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

[noeyedear]

[QUOTE=magnusr]Upgrade to Catalyst 7.8. Trust me im using Yamaha RX-V1700. Catalyst 7.7 will give you a blinking issue every 15 seconds when watching hd-dvd/blu-ray.

Have loaded 7.8 drivers. Good news is nothing changed, bad news is nothing changed. Still no audio via hdmi to receiver.

[Daikon]

I have now a big problem with the new 7.8 driver under windows xp. In powerdvd ultra, i have hardware acceleration but if i watch tv like prosieben hd (germany dvb-s2), i dont have any hardware acceleration in dvbviewer pro with the 7.8 driver. anyone knows, why?

[jkcheng122]

[QUOTE=magnusr]Upgrade to Catalyst 7.8. Trust me im using Yamaha RX-V1700. Catalyst 7.7 will give you a blinking issue every 15 seconds when watching hd-dvd/blu-ray.

Have loaded 7.8 drivers. Good news is nothing changed, bad news is nothing changed. Still no audio via hdmi to receiver.

have you installed the audio drivers? i have sound, but pdvd ultra doesnt seem to recognize my spdif port so i'm currently unable to get digital surround out of it. if i dont find a solution soon i'm going to try the onboard audio via optical on the motherboard to see if that works.

[jkcheng122]

does anyone know if there's an official site to download the latest audio drivers for the 2x00 series.

[noeyedear]

[QUOTE=noeyedear]

have you installed the audio drivers? i have sound, but pdvd ultra doesnt seem to recognize my spdif port so i'm currently unable to get digital surround out of it. if i dont find a solution soon i'm going to try the onboard audio via optical on the motherboard to see if that works.

Yeah I installed them off the disk that came with the card. I can't find any audio drivers on the ATI site.

[RichB]

I have found that Chris Botti live is my most demanind disk. I think it may be 1080i on the disk. Riva Tunder shows between 75 and 100% use of the 2600Pro. CPU usage is low.

It worked fine with 7.7. I think it may be a registry key that changed the default deinterlacing. Does anyone else have this disk that can see if it plays?

- Rich

[arfster]

I have found that Chris Botti live is my most demanind disk. I think it may be 1080i on the disk. Riva Tunder shows between 75 and 100% use of the 2600Pro. CPU usage is low.

It worked fine with 7.7. I think it may be a registry key that changed the default deinterlacing.

The deinterlacing mode selection didn't change, but VA and MA deinterlacing both became much more demanding on the GPU. See my post above, I was speculating that a 2600pro might be maxxed by this :-(

For completeness, could you fill in some details? What OS, Aero on/off, what output res? Oh, and is the Botti disc AVC or mpeg2?

[millerbrad]

Installed the 7.8 drivers, and now DVI-to-HDMI conversion only works on one of the two ports. Worked fine with the 7.7 drivers; no sound through the second port with 7.8. CCC says only DVI is connected, not HDMI.

[jkcheng122]

Installed the 7.8 drivers, and now DVI-to-HDMI conversion only works on one of the two ports. Worked fine with the 7.7 drivers; no sound through the second port with 7.8. CCC says only DVI is connected, not HDMI.

that makes me wonder if i'm not getting spdif b/c i have the hdmi on the wrong port. but if that was the case i should have no sound at all instead of 2ch sound.

[RichB]

The deinterlacing mode selection didn't change, but VA and MA deinterlacing both became much more demanding on the GPU. See my post above, I was speculating that a 2600pro might be maxxed by this :-(

For completeness, could you fill in some details? What OS, Aero on/off, what output res? Oh, and is the Botti disc AVC or mpeg2?

Video Resolution/Codec
1080i/AVC MPEG-4
1080i/MPEG-2 (Supplements Only)
Aspect Ratio(s)
1.78:1
Audio Formats
English PCM 5.1 Surround (96kHz/24-bit/13.8mbps)
English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (640kbps)
English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo (640kbps)

Here is link to the highdefdigest.com review (http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/chrisbottilivewithorchestra.html)


Auro is ON but it is turned off by PowerDVD 7.3 latest build. I found a deal for about $10 for this disk so I bought it. It is a torcher test. I cannot play it on my AMD 4800+/8500GT/XP machine.

- Rich

[butters2006]

Magnusr, does 7.8 fix the blinking problems (atikmdag failing) when connecting through a receiver and playing protected content? I'm currently connected directly to my TV because of this issue (luckily the TV has two HDMI inputs...).

Upgrade to Catalyst 7.8. Trust me im using Yamaha RX-V1700. Catalyst 7.7 will give you a blinking issue every 15 seconds when watching hd-dvd/blu-ray.

Why do you want to have PCM 2ch, ac3/dts only when using hdmi from ati 2x00 series? The card dosent support PCM5.1/7.1. I recommend that you make an analog connection from your sound card to the multi channel in on your receiver. Then set multi channel in to use dtv or dvd hdmi port for video.

[magnusr]

Magnusr, does 7.8 fix the blinking problems (atikmdag failing) when connecting through a receiver and playing protected content? I'm currently connected directly to my TV because of this issue (luckily the TV has two HDMI inputs...).

yes it does :)

[arfster]

Auro is ON but it is turned off by PowerDVD 7.3 latest build. I found a deal for about $10 for this disk so I bought it. It is a torcher test. I cannot play it on my AMD 4800+/8500GT/XP machine.


Weirder and weirder. The decoding for h264 is all done on the UVD, so what you're seeing as a GPU% is only the deinterlacing (it's definitely 1080i), and the scaling. PDVD turns off Aero as you say, and it uses EVR so there's no renderer penalty.

On my 2600XT a music concert (16mbit 1080i h264) takes around 30-34% in PDVD with Aero off and VA deinterlacing forced, outputting to a 1080p screen. I think deinterlacing your HDDVD shouldn't hit the GPU% any harder, because it's already decoded so the uncompessed data is the same bitrate. Mine is in 1080i50, so if you're at 1080i60 it has 20% higher bitrate, so the equivalent figure for comparison is around 36-41%.

The 2600pro is a little slower, but not that much you should be averaging almost double. Depending on what model you have the CPU is probably 600-700mhz (mine 800mhz), which shouldn't make too much difference. The memory is often a lot slower though (800mhz vs 1400mhz) - this is the only vaguely plausible reason I can think of, as VA/MA deinterlacing does stress memory bandwidth.


Clearly something pretty screwed with the deinterlacing on these drivers. If a 2600pro is struggling, what hope do the 2400 models have? In Vista the 2400pro could manage VA deinterlacing on 1080i h264, now a 2600pro can't - then you have to consider that h264 is the easier codec for these cards, and mpeg2 adds a huge extra strain, particularly on the lower models.

[RichB]

On my 2600XT a music concert (16mbit 1080i h264) takes around 30-34% in PDVD with Aero off and VA deinterlacing forced, outputting to a 1080p screen. I think deinterlacing your HDDVD shouldn't hit the GPU% any harder, because it's already decoded so the uncompessed data is the same bitrate. Mine is in 1080i50, so if you're at 1080i60 it has 20% higher bitrate, so the equivalent figure for comparison is around 36-41%.

The 2600pro is a little slower, but not that much you should be averaging almost double. Depending on what model you have the CPU is probably 600-700mhz (mine 800mhz), which shouldn't make too much difference. The memory is often a lot slower though (800mhz vs 1400mhz) - this is the only vaguely plausible reason I can think of, as VA/MA deinterlacing does stress memory bandwidth.


Clearly something pretty screwed with the deinterlacing on these drivers. If a 2600pro is struggling, what hope do the 2400 models have? In Vista the 2400pro could manage VA deinterlacing on 1080i h264, now a 2600pro can't - then you have to consider that h264 is the easier codec for these cards, and mpeg2 adds a huge extra strain, particularly on the lower models.

I think it may be some registry key that was limiting things. I had this problem with 7.7 when I did a clean install. Can you think of any registry settings or other settings I could try to see if I can lower the GPU load?

- Rich

[autoboy70]

I can't get smooth playback with my 2400pro. I'm getting tearing issues and strange deinterlacing issues. As an example, when watching a football game in 1080i mpeg2, I get tearing at the top of the screen during motion, and a strange phenomenon that i cannot describe well. While the camera is panning the background grass remains smooth and clear, but the players jitter like the adaptive deinterlacing is doing something wrong. But my system shouldn't be using Adaptive deinterlacing because it disabled on the 2400pro right?

Setup:
2400pro overclocked to 575/900 but it downclocks to 400/300 (or similar)
35% GPU (75% with 7.6)
75% CPU on 3200+ (45% with 7.6. I never went to 7.7)
3:2 pulldown on
CCC auto deinterlace
SageTV w/VRM9
Haali media splitter
Cyberlink decoders, ATI decoders - same thing but tearing is in lower screen with Cyberlink and top of screen with ATI???
FSE on

I also just bought a 2600pro (600/800) and I can't get that to play either. It shows totally different problems than the 2400pro in the same system. Under 7.7 and 7.6 with the same setup, the card maxed out at 100% GPU. I have not tried 7.8 with it yet ( I pulled it out before I checked if there were new drivers. They came out just hours before I pulled it. Damn.)

Forcing regular adaptive in CCC allows me to play 1080i smoothly on the 2600pro with 85% GPU but the picture is soft on all material. When i set SageTV (uses mplayer) to default renderer and set Video Mixing Render 9 in DSFM the GPU drops to 85% with CCC set to auto but with SageTV in windowed mode. As soon as I max it to full screen (FSE on or off doesn't matter) I get an error that says it can't render the file. Hmm. I'm stumpted. I've tried every possible configuration I can think of with this 2600pro so I switched back to the 2400pro and now I can't get that one going either. Ahhhh! It might be back to my 7300LE for awhile until the dust settles on ATI. The 7300LE can't do 3:2 pulldown on HD and just does a bob or weave but at least playback is smooth.

[arfster]

I think it may be some registry key that was limiting things. I had this problem with 7.7 when I did a clean install. Can you think of any registry settings or other settings I could try to see if I can lower the GPU load?


Sorry, nothing I can think of :-( I went from a clean 7.7 install to 7.8, and the GPU deinterlacing hit ballooned. Others have reported the same.

[RichB]

Sorry, nothing I can think of :-( I went from a clean 7.7 install to 7.8, and the GPU deinterlacing hit ballooned. Others have reported the same.

I just ran the HQV HD benchmark which is also 1080i and the moving angled lines in the resolution and jaggies test do not move smoothly. It looks like this is a serious bug introduced in 7.8. Just about every reviewer will run these tests and it ain't pretty.

- Rich

[arfster]

Yeah, there's a few scenarios where the "deinterlacing" in 7.8 is clearly just doing a weave + frame repeat.

I see no benefits from this over 7.7 tbh, just more bugs.

[Mntneer]

Do the ATI drivers allow you to switch between profiles/resolution/displays/etc. with keystrokes? I've been using so much Nvidia lately that I need to make sure I can switch between my LCD TV and my monitor with a keystroke with the 2xxx cards.

I'm now thinking at least a 9600pro to be safe, since I'm running a single core 3500+ AMD processor, but want to assure my wife it won't be any more complicated now for her than it already is.

[indieke2]

I just ran the HQV HD benchmark which is also 1080i and the moving angled lines in the resolution and jaggies test do not move smoothly. It looks like this is a serious bug introduced in 7.8. Just about every reviewer will run these tests and it ain't pretty.

- Rich

Meaning another month wait for nothing!
With my 7.7 drivers Mpeg 2 with HA with BS player, is fare now Not ultra smooth, but ok.

