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

[jkcheng122]

Yes - it only works with their dongle, it does something beyond the standard DVI>HDMI connector conversion

I have the HIS 2600XT, no HDMI dongle came with it. Does me using a DVI>HDMI conversion cable instead of the dongle have much to do with me getting sound? I would think it would work the same way. To whomever else asked, yes I am using the DVI port closest to the motherboard, still nothing. It's extremely frustrating trying to figure out this sound issue.

yep, i believe the standard dvi->hdmi connector will only pass video signals and not audio.

[Andy o]

Hmmmm, that's what crossed my mind at first too which is why I ducked out into CCC to check the temperature whenever the corruption was occuring. I'm sure the temp was only a few °C higher than normal at about 64°C.

I'm using the passive Sapphire 2400 pro too but I'm going over VGA. Is this a duff card? Should it be going back do you think? What would I replace it with? A 2600XT? Do they run cooler?

well, technically the 2400pro is the coolest of the lot. Maybe because of that they feel they don't need to put a good heatsink on. The 2600pro was giving me low temps passively as I said above, but that's with the VNF100, which I switched the stock fan heatsink with. I never tried the stock. How cool your card runs will probably depend more on what cooling solutions the manufacturers implement than on the GPU itself. That said, you haven't made sure that your problem is with overheating, so upgrade if you need more power, if not, look for another 2400pro maybe with a better cooling solution since you're at it. For some of us the 2400pro has proven not to be up to the task, but close nevertheless.

[Andy o]

where in riva tuner is the % GPU useage? i've got 2.02 installed but dont see the load anywhere.
In the "main" tab, Target adapter, click on the arrow next to "Customize..." and then click on the icon of the magnifying glass over a chip. That's "hardware monitoring".

[jkcheng122]

In the "main" tab, Target adapter, click on the arrow next to "Customize..." and then click on the icon of the magnifying glass over a chip. That's "hardware monitoring".

thank you.

[tekno]

Anybody using XP that can recommend a ATI HD 2600 series card over Nvidia? I have another computer with a Linux partition and I learned that ATI has virtually no 2600 series drivers for Linux. But, if ATI's XP drivers for the 2600 series cards are improving and you can have low cpu utilization %, I would just use the computer for Windows. But, if there are still drivers problems...

I read on an online article of cpu % being around 12 with a ATI HD 2600 (not sure which one) so that is good and enough to convince me if the drivers issues aren't too bad.

Can anyone comment? Pretty puhhhhhlease. ;=)

[arfster]

CPU % still depends a little bit how slow your machine is, because playing HDDVD/Bluray is more than just the graphics. However, the actual graphics handling is totally offloaded to the card with the 2400/2600, while for the 8500/8600 only h264 is. See here for the difference that actually makes:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3047&p=1

In practice, VC1 is so easy to decode that Nvidia doesn't really suffer from this difference, except with very slow single cores. The 5th page of the above article shows Serenity VC1 on a top C2D as 5% ATI vs 16% on NVidia, and with a P4 3.6ghz 13% vs 30%. In both cases, essentially no difference. However, drop down to a 1.6ghz sempron, and you're talking 20% vs 100% (aka unplayable):

http://www.hardspell.com/english/doc/showcont.asp?news_id=622&pageid=654


With h264 Nvidia and ATI are pretty much the same.

[millerbrad]

I think it's safe to say you are using the dongle provided with the card. Only the DVI port nearest the motherboard is HDMI audio capable, so make sure you are using that one as I had exactly the same issue as you and that was the simple answer.

I have the Sapphire 2600 XT. Using two of the ATI DVI-to-HDMI dongles, I have audio coming from BOTH DVI ports simultaneously using the 7.7 Catalysts. If I try to install the 7.8 drivers, I only get audio from one of the DVI ports.

[|StarscreaM|]

Yes - it only works with their dongle, it does something beyond the standard DVI>HDMI connector conversion

yep, i believe the standard dvi->hdmi connector will only pass video signals and not audio.

Thank you for the replies gentlemen. That most likely saved me several more ours of frustration.

Any of you know where else I can find the ATI DVI to HDMI adapter that supports audio passthrough? I found the dongle on ATI's website but unfortunately it is out of stock.

