be dialog where you can choose between PC and video levels, I had no need to try it, but perhaps you could check it out?

What pixel format and brightness/contrast settings are you using? Are you feeding the display with HDMI?

thx
mike

What pixel format and brightness/contrast settings are you using? Are you feeding the display with HDMI?

thx
mike

All defaults, YCbCr 4:4:4, no changes to brightness/contrast in CCC. Using HDMI. Windows XP.

All defaults, YCbCr 4:4:4, no changes to brightness/contrast in CCC. Using HDMI. Windows XP.

I'm using windows 7, but it should be the same. So brightness and contrast both set to zero?

I'm using windows 7, but it should be the same. So brightness and contrast both set to zero?

Brightness 0 and contrast 100, but usually I have 'Use application settings' selected.

I have three questions.

I have a hd2600.

1) Is it possible to change the fourcc of a MKV from avc1 to H264 using hex editor? I see fourcc changers, but only for avi? and not mkv?

2) Has there been any success to get the

BBC Planet Earth: From Pole to Pole sample (mirror). Contains the infamous waterfall and birds flyby scenes. Playable only with nVidia GPUs

to play properly on this series of cards? This blog's instructions only works for the 4xxx series right?
http://zachsaw.blogspot.com/2009/06/ati-hd-hardware-accelerated-dxva-for.html

3) Is it possible to convert from mkv to avi without video 'loss'? ie: just a container conversion?

thanks

Guys, i need some help and advise with my recently set up HD 2600 AGP card. I know many of you have probably moved on from these but anyone with some past experience would be very helpful.

So I recently got an HD 2600 Pro AGP for my P4 2.8ghz 2gb ram Windows 7 rig for HTPC use. I was expecting the 2600 to have enough power to do 1080i deinterlacing work for TV watching. But to my surprise, it still stutters and i notice some interlace artifacts while watching 1080i TV in WMC7.

I have CCC 9.11 hotfix, applied ExDeus registry tweaks. I'm using Vector Adaptive deinterlacing, turned off Denoise and all extra settings. while watching 1080i CPU hovers around 60%, GPU according to CCC is around 20-30%. But playback is just not perfect. I know there are many issues with AGP drivers out there.

I used DxVA checker and attached here are some screen shots. Notice particularly, the "VectorAdaptiveDevice" is only for 720x480 and not up to 1920x1080. That I think is the culprit.

Any help would be appreciate it.

In response to kevinqian I've got a HD 2400 agp and I think i got it working by checking "VForceDeint" and setting the value to 6 in DXVA checker.

Hi,
I have an EAH2600 Pro with Win XP sp3. Recently occationally my screen black out completely while the pc is still on. My bet is the video card driver issue, so I download the latest drivers (ati867, ati8663) from ASUS website and try to update it. However, the update fails after all files are copied to the system, with an error message like: a specific file cannot be found.
Any idea is highly appreciated.
shzz

Hi @ all,

My name is KillerSneak and I'm the owner of cell-systems.net and modder of ATi and nVidia drivers (formerly known as the DNA-ATi and DNA-Force drivers)

I came across this nice vbs script and would like to know if it's possible to alter it a bit so %REG_BINARY% and %REG_DWORD% can also be injected into the registry with this script. I can not get it to work as my know how of vbs is limited (this scrip is what made me get into vbs)

I hope someone can help me / let me know if it's possible or not

Kind regards
KillerSneak

Hi,
I have an EAH2600 Pro with Win XP sp3. Recently occationally my screen black out completely while the pc is still on. My bet is the video card driver issue, so I download the latest drivers (ati867, ati8663) from ASUS website and try to update it. However, the update fails after all files are copied to the system, with an error message like: a specific file cannot be found.
Any idea is highly appreciated.
shzz

Did you try to uninstall first? You could also try with Catalyst drivers from ATI site.

Hi,
I have an EAH2600 Pro with Win XP sp3. Recently occationally my screen black out completely while the pc is still on. My bet is the video card driver issue, so I download the latest drivers (ati867, ati8663) from ASUS website and try to update it. However, the update fails after all files are copied to the system, with an error message like: a specific file cannot be found.
Any idea is highly appreciated.
shzz

As most people will recommend, first uninstall all video drivers that you may have. Not knowing what file it is that you are missing (i.e., is it a video driver file or a Windows system file?) then you should try installing the ATI catalyst drivers. All the manufacturer drivers for the Radeon cards are simply (older) rebranded Catalyst drivers with some form of unique tweaking or monitoring utility.

If installing the ATI Catalyst drivers fails, then you may need the help of Drivercleaner to clear out every last piece of previous driver garbage that may be left in your system. Honestly, if Drivercleaner fails, then your system is probably boinked and may require a reformat and fresh install of WinXP. Hope it works out for you.

I do uninstall the old driver first, and the error message does not specify what file is missing. I'll try the Catalyst driver as you both recommend.

One more weird thing is that, after update failure, I am even NOT able to manually (that is, from device manager pointing to the driver path) install the driver from the original driver CD that comes with the card, with the same error. I can only automatically install it, that is, put the CD in CDROM, reboot PC, then PC finds the new hardware and installs the driver from the CD on its own, without showing up any message.