The main issue is for me:

48 hz playback with powerdvd and so HDDVD and BD impossible

Even in 60 hz some drops and blocking from time to time.

As the ne w drivers still have bugs and do not solve this problem I will pass!

[RichB]

Yeah, there's a few scenarios where the "deinterlacing" in 7.8 is clearly just doing a weave + frame repeat.

I see no benefits from this over 7.7 tbh, just more bugs.

I just re-installed 7.7 and the HQV HD tests are smooth and Chriss Botti is using 19% GPU. I think the image is not as good, but I will take smooth over breakups any day.

Like I said, for review purposes, 7.8 is FUBAR. I Expect a "fix" pretty soon because the reviewers will flay them.

- Rich

[helgga]

well, i just bought asus hd 2400 pro a week ago and i had to do 3 (three) fresh installs of windows xp in the same night. it gave me the blue screen everytime blaming the ati.dll, and once i could not even get into bios to select vga over pciex. the next day i went with my hd2400 to the store/service where the windows crashed again when trying to play a movie in pdvd 7.3. they tried to run 3dmark but my pc freezed and there was no action to be performed. i left there my pc and they tried to test it in my configuration, theirs and the importer but every time the pc freezed (both on 7.7 and 7.8). they told me that they tried a few different 2400 cards (sapphire, gigabyte, palit) but they all performed the same. the video quality is truly amazing when it runs (it never flows, not even on avi, and i manage to get the cpu amdx2 usage down on 15% on h264; on x1250 i get a smoother playback on avi, mpeg, h264, vc-1). with 7.7 the playback was weird, the image was going back-and-forth on the same second like an old damaged vinyl record (i got 1 sec loop, something like that) and quality over dvi was awful (worse than on my x1250 igp to samsung lcd tv 10 bit) but its fixed...somehow. quality is the same on dvi and d-sub but i still have fixed black borders (only when using dvi-to-hdmi) no matter the resolution (just like on movies but on the side not top/bottom). and also the system crash when i try to install audio driver (the only one i have is the one from cd) over dvi-to-hdmi but only when i have onboard hd audio installed and activated (i don't need it, but...). the image is better when i install only ati driver and i don install ccc ( unfortunately i dont speak english so well when it comes to tech specs but there is something wrong when i install ccc, it's just like the image is sharp-sliced in 2-3 pieces and glued togheter). i'm not a gamer but damn, spiderman 2007 works just fine :(( . i can still return it and get my money back until 16th. it looks like it is the driver to blame or it looks like it is the hardware? thx a lot.

[arfster]

I just re-installed 7.7 and the HQV HD tests are smooth and Chriss Botti is using 19% GPU. I think the image is not as good, but I will take smooth over breakups any day.


Yeah, that's a known 7.7 vista 2600 bug. Auto with h264 HD selects bob (mpeg2 is fine), which uses almost no GPU - most of that 19% is scaling. Force it to VA in CCC or PDVD options and you'll get a better picture, and a GPU% a bit more comparable - at a guess maybe 45-55%?

Like I've been saying for ages: great hardware (deblocking, scaling, deinterlacing and acceleration all outstanding), but the drivers are a total trainwreck. I think the cards themselves are better than Nvidia's offerings, but you really need to know all the ins and outs to actually make use of that capability.

[Andy o]

Ok, arfster, I have used drivercleaner.net and erased all ATI and Nvidia entries (I used to have a 8500GT), installed 7.8 and still can't have the video in the full screen. Did this twice already. Everything seemed clean, XDC didn't find anything else. Measuring the max video size, it's about 1750 pixels wide, I can't go bigger than that. The aspect ratio is preserved, though, it's not squished like with the 7.8 betas.

Anyone else working in a 1080p resolution with this problem? It happens both in my 1920x1200 LCD via DVI-D and in the Sharp 1080p TV via HDMI only with HD-DVDs, ripped or not, though I don't have any Bluray movies.

Anyway, about the defaults, for my 2600pro the defaults for fleshtone and colorvibrance are still set to 25, and detail to 50. All the old keys were deleted, and these defaults were created in a new key, so I don't think these are remnants at all, and also, I always have them set to zero, and the new install resets them to 25.

Thanks for all your help, by the way.

[mule]

I'm having the same issues with fullscreen not being fullscreen (black borders around) at 1080p with my 2600pro. After downgrading to 7.7 everythings fine again!

Those drivers of ATI are making me mad...

TheMule!

[arfster]

OK, did a quick few experiments, and it seems that with Vista/7.7/2600xt there is a default SORTOverrideVidSizeCaps of around 2 million (pixels), even without the key existing in the registry - I can't scale it off the screen at all (ie beyond 2million pixels). However, if I set it to 5 million pixels, I can scale off the screen to what looks like that amount.

The default should in theory work with your 1080p screen (although perhaps not the 1920*1200), no idea why not. Anyway, try creating SORTOverrideVidSizeCaps (reg string in umd/dxva) and setting to several million. Might not be the same problem you're having, but it certainly does have a default SORT restricting pdvd pixel output to around 2megapixels, which seems a pretty big coincidence.


Edit: add rant below....

What's especially freaking annoying about these drivers is that not only do most of these settings not appear in CCC (and those that do often don't work!), but we have "invisible" registry entries like dxva_nohddecode, trdenoise, dxva_detailenhance, SORTOverrideVidSizeCaps and who knows what else, all screwing with out setups. All of the above are on and active, even when you delete them from the registry, yet none exist with the default install nowadays.

Time for another set of tweaked drivers I guess. 7.8 looks to be an unsalvageable mess, so 7.7 it is.

[Andy o]

OK, did a quick few experiments, and it seems that with Vista/7.7/2600xt there is a default SORTOverrideVidSizeCaps of around 2 million (pixels), even without the key existing in the registry - I can't scale it off the screen at all (ie beyond 2million pixels). However, if I set it to 5 million pixels, I can scale off the screen to what looks like that amount.

The default should in theory work with your 1080p screen (although perhaps not the 1920*1200), no idea why not. Anyway, try creating SORTOverrideVidSizeCaps (reg string in umd/dxva) and setting to several million. Might not be the same problem you're having, but it certainly does have a default SORT restricting pdvd pixel output to around 2megapixels, which seems a pretty big coincidence.


Edit: add rant below....

What's especially freaking annoying about these drivers is that not only do most of these settings not appear in CCC (and those that do often don't work!), but we have "invisible" registry entries like dxva_nohddecode, trdenoise, dxva_detailenhance, SORTOverrideVidSizeCaps and who knows what else, all screwing with out setups. All of the above are on and active, even when you delete them from the registry, yet none exist with the default install nowadays.

Time for another set of tweaked drivers I guess. 7.8 looks to be an unsalvageable mess, so 7.7 it is.

Tell me about it! They're on and active, and set with the wrong settings! I think it's the first time I've read a really annoyed complaint from you. Good for you, welcome to our side. I wasn't having this trouble with 7.7, but I was having HDCP trouble. Now that I know it can be fixed in drivers, I won't worry too much about that, since AnyDVD is working perfectly too, so I may return to 7.7 if the sortoverride thing doesn't work with 7.8.

By the way, adding dxva_detailenhance worked, thanks again.

[Sarvatt]

7.8 looks to be just a repackaging of 7.8rc3 from all the file versions, so makes since you guys having problems are the ones that had problems with rc3 :D Here's a list of all the video acceleration related registry keys in 7.8, the vforce ones are new and replaced the SORToverride and fps limit ones from 7.7 and older..

DXVA_MVA_TOSS_POINTS
D3DKMTOpenAdapterFromGdiDisplayName
D3DKMTOpenAdapterFromDeviceName
D3DKMTCloseAdapter SYSTEM \
DVD_DEBUGLEVEL
UseBT601CSC
DXVA_MPEG2
DXVA_MPEG2SD
DXVA_WMV_PF
DXVA_NLOCALBUF
DXVA_WMV
DXVA_ELEGANT
DXVA_NOHDDECODE
maMethod
maMotionThreshold
MaWeightedOffset
maSimilarityThreshold
maNoiseLevel
maMotionDecay
maUVPLANE
TRDenoise
DXVA_DetailEnhance
DXVA_ColorEnhance
Denoise_DE_MIN
Denoise_DE_MAX
Denoise_DE_DEF
Fleshtone_DE_MIN
Felshtone_DE_MAX
Felshtone_DE_DEF
ColorVibrance_DE_MIN
ColorVibrance_DE_MAX
ColorVibrance_DE_DEF
DetailEnhance_DE_MIN
DetailEnhance_DE_MAX
DetailEnhance_DE_DEF
HDDeintVector
HDDisableBob
H264HDDeintBob
RenderDebug
UseNativeMode
AspectRatio
OTMDeint
OTM1Buffer
UseTVMMMode
UseDisplayScaling
MasterDriveMode
SortPreFlipCtrl
OvlNumBuffers
TkHalfDemo
TkEdgesDemo
TkFastBlitOnly
TkThreshold
WriteVAVHDdata
DeintBltExEnable
ConstrictionEnable
CtxEnable
EnableCCFastBlend
DXVA_VSYNCBLT
BobNV12By4Blt
LRTCEnable
LRTCCoef
LRTCDemoMode
LRTCUseFrameRate
DVPF_DivXDeblockOn
3to2pulldown
OvlHPQ
OvlRotation
RegKeyCondPM4
DXVA_VHD_TOSS_POINTS
dwVForceMode
dwVProf
dwBADummyMode
NumH264CompressBuffer
DXVA_UVA_H264
DXVA_UVA_H264_R600
BubbleTest
RegKeyLight
RegKey1
RegKey2
RegKey3
RegKey4
RegKey5
OvlDisableOverlay
DXVA_EnableSCVP
OvlTileMode
Filter4
OVL_PPW
DXVA_UseAVP
UseDXVAinBatteryMode
DXVA_USE_PARSER
DXVA_COMPBUFFPOOL
OVL_USESORT
DI_METHOD
DXVA_EXTENDED_COLOR
NumBAH264CompressBuffer
NumBAVC1CompressBuffer
SORTEnableVirtualization
SORTEnableFullScreenOpt
VTestAperture
VTestBitWidth
VTestDesktopSize
VTestSClk
VTestMClk
VForceUVDH264
VForceUVDVC1
VForceUVDMPEG2
VForce24FPS1080MPEG2
VForce24FPS1080VC1
VForce24FPS1080H264
VForceMPEG2HDFileOnly
VForceHDHQV
VForceMaxFPS
VForceMaxResSize
atipdlxx.dll
AtiDMM_ExtEscapeExA
Size %d
HWUVD_DisableH264
HWUVD_DisableVC1
HWUVD_TossPoints
HWUVD_Profiling
GetVS
HWUVD_ForceH264
HWUVD_ForceVC1
HWUVD_NumInputBuffers

[Andy o]

Thanks for the info. I couldn't find VForceMaxResSize, so I added it to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\{F C2FDD01-0738-4550-89D6-1DDE60D17560}\0000\UMD\DXVA , and it still didn't work, with values of zero, 5000000 or 2100000. Is there anything wrong with that? Are there any other registry key locations that I should be checking out? Did the same thing with SORTOverrideVidSizeCaps before, but no luck either.

Thanks again.

[Sarvatt]

afraid I don't know, I can't recreate any of the problems with powerdvd or HDCP that you have with it either on my HD2400 Pro which is really odd.. :( SORTOverrideVidSizeCaps definitely wont work because it was removed from the drivers though. I still haven't figured out where the VForce keys go and what type it expects, unless the VForceUVDMPEG2 one just doesnt work like I think.