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

[Sarvatt]

I would go ahead and order it from their website anyway, both times I've ordered out of stock items they shipped within 2 days :D Waited 6 months for the darn free remotes for the tv wonder 650 to come in stock and finally broke down and ordered the out of stock one anyway but it still shipped right away. I posted a coupon code for that adapter somewhere in the first 5 pages or so of the thread, comes out to under $7 including shipping and it is well worth the cost as its hard to find non-ATI dvi/hdmi adapters that cheap and its not limited to just ati cards :D

[tfugit]

I have MSI HD2400pro with generic DVI-HDMI cable and get video and audio out (ccc 7.8).
But audio is not clear --- very noisy.
I see MS HDAudio driver beeing used for ATI HDMI audio on the device manager.
I use analog 5.1 audio right now since it is difficult to locate where problem is.

I once installed Realtec HDMI168 driver but got strange noise just like Mic echo cancel ajustment.

[billqs]

Well, several hours and many driver installs later I figured out my large blocking problem in PowerDVD. Apparently, I can get normal SD DVD playback by turning off the advanced 3D Features in Catalyst Control Center. Maybe once drivers improve I will be able to use some of these settings and still have the card work.

[indieke2]

Well maybe I got the most stupid question of this thread:

Where an I find a comprehensible guide how to use the catalyst settings?

I noticed yesterday that with 50 hz dvd I got strange fluorisent colours, maybe I can fix that there?

Btw, with Powerstrip, selecting 50 hz, when I need it, my computer crashes easy

[kiffies]

Hi All, long time listener, first time caller.

I've got a 2600XT running Vista Media Center 1920x1080 @50Hz over DVI to HDMI

Using MS decoder I get a decent picture wth live/recorded TV however only Bob and Weave deinterlacing give smooth playback, all other modes cause fast moving images such as ticker tapes and sports to stutter

Using Avivo decoder I better picture with live/recorded TV plus all deinterlacing modes including auto work great on fast images, problem is you can't ffw or rew live or recorded TV (DVRMS) or playback DVD's.

What a PITA

I hope they sort out the avivo codec issues in the next driver release

[Sarvatt]

You aren't using 3:2 pulldown are you kiffies? Bob and weave are the only 2 modes that dont use backwards reference frames and the 3:2 pulldown checkbox is greyed out with them. Just trying to think of common potential causes of problems at the other modes. I dont use 50hz so I have no idea how 3:2 pulldown interacts with the material you have, just a shot in the dark :D Forcing VSync/disabling catalyst AI/lowering 3D settings in CCC may also be worth trying.

[kiffies]

Well I used to use 60Hz with the same issues- I changed to 50Hz cos apparently Australian TV is broadcast @ 50Hz and I think it did make a improvement. Also changing to DVD-HDMI from VGA made a difference to PQ.

As far as 3:2 pulldown goes I just leave enabled, it doesn't seem to make much difference with the stuttering

[voicecoils]

Hi, I'm having an impossible time getting hardware acceleration happening.

I have:
ASUS 2400Pro PCI-e
AMD 3200+ processor
PowerDVD 7.3 Ultra
WinXP Pro SP2

On the Hardspell.com review, they show an AMD 2800+ playing Serenity HD-DVD with very low CPU utilization. When I try to play it, I get 75-100% CPU utilization. It stutters and is unwatchable. The drivers I'm using were downloaded straight from ATI.com, and "hardware acceleration" is ticked in the PDVD video configuration.

Anyone have a suggestion/solution?

[dreaddan]

voicecoils, are you using a AGP card?
If so have you tryed the 7.9 beta drivers?

[voicecoils]

voicecoils, are you using a AGP card?
If so have you tryed the 7.9 beta drivers?

thanks for the quick reply, it's the PCI-e version.

Where can the 7.9 beta drivers be found?

[fallenturtle]

This weekend I decided to wipe my drive clean and start again. With just WinXP SP2, the latest Radeon driver and CCC, Media Player Classic, PowerDVD 7.3 Deluxe, and Haali Media Splitter, I'm getting more movies playing then before the wipe, but some are still messed up and a few others are exhibiting new problems, like jittery playback and odd artifacting.

The thing that is driving me up the wall is that when using MediaInfo to examining these different files, I can't see what the difference is that makes some work and some not. They all pretty much are the same stats except with varying bitrates.