Thanks again.

Is anyone else having problems getting the 9.12 AGP hotfix display driver to install? I have tried multiple times for both the 9.11 and 9.12 driver and they will not install.....Error message says "driver install: the driver package is not signed". I have the Radeon 2600 pro AGP with Win XP 32. CCC installs fine, but it will not install the display driver.

I need these display drivers to take advantage of Adobe flash player 10.1 beta hardware acceleration.

Does Flash 10.1 even support HD2000 cards? I thought ATI said in their press statements that only 3000 and up supports new Flash.

just checked Adobe Flash 10.1 release notes and kevinqian is right, only works for HD 3xxx and higher cards...........that sucks for me.

has anyone been able to install 9.12 AGP hotfix? on a hd 2600 pro AGP with winXP 32?

I've just setup an XP32 system with my old 2600XT AGP and had the same issues with the driver not installing. However if you go to the device in the control panel, device manager, then update the driver from there, selecting the 9.12 one, it gives you the option to proceed despite the driver being unsigned. Works fine. Very annoying of ATI to release it like that though as it took me ages to work out what had gone wrong.

Has anyone tried the xcode avivo converter to convert h264 to mpeg2 or vice versa? I downloaded it. but the converter application does not show up in the basic mode.

AFAIK, it works with HD 4xxx (and up?) only. I tried it on my 4650, and was not impressed. The benefit is apparent for 48xx, I hear.

Thanks for the info, I could not find anywhere about the encoding (even ATI's website), where its mentioned clearly.. There was some "review" sites that mentioned/tested it, but they used the older 8.xx version..

I have another problem, it seems that DVXA does not work (using Media Player Classic Homecinema) when I have dual screens? one DVI only works fine, but as soon as I add another VGA, so DVI and VGA, when I launch the player, it just says "Stopped", pressing "play" just reverts back to stop.

So for now I have to disable the VGA out and only use DVI.. strange problem..
Using Win7/AGP/Pentium3

a P3??!! That's awesome. Have you tried playing any 1080i/p Mpeg2 files? What kinda cpu % do you get?

Try adding the following to your registry:
"HWUVD_ForceMPEG2" = "1" - Enables MPEG2 decoding using VMR9 with dual displays.
"VForceUVDH264" = "1" - Enables H.264 decoding with dual displays.
"VForceUVDVC1" = "1" - Enables VC-1 decoding with dual displays.

For directions on how to do that, see below:
http://home.comcast.net/~exdeus/ati-hd2x00/

a P3??!! That's awesome. Have you tried playing any 1080i/p Mpeg2 files? What kinda cpu % do you get?

Try adding the following to your registry:
"HWUVD_ForceMPEG2" = "1" - Enables MPEG2 decoding using VMR9 with dual displays.
"VForceUVDH264" = "1" - Enables H.264 decoding with dual displays.
"VForceUVDVC1" = "1" - Enables VC-1 decoding with dual displays.

For directions on how to do that, see below:
http://home.comcast.net/~exdeus/ati-hd2x00/

In my case, HD2600XT, Win7 x64, with the 9.12 driver, I had to add those entries to the sub key to get ffdshow DXVA/MPC-HC DXVA/MS DTV DXVA working, as such:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\{y our guid}\0000\UMD\DXVA

I've been trying to get the HD channel on BBC iPlayer to work on my ancient PC. P4 2.2 GHz with a 2400 Pro AGP. I must admit that when I read the blurb announcing Flash was to be GPU accelerated I thought I was in with a chance only to get to the bit where the 2000 series cards are apparently not going to do this. Anyway I installed the Flash 10.1 Beta and Catalyst 9.11 and drivers, ticked the Hardware acceleration box and hey presto - it works.... sort of. I have gone from about 3FPS to almost the full 25 with 80% CPU use and the GPU working hard. There are a few artifacts displayed now and again but on the whole iPlayer HD stuff is now watchable. Looking for further improvement I installed Catalyst 9.12 and this totally stopped any HD stuff from playing, caused IE8 to crash and recover the tab repeatedly. I went back to 9.11 and all was well again.

Anybody else having any luck with hardware accelerating Flash player on a 2400 card?

I get the same browser crashing with 9.12. Never tried it with 9.11. Perhaps I will give 9.11 a shot.

I'm really hoping that they didn't deliberately knobble the drivers at 9.12 so the 2000 series cards cannot accelerate Flash. I know ATI make some distinction between the UVD engine on the 2000 cards and the UVD2 engine on other cards but hell it plays Blu-Ray fine so flash should not be much of a problem. When I downloaded a HD episode on iPlayer I noted that the mp4 file for the cat on the intro needs 80% CPU under Flash to play but the same clip takes less than 10% under Nero ShowTime. If I have to shell out £60 on a 4650 AGP card to get this working I might as well put it towards a new rig. I built this 2.2 P4 in 2001 just as it was the top end CPU to hit the shelves and its been on 24/7 ever since so be a shame to have to retire it due to deliberate driver policy by ATI.

well, stick with what works... 9.11

I finally had the chance to give 9.11 a whirl. Seems like youtube videos up to 480p are gpu accelerated. When I try 720p, the browser crashes. Are you able to watch 720p flash content? I'm using Beta 2 of FLash. What version are you using?