Maybe try adding these 2 as strings in DXVA along with the VForce?

SORTEnableVirtualization
SORTEnableFullScreenOpt

I've just been adding strings with no value, just having DXVA_NOHDDECODE string in the registry works the same as having the value be 0.

Edit: Nah those 2 strings were in 7.7 too and didn't need to be added.. Funny how Fleshtone is misspelled, it's that way in 7.7 too. wonder if it has anything to do with it not working at all for me :D

[jvrobert]

Why do we have to deal with this crap? I'm sick and tired of this incompetence from the driver developers. They need to get people competent to work on the "HDTV" type stuff, and let the current idiots work on the 3D portion, or better just do a clean sweep and fire everyone who's working on ATI's current drivers.

I guess I'll stick with 7 point "completely broken CCC" 7 version until they make working drivers. I expect that to be in about 2 years if we're lucky.

[topcaser]

Hi Folks,

asking this question fourth time. It can not be that this no one knows:

Is it possible to underclock the GPU in XP (CCC7.8). I i do so, the default clock (800MHz) overrides the setting at once. Furthermore temps goes up although default clock. It is odd.

[indieke2]

I'm having the same issues with fullscreen not being fullscreen (black borders around) at 1080p with my 2600pro. After downgrading to 7.7 everythings fine again!

Those drivers of ATI are making me mad...

TheMule!

The easiest way that works for me is to use the latest Powerdvd 2911, WITHOUT the latest patches! Every HDDVD and BD, even the latest works!

[Andy o]

The easiest way that works for me is to use the latest Powerdvd 2911, WITHOUT the latest patches! Every HDDVD and BD, even the latest works!
Yeah, I think even 2605 works fine, at least as far as I can tell, but it's kinda disturbing that the two latest patches have been having this problem and only with some particular ATI drivers. And worst of all, it was in 7.6, disappeared in 7.6 hotfix (or 7.7?) and reappeared in 7.8! What the hell are these people doing?

I don't know whose fault it is, it's probably both. I have tried to find the registry differences between 2605 and 3104a.1 but there's not much difference. Anyone knows what could be the difference in both PDVD builds that is responsible for this?

[Andy o]

By the way, trying to think about it rationally, and based on my own and others' experience, ATI hardware has always been OK, but its drivers and software always have ranged from below average to abysmal, right? So why am I telling myself this could change soon (like in the next driver release), if it hasn't in years and years? I don't think I'm being reasonable when I think that. What do you guys think, have your experience been otherwise in any way?

[Sarvatt]

I don't know, they were on the ball with fully working vista drivers way before nvidia. I used a x850xt pe on my main desktop in vista betas and release from may 06-february 07 and had to revert to XP on that system until may 07 because nvidia drivers were absolutely unusable on my 8800gts. Their drivers are still horrid on vista to this day, only just recently did they readd basic stuff like digital vibrance, mobile power options are not available at all, and there are still driver scaling issues, abnormally slow game performance for some games like world of warcraft, and a 8800 series bug that cripples all games that they have known about for months and have stated they won't have a fix anytime soon. The situation is bad in both camps and it just falls down to which bugs effect you more :D I would recommend you sell your card and buy a nvidia and be done with it as it seems like you are having the worst luck with the card you have now and something else will probably bug you if you do get your problems now fixed. :D

[butters2006]

Up until this 2600xt purchase I've had pretty good experience with ATI. I haven't had any issues with my 1900xtx.

But I've got to say, these problems with the 2600xt have really disappointed me. By default mpeg2 video quality is horrible. Settings in CCC don't work at all.

What baffles me is that ATI has a large amount of developers. How hard is it to get simple toggles and sliders to work in their CCC app? How hard is it to hire some QA folks to test the application before releasing it? It seems ATI's solution to poor software and driver support is to simply release a new version every few weeks. However it appears no regression is done and what was fixed in previous drivers is broken in new drivers. I understand that the products have to work on myriads of different systems, but ATI (& AMD) have really dropped the ball this year. I was looking forward to picking up a 2900xt for the next batch of dx10 games, but I'll probably get an 8800gts instead.


By the way, trying to think about it rationally, and based on my own and others' experience, ATI hardware has always been OK, but its drivers and software always have ranged from below average to abysmal, right? So why am I telling myself this could change soon (like in the next driver release), if it hasn't in years and years? I don't think I'm being reasonable when I think that. What do you guys think, have your experience been otherwise in any way?

[Andy o]

I don't know, they were on the ball with fully working vista drivers way before nvidia. I used a x850xt pe on my main desktop in vista betas and release from may 06-february 07 and had to revert to XP on that system until may 07 because nvidia drivers were absolutely unusable on my 8800gts. Their drivers are still horrid on vista to this day, only just recently did they readd basic stuff like digital vibrance, mobile power options are not available at all, and there are still driver scaling issues, abnormally slow game performance for some games like world of warcraft, and a 8800 series bug that cripples all games that they have known about for months and have stated they won't have a fix anytime soon. The situation is bad in both camps and it just falls down to which bugs effect you more :D I would recommend you sell your card and buy a nvidia and be done with it as it seems like you are having the worst luck with the card you have now and something else will probably bug you if you do get your problems now fixed. :D
Well, to be fair, I don't think I am one of the people having the worst luck with it. But what you've said isn't really a defense for ATI, is it? Not that you meant it that way, I don't know. It just happens that Nvidia sucks as well. Maybe it's really, really, hard to make video drivers for Windows? But that still doesn't excuse them fixing something and then in the next driver release breaking it again!

[Andy o]

I guess I'll stick with 7 point "completely broken CCC" 7 version until they make working drivers. I expect that to be in about 2 years if we're lucky.
Have you tried cleaning out your registry before reinstalling 7.7? I've had CCC not working more than a couple of times in my probably dozens of Catalyst reinstalls in both my computers, but ultimately it works. If you are in Vista, what worked for me better than just uninstalling from programs and features, is just go to Device Manager, and right-click on your ATI device, then uninstall and make sure to check "delete the driver software for this device". After that, go into programs and features and go to ATI uninstall manager and tell it to uninstall everything.

You should also try drivercleaner.net. I think it's the same as drivercleaner pro, but they started charging $10. In any case, it's a very handy program to have, and well worth the $10. It will uninstall drivers for many brands and devices, not just ATI and Nvidia.

[Raid5]

Guys

Reading through the last few posts I am worried as I have a Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB GDDR4 on order.

Should I cancel this and go for a nvidia instead ?

Sorry this thread is 44 pages long and I hav'nt got the time to go through every post.

My OS will be vista home premium on a dual core E6600 with 2 GB ram .

I want to play HD-DVD's Blueray and h.264's in Pdvd on a 1080i screen ( maybe 1080p /24 for blueray as my screen supports this )

thanks

[dreaddan]

Hi, Has any one managed to get any acceleration with a AGP card yet?
Power dvd just crashes on me, so I'm uninstalling everythiung (cccp,vlc,powere dvd etc) and going to try again from (almost) scratch

[topcaser]

I have now found a clock utility and decreased the clock from the 2600 xt to 400MHz. Temps drop from 75 degrees to 62 at watching Premiere HD (H.264). Nevertheless also GPU activity rises from 40 to over 80%. What do you think about that?

[Sarvatt]

by any chance can you point me to a sample of what you are decoding that takes 80% GPU topcaser? would like to test it on my HD 2400, have not been able to get over 40% GPU usage on any material and I haven't found any h264 material that used more than 15%. if it's interlaced it might have something to do with the 2400's crappy deinterlacing so I'd be interested in what it looks like playing that back.

[arfster]

H264 itself takes nothing of the GPU% (neither does VC1) as it's all done on the UVD. The 15% you mention is entirely down to scaling - you can show this by minimising the window and the GPU will drop to 1% or so.

Here's some 1080i50 h264 from Wimbledon (BBC HD 16mbit):

http://rapidshare.com/files/46651266/BBC_HD__H264_AC3_eng__07-07_13-25-26.ts.03.ts.html

Try forcing VA deinterlacing (in CCC if you're XP, PDVD if Vista) and you'll soon be maxxed out :-)

If you really want to murder your card, try some 1080i mpeg2 - that takes 50% of the GPU% by itself even with bob deinterlacing.


ps thanks for the huge post on 7.8 options - are all those for umd/dxva?

[arfster]

I have now found a clock utility and decreased the clock from the 2600 xt to 400MHz. Temps drop from 75 degrees to 62 at watching Premiere HD (H.264). Nevertheless also GPU activity rises from 40 to over 80%. What do you think about that?

Which tool are you using? I only ever managed to get it to drop to 650mhz or so, and I'm not convinced it actually did that as other tools said no change :-)

Your temps seem a lot too high though - with the default fan I was at 60C-65C (2600XT at 800mhz). After remounting with arctic silver 5, they're at 40-50C, or 70C fanless. Might be your heatsink isn't making good contact anymore or has too much thermal gunk - graphics cards are often very cheaply assembled, or take a knock in delivery etc.

[topcaser]

Which tool are you using? I only ever managed to get it to drop to 650mhz or so, and I'm not convinced it actually did that as other tools said no change :-)

Your temps seem a lot too high though - with the default fan I was at 60C-65C (2600XT at 800mhz). After remounting with arctic silver 5, they're at 40-50C, or 70C fanless. Might be your heatsink isn't making good contact anymore or has too much thermal gunk - graphics cards are often very cheaply assembled, or take a knock in delivery etc.

Try this tool:
click (http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/536/AMD_GPU_Clock_Tool_v0.7.html)

I am able to clock it down to 350MHz. Also other monitoring tools shows this spped (btw: the first time)

Have my fan down at 23% (whereas default: 50%) and therefore such high temps. Nevertheless: Maybe it would be a good thing to reassemble the heatsink as you did. But then i would loose warranty, isnt it?

BTW: Had also 40% GPU before downclocking...

[Sarvatt]

Well, to be fair, I don't think I am one of the people having the worst luck with it. But what you've said isn't really a defense for ATI, is it? Not that you meant it that way, I don't know. It just happens that Nvidia sucks as well. Maybe it's really, really, hard to make video drivers for Windows? But that still doesn't excuse them fixing something and then in the next driver release breaking it again!

Sorry, I worded it a little strongly I guess. It's just the HD 2000 series I have problems with as they are new and I said my experiences in the past with their drivers was contrary to how you stated everyone's experience is as they work great for my other cards! I have and use multiple cards from both vendors, don't prefer one over the other as they both have problems that I'm not happy with but there are no problems with my HD 2400 that are as major as the ones you describe. You have been posting problems that you have with the 2000 series since the thread started and it looks to me like a software or PC part compatability problem that you are running into which would probably not happen on a 8500 so if I was in your place I would get that and stop pulling my hair out over it :) That's all I was trying to say.