Also, while I had them before I wiped my drive, I don't seem to have any of the ATI codecs you all have mentioned. I checked using Radlight Filter Manager and the only ATI directx filter I have is called "ATI Ticker" (which I have no idea what that does). How did you guys get the mpeg decoder and stuff?

[Mntneer]

Hi, I'm having an impossible time getting hardware acceleration happening.

I have:
ASUS 2400Pro PCI-e
AMD 3200+ processor
PowerDVD 7.3 Ultra
WinXP Pro SP2

On the Hardspell.com review, they show an AMD 2800+ playing Serenity HD-DVD with very low CPU utilization. When I try to play it, I get 75-100% CPU utilization. It stutters and is unwatchable. The drivers I'm using were downloaded straight from ATI.com, and "hardware acceleration" is ticked in the PDVD video configuration.

Anyone have a suggestion/solution?

I'm having a similar problem. I've got an AMD 3500+ and can't seem to get hardware acceleration working right either. My HD-DVD discs are maxing out the CPU, giving me the occassional stutter. I was able to get it working for MPEG2 HD stuff, but not HD-DVD. I've tried both 7.7 drivers and 7.8 drivers, and can't figure out if I've got a setting wrong somewhere.

[digitlman]

I have a 2600 AGP card running with an old athlon 2600xp cpu in XP and hd-dvd and bluray are accellerated perfectly, almost no CPU usage and flawless playback.
However i still dont know how to play .h264 files with acceleration, someone told me to try KMplayer so that is my next step.

My other problem is monitor detection, i am using 7.8beta CCC and i have a sanyo projector and a denon reciever with HDMI switching. i am having problems with the ati drivers detecting my DENON reciever as my monitor instead of my SANYO projector, and when it does this it automatically changes my resolution to 1024x768 instead of the 1280x720 it needs to be set to. is there a way to force windows to never detect and change my monitor? or is there a way to force it to 1280x720? it only wants to do like 800x600 or 1024x768 rez and if it does give me 1280x720 available, i choose it and it does nothing. (sort of random results on this part) I can plug my projector in directly and get it back to 1280x720 but sometimes back on the DENON it reverts. driving me nuts...

[Mntneer]

I have a 2600 AGP card running with an old athlon 2600xp cpu in XP and hd-dvd and bluray are accellerated perfectly, almost no CPU usage and flawless playback.
However i still dont know how to play .h264 files with acceleration, someone told me to try KMplayer so that is my next step.


And you running XP? And how much memory do you have?

[fallenturtle]

I'm also finding that my GPU crashes and reboots sometimes during these files that play funny. Anyone else have the same thing?

[mine]

2900 pro has the same r600 core though with no UMD, not really a HTPC card.. And that is really nasty looking mine, I'd be using cyberlink in your case too! Are you by any chance watching 25/50hz material? I do not watch HD interlaced material anymore and it works the same as cyberlink for me on 720x480 29.97fps material captured over svideo and 1080i50 h264 which only supports bob deinterlacing on my HD 2400 pro. GPU usage is steady at 30-33% using auto deinterlacing, 35-37% forcing VA with 3:2 pulldown checked on SD mpeg2 and 15-20% for the HD 1080i h264 clips (only bob supported on my card at HD resolutions) I have tested. CPU usage is trivially better using cyberlink for me, less than 5% difference but it is not a factor because its still under 25% CPU with both.



Yes SD DVB/s footage @ 576i (720x576) . VA C3 is @ 99% GPU with the 2400 HD

concerning HD 2900 pro :

Very difficult to say @ the moment :

The 2900 pro is placed against the 8600 GTS (which supports H.264 DXVA).

without UVD this card simply has no chance.

so :

2900 pro with UVD : "PC inpact" and "vtr hardware "

http://www.vtr-hardware.com/news/radeon-ati-rv670-n10218.html


Best
Mine

[IAM4UK]

Hi IAM4UK!

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

Sorry for the delayed reply; I've been away. I'm using Vista x86 with 162.22. PV2, or PVHD as they call it, is working brilliantly.

[Andy o]

The 2900 pro is placed against the 8600 GTS (which supports H.264 DXVA).

without UVD this card simply has no chance.

so :

2900 pro with UVD : "PC inpact" and "vtr hardware "

http://www.vtr-hardware.com/news/radeon-ati-rv670-n10218.html


Best
Mine
Definitely interesting, but I think that the the 2900pro would be up against the 8800 GTS, don't you think? Maybe the 2900GT would be at just about 200 USD closer to the 8600 GTS. But I noticed it's based on 55nm, so I wonder how it would affect heat ouput. My 8600GTS is not running very cool, but still within specs, I guess.