I'm watching 720p flash content using the BBC iPlayer service in the UK to view their HD channel. Give me a link to a YouTube video that crashes and I will give it a try. Flash 10.1 Beta2 here also.

I just tried some random 720p YouTube videos and whereas at lower resolutions they stream I had to wait for the entire video to be buffered/downloaded before it played. It then played back hardware accelerated with the usual tearing.

I think you are right. Just have to wait for the whole video to buffer before it starts playing 720p stuff. 720p seems to stutter and struggle a bit with 90% cpu on a P4 HT 2.8. 480p runs fine. It would suck if they eventually disable the hadware acceleration in the final build for HD2000 cards.

Get this tool called "AMD gpu clock tool" to determine whether hardware UVD is enabled while watching.

Just tried catalyst 10.1 AGP hotfix and Flash 10.1 Beta2 crashes IE8,FF3.6 & Chrome4 when trying to play video with hardware acceleration ticked. Reverting to 9.11 and it plays again with the usual tearing :mad:

This is on a P4 2.2 GHz Northwood with Sapphire HD2400 Pro AGP running WIndows XP SP3 32-bit

same here. No go on 10.1.

Darn... 9.11 is the last and greatest it seems.

I'm running Win7 32bit. It seems like 720p youtube still stutters somewhat even with gpu accl. cpu runs at about 80-90%.

I finally had the chance to give 9.11 a whirl. Seems like youtube videos up to 480p are gpu accelerated.
That sounds promising, finally something to get me interested in risking the relative DXVA stability I finally found with 9.4 on my AGP 2600Pro. Does this 9.11 AGP hotfix driver feature the relatively new "smooth video playback" option in CCC (httáp://images.anandtech.com/reviews/video/ATI/5450/AMDCP.png)?
It would suck if they eventually disable the hadware acceleration in the final build for HD2000 cards.
Unfortunately probably a realistic worry. Is the Flash 10.1 beta2 stable enough for long-term use in case they do?

If you are running Win7/Vista, you can always rollback the driver install if it sucks. So install 9.11 and give it a try.

I tried Adobe Flash 10.1 beta 3 and it seems to break UVD acceleration on 720p video. 480p is still accelerated. This is all with CCC9.11 drivers. Anything after completely breaks acceleration.

I don't like the way this is heading. It's obvious that the hardware is up to the job but is being deliberately disabled to force us to buy new.

Just tried 10.1 Beta 3 and it's a big improvement for BBC iPlayer for me. 720p acceleration is working for me. Kevin - do you have a clip I can test?

Not an AVS newbie, but a newbie to this thread.

I just got a refurb 2900xt to use in a PC to drive an old RPTV in the basement with only analog component inputs. The 2900 XT was supposed to arrive with component cables, but all I got were a couple of DVI-VGA adapters How does the component adapter connect to the card? Throught the round S-Video like adapter in the center of the back end of the card? If so, is this the right adapter for this card?

9 PIN CABLE (http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=2766464)

Thanks.

I don't like the way this is heading. It's obvious that the hardware is up to the job but is being deliberately disabled to force us to buy new.

Just tried 10.1 Beta 3 and it's a big improvement for BBC iPlayer for me. 720p acceleration is working for me. Kevin - do you have a clip I can test?
Try this and switch to 720p:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luHxCgr3arw

Not an AVS newbie, but a newbie to this thread.

I just got a refurb 2900xt to use in a PC to drive an old RPTV in the basement with only analog component inputs. The 2900 XT was supposed to arrive with component cables, but all I got were a couple of DVI-VGA adapters How does the component adapter connect to the card? Throught the round S-Video like adapter in the center of the back end of the card? If so, is this the right adapter for this card?

9 PIN CABLE (http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=2766464)

Thanks.

Yes.

Kevin, the clip you linked plays fine for me in 720p. If I disable hardware acceleration then its bak to 3 frames per second

Yes.

Thanks much for helping me out.

Kevin, the clip you linked plays fine for me in 720p. If I disable hardware acceleration then its bak to 3 frames per second
Are you running:

Windows 7 32 or 64 bit
CCC 9.11
Flash 10.1 b3

I am running Windows XP SP3, CCC 9.11, Flash 10.1 B3, Radeon HD2400 Pro

Not an AVS newbie, but a newbie to this thread.

I just got a refurb 2900xt to use in a PC to drive an old RPTV in the basement with only analog component inputs. The 2900 XT was supposed to arrive with component cables, but all I got were a couple of DVI-VGA adapters How does the component adapter connect to the card? Throught the round S-Video like adapter in the center of the back end of the card? If so, is this the right adapter for this card?

9 PIN CABLE (http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=2766464)

Thanks.