[Sarvatt]

H264 itself takes nothing of the GPU% (neither does VC1) as it's all done on the UVD. The 15% you mention is entirely down to scaling - you can show this by minimising the window and the GPU will drop to 1% or so.


that 15% was bob deinterlacing a 1080i25 h264 at ~20% cpu usage, I dont even break 5% GPU usage just plain decoding and scaling to 1366x768 here :( I stopped getting GPU loads from just displaying video in vista with aero/EVR (except for mpeg2) after the 7.6 hotfix (aka starting with 7.7) drivers oddly enough.. thank you very much for the clip, looking forward to testing it! I'm not sure if all those entries are in umd/dxva, some might be in just plain UMD or another folder even which I haven't figured out. There seems to be a SYSTEM/ folder reference that might mean it looks somewhere else for the ones under it, I dont know.. Alot of the interesting ones seem to do nothing no matter where I put them or what type I make them, not enough free time to mess with them as much as I want :D

As for forcing VA for it, I am not able to do that.. 720x480 is the highest listed mode available for anything more than bob in NV12, if I force VA I get very strange exaggerated combing on HD stuff which looks like its scaling it down to 720x480, bobbing, then scaling it back up and applying weave to it after.. I can't even describe it :D It gets a 100% GPU load when its doing this too.

[IAM4UK]

Tell me about it! They're on and active, and set with the wrong settings! I think it's the first time I've read a really annoyed complaint from you. Good for you, welcome to our side. I wasn't having this trouble with 7.7, but I was having HDCP trouble. Now that I know it can be fixed in drivers, I won't worry too much about that, since AnyDVD is working perfectly too, so I may return to 7.7 if the sortoverride thing doesn't work with 7.8.

Andy, it may be time for you to come back to nvidia. Since returning my two 2600Pro models and getting a cheap fanless 8500, I've tweaked zero registry entries for video settings, and have a picture that is comparable on HD sources and far superior on SD sources to what I had with AMD/ATI. Sure, my CPU may be working a bit harder with the nvidia card than with the amazing offload abilities of the AMD/ATI, but I've yet to see a stutter on any source, including bD with uncompressed audio streaming.

[O2C]

FYI, the passive Gigabyte 2600 XT (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125075) has appeared at Newegg, priced at ~$120 shipped. No HDMI adapter pictured as included in the bundle. :(

[jkcheng122]

FYI, the passive Gigabyte 2600 XT (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125075) has appeared at Newegg, priced at ~$120 shipped. No HDMI adapter pictured as included in the bundle. :(

yeah at the specs you'll see hdmi 5.1 is (supported via optional adapter)

that hdmi audio has brought me nothing but trouble and i suspect it's ati's drivers at fault. they dont even put the audio drivers on their website. it's been frustrating enough i'm going to give 8600GT(S) a try instead. either way that's an awesome price for 2600xt. my 2600xt cost $150 but does come with the adapter as well as GDDR4 vs GDDR3 on the gigabyte.

[dildano]

At first, I thought all my problems were solved by hooking my HTPC up to my LCD TV via a DVI--> HDMI cable. I swear I had it working fine, but then I had to reload my machine. Now I only seem to have it partially working. If I run 1080p VC1 or H264 content in a window in PDVD, then the video is horribly corrupted (pictures of this type of corruption have been posted in this thread). However, I found that if I could get PDVD into fullscreen, then everything started working great (for the most part). The problem is that my HTPC will flat-out crash sometimes before I can get the movie into fullscreen. Is anyone else having this problem? What it tells me is that something (PDVD or the ATI drivers?) can't scale the video down. Usually in this thread, I see people complaining about NOT being able to scale video up to fullscreen. I have the opposite problem...

Here's my setup:
MSI RX2600PRO
Catalyst 7.7
PDVD Ultra 2911 patched to 3104a
Vista32
DVI (HTPC) --> HDMI (1080p LCD TV)
audio to receiver via S/PDIF (working great)
AMD BE-2350 CPU
2GB RAM

[slymobile]

At first, I thought all my problems were solved by hooking my HTPC up to my LCD TV via a DVI--> HDMI cable. I swear I had it working fine, but then I had to reload my machine. Now I only seem to have it partially working. If I run 1080p VC1 or H264 content in a window in PDVD, then the video is horribly corrupted (pictures of this type of corruption have been posted in this thread). However, I found that if I could get PDVD into fullscreen, then everything started working great (for the most part). The problem is that my HTPC will flat-out crash sometimes before I can get the movie into fullscreen. Is anyone else having this problem? What it tells me is that something (PDVD or the ATI drivers?) can't scale the video down. Usually in this thread, I see people complaining about NOT being able to scale video up to fullscreen. I have the opposite problem...

Here's my setup:
MSI RX2600PRO
Catalyst 7.7
PDVD Ultra 2911 patched to 3104a
Vista32
DVI (HTPC) --> HDMI (1080p LCD TV)
audio to receiver via S/PDIF (working great)
AMD BE-2350 CPU
2GB RAM

With the MSI card, the problem is resolved when you use the latest drivers on their website.

Here is a link:
http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=driverfile&dno=5707&i=1

I had the same issues, but since their driver doesn't have scaling I had to use my Sapphire 2600xt card instead with my Westy.

[dildano]

With the MSI card, the problem is resolved when you use the latest drivers on their website.

Here is a link:
http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=driverfile&dno=5707&i=1

I had the same issues, but since their driver doesn't have scaling I had to use my Sapphire 2600xt card instead with my Westy.
Thanks. Guess I'll try that out, but it seems weird that I'd have to use the manufacturer's (old) drivers. I shouldn't be surprised after the Catalyst 7.8 fiasco though...

I'll try it out when I get home today and post my results. By the way, the BIOS on the MSI website for the 2600Pro won't update my card. So either I already have the latest BIOS, or their flasher doesn't work properly in Vista32.

[arfster]

As for forcing VA for it, I am not able to do that.. 720x480 is the highest listed mode available for anything more than bob in NV12, if I force VA I get very strange exaggerated combing on HD stuff which looks like its scaling it down to 720x480, bobbing, then scaling it back up and applying weave to it after.. I can't even describe it :D

Have you tried using PDVD's forced deinterlacing mode type (3C)? What you describe above I recognise from trying to force the 2400 via CCC, but via PDVD it always worked perfectly with my Sapphire 2400pro - at least with 7.6/7.7 in Vista.

[RichB]

PowerDVD 7.3 nor CCC can adjust any video settings for SD DVDs.

Apparently, the software testers at ATI were fired for writing too many bugs :p

- Rich

[arfster]

PowerDVD 7.3 nor CCC can adjust any video settings for SD DVDs.

Apparently, the software testers at ATI were fired for writing too many bugs :p


They have testers? :rolleyes:

[Sarvatt]

Have you tried using PDVD's forced deinterlacing mode type (3C)? What you describe above I recognise from trying to force the 2400 via CCC, but via PDVD it always worked perfectly with my Sapphire 2400pro - at least with 7.6/7.7 in Vista.

I did, but I can't verify that it is actually using VA and not just applying bob (which works) as setting it to bob or VA's GUID both look and perform identical for me.

ATI's VA is really nice though! my nvidia cards do not do any type of motion adaptive deinterlacing even though it says they are motion adaptive modes.. ATI reports that it is using 2 buffered backwards frames as reference when it does the higher deinterlacing modes and 6150/6600gt/8800gts all report 0 in DXVA checker. Wish I still had access to the 8500GT I put in a friends system to see what DI was like on it :D

[topcaser]

by any chance can you point me to a sample of what you are decoding that takes 80% GPU topcaser?


maybe since it is a live stream. I dont know. But it is true. SD has round about 17% GPU, HD 35% rising to about 80% if i underclock the card. You can see this in the monitoring window: I switch the lever to 350 MHz and the percentage rises immediatly. Give it a try. I have posted the link above.

Will try it on a recorded video in a couple of minutes and post the result.

And @arfster: Dont decrease when i minimize DVBViewer...

Maybe i will do a screenshot and will show you. My system:

XP, CCC7.8, DVBViewer newest version, PDVD Ultra newest version, Athlon x2 4200+ EE, Palit 2600 XT

[Andy o]

Sorry, I worded it a little strongly I guess. It's just the HD 2000 series I have problems with as they are new and I said my experiences in the past with their drivers was contrary to how you stated everyone's experience is as they work great for my other cards! I have and use multiple cards from both vendors, don't prefer one over the other as they both have problems that I'm not happy with but there are no problems with my HD 2400 that are as major as the ones you describe. You have been posting problems that you have with the 2000 series since the thread started and it looks to me like a software or PC part compatability problem that you are running into which would probably not happen on a 8500 so if I was in your place I would get that and stop pulling my hair out over it :) That's all I was trying to say.
No, no... don't misunderstand me. I did get what you were saying (I saw the smilies), and I truly didn't know if yours was a defense of ATI, and anyway that's what I was asking for. For people who actually didn't have trouble to come forward and tell me I'm probably (a bit?) wrong. I didn't say mean to imply everyone was having trouble though. But I guess the great majority of people in this thread, we're just users, we're not experts. It's just that for years my experience with ATI hardware and software has been a love/hate (in that order, and respectively) one, and I know it's not only my experience that their hardware is good and the software... hmm not so much. Anyway I do appreciate yours and others' help, and I am gonna go with Nvida indeed.

[Andy o]

yeah at the specs you'll see hdmi 5.1 is (supported via optional adapter)

that hdmi audio has brought me nothing but trouble and i suspect it's ati's drivers at fault. they dont even put the audio drivers on their website. it's been frustrating enough i'm going to give 8600GT(S) a try instead. either way that's an awesome price for 2600xt. my 2600xt cost $150 but does come with the adapter as well as GDDR4 vs GDDR3 on the gigabyte.
I don't think ATI uses their own drivers, at least for Vista. I wonder what they use for XP and if it's better. For my Vista x86, the drivers get installed automatically after I uninstall my Catalyst thing. Somehow Windows detects the HDMI device and installs its own driver. You can try Realtek's drivers linked by Sarvatt elsewhere in this thread, but those didn't work for me... but that was a minor problem for me, to say the least.

[Andy o]

Andy, it may be time for you to come back to nvidia. Since returning my two 2600Pro models and getting a cheap fanless 8500, I've tweaked zero registry entries for video settings, and have a picture that is comparable on HD sources and far superior on SD sources to what I had with AMD/ATI. Sure, my CPU may be working a bit harder with the nvidia card than with the amazing offload abilities of the AMD/ATI, but I've yet to see a stutter on any source, including bD with uncompressed audio streaming.
I am just about... I actually didn't choose ATI for their better UVD, but just for the simple audio over HDMI feature. I carry my HTPC to work and connect it to the 52-incher LCD there, and any extra cables are not welcome. Anyway, it's a shame I'll lose that, I guess a stereo cable is not much to worry about after all. But I'll be getting a 8600 GT. It seems that it doesn't draw much more power than my 2600pro, and the more GPU power is appreciated. And my 8500GT is huge and heavy anyway, so no gain anywhere except for a bit of a small price difference.

[arfster]

And @arfster: Dont decrease when i minimize DVBViewer...


Just tested - it's an absolutely minimal difference, but it's there. 23% at 1080p, 19% when minimised, both with latest DVBviewer (SD, 7.7, Vista32, Aero on). The 2600xt kinda disguises a lot of these differences because it's so powerful. However, if you take some 40mbit 1080i mpeg2 with VA deinterlacing, it's 46% vs 34%. Doesn't matter at all for the 2600xt, but for a 2400pro that difference is more like 25%.

[topcaser]

Here some pics. There is no difference between SD live and not live in GPU%

Using a native resolution via DVI 1360x768@60

[jvrobert]

I am just about... I actually didn't choose ATI for their better UVD, but just for the simple audio over HDMI feature. I carry my HTPC to work and connect it to the 52-incher LCD there, and any extra cables are not welcome. Anyway, it's a shame I'll lose that, I guess a stereo cable is not much to worry about after all. But I'll be getting a 8600 GT. It seems that it doesn't draw much more power than my 2600pro, and the more GPU power is appreciated. And my 8500GT is huge and heavy anyway, so no gain anywhere except for a bit of a small price difference.