[Nils_lars]

thanks for the quick reply, it's the PCI-e version.

Where can the 7.9 beta drivers be found?

These are the ones that I was given the link for from Visiontek techsupport and I think there specifically designed for XP and their cards so not sure how it will work with others.

http://www.visiontek.com/teksupport/drivers/7.9_XP_driver.html

[digitlman]

And you running XP? And how much memory do you have?

yes i run XP and have 1GB of ram

[arfster]

New drivers out at support.ati.com:

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894

They are build 52185, well ahead of the visiontek "7.9" version. Past officials were:

7.8 50974
7.7 49713,
7.6 48646.

Looks like these are about the real 7.9s, more or less.

They include the AVIVO mpeg2 codec, same version as 7.8. The ones Visiontek have are a few months newer.

[emilot]

New drivers out at support.ati.com:

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894

They are build 52185, well ahead of the visiontek "7.9" version. Past officials were:

7.8 50974
7.7 49713,
7.6 48646.

Looks like these are about the real 7.9s, more or less.

They include the AVIVO mpeg2 codec, same version as 7.8. The ones Visiontek have are a few months newer.

Any direct link Arfster??

You are the man!!!TY

[Demi9OD]

I don't see anywhere to download from that link arfster.

[arfster]

Working link, hopefully:
http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=29041

These are dated 16th August and build 52185, so are really new (ATI drivers usually get released weeks after). They're a lot newer than the Visiontek 7.9s, which are build 50590.


Quick tests:

No fix for HD levels expansion.

2900 H264 HD with auto deinterlacing in CCC still selects bob. Setting the slider peramently to VA fixes this, as before, so no big deal.

Same odd (Vista?) bug as 7.8 with MPC, and a few other VMR9 apps: deinterlacing breaks. It doesn't even try, regardless of what you set anywhere, it just weaves and frame repeats=judderfest. However, good news is that this bug doesn't affect DVBviewer anymore, which is probably the only significant Vista app that still uses VMR9. I'm going to assume VMR9 in XP isn't a problem, cos nobody said it was with 7.8.

Unlike 7.8, performance is good. I think average GPU while deinterlacing is actually lower than 7.7 marginally. Clocking down my 2600xt to 2600pro ddr2 speeds (600/500), it managed the toughest 1080i mpeg2 with VA deinterlacing, while outputting to a 1080p screen.

Usual suspects are not set to 0 by default (dxva_detailenhance, trdenoise, fleshstone/colour defaults and min). Haven't checked if they fixed the bugs that makes this necessary though.

CCC GPU % thingy updates in realtime now (7.8 version you had to go to another tab and back again to refresh it).

Tried some HDDVD/Bluray discs, mpeg2, vc1 and h264. No instantly obvious problems.

Looks like SORT still defaults to 2mpixels, so >1080p screens may need it to be manually increased for HDDVD/Bluray. This may mean 2400 users don't have to change the default setting to get fullscreen on >720p screens though.

My Sapphire 2600XT still doesn't auto-downclock for power/heat saving, like the 2400 models seem to do. This may be down to settings in the Sapphire BIOS, which appear to only allow 100% speed. My Sapphire 2400pro did auto-downclock with 7.8, but I don't have it to test anymore. Possibly we'll need BIOS tools to alter this.


Overall, nothing critical wrong, but without the performance probs of 7.8 for me. However, internally apparently a lot of settings have changed names, so 2400 users may find things like mpeg2 and DXVA_Only24FPS1080H264 can no longer be used to bugfix things. Then again, who knows? Perhaps ATI actually fixed the bugs? (yes, that was sarcasm, of course they won't have).


Once we figure out what new registry settings do, and how the 2400 behaves with these, they could be the basis for new tweaked drivers.

[voicecoils]

I'm having a similar problem. I've got an AMD 3500+ and can't seem to get hardware acceleration working right either. My HD-DVD discs are maxing out the CPU, giving me the occassional stutter. I was able to get it working for MPEG2 HD stuff, but not HD-DVD. I've tried both 7.7 drivers and 7.8 drivers, and can't figure out if I've got a setting wrong somewhere.