If your RPTV is an HDTV, then this is not a good option. You are essentially outputing through the S-Video connection, which is not capable passing an HD signal (720p, 1080i, 1080p). The S-Videos output is only slightly better than a composite connection. S-Vidoe seperates the luminance (white level) and chrominance (color information) signals onto seperate cables and connections for a better possible video image than Composite (single video) video connections. The component end of the converter cable only allows the video feed to connect through your RPTV's component connectors; it does not change the standard def signal into a high def signal. You are still getting a 480i (or possibly a 480p) signal.

If your RPTV is a SDTV and that's what you want, the cable should work out just fine. If your RPTV is HD and you want a HD signal (which the 2900xt is capable of), you should consider a DVI-to-component adapter or cable. Otherwise, you're just wasting the HD features of your video card and TV. There are plenty out there. Here's one that says it specifically works with ATI chipsets:
http://sewelldirect.com/dvivideoadapter.asp

Hope that helps.

Guys, i need some help and advise with my recently set up HD 2600 AGP card. I know many of you have probably moved on from these but anyone with some past experience would be very helpful.

So I recently got an HD 2600 Pro AGP for my P4 2.8ghz 2gb ram Windows 7 rig for HTPC use. I was expecting the 2600 to have enough power to do 1080i deinterlacing work for TV watching. But to my surprise, it still stutters and i notice some interlace artifacts while watching 1080i TV in WMC7.

I have CCC 9.11 hotfix, applied ExDeus registry tweaks. I'm using Vector Adaptive deinterlacing, turned off Denoise and all extra settings. while watching 1080i CPU hovers around 60%, GPU according to CCC is around 20-30%. But playback is just not perfect. I know there are many issues with AGP drivers out there.

I used DxVA checker and attached here are some screen shots. Notice particularly, the "VectorAdaptiveDevice" is only for 720x480 and not up to 1920x1080. That I think is the culprit.

Any help would be appreciate it.

Hello kevinqian, i have 1080i handycam and when i try to upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate, every thing works well by using Custom EVR except 1080i 50hz AVC files from my cam and others.

I rollback to XP SP3 and every works ok now. i use MPC-HC for video playback with VM7 windowed render.

If i set deinterlacing metod to some of adaptative ones on CCC then shuttering appears even on windows XP. I only use adaptative deinterlacing for SD Mpeg2 video like DVB streaming..

I try to set every deinterlacing metods on Windows seven with 1080i files buy i think deinterlacing metod is forced to adaptative and playback shutters.

Best regards

Gaizka

Sorry i have 2400 pro AGP, Core 2 Duo E6600

So I recently got an HD 2600 Pro AGP for my P4 2.8ghz 2gb ram Windows 7 rig for HTPC use.
...
I have CCC 9.11 hotfix, applied ExDeus registry tweaks. I'm using Vector Adaptive deinterlacing, turned off Denoise and all extra settings.
...
I used DxVA checker and attached here are some screen shots. Notice particularly, the "VectorAdaptiveDevice" is only for 720x480 and not up to 1920x1080. That I think is the culprit.


Strange, I also have a 2600 Pro on a Athlon XP 1,8Ghz 1Gb Ram on Windows XP SP3 with catalyst 9.11 hotfix and ExDeus registry tweaks, and DxVA checker shows "VectorAdaptiveDevice" for all 3 resolutions. I will be setting up HD TV on my HTPC soon, will let you know how I go. My experience with most 720p mkvs is good, although high bit-rate video and or DTS high bit-rate audio do cause the occasional stutter with the latest MPC-HC.

Do you use Driver Cleaner in Safe Mode before installing new drivers?

Thanks for all your responses to my old post. I have it working now with Win7. I just have to overclock the DDR2 to 504mhz(1008mhz effective) for VectorAdaptive to work at 1080i. Confirmed in Dxva checker.

Thanks for all your responses to my old post. I have it working now with Win7. I just have to overclock the DDR2 to 504mhz(1008mhz effective) for VectorAdaptive to work at 1080i. Confirmed in Dxva checker.
Very strange. On my 2600 Pro I leave the memory clock at the default 400Mhz and VectorAdaptive is available for all 3 resolutions. I suppose it must be Windows 7 that makes the difference. The ATi Catalyst team does have a history of deducing hardware features from frequencies, which IMHO is bad practice, see http://code.bastart.eu.org/csapatch/

Funny thing is I can then downclock it back to 400mhz stock and VA stays on. So it activates a trigger in the driver and then stays on even when you change it.

Kevin, the clip you linked plays fine for me in 720p. If I disable hardware acceleration then its bak to 3 frames per second

How do you disable/enable acceleration in flash player beta for 720p?

Also has anyone been able to run OSX with it? with CI/QE?

thanks

Right click on the flash video and choose settings. There is a tick box for hardware acceleration.

Hi,
I have a AGP 2600 pro paired with AMD Athlon 64 (windows 7). I've installed the CCC 9.11 (driver date Nov4, 8.671) and Flash 10.1 beta 3. Still, I don't get any hardware acceleration and flash crashes whenever I choose "720p" for Youtube videos. Do I need to do some tweaking or it worked out of box in your cases? It's really frustrating that I don't get the function which others seem to get.

dalvik,

Have you applied the ExDeus' Reg Tweaks Script found on the first page of this thread? I'm not doing Flash video on my 2600pro but I found that I could not get any dxva without first running that script.