I was in the same camp. I went ATI because of both the onboard audio and the UVD. Unfortunately, ATI makes terrible software, and you need the software to make the hardware work.

Were I buying now, I would absolutely get an NVidia for two reasons. First, I have plenty of CPU in a C2D running at 2.6 that I could easily move up to 3.0 if I wanted. Who cares about offloading above and beyond the stuff NVidia does. Second, I can't get more than stereo audio out of the HDMI audio. Besides, just running a single coax from my onboard sound to my receiver wasn't hard and now I get perfect DD/DTS.

The only problem I have is that NVidia is only marginally better at drivers than ATI is.

[IAM4UK]

I am just about... I actually didn't choose ATI for their better UVD, but just for the simple audio over HDMI feature.
Does this MSI model meet your HDMI needs? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127301

[arfster]

Here some pics. There is no difference between SD live and not live in GPU%


Sure, wasn't meaning to imply that. The difference is in the difficulty of scaling - HD obviously is a lot harder because there are a bucketload more pixels to start with.

By the way, tried that tool. It's the first I've seen that alters the clockrate that rivatuner reports, but it doesn't change what CCC has, or actual temperatures. Odd.

[topcaser]

or actual temperatures. Odd.

My temps decrease about 11 degrees...

Edit: And you are right. The frequency in CCC is not changed at all. Neverthless, also ATITool reports a clock decrease and my temps fall.

[arfster]

My temps decrease about 11 degrees...

Edit: And you are right. The frequency in CCC is not changed at all. Neverthless, also ATITool reports a clock decrease and my temps fall.

Yeah, I suspect it has changed. Might be I'm already about as low as it can go, because of remounting the heatsink and the fan always going fullblast (I can't change the speed, seems a Sapphire problem).

Edit: dropping it 800>400mhz drops it from 44>41C though. Not much, but the case temp is about 36C so there's probably a limit. I'll try it fanless later.

Editedit: yeah, it definitely is dropping the freqs, as 800>400mhz doubles the GPU% used. The 2600xt still manages 1080i mpeg2 scaled to fullscreen, and with VA deinterlacing, so if this works fanless it's perfect.

[Andy o]

Does this MSI model meet your HDMI needs? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127301

Yeah, actually I was eyeing the 8600GTS version just about now. I wonder if I can drive it with a 300W power supply. I am saving some power with 2 laptop HDDs and a laptop DVD drive, but still. I will be getting the LG internal BD/HD-DVD drive when it comes out too.

These MSI solutions are both more elegant and a bit more cumbersome at the same time. Cumbersome, because there is no audio device. You need to have either a coaxial S/PDIF out or an internal, 2-pin S/PDIF out. Internal of course would be the ideal thing, and luckily, I just discovered that my P5K-VM mobo has both! (Though there's a small chance it won't work with the internal one, as the mobo booklet says it's for ASUS HDMI cards, and the connector is 3-pin, but the third pin is a 5V output, that might only be required for the ASUS solution.)

The elegant part is that unlike the ATI HDMI thing, here you can just pass through the digital stream. No reconverting to AC-3 nonsense.

But maybe we can get this discussion to the Nvidia thread, is there one active as this ATI thread?

[soren]

Is there another heatsink/fan that I can replace the loud fan on the Sapphire 2600XT GDDR3 with?
I can't see it on any compatibility list on the zalman site!

[ricabullah]

Andy, it may be time for you to come back to nvidia. Since returning my two 2600Pro models and getting a cheap fanless 8500, I've tweaked zero registry entries for video settings, and have a picture that is comparable on HD sources and far superior on SD sources to what I had with AMD/ATI. Sure, my CPU may be working a bit harder with the nvidia card than with the amazing offload abilities of the AMD/ATI, but I've yet to see a stutter on any source, including bD with uncompressed audio streaming.

Hi IAM4UK!

You get PV2 activated with what FW?
Have you given it a try with 163.16? Are you under XP?
Thanks!

[RichB]

Since my 2600Pro is maxing out with 1080i, what makes sense:

1. Wait for new drivers that fix it?
2. Upgrade to a 2600XT?

Also, is there or will there ever be a need for 512MB for Video processing or will a 256MB card do just fine?

Thanks,

Rich

[RichB]

Hi IAM4UK!

You get PV2 activated with what FW?
Have you given it a try with 163.16? Are you under XP?
Thanks!

This is OT, but I tried the 163.16 XP drivers today with my 8500XT.
It crahsed my computer instantly with powerDVD and BD.

Therefore, all is not great in NVidia land ;)

- Rich

[nownot]

am i the only having problems with this being hooked up to my lcd via dvi. when i turn it on it goes crazy. vga it works fine. any suggestions?

[Mark_A_W]

Guys

Reading through the last few posts I am worried as I have a Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB GDDR4 on order.

Should I cancel this and go for a nvidia instead ?

Sorry this thread is 44 pages long and I hav'nt got the time to go through every post.

My OS will be vista home premium on a dual core E6600 with 2 GB ram .

I want to play HD-DVD's Blueray and h.264's in Pdvd on a 1080i screen ( maybe 1080p /24 for blueray as my screen supports this )

thanks


I have this exact card, and it just works.

The only real issue I had was when I installed the drivers the colour settings in display properties were 16bit instead of 32bit. Easy to change.

Other than that it's fine for HDCP, HD-DVD and TS files.

[ricabullah]

This is OT, but I tried the 163.16 XP drivers today with my 8500XT.
It crahsed my computer instantly with powerDVD and BD.

Therefore, all is not great in NVidia land ;)

- Rich

Hi Rich!
Thanks for feedback.
I was just trying to understand whether it's an 8500 related issue, cause it seems no problem with 8600 series.
But i've been still waiting any feedback from IAM4UK as well.
best!

[Andy o]

Is there another heatsink/fan that I can replace the loud fan on the Sapphire 2600XT GDDR3 with?
I can't see it on any compatibility list on the zalman site!

I am using the Zalman VNF100 on a 2600pro, and it mounted just fine, without any trouble. I did have to push the fins together a little, but that's only because of my case. I am getting low temps, like 41°C idle and about 51°C load on 74°F ambient. My case only has a 120mm 1000RPM Nexus fan pulling air out. And in fact, HIS sells these 2600 cards with the Zalman VNF102, which seems to be a OEM-only 2-heatpipe version of the VNF100 (3 heatpipes), so I'm pretty sure that the VNF100 will fit in a common 2600 XT and it will be able to handle it as well.

[autoboy70]

Since my 2600Pro is maxing out with 1080i, what makes sense:

1. Wait for new drivers that fix it?
2. Upgrade to a 2600XT?

Also, is there or will there ever be a need for 512MB for Video processing or will a 256MB card do just fine?

Thanks,

Rich

Your 2600pro is maxing out with 1080i too? I thought I was the only one. What are your settings?

win XP
Gigabyte 2600pro 512mb ddr2 600/800
athlon64 3200+ s754
biostar tforce 6100
SageTV Player
VMR9
CCC 7.7 auto 3:2 pulldown
Cyberlink, Nvidia, and ATI decoders
Haali media splitter
720P

[MikeSM]

Your 2600pro is maxing out with 1080i too? I thought I was the only one. What are your settings?

win XP
Gigabyte 2600pro 512mb ddr2 600/800
athlon64 3200+ s754
biostar tforce 6100
SageTV Player
VMR9
CCC 7.7 auto 3:2 pulldown
Cyberlink, Nvidia, and ATI decoders
Haali media splitter

My 2600pro works just fine in XP with 1080i programming, both for film and video. No HD-DVD support installed though. Cyberlink PowerDVD 7 decoders. And also with Sage, though it also plays fine in PowerDVD and WMP.

I do have an Opeteron 165 in the system however.

thanks,
mike

[autoboy70]

My 2600pro works just fine in XP with 1080i programming, both for film and video. No HD-DVD support installed though. Cyberlink PowerDVD 7 decoders. And also with Sage, though it also plays fine in PowerDVD and WMP.

I do have an Opeteron 165 in the system however.

thanks,
mike

Hmm, can you post your graphedit and sage settings? What kind of load are you seeing on 1080i with sage?

[RichB]

Your 2600pro is maxing out with 1080i too? I thought I was the only one. What are your settings?

win XP
Gigabyte 2600pro 512mb ddr2 600/800
athlon64 3200+ s754
biostar tforce 6100
SageTV Player
VMR9
CCC 7.7 auto 3:2 pulldown
Cyberlink, Nvidia, and ATI decoders
Haali media splitter

Sapphire 2600Pro
Vista32
Asus A8N
CCC 7.8
PowerDVD 7.3

Screen Panasonic Plasma 1366x768.

- Rich

[arfster]

Sapphire 2600Pro
Vista32
Asus A8N
CCC 7.8


Vista 7.8 is pretty murderous on 1080i, because the deinterlacing hits the GPU much harder than with 7.7. If XP 7.8 has the same bug it'll be even worse, because VMR9 is even more of a strain.

[autoboy70]

Sapphire 2600Pro
Vista32
Asus A8N
CCC 7.8
PowerDVD 7.3

Screen Panasonic Plasma 1366x768.

- Rich

Damn, that doesn't help me much. Vista huh. Is your card DDR2? I was thinking maybe the 400mhz speed on the ram was causing the problems. The 2600pro comes with DDR3 and DDR2

[arfster]

By the way, for all the bitching here (including mine!), I just watched "Stranger than Fiction" scaled to 1080p with my 2600XT, and it looked fantastic, about as good as I've ever seen a DVD in all the time I've been messing with HTPCs. That covers NVidia's 6150/6600/7300/7600/8500/8800, and several ATI 2400/2600 models, not to mention every possible combination of ffdshow/avisynth setup.

Using: Vista32, Sapphire 2600XT connected via HDMI to a SXRD 55", PDVD7.3 latest patch as the player. Relevant registry changes from default were colour/flesh min/def to 0, dxva_detailenhance and trdenoise both to 0.

[ricabullah]

By the way, for all the bitching here (including mine!), I just watched "Stranger than Fiction" scaled to 1080p with my 2600XT, and it looked fantastic, about as good as I've ever seen a DVD in all the time I've been messing with HTPCs. That covers NVidia's 6150/6600/7300/7600/8500/8800, and several ATI 2400/2600 models, not to mention every possible combination of ffdshow/avisynth setup.

Using: Vista32, Sapphire 2600XT connected via HDMI to a SXRD 55", PDVD7.3 latest patch as the player. Relevant registry changes from default were colour/flesh min/def to 0, dxva_detailenhance and trdenoise both to 0.

Does it mean you have come to conclusion?

[ricabullah]

Arfster,
Since your evaluaton is valuable to me, can you make a comparison between 2600 Xt and 8600 GTS?

[RichB]

Damn, that doesn't help me much. Vista huh. Is your card DDR2? I was thinking maybe the 400mhz speed on the ram was causing the problems. The 2600pro comes with DDR3 and DDR2

The card has 400 DDR2.
Could be memory. I worry that the card does not have enough horse power now that we learned that the shaders do so much work.

- Rich

[ricabullah]

IAM4UK and Arfster,
still waiting for your replies?

[autoboy70]

I really didn't think that the 2600pro would have problems with 1080i. My 2400pro could almost handle motion adaptive deinterlacing so I figured the extra 64bit bandwidth for memory, the extra 80 shaders, and the 150mhz core speed increase would be enough. When i poped in the 2600pro and it maxed out! :eek: :confused: :mad:

[arfster]

Does it mean you have come to conclusion?