I guess I'll try the drivers/software from the card manufactures website next. Asus in my case.

No one seams to have a fix-it-all soloution.

I did look through regedit as suggested in post #148" http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=11019368&postcount=148

and did not see:
DXVA_Only24FPS1080H264
DXVA_Only24FPS1080MPEG2
DXVA_Only24FPS1080VC1
on the list. This may indicate a problem... Do you see them on yours?

[Mntneer]

I guess I'll try the drivers/software from the card manufactures website next. Asus in my case.

No one seams to have a fix-it-all soloution.

I did look through regedit as suggested in post #148" http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=11019368&postcount=148

and did not see:
DXVA_Only24FPS1080H264
DXVA_Only24FPS1080MPEG2
DXVA_Only24FPS1080VC1
on the list. This may indicate a problem... Do you see them on yours?


I've not seen them in the drivers (7.8) on my XP machine. It makes no sense to me as I was under the impression CPU use would be below 30 or 40 for HD-DVD discs. I may try adding them. Problem is finding the correct place to add them as there are a number of locations within the registry that repeat the ATI entries.

I wanted to work on it this evening but I think a thunderstorm has fried my Network Switch, so now I have to spend the evening figuring out if I've got a number of bad NIC's or a bad switch.

[lpphreakx06]

I was planning on purchasing the gigatech 8500gt, but I heard the radeon HD 2900xt had built in audio coding. IS it a worth while option?

[eklee]

I still can't get broadcast 1080i MPEG2 to play nicely. Anyone seeing this problem as I am?

Windows XP MCE 2005, 1920x1080 res
Catalyst 7.8
Athlon 64 3000+, 1GB RAM
MSI 2600 PRO PCIe.
PowerDVD 7.3 Deluxe decoders.

If I set deinterlace mode to Bob/Weave/Adaptive, my CPU usage is around 20 to 30%. Motion Adaptive, it's about 40% to 50%. Vector Adaptive it's 60% to 90%. If pulldown detection is enabled, the CPU usage is consistently around 100% and I got dropped frames.

So, is there any tweaks I can try besides upgrading my CPU to X2 4400+, which I could have done so without getting this video card in the first place.

[arfster]

Solution to 7.8 or 7.9 problems with PDVD not filling the screen with HDDVD/Bluray playback: set VForceMaxResSize to a higher value under umd\dxva, or under the root 0000 or 0001 in XP (depending on which output socket you're using). It refers to the number of pixels in use, so have it >2.25 million for 1080p screens, >4 million for 2560*1600. If you set it zero there's no limit, but probably better to play safe and just set it to a large value.

By default it seems to allow up to around 1080p output, maybe less with the 2400. This replaces sortoverridevidsize which was used for the same purpose in 7.7 and before.

[arfster]

So, is there any tweaks I can try besides upgrading my CPU to X2 4400+, which I could have done so without getting this video card in the first place.

Tried the new drivers above? Might be worth adding the standard regtweaks to reduce the load on the shaders - trdenoise/dxva_detail to zero, and same with colour/fleshtone defaults/mins, then switch em off in CCC.

[Rick Guynn]

About this 'HD levels expansion'. Am I misunderstanding something? I test my system with DVE-HD, and on the PLUGE test (Chapter 1), that -4% bar is clearly not the same as the background, which is video black. That leads me to believe that there is no signal expansion going on. Otherwise, those two would be the same as video black (16) would now be 0, and everything below it (i.e. -4%) would also read as zero, so they would look the same. So either I am misunderstanding something, or I don't have any expansion going on.

BTW, I am running Sapphire 2600XT GDDR3, WinXP, Cat 7.8. PDVD 7.3 2911.

[arfster]

About this 'HD levels expansion'. Am I misunderstanding something? I test my system with DVE-HD, and on the PLUGE test (Chapter 1), that -4% bar is clearly not the same as the background, which is video black. That leads me to believe that there is no signal expansion going on. Otherwise, those two would be the same as video black (16) would now be 0, and everything below it (i.e. -4%) would also read as zero, so they would look the same. So either I am misunderstanding something, or I don't have any expansion going on.

BTW, I am running Sapphire 2600XT GDDR3, WinXP, Cat 7.8. PDVD 7.3 2911.