Good luck,
Blato

Hi,
I have a AGP 2600 pro paired with AMD Athlon 64 (windows 7). I've installed the CCC 9.11 (driver date Nov4, 8.671) and Flash 10.1 beta 3. Still, I don't get any hardware acceleration and flash crashes whenever I choose "720p" for Youtube videos. Do I need to do some tweaking or it worked out of box in your cases? It's really frustrating that I don't get the function which others seem to get.
I had crashing issues as well in the past. sometimes a driver update or some changes fixes it with no warning. Try using Flash 10.1 beta 2 instead. That seems to work better for me. Also download AMD gpu clock tool to test for HWA.

Another extreme newb question. My RPTV is an old Toshiba Theaterwide, a 16:9 set but not HDTV. Windows 7 recognize my primary FPM at 1280 x 1024; second monitor is the Toshiba. It recognizes two resolutions for the Toshiba, 720x480 and 640x480. I would think that the former would be perfect. But when I try to play DVDs on the Tosh, both Windows Media Player and PowerDVD act as if they are playing on a 4:3 screen, not 16:9. Is this tweakable, or have I reached an early sticking point toward using this ancient basement TV. I can't find any settings in either WMP or PowerDVD to tell it that the second monitor is 16:9. I see the second monitor options in PowerDVD, but they are greyed out.

If your RPTV is an HDTV, then this is not a good option. You are essentially outputing through the S-Video connection, which is not capable passing an HD signal (720p, 1080i, 1080p). The S-Videos output is only slightly better than a composite connection. S-Vidoe seperates the luminance (white level) and chrominance (color information) signals onto seperate cables and connections for a better possible video image than Composite (single video) video connections. The component end of the converter cable only allows the video feed to connect through your RPTV's component connectors; it does not change the standard def signal into a high def signal. You are still getting a 480i (or possibly a 480p) signal.
If you're referring to the nine-pin port at the back of the card, it is not an S-Video port, but rather, it's a standard analog output port that is composite-, S-Video-, and component-compatible. It is called HDTV-out by the graphics card vendors and is capable of up to 1080i resolution when used with a standard component dongle.

FWIW upscaling SDVD over component will require the likes of AnyDVD-HD (due to a restriction in the CSS license); for now, this isn't a worry with Blu-ray, although this could change in the future.

Hi, did anyone in this thread ever get HDMI Audio to work on the AGP version of the 2X000 series cards?
I created a new thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1240495) asking for the BIOS of a 2400Pro AGP 512MB with working HDMI Audio here but it got no replies... (And I've spent allot of time reading this thread but never gotten a 100% answer if someone has HDMI Audio working well on a HD2400Pro? (Or even any 2X000 series AGP for that matter))

If you're referring to the nine-pin port at the back of the card, it is not an S-Video port, but rather, it's a standard analog output port that is composite-, S-Video-, and component-compatible. It is called HDTV-out by the graphics card vendors and is capable of up to 1080i resolution when used with a standard component dongle.

This appears right to me. I went ahead and bought the other plug identified above (from sewelldirect.com) --the one that fits onto one of the DVI ports--and that does NOT appear to work with my 2900. I should have known--the adapter looks very similar to one on the ATI web site, which identifies it as working with cards other than the 2400/2600/2900 series.

The dongle that plugs into the round 9-pin port does seem to work, although I don't have an HDTV near the PC to confirm HD resolutions.

This appears right to me. I went ahead and bought the other plug identified above (from sewelldirect.com) --the one that fits onto one of the DVI ports--and that does NOT appear to work with my 2900. I should have known--the adapter looks very similar to one on the ATI web site, which identifies it as working with cards other than the 2400/2600/2900 series.

The dongle that plugs into the round 9-pin port does seem to work, although I don't have an HDTV near the PC to confirm HD resolutions.
I have been using 1080i with an old RPTV for a year and a half now. Video card is a Sapphire 4550.

Noticed that Adobe flash player 10.1 RC1 has been released, did anyone try it yet on the HD2X000 cards?

http://www.techspot.com/news/38490-adobe-releases-flash-player-101-rc-fixes-tons-of-bugs.html

I've tried it. Still only works with the 9.11 drivers - anything later is knobbled for 2000 series cards thanks to ATI. It's still not spot on so I use the ActiveX one in IE8 and revert back to Beta3 plugin on FireFox & Chrome for some stuff that looks/works better under that.

I was mainly interested in getting the HD stuff on the BBC iPlayer to work but as of March 24th the BBC seem to have changed the encoding and it now no longer accelerates HD unless you use the earlier Beta releases. I almost had flawless HD playback on a P4 2.2GHz with a 2400Pro AGP but then somebody goes and screws it up. Here's hoping....

Hi, did anyone in this thread ever get HDMI Audio to work on the AGP version of the 2X000 series cards?
I created a new thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1240495) asking for the BIOS of a 2400Pro AGP 512MB with working HDMI Audio here but it got no replies... (And I've spent allot of time reading this thread but never gotten a 100% answer if someone has HDMI Audio working well on a HD2400Pro? (Or even any 2X000 series AGP for that matter))

Don't waste you time. HDMI Audio does not work on AGP version cards.