No more than before.....

Hardware: mrrrm, nice

Drivers: they hired 57 trillion monkeys to hammer randomly at keyboards, with the law of averages dictating that eventually a driver of some nature would emerge.


DVDs do work well, that's the best part.

Live viewing suffers from the many stupid deinterlacing bugs - it does get increasingly irritating having to check that VA deinterlacing has engaged, remembering that it doesn't work with this particular decoder on this particular driver release on this OS, switching to another, releasing that has some other stupid bug etc. Then since you're watching HD, you have to remember to switch HDTV calibration to 0-255. And so on.

I don't mind fiddling with registry oddities to reach a particular end, but when a new driver release not only doesn't fix old bugs but instead adds new and rather random ones, you start to get really quite annoyed. What happens if 7.9 just retains the same issues? Do we forever stick with 7.7 and its problems? It doesn't look good for future driver developments tbh.


Compared with the 8500 in my other machine the ATI cards have better deinterlacing imo, when you force it working, which isn't easy going - you need to get pretty familiar with all the technical crap to know when something is/isn't working. Scaling on both is the same, both excellent (I literally couldn't tell the difference with upscaled dvd screenshots). The NVidia cards win on driver maturity, and generally not being such a complete PITA.

If I had to make a HTPC for a friend tomorrow, I'd put a 8600GT in there, no question.

[autoboy70]

DVDs do work well, that's the best part.

Funny, I have to throw my DVDs in the xbox360 because the posterization is so bad on SD material. I don't get it with HD. But now with my 2400pro and 2600pro HD doesn't work well either. I'm now resorting to watching all shows on my 40" Sony LCD in my bedroom (HDMI 7300GS, athlon64 3200+), except that my Def Tech Mythos Twos are too close together to get good separation so I'm watching everything pretty much in mono up there. I'm gonna have to solve this before I watch the latest Heroes episode.

[Siriusfilms]

I've read through the first 10 and last 5 pages of this 45 page thread. WOW, there's alot of problems. None of which really answered my question, so I must make this post.

I have a 2400 Pro outputting RGB component on a 3 year old 1080i Rear Projection. With 7.7 I can get a max of about 30 minutes of Blu-ray played in Cyberlink PDVD 7.3 at 1920x1080 before the driver crashes in Vista-32. I have to close PDVD and reopen to get playing again. Sometimes it will go another 20 min, other times, it will only show a Green Screen with some blocking. On install last month I was using 7.5 and couldn't get past the Top Menu on the Blu-ray. Audio is via S/PDIF and I get DTS through my Receiver, which is great. (I do HATE that PDVD 7.3 requires changing to S/PDIF at every program launch, and then after the disc starts to play you must go back and select the DTS Mixing option). PDVD is really annoying when you have to restart it every 5-30 min.

I don't have the patience most of you have. I just want it to work. I don't care about HDMI since my old Mitsubishi RP doesn't have anything over DVI or Component as input options. Am I wasting time trying to use one of the HD model ATI cards? I have nVidia in every one of my desktops. I used to have an nVidia Quadro in the HTPC, but that didn't seem to work. I actually gutted the HTPC and upgraded the old P4-HT, Intel915 Motherboard and 1GB DDR to:

Foxconn 945 miniATX (Realtek S/PDIF Optical)
Core Duo 2.0GHz E4400
ATI Theater 650 Tuner
2 GB DDR2 667 RAM Crucial
HD 2400 Pro
Seagate 750GB SATA
Philips Blu-Ray RW (SATA)
Vista-32 Ultimate

Anyone see anything wrong with this setup? The HTPC is in a cabinet, but I have a 120mm exhaust fan and my 550W PSU is mounted outside the cabinet so I don't really notice any extreme heat issues. CPU stays around 40C and the GPU is not really over 50C unless I'm running a Blu-ray, then it gets around 60C. Much better than my P4-HT 3.0G which was always above 60C sometimes even at idle.

I can get ATSC HDTV via my 650 in WinMC with no problems. Although Vista's Media Center doesn't properly set up digital+analog Tuner cards and only configures one or the other.

So my real questions are:
Will my problems with playing a Blu-ray without driver crash, etc. be solved by upgrading from the 2400 Pro to a 2600Pro or XT?

Since I'm not using AMD, and have ONLY ever used Intel, should I just go ahead and get an nVidia? I thought about an EVGA 8500 512MB for under $100. I really want to keep a D-sub port on the card since I have a 50' VGA cable going to my primary LCD (1440x900) monitor next to the couch. There's not room in the cabiner for a DVI-VGA adapter. (BTW, I have disabled/disconnected this LCD monitor and still Blu-ray video playback stops within 30 min.)

Is my CoreDu not enough CPU for Blu-ray? I would think the Core2Duos are overkill.

Thank you for reading this and PLEASE PLEASE throw me your thoughts. I so appreciate them.

[autoboy70]

The 2400pro shoud accelerate the video so the CPU does almost nothing. My single core athlon hits 5% on HD material. You could do BluRay with a 200mhz cpu.

Edit: Oops, I forgot that BluRay uses a lot of mpeg2 which is not as well accelerated. So, you could do some BluRay with a 200mhz cpu.

Either way, your core 2 shouldn't be the bottleneck unless the 2400pro is not accelerating the video properly, or the 2400pro is getting hot and shutting down.

[ricabullah]

.

If I had to make a HTPC for a friend tomorrow, I'd put a 8600GT in there, no question.

You've always been objective, that is why i respect to your evaluations.

[Andy o]

Funny, I have to throw my DVDs in the xbox360 because the posterization is so bad on SD material. I don't get it with HD. But now with my 2400pro and 2600pro HD doesn't work well either. I'm now resorting to watching all shows on my 40" Sony LCD in my bedroom (HDMI 7300GS, athlon64 3200+), except that my Def Tech Mythos Twos are too close together to get good separation so I'm watching everything pretty much in mono up there. I'm gonna have to solve this before I watch the latest Heroes episode.
Hmm I think you might be one of the very few, if not the only one, still having posterization issues? One thing that bothers me (not anymore in two days!) is that at every driver reinstall the colorvibrance and fleshtone strings will reset to 25. So I always have to switch them to zero and then restart for a second time. The Color Vibrance thing only seems to work on SD (DVDs), so that fits your problem nicely. Have you tried cleaning your registry? Again, drivercleaner.net is a very good value, check it out for $10. It seems to clean very thoroughly, and the XDC cleaner doesn't find anything after it.

If you're running Vista, and don't wanna go that way yet, try this. Before uninstalling the driver, go to Device Manager and right-click on your graphics card device. Then uninstall, and when asked, put a check on "delete driver software for this device". Then go to Programs and Features and do a complete ATI uninstall. Reboot. That cleaned out the registry better for me than just uninstalling the driver via the ATI uninstaller.

[Siriusfilms]

Either way, your core 2 shouldn't be the bottleneck unless the 2400pro is not accelerating the video properly, or the 2400pro is getting hot and shutting down.

How can I inspect whether or not the 2400 is correctly accelerating the video?

Are there any utils that will monitor everything (bandwidth, GPU load, temp, etc) on the card and chart/graph it? If I keep CCC up on the LCD monitor while playing Blu-ray on the secondary HDTV it increases the driver crash rate.

I'm going to further inspect temps as the 2400 I have is heat sink cooled. Although I do have one of those cheap PCI slot fan blowers next to the 2400. I'm not sure it does much, but I never see temps in CCC get over low 60's. Maybe I need to pay better attention.

Also, does it mean anything that the error comes up in Vista as "The video driver has stopped responding but recovered" (such a BS message). Would this still indicate an overheating GPU and shutdown?

[ricabullah]

How can I inspect whether or not the 2400 is correctly accelerating the video?

Are there any utils that will monitor everything (bandwidth, GPU load, temp, etc) on the card and chart/graph it? If I keep CCC up on the LCD monitor while playing Blu-ray on the secondary HDTV it increases the driver crash rate.

I'm going to further inspect temps as the 2400 I have is heat sink cooled. Although I do have one of those cheap PCI slot fan blowers next to the 2400. I'm not sure it does much, but I never see temps in CCC get over low 60's. Maybe I need to pay better attention.

Also, does it mean anything that the error comes up in Vista as "The video driver has stopped responding but recovered" (such a BS message). Would this still indicate an overheating GPU and shutdown?

Give it a try with rivatuner. Just google it.

[Andy o]

I've read through the first 10 and last 5 pages of this 45 page thread. WOW, there's alot of problems. None of which really answered my question, so I must make this post.

I have a 2400 Pro outputting RGB component on a 3 year old 1080i Rear Projection. With 7.7 I can get a max of about 30 minutes of Blu-ray played in Cyberlink PDVD 7.3 at 1920x1080 before the driver crashes in Vista-32. I have to close PDVD and reopen to get playing again. Sometimes it will go another 20 min, other times, it will only show a Green Screen with some blocking.
Well, since your problem shows up over playback time, and then immediately after reset it still shows, the obvious answer is heat problems. But you say you don't have heat issues. Have you checked the GPU temp after 20 or 30 mins to see if it raises over time? Does this only happen with Bluray or also with other content, like DVDs? What brand and model of 2400pro do you have? The passive Sapphire 2400pro I had had a horrendous heatsink, and would hit 70°C easily, and I was getting horrible artifacts. The artifacts weren't heat related anyway the card seemed to be just defective. So I guess it's possible that if not heat, yours also may be.

[dildano]

With the MSI card, the problem is resolved when you use the latest drivers on their website.

Here is a link:
http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=driverfile&dno=5707&i=1

I had the same issues, but since their driver doesn't have scaling I had to use my Sapphire 2600xt card instead with my Westy.
Slymobile, you've always got the right answers for my setup. I loaded the MSI-provided drivers, and now HD-DVD/Blu-Ray content plays beautifully - in fullscreen and in a window. However, all is not perfect just yet. With the MSI drivers, I get underscan on my 1080p LCD TV (the scaling issue you mentioned), and there's no way that I can find to adjust it. In the Catalyst 7.7 drivers, I was able to set the underscan slider to 0, and got 1-to-1 pixel mapping. But you know, I'm just happy that my machine isn't crashing anymore. For the first time, I got to watch a full-length movie in 1080p, and it was awesome. Sigh...

[autoboy70]

In Drivercleaner.net, which files do I delete to just get the ATI display drivers and CCC? I have ATI, ATI CCC, ATI hydravision, etc.

[slymobile]

Slymobile, you've always got the right answers for my setup. I loaded the MSI-provided drivers, and now HD-DVD/Blu-Ray content plays beautifully - in fullscreen and in a window. However, all is not perfect just yet. With the MSI drivers, I get underscan on my 1080p LCD TV (the scaling issue you mentioned), and there's no way that I can find to adjust it. In the Catalyst 7.7 drivers, I was able to set the underscan slider to 0, and got 1-to-1 pixel mapping. But you know, I'm just happy that my machine isn't crashing anymore. For the first time, I got to watch a full-length movie in 1080p, and it was awesome. Sigh...

dildano, glad to be of help to you. I really like the HD 2000 series but they are plagued by bad drivers right now. I hope that ATI can fix, what I think is minor but lingering bugs. Seems like these driver writers don't test with available HDTV sets, etc...

I don't know why MSI left out the scaling features of the Catalyst drivers that it is based on. The hardware works great, gets excellent grades in my book. But the software drivers is lacking, and deserves a failing grade even though it is a minor issue, which should have not even be released to us to deal with. Should have been fixed prior to the card launch IMHO.