Interesting - have you got HD acceleration on? Might also be a result of the mode PDVD uses for XP HDDVD/Bluray playback. Perhaps also it won't expand if there is <16 detail already.


Anyway, I got an email back from ATI, and they say HD levels expansion is both correct and intended. Idiotic.

[Sarvatt]

New drivers out at support.ati.com:

http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894

They are build 52185, well ahead of the visiontek "7.9" version. Past officials were:

7.8 50974
7.7 49713,
7.6 48646.

Looks like these are about the real 7.9s, more or less.

They include the AVIVO mpeg2 codec, same version as 7.8. The ones Visiontek have are a few months newer.

Visiontek vista 7.9's were actually 51484, just the inf and catalog files were from 50590 for some reason. Not that it matters though! :D Once again I'm eagerly awaiting being able to try the drivers out but I don't doubt theres no fixes after all this time :D No interesting new reg keys that I can find in 7.9 vs 7.8 :( ATI finally got back to me on my mpeg2 acceleration ticket from july, asking me to provide a program to survey what levels are available so they can verify that those are the only ones available... that dxva2 info program was pretty much a code sample straight out of the directx SDK too! :lol:

edit: older video acceleration dll in these, same one from 7.8. It's obvious these are just for game fixes so not going to waste hours testing everything like usual again :D these 7.9 betas are 8.401.1.0000 and visiontek ones were 8.410.0.0000 with most of the files having newer versions on the latter :( dxva2 and deinterlacing options available to a hd 2400 are still absolutely pathetic. Also noticed that forcing bob in CCC only allows weave to directshow, available deinterlacing modes are the same for both here (VideoProcProgressiveDevice) whereas if you pick auto VideoProcBobDevice is available among the other ones.

[gtgray]

I installed the Visiontek 2600 pro.. HP Pavilion X2 5000+ MCE2005.. in place of a 7600GT. I have an ATI 650 theater card in the box and 2 Gig of ram. On board nic and onbard audio disabled.

This card firmware/drivers seems like quite a mess. I don't know where to begin to troublesshoot this. You would think this card should dp o simple SD mpeg cleanly, it was never an issue with the Nvidia card.. I have the deinterlacing set to highest level for what it is worth. With all the tearing and stuttering how can you really tell what the deinterlacing is really doing. It is watchable but a major disappointment so far.

I just tried the drivers installed the 8.4 whatever... supposedly 7.9 from the BIOSHOCK hotfix. After the install it still says 7.8... I get a lot of flickering and tearing in mpeg playback both with SD and at ATSC resolutions of 720P and 1080I sources. Even get some lines occasionally on the desktop. HD DVD playback looks fine but PowerDVD says it is not accelerated even though the CCC panel is set to accelerate Windows Media. CPU utiliziation is around 50% with VC1.

I have an HDMI cable and the DVI adapter using the ATI audio and removed my DD Live card.

Running 1920x1080P 60HZ to an HP DLP. I tried to set it to 24P and the desktop grew bizarrely big. The Nvidia did not do anything weird when the I set it to 24P.

I can eliminate underscan with the scaling options but why should I have to do that? I notice the desktop text is much fuzzier than the Nvidia which required no special setting. Plugged it in got a corner to corner desktop with 1 to 1 mapping.
Do I have a bad card, need a bios upgrade (date is 6/29). I don't really relish a lot of registry hacking.

I see above the mention of a later mpeg deccoder with the Visionteck stuff. Any ideas how to just get that out of the Vistiontek stuff with doing their driver install. I know I should be seeing 7.9 as I had 7.8 before the BIOSHOCK Hot fix.. The CCC panel appears different.

Where do I start to sort this out?

I also tried overclock autotune and it did not raise the clocks at all. If I try to raise them manually they won't move.
I turned down all the 3d settings to the lowest level as I don't game.

[mine]

I guess I'll try the drivers/software from the card manufactures website next. Asus in my case.

No one seams to have a fix-it-all soloution.