Use HDMI/SPDIF or Analog output from you sound card and connect it to your tv audio input for HDMI if supported.

Best Regards

I've tried it. Still only works with the 9.11 drivers - anything later is knobbled for 2000 series cards thanks to ATI. It's still not spot on so I use the ActiveX one in IE8 and revert back to Beta3 plugin on FireFox & Chrome for some stuff that looks/works better under that.

I've just installed and tested the FlashPlayer 10.1 RC2 (http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/flashplayer10_1_rc2_plugin_041910.exe) on my AGP 2600 Pro Catalyst 9.11, Windows XP SP3 machine. I recently finally got H.264 .mkvs working flawlessly (after discovering the proper way to use ReClock i.e. set as MPC-HC's default audio renderer and not as an external filter) so I was optimistic that I could get flash to accelerate with the Catalyst 9.11 drivers.

Unfortunately, although the GPU is now being used (at ~30% with the CPU at ~90%) with the 720p youtube clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luHxCgr3arw), the quality is pretty poor with a lot of tearing and dropped frames. If I disable HW acceleration GPU does go to 0% and it reverts to a slideshow. This was all in Firefox 3, I tried in IE but somehow that was still using the Flash 9.0 plugin, so no HW acceleration available to test.

Can anyone help me out? I'd like to go back and test beta 3 and 2, could someone point me to a reliable link (it's a jungle out there!)?

I've just installed and tested the FlashPlayer 10.1 RC2 (http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/flashplayer10_1_rc2_plugin_041910.exe) on my AGP 2600 Pro Catalyst 9.11, Windows XP SP3 machine. I recently finally got H.264 .mkvs working flawlessly (after discovering the proper way to use ReClock i.e. set as MPC-HC's default audio renderer and not as an external filter) so I was optimistic that I could get flash to accelerate with the Catalyst 9.11 drivers.

Unfortunately, although the GPU is now being used (at ~30% with the CPU at ~90%) with the 720p youtube clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luHxCgr3arw), the quality is pretty poor with a lot of tearing and dropped frames. If I disable HW acceleration GPU does go to 0% and it reverts to a slideshow. This was all in Firefox 3, I tried in IE but somehow that was still using the Flash 9.0 plugin, so no HW acceleration available to test.

Can anyone help me out? I'd like to go back and test beta 3 and 2, could someone point me to a reliable link (it's a jungle out there!)?

Try reverting to Catalyst 8.4 with Avivo 10.3 installed over the top. I have a Radeon HD 2400 XT running Flash 10.1 RC2 without a hitch at 720P in YouTube, Hulu Desktop, Boxee and the Firefox plugin. No problem. 1080p looks great in Boxee as well. The one format that is still giving me a problem is 1080i in YouTube. I don't think my GPU can handle it...

Randy

Try reverting to Catalyst 8.4 with Avivo 10.3 installed over the top.

Thanks for the very specific tip, haven't heard that combination before. Usually hear about 8.5 as the previously most stable driver (for DXVA on AGP). You do have an AGP system I take it, or not? And do you run Windows XP SP3? And why do you use these particular versions, pot-luck or have you tested a whole raft of Catalyst and Avivo versions?

It's fairly time consuming for me to downgrade driver versions, with all the reboots and needing to attach a proper monitor instead of the CRT TV, so I hope you understand me wanting a bit more background before chancing it.

It looks like Catalyst 10.5 may well bring hardware acceleration of L5.x videos (with a recent build of MPC-HC (http://imouto.my/watching-h264-videos-using-dxva/comment-page-24/#comment-3922)). Unfortunately it looks like ATi may be deliberately knobbling the drivers again (http://imouto.my/watching-h264-videos-using-dxva/comment-page-24/#comment-4060) so that us 2x00/UVD1 users are being needlessly shafted into a hardware upgrade.

Maybe I should jump ship and buy an nVidia 9400 PCI card (big shame they have no AGP) after all. All I want is an affordable passively cooled card to give my old hardware a shot in the arm and make an all round HD accelerated HTPC from. Why, anno 2010, is there not a single manufacturer that can provide this?

Phusg,

Yes, I have an AGP card and Windows XP SP3. I've also tweaked the registry using ExDeus' Reg Tweak Scripts v. 0.16, and have installed the AMD CPU driver and their Dual Core Optimizer... just in case that makes any difference.

I was having difficulty trying to get any of the 9.x or 10.x versions of CCC to work, and an earlier post in this thread suggested that 8.4 is a winner. Applying Avivo 10.3 on top of this mess was a little bit of midnight madness, to be honest, since nothing else was working for me and I was about to throw in the towel. It surprised me that the Avivo 10.3 installer didn't spit out any error messages. Note that the Avivo options DO NOT show up in CCC, however the performance of my CPU and GPU during HD video playback in XP media players show that all is good.