I also have a 8600GT and I definately like the 2600XT card better. Deinterlacing is better on the 2600 cards. Hopefully the driver issues are temporary, they must be, or the driver writing people are sitting on their butts not doing anything worthy of their job titles.

About the scaling issue, believe me, I tested it thoroughly looking for possible ways to get it to display properly. I tried to mix and match the drivers with the ATI Catalyst control panel of 7.7 and 7.8RC3, but haven't tried 7.8 official drivers yet. Was hoping MSI would release a new update but haven't seen it yet.

[arfster]

Quick test with 15mbit mpeg2 1080i60 with a downclocked 2600XT DDR3, to see what cardpower does what. Personally I want to know if a 2600pro can cope with everything in theory, and how low I can push things for fanless setups. Player is PDVD 7.3 latest build. VA deinterlacing is being used (it's auto with a 2600/Vista/mpeg2 HD, for a 2400 force it in PDVD settings). This is in Vista, with Aero on, and the 7.7 drivers (since 7.8 are bugged and inefficient at deinterlacing). The clip being used is somewhat nasty to deinterlace, and a bit of a worst case scenario. The scaling is only to 720p though.


Clock RAM GPU
800 700 45 <----default for this 2600XT DDR3
600 700 56
400 700 78

800 700 45
800 600 50
800 500 57
800 400 65

Drops not so major here, looks like memory bandwidth isn't quite so critical.

600 500 66 <---sapphire 2600pro ddr2
700 400 67 <---typical 2400XT? (800/1600 ram normally, but halved here to simulate 64bit). See note at end, note sure this is valid.


To all the above figures, add about 10% to the average if you want to output to a 1080p screen. Remember these are averages, and the peaks will be higher. For ref, I left the 600/500 (2600pro) running for a while on a 1080p screen, and the log showed it sat at 70-85 the entire time. Running in MPC with VMR9, it's 80-96, but no dropped frames :-)


Thus, conclusions:

1) For VA deinterlacing 1080i mpeg2 in Vista, the default 2400xt and 2600pro appear to be about the same - ie just enough, with 85% peaks worst case (see note at end though!). However, in Vista you should go for the 2600pro ahead of the 2400xt, because driver bugs mean the former's deinterlacing selection is screwed (it just bobs everything, except if you force VA in PDVD).

2) In XP, the VMR9 overhead makes it awfully tight outputting at 1080p, but it played with no dropped frames (just, peak 96%). That's too close to max, so it's probably worth going for a ddr3 2600pro or one with a slightly faster clock. However if you're outputting at 720p you've got another 10% to play with though, which would drop things to 70-86, and thus the standard 2600pro would be fine.

3) 1080i h264 and VC1 are easy, because you get the UVD doing all the decoding, resulting in much lower GPU %. For a 2600pro outputting at 1080p res, you're only looking at 40-45% GPU with VA deinterlacing. However, from what I remember the 2400pro isn't quite enough for VA deinterlacing the nastiest h264 though, as it runs into a memory bandwidth barrier - 64bit 400mhz just isn't quite enough apparently. A 2400pro with DDR3 (700/1400?) would probably be OK.

4) If ATI get their act together and get MPEG2 into the UVD, as Sarvatt's dll-probing seems to suggest they intend, suddenly it becomes as easy as h264/vc1, and the hardware needed drops a fair bit (approx minus 35% or so on a 2600pro, minus 50% on a 2400pro).

5) If you want to do deinterlacing in 7.8, be prepared for frustration. Also be prepared to buy a 2600XT if you want mpeg2 VA deinterlacing, since nothing else will manage it. This is surely a bug, but who knows how long before ATI will fix it? Personally I'm sticking with 7.7 (will post some tweaked drivers sometime).



Edit: thought that maybe a 2400 and 2600 at the same speed isn't as fast a core, because it has less shaders? Guess it depends how well they split the tasks at hand. I'd generally say go for the 2600pro over the 2400xt anyway, because it has less driver bugs, and runs cooler (lower GPU clock but faster ram) so less chance of stability problems. The price is pretty much the same anyway.

[Joseph Clark]

I really appreciate your work on this, arfster. I want to buy a 2600xt as the centerpiece for a HTPC build to play Blu-ray and HD DVD, but all the reports of problems have me spooked. I have an nVidia 7950 GT OC and an nVidia 8600 GT that are doing well for HD DVD in a couple of different boxes, but I'd like to take advantage of the ATI 2xxx horsepower to simplify playback on a quiet, powerful, unobtrusive HTPC. I'm following this thread carefully to see when I might be able to do that.

[Luar Azul]

I upgraded Power DVD 7.3 with the latest patch (August) and the hardware acceleration stopped working. I then uninstalled Powerd dvd and reinstalled without the patch and got hardware acceleration back.

I am using Windows XP with the latest 7.8 catalyst drivers. I hope the ATI software will mature in the upcoming months, it is hard to believe we are speaking about a multi-million dollar company! So many bugs!

[autoboy70]

Considering they just borrowed 1.5billion to keep things running i'm not too sure they aren't hiring monkeys.

arfster, thanks for the awesome update. I don't know about other 2600pro DDR2 cards, but mine runs at 600/400. Not 600/500. That could be my problem. :(

I'm going to stick with my 2400pro for now and avoid VA deinterlacing until they get mpeg2 into the UVD or something else happens. Thanks for all the great work.

BTW, drivercleaner.net took care of my posterization issues. I don't know why I missed that before. Thanks

[topcaser]

Can anyone out there, who has connected a DVI or HDMI cable to a 2600xt check at the monitor during booting, with which resolution/frequency the card sends?

I have still the problem, that my LCD dont shows any signal during boot. Want to set this resolution/frequency combo manually in XP if this is true.

Thanks

[mine]

As for forcing VA for it, I am not able to do that.. 720x480 is the highest listed mode available for anything more than bob in NV12, if I force VA I get very strange exaggerated combing on HD stuff which looks like its scaling it down to 720x480, bobbing, then scaling it back up and applying weave to it after.. I can't even describe it :D It gets a 100% GPU load when its doing this too.

The 2400 HD with VA deinterlacing @ 720x576 will be @ 100% GPU load always

just not enough hp

http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/6053/15mr9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Shot at 2007-08-15

with a lot of tricks you even can convince a HD 2400 to use VA @1080i MPEG2

:eek: :eek: but its not so overwhelming ..

http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/364/3car2mu0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Shot at 2007-08-15

[Nils_lars]

So I just bought a 2600 pro and installed it on my HTPC and the 7.6 drivers installed fine but the updated ones from the ATI site like 7.7 and 7.8 wont install , I guess the MCE 2005 that I have it doesnt like.

Im curious if im hosed until they decide to support or do I have to wipe my hard drive and put XP on just so I can use this?

Or does someone have a work around or an idea , im avoiding Vista for the moment so any idea but that.

[Andy o]

BTW, drivercleaner.net took care of my posterization issues. I don't know why I missed that before. Thanks
Good to know, one question though. Did it just get fixed right after the driver cleaning and reinstalling, or did you mean that after reinstalling AND changing the colorvibrance setting to zero manually, it worked? In other words, did the clean driver reinstall set your colorvibrance default to zero, or was it still 25? Mine is always reset to 25, but arfster mentioned the 2600 pro shouldn't be doing that.

[madshi]

3) 1080i h264 and VC1 are easy, because you get the UVD doing all the decoding, resulting in much lower GPU %.
Unfortunately that's only true if you play VC1 inside of PowerDVD. If you use any other software, there's zero hardware acceleration with ATI cards and VC1.

[mine]

Unfortunately that's only true if you play VC1 inside of PowerDVD. If you use any other software, there's zero hardware acceleration with ATI cards and VC1.

isn`t this hwa ?
1080p VC1...HD 2400 ...XP...... and MPClassic

even got it down to 9 % with overlay


http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/3783/vc1rf3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Shot at 2007-08-16

[madshi]

isn`t this hwa ?
1080p VC1...HD 2400 ...XP...... and MPClassic
Hmmmmm... What is the video bitrate of that movie? It could be CPU only, if the bitrate is very low.

Can you try disabling VC-1 acceleration with the "HWUVD_DisableVC1" registry tweak? Does CPU usage change?

Which decoder is that?

I've been told by a MS guy that the MS VC-1 decoder only supports acceleration modes A-C while the ATI 2400/2600 cards only support mode D but not modes A-C. And on my PC VC-1 acceleration with my 2600Pro definitely doesn't work with MPC and the MS VC-1 decoder.

P.S: Do you have the "Deja Vu" movie? How high is CPU usage with that on your PC in MPC? Thanks!!!

[mine]

hi madshi

"HWUVD_DisableVC1" ...no such thing in XP :cool:

but yes you may be right .. its an advanced profile 1080p VC1 movie but bitrate is rather low
@ about 4 MBit
WMV DMO Decoder is used

will take a closer look this evening

[madshi]

"HWUVD_DisableVC1" ...no such thing in XP :cool:
Argh, too bad... :o

but yes you may be right .. its an advanced profile 1080p VC1 movie but bitrate is rather low
@ about 4 MBit
WMV DMO Decoder is used

will take a closer look this evening
Thanks!

[arfster]

Unfortunately that's only true if you play VC1 inside of PowerDVD. If you use any other software, there's zero hardware acceleration with ATI cards and VC1.

Well, sure, but that's the same with any dxva stuff - you need to use a codec that supports dxva to get acceleration. Not quite sure of the ints/outs of what supports what outside PDVD.

[madshi]

Well, sure, but that's the same with any dxva stuff - you need to use a codec that supports dxva to get acceleration.
Yeah, but the MS VC-1 decoder does support DXVA acceleration. It just supports different modes than the 2400/2600 cards/drivers. The modes don't match, so there's zero hardware acceleration for VC-1 with 2400/2600 outside of PowerDVD. NVidia on the other hand supports the DXVA modes that the MS VC-1 decoder needs.

[arfster]

Ahh right, misunderstood you. Weird. Doesn't everyone just play these files in PDVD though?

[madshi]

Doesn't everyone just play these files in PDVD though?
I don't like PDVD for several reasons. MPC and ZoomPlayer are overall much better media players. I'm playing all my Blu-Ray and HD DVD movies in MPC.

[lateko]

Hi Guys
1st off I have the card connected via DVI into my Panasonic Plasma where I'm feeding it 1280x720. The 1st problem is that the scaling options (to get rid of under/overscan) only shows up when I use 60hz. As soon as I change to 50hz the scaling options are greyed out. Any advice on how to ungrey them?


I'm having the same exact problem. Even though 1280*720@60hz is perfecty fitted on my screen it is possible to change the overscan in the ccc. The minute i change to 50hz mode i get slightly overscanned image and now ccc tab for overscan setup is grayed out.

Same thing goes at 1920*1080. 60hz works fine but 50hz and 24hz is a no go.

My display is Sony 40D3000 and adapter is Sapphire 2400pro. Using HDMI.

Anyone able to enlighten on the matter please do so, would be greatle appreciated.

-LTK

[Andy o]

I don't like PDVD for several reasons. MPC and ZoomPlayer are overall much better media players. I'm playing all my Blu-Ray and HD DVD movies in MPC.
Actually, PowerDVD is the reason why I'm liking blu-ray more than HD-DVD even though I've never ever seen a blu-ray movie! It's just that the HD-DVD interface in PowerDVD is so horrid, that anything must be better! How do you play HD disc content in those? I guess you do need AnyDVD for those, right?