I did look through regedit as suggested in post #148" http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=11019368&postcount=148

and did not see:
DXVA_Only24FPS1080H264
DXVA_Only24FPS1080MPEG2
DXVA_Only24FPS1080VC1
on the list. This may indicate a problem... Do you see them on yours?

if you are on a 2400 and XP

these settings dissapeared in 7.8 . you have to go back to 7.7.

best

mine

[Sarvatt]

Hmmmm, I take that back.. 1080i mpeg2 is working for me without dxva_nohddecode in the registry on 7.9 ATI betas using the ATI Mpeg Decoder filter only now, but the CPU usage is a little too high for my liking. I have a feeling that the CPU usage is as low as it is going to get until they get to working on enabling UVD mpeg2, and it is the same as it was with dxva1 mode C level acceleration on a 6600gt in the same system. Even if it is just switching between bob/weave from flags that is enough for me for HD material, vector deinterlacing is working perfect for SD material where I actually notice it. With the test clip I am using (http://samples.mplayerhq.hu/HDTV/LingerieBowl.ts) I was getting maxed out GPU loads and crappy decoding performance with horrible deinterlacing on every previous driver, but the CPU load is the same and the GPU load is down to 20% with functional deinterlacing now. This clip is pretty stressful because there are glitches in the stream that always spiked the GPU load to 100% even with software decoding and hardware deinterlacing, but it doesn't go above 40% now. Mpeg2 GPU loads do not go over 40% for me now in these drivers on anything I have tried actually! I still have to check a 1080p24 mpeg2 clip I used before which was playing back at 48hz before to see how it handles it though, didn't have time to check it. No other codec is working right for me though, without dxva_nohddecode everything except the ati codec just gives a black or green screen as before. This is on a Sapphire HD 2400 Pro over VGA on vista x86 using EVR.

[RussKingUK]

No other codec is working right for me though, without dxva_nohddecode everything except the ati codec just gives a black or green screen as before. This is on a Sapphire HD 2400 Pro over VGA on vista x86 using EVR.

You have exactly the same setup as me "Sapphire HD 2400 Pro over VGA on vista x86 using EVR". I'll install this Bioshock (7.9) update and see what happens. I don't normaly get a green/black screen though. Well, only with 1080p x264 mkv's with HA enabled.

[indieke2]

I screwed up yesterday, so I have to install the drivers again!

Now a simple question!

Would I better install the new 7.9 driver, or reinstall the 7.6 fixed that was posted here?

I am under XP and have a Sapphire 2400 pro and play all kind of files also Mpeg 2 1080 i.

I am tired of playing around with this, if this continues I will go back to Nvidia!

For the guys, where the HW acceleration do not work, I have noticed, it works with every driver, but not with every version of PWDVD!!! I had an ultra from March, where it did not work, but the full 2911 installation is fine. I did not install the 2 latest patches, who did not gave any benefit, but just put the fullscreen in 4/3.

[Andy o]

Solution to 7.8 or 7.9 problems with PDVD not filling the screen with HDDVD/Bluray playback: set VForceMaxResSize to a higher value under umd\dxva, or under the root 0000 or 0001 in XP (depending on which output socket you're using). It refers to the number of pixels in use, so have it >2.25 million for 1080p screens, >4 million for 2560*1600. If you set it zero there's no limit, but probably better to play safe and just set it to a large value.

By default it seems to allow up to around 1080p output, maybe less with the 2400. This replaces sortoverridevidsize which was used for the same purpose in 7.7 and before.
Did you try this yourself on a 1080p screen? It was suggested by Sarvatt a while back, and I tried it with 7.8 and it didn't work at all. I set it to some numbers ranging from 2 to 5 million and nothing, still the same max window/picture size.

Anyway, I got an email back from ATI, and they say HD levels expansion is both correct and intended. Idiotic.
I was gonna suggest something like that actually, that they intended it and it was no error. After all, I still have it on my x1900GT. But then they "fixed" it for SD content didn't they? So I kept it shut.

Anyway, I know it's an annoyance and ATI don't know what they're doing since they did fix it for SD, but is it such a big deal for HTPCs? I mean I would understand for standalone players or something, but with a PC if you calibrate your display so gray-16 is black and gray-235 is white, you will lose the dark detail and blow whites in everything else that is not video-related with that PC. I think it makes more sense to calibrate only the overlay for gray-16 to black and gray-235 to white, than calibrating your display. That's actually what I'm doing with the Nvidia card. And as I said before, I've yet to see any posterization due to changes like these.

[voicecoils]

HW acceleration success!

I uninstalled PDVD and the ATI display drivers & control centre and did the following:

*First downloaded and