"Why, anno 2010, is there not a single manufacturer that can provide this?" Amen to that! I'm already starting to acquire HTPC components for my next build and it is surprising how few options exist for good passively cooled video cards, regardless of the interface. That said, NewEgg has the Gigabyte GV-R455D3-512I Radeon HD 4550 512MB passively cooled card on for $19.99 after rebate with free shipping right now and one of them should be arriving at my door later today... :D

Randy

Good news: My new card arrived yesterday, looks like it should be a good performer, although the specs list only 80 shaders so I am not sure how much blu-ray post-processing it will be able to do...

Bad news: I'm an idiot. As I was putting the new card up on my spare parts shelf, I read the specs on the box for my old Radeon HD 2400 XT card. It's a PCI Express card, not an AGP. Sorry to mislead you like that. That's what I get for guessing the specs on a machine I built two years ago and recently dragged out of storage. :confused:

Randy

Bad news: I'm an idiot. As I was putting the new card up on my spare parts shelf, I read the specs on the box for my old Radeon HD 2400 XT card. It's a PCI Express card, not an AGP. Sorry to mislead you like that.
No need to be so harsh on yourself, not to worry, I hadn't gotten round to this yet anyway... but AGP is a big difference Catalyst driver-wise, the AGP drivers have even more bugs than the PCI-E drivers. So unless someone else with some time on their hands confirms that 8.4 + Avivio 10.3 is a winner for AGP cards, I'll stick to 9.11. I do now have pretty good HD mkv support and I don't watch that much flash video anyway. I will keep my eye's open for possible decent L5.1 support in 10.5, that would be nice and worth sacrificing flash acceleration for. Hopefully someone will come up with an Omega style driver remix with the best of all worlds. Doesn't look like ATi will deliver on that one.

I have the 2600xt pcie card and its been working fine until I installed catalyst 10.4 now after adjusting scaling on my sharp 46 inch 1080p lcd to 0 it keeps switching back to 15% so not filling the screen. When I look at the settings it says its on 0% but when i move it back to 15 then back to 0 it fills the screen again until it decides to switch. Anyone else having this problem? Also using Windows 7 Pro x64.

I just want to post my observations after years of trial & error:

I have a HD2600 with Catalyst 9.3 under Vista, aero disabled.
I'm using "YCbCr 4:4:4" as pixel format and a HDMI cable using the special DVI->HDMI adapter.

I calibrated my 50' Panasonic PZ70E plasma using the free HCFR calibration software and the "Eye-One Display 2" sensor. As patterns I used IRE0 to IRE100 HDTV patterns from www.w6rz.net under theatertek vmr9 fullscreen mode.

At the time I didn't know that the pixel format "YCbCr 4:4:4" would pass video unaltered, and compress window levels from 0..255 to 16..235. It gave the most natural video to my eyes, with lots of low-key gray shades.

I did a lot of reading on the video vs pc-level topics and also some experiments, and for my display which can input & display 0..255 via HDMI, I recommend using "YCbCr 4:4:4":

- windows RGB levels are compressed to 16..235

How am I sure ? When using the nokia test patterns (ntest.exe) and absolute black corresponds to the lowest background light on the plasma, and 1% is barely visible (you see some grey pixels dithering when you are close to the display), when you switch from "YCbCr 4:4:4" to Full RGB, all shades up to 8% grey are clipped to full black. When boosting the brightness on my display, they become visible again.

Which means my display can display 0..255 RGB via HDMI, but when sent as "YCbCr 4:4:4", windows black is output as IRE0 (16,16,16) & windows white is output as IRE100 (235,235,235) instead of 255,255,255.

When outputing IRE105 video patterns under "YCbCr 4:4:4", the IRE105 bar becomes whiter then windows white! This is only possible if video levels are unaltered and windows levels are compressed. This is not possible when using full RGB where video 16..235 is expanded to 0..255 and non-video is unaltered.

- video levels vs window levels under "YCbCr 4:4:4"

IRE0 is as dark as windows dark
IRE100 is as dark as windows white
IRE105 is displayed as whiter than white

When you swith to full RGB, windows white also becomes whiter as it is now sent as 255 instead of 235 to the PDP ... . But when absolute black is calibrated to IRE0 under "YCbCr 4:4:4", going to full RGB makes the video oversaturated and shades of dark grey (eg suits) are crushed. It looks like artificial augmented blacklevels. When boosting brightness, the crushing disappears.

- no video alterations ?

I see no difference between avivo, vmr9, directx and direct3d in levels using "YCbCr 4:4:4". I tried:

theatertek renderless vmr9
vlc + directx
vlc + direct3d
tmt + avivo -> IRE105 is displayed not brighter than IRE100, but IRE 0 ..100 look the same as above

and using test pattern

http://www.w6rz.net/ramp.zip

I also tested the colors of the demo 'philips colors of miami' and VLC and TMT have exactly the same color decoding, identical between vlc and tmt.

How can I be sure that TMT doesn't first to

16..235 -> 0..255
and then the card remaps to 16..235

as IRE105 is clipped to IRE100 under TMT and not under VLC.

Does avivo support WTW IRE105 ? Or does it clip >IRE100 ?

I also noticed that in more recent drivers, the pixel format option is gone !

Hi everyone,

Can someone confirm if it's possible for me to play 1080p mkv files with my setup.

Pentium 4 2.4ghz
1 GB Ram
Video Card: ATI HD 3650 agp

I am using an old viewsonic m1200 for my cpu. I just got hold of ati hd 3650 agp since the board it uses doesn't have pci-e. But I can't seem to play 1080p mkv files. The sounds gets lagged and the video slows down after a minute of playing. I have installed a lot of software from mediaportals to different codecs to classic media players and stuff but to no avail.

Can someone confirm it is possible to play 1080p with my video card and setup and if so, can someone lead me to what i need to set this one up?

Thanks in advance for any help

Do you have the latest CCC driver installed? I think the 1gb ram is pushing it. You must be running WinXP. I'm not too familiar with what CCC version works best on XP.

This thread is too long for me to read through. I am trying to play BD discs with TMT3 Platinum and I have a major issue. Wanted to see if this could possibly be the vid card. ATI 2400 XT AGP. The disc will play for a second or two, then pause for 2 or 3 seconds, then play for a second... is there something I need to do to fine tune the settings?

This looks like nothing that was tied to these cards. I have one, and followed the discussions quite thoroughly.
It looks more like the behavior I had when I had the BD drive on an overall weak system (with this card), mostly a lowly CPU (Barton@2.0 GHz).

Thanks Roussi. That could be the problem. This is the MLB I was using as my prior HTPC, but I never ran anything through it over 1080i recorded off-the-air with my ATI Home Theater Pro 600 tuner. Looks like I had the right plan in the beginning, I had originally planned on building an ITX system for the bedroom from scratch, then got cheap.

Has anyone tried the 10.6 drivers? do they help with Flash HD acceleration?

Has anyone tried the 10.6 drivers? do they help with Flash HD acceleration?

Unfortunately, the HD 2xxx and 3xxx series will probably never support the Flash HD acceleration. ATI drivers support the Flash HD acceleration through its UVD engine. The 2xxx and 3xxx series only have UVD and UVD+ versions. The Flash HD acceleration requires UVD2 (4xxx and 5xxx series). And yes, the IGPs 3200 (780G) and IGP 3300 (790GX) are the exception because they actually have the UVD2 feature. Therefore, they are the only "3xxx" series included in the Flash acceleration support list.

Otherwise, cards with anything less than UVD2 will not support the Flash HD acceleration. Whether this is a specific limitation of UVD and UVD+ or just something that AMD has chosen not to put effort into developing for older hardware is unknown.

Hello. I recently bought an ATI HD 2400 AGP. I spend a lot of time, to make the system fairly stable with Windows 7 and 9.11 AGP hotfix.

The problem is although DXVA works with every player, I'm getting random artifacts when DXVA is on.

I've tried combinations of those filters and players, but no luck:
-Windows Media Player, MPC-HC latest svn, KMPlayer, PotPlayer
-Microsoft DVT-DVD Video Decoder, FFDShow DXVA video decoder, MPC decoder

Has anyone experienced such a problem? :(



Also, I have H/W acceleration with the latest version of Flash 10.1. AMD GPU Clock Tool says UVD is active in every resolution, but only in 360p is really stable. Above that, I'm experiencing stuttering caused by high CPU usage.


(sorry for my bad English)

netw0rx, I had similar issues with a Sapphire ATI 2400 card - I returned it. It was a POS - over time the artifacts got worse no matter how many times I reinstalled the drivers or even after a fresh OS install.

Also, please read a post or two up regarding Adobe Flash. It helps to read some of this thread at least. :)

Config Updated

Radeon HD 2400 pro AGP
Intel DualCore 2,4Ghz
1 GB RAM

Windows XP SP3
10.6 Agp hotfix
AMD GPU Clock Tool: GPU set at 720 Mhz and MEM at 530 Mhz (Stock 540-400) Startup script
MPC-HC with VMR-9 Renderless, 3d surfaces, Bilinear scaling, VMR9 Render v-Sync all off
PixelShader 0-255->16-235 active because DVI to HDMI cable used to 16-235 calibrated Sony LCD
Internal MPC h264 DXVA for L4.1 or lower and CoreAVC for rest
PowerDVD 10 Mpeg2 codec used for MPEG2 DXVA on MPC-HC
Set automatic refresh changes on fullscreen playback
Haali Media Splitter
Reclock as audio render
Set Always wait for vsync on Catalyst Control Center, all settings 3D Configuration

No tested Flash DXVA yet but i think does not work


And this is it

netw0rx, I had similar issues with a Sapphire ATI 2400 card - I returned it. It was a POS - over time the artifacts got worse no matter how many times I reinstalled the drivers or even after a fresh OS install.
I'm completely dissapointed from the card. The Aero performance is TERRIBLE, compared to my old 6600GT. But there are not a lot of alternatives with h/w acceleration for the AGP owners, so I want to research it a little bit more.



Also, please read a post or two up regarding Adobe Flash. It helps to read some of this thread at least. :)
No, you misunderstood it. There are a lot of posts here, regarding the Flash issue, so I wrote it to inform that h/w acceleration is possible with 9.11 and the latest version of Flash. :)