[madshi]

Actually, PowerDVD is the reason why I'm liking blu-ray more than HD-DVD even though I've never ever seen a blu-ray movie! It's just that the HD-DVD interface in PowerDVD is so horrid, that anything must be better! How do you play HD disc content in those? I guess you do need AnyDVD for those, right?
AnyDVD HD would do, that's right. Playing those movies in MPC/ZoomPlayer usually means that you just watch the movie. You'll usually lose the menus etc. For me I'm only interested in the movie, anyway, so it's no disadvantage for me.

[beerglass007]

Hi all

My first post on here.

I've brought a ASUS 256MB 2600 PRO and used this inside my HTPC build.

I've installed the lastest CCC from ATI website and installed PowerDVD 7.3 and VLC onto my windows XP pro OS.

When playing DVDs or HD clips I get this logo on the top right handside saying " powered by ASUS splendid " which I take it is the hardware accelaratrion working.

But then the video is green and breaking up really bad.
I've managed to disable this ASUS splended feature within the driver settings but how do I know if the hardware is now correctly?

Thanks

:)

[Daikon]

Hello, i have an other problem. When i play HD-DVDs with the last PowerDVD Ultra version over my lcd with 720p 50Hz, i see only green and gray blocks but i can hear the sound. if i play a hd-dvd with 720p 60hz, i see the film perfectly.

without the hardware acceleration i have the problem too. I have a sapphire hd 2400 pro with the last 7.8 Catalyst driver.

[Andy o]

Hi all

My first post on here.

I've brought a ASUS 256MB 2600 PRO and used this inside my HTPC build.

I've installed the lastest CCC from ATI website and installed PowerDVD 7.3 and VLC onto my windows XP pro OS.

When playing DVDs or HD clips I get this logo on the top right handside saying " powered by ASUS splendid " which I take it is the hardware accelaratrion working.

But then the video is green and breaking up really bad.
I've managed to disable this ASUS splended feature within the driver settings but how do I know if the hardware is now correctly?

Thanks

:)
Not that splendid then huh? (Like no one was expecting that.)

Anyway, which card do you have? It's the first time I've heard of this "powered by ASUS splendid" thing. I guess an ASUS? I am completely annoyed when brands choose to butt their overlayed names into my pictures/video. How did you disable that in the driver settings?

The green artifacts could be heat trouble. Are you connecting through a digital or analog connection, and how are your temps when you are having artifacts?

Edit: you may also try what the guy upstairs wrote (change refresh rates) I guess.

[fallenturtle]

Hi all... I just got an HD 2600 Pro with 512megs of memory (gigabyte made the card) and I'm trying to determine if my card is defective or if I have some settings wrong somewhere. So far I've only been able to test this in Media Player Classic and Media Portal. I have PowerDVD 7.3 installed and I have hardware acceleration selected in it's settings. In MPC I'm using PowerDVD's x.264 decoder. When I have the option for DxVA off, video plays fine, though I'm gathering this is without hardware acceleration. When I have DxVA on, the video is all scrambled and green and blocky. I wasn't sure how to describe it, but I've attached two images:

A still jpeg:
http://www.fallenturtle.com/random/dxva.jpeg

And an animated gif (2 meg file):
http://www.fallenturtle.com/random/dxva.gif

Does this seem likely to be a settings issue or perhaps a defective hardware issue? Sound plays fine. Is there another way to test the AVIVO hardware acceleration without using PowerDVD?

Thanks.

[beerglass007]

Hi all... I just got an HD 2600 Pro with 512megs of memory (gigabyte made the card) and I'm trying to determine if my card is defective or if I have some settings wrong somewhere. So far I've only been able to test this in Media Player Classic and Media Portal. I have PowerDVD 7.3 installed and I have hardware acceleration selected in it's settings. In MPC I'm using PowerDVD's x.264 decoder. When I have the option for DxVA off, video plays fine, though I'm gathering this is without hardware acceleration. When I have DxVA on, the video is all scrambled and green and blocky. I wasn't sure how to describe it, but I've attached two images:


Does this seem likely to be a settings issue or perhaps a defective hardware issue? Sound plays fine. Is there another way to test the AVIVO hardware acceleration without using PowerDVD?

Thanks.


Hi I've just seen the animated gif and thats just like mine.

My Box is running lovely and cool and it does it even when I first bootup.
Its output at 60hz.

A quote from the web site on the card

"ASUS Splendid for enhanced video playback quality, "

I disabled this from within the advanced tab under the graphic card settings

[fallenturtle]

Hi I've just seen the animated gif and thats just like mine.

My Box is running lovely and cool and it does it even when I first bootup.
Its output at 60hz.

A quote from the web site on the card

"ASUS Splendid for enhanced video playback quality, "

I disabled this from within the advanced tab under the graphic card settings

Is ASUS Splendid rebranded AVIVO, or something different?

[RichB]

Arfster,

I would like to stay with ATI because the scaling to 1366x768 is much better than my 8500. The 8500 with HW accel produces jaggies. It can best be seen with the animated opening of Casino Royale.

You are getting much better result from you XT, is that on Vista32?
Do you think that upgrading my 2600Pro to a 2600XT is needed long term to support better de-interlacing or will this be sorted out be driver software (eventually)?

Thanks,

Rich

[autoboy70]

Good to know, one question though. Did it just get fixed right after the driver cleaning and reinstalling, or did you mean that after reinstalling AND changing the colorvibrance setting to zero manually, it worked? In other words, did the clean driver reinstall set your colorvibrance default to zero, or was it still 25? Mine is always reset to 25, but arfster mentioned the 2600 pro shouldn't be doing that.

I didn't change anything in the registry at all. I'm using the 2400pro right now and as I recall, the color settings are already set to 0 for the 2400pro. I haven't gotten a chance to put in the 2600pro again and play with it. I work long hours.

[arfster]

You are getting much better result from you XT, is that on Vista32?
Do you think that upgrading my 2600Pro to a 2600XT is needed long term to support better de-interlacing or will this be sorted out be driver software (eventually)?



Yeah, I"m in Vista, which is a little easier on shader performance (although I have booted it in XP, works there too). My guess would be the 7.8 issues are just bugs, and deinterlacing performance will return to 7.7 levels in future - it seems absurd to create all these features, then have only a 2600XT able to access them. Apart from customers foaming at the mouth that their cards no longer work properly, the next time some reviewer does a HD HQV test they'll get atrocious scores.

Of course, who knows how long ATI will take to fix things? Given 7.9 is probably already finished and in testing, problems reported now with 7.8 likely won't be fixed till 8.0. It's going to be really annoying if the fix something like HD levels expansion in 7.9, yet a lot of people can't use it because of poor deinterlacing performance.

[RichB]

Of course, who knows how long ATI will take to fix things? Given 7.9 is probably already finished and in testing, problems reported now with 7.8 likely won't be fixed till 8.0. It's going to be really annoying if the fix something like HD levels expansion in 7.9, yet a lot of people can't use it because of poor deinterlacing performance.

Perhaps this reintroduces the old software adage to never install even number releases :p

If the deinterlacing is not fixed, then I wonder if we will get a hotfix instead of an official release?

Anyway, since I like the scaling better, I think I will stay with the 2600Pro for a bit.

- Rich

[Andy o]

I didn't change anything in the registry at all. I'm using the 2400pro right now and as I recall, the color settings are already set to 0 for the 2400pro. I haven't gotten a chance to put in the 2600pro again and play with it. I work long hours.
Oh, OK, I thought you had the 2600, so never mind, you're right.

[arfster]

Been screwing around with 7.8, seem to have accidentally fixed the deinterlacing performance ineffeciency issues, not sure how :-) Still, lots of bugs:

1080i VMR9 mpeg2 is unusable in Vista, it weaves everything from 60i to 30p, then framerepeats it back up to 60fps = judddddddddddddddddder. Vista users can escape to EVR though at least - are XP users getting the same thing?

However, same problem with the Cyberlink mpeg2 decoder with EVR. Since it uses EVR, this includes PDVD itself.

ATI mpeg2 filter + EVR is the solution. VA deinterlacing works, doesn't need forced.

H264 1080i works fine , although as with 7.7 you have to force VA deinterlacing in CCC, auto doesn't select it.

[SDesforges]

"ATI mpeg2 filter + EVR is the solution. VA deinterlacing works, doesn't need forced."

:confused: What is EVR and how do I get the combination you mentioned on my 2400XT with 7.8? Since I do not have any BR/HD DVD content, MPEG2 viewing is my focus, both OTA HD and SD.

Thanks for the reply

[arfster]

"ATI mpeg2 filter + EVR is the solution. VA deinterlacing works, doesn't need forced."

:confused: What is EVR and how do I get the combination you mentioned on my 2400XT with 7.8? Since I do not have any BR/HD DVD content, MPEG2 viewing is my focus, both OTA HD and SD.


EVR is the default Vista renderer, and is used by WMP11, PDVD Ultra and betas of some others (Zoomplayer, Theatertek, MPC Home Cinema).

The filter I mention should have been installed with 7.8. You select it either with an app that allows you to manually pick which filter you want decoding what (MPC good for this), or you use something like radlight filter manager to make it permanently your default mpeg2 decoder.

[beerglass007]

I dont know if AVIVO is the same as the ASUS spendlid

But has anyone come across this problem with the green

[arfster]

Here's a new tweaked driver version based on the official 7.7s, which contains all known necessary registry tweaks pre-installed, and adds support for various cards ATI forgot. Apologies to those who had odd errors fixed in 7.8, but they introduced so many unmanageable new bugs they're hopeless for HTPCs imo. These are for Vista32, so if anyone could make a XP version.......


http://rapidshare.com/files/49384448/7.7_vista_tweaked.zip.html

Before installing, run the complete ATI self-destruct sequence to rid your machine of driver remnants: in control panel/programs, uninstall ATI Catalyst Install Manager, and tell it to delete all ATI software. Reboot after, then delete any ATI directories in c:\program files, and if you have them run drivercleaner or xdc. Then just unzip the file above, open the dir and run setup.

Anyway, the changes. Most are just little registry tweaks to fix known bugs or stupid default settings - essentially rather than having to manually fool around with the registry after install, this does it for you before installation (very easy to do, it's just a single text .inf file that is changed). There's a list of literally everything that was changed at the bottom of this post - that's all it does, it won't fix bugs not mentioned there. If you don't want any of those changes, open the file....

\7-7_vista32_49713_tweaked\Driver\Packages\Drivers\Display\LH_I NF\CL_49713.inf

....and wander down to the relevant section. R630 is a 2600 card, R610 a 2400.

Support was added for the 2400XT, 2350, various 2400/2600 AGP models, and some other third party cards. These are commented in the above .inf file. I also stripped out support for all non-UVD cards, since the changes below aren't intended for them, and it makes the .inf less spammy.


I've also added the AVIVO directshow filter that ATI included (free) in the 7.8, so you don't have to install those (garbage) drivers to get at it. Just run AVIVO.msi, and it'll install the filter at normal priority . This is a rather nice little mpeg2/divx accelerating codec that works in dxva1 and dxva2, and of course is less prone to incompatibility since ATI wrote it themselves. Saves you buying a third party mpeg2 decoder too, and it's immune to a number of stupid little bugs that other mpeg2 decoders seem to suffer from. This isn't needed for the drivers to work, it's just nice to have.



BORING LONG LIST OF REGISTRY CHANGES:

These exist under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\.. .. , and in whichever one is your card (just hunt till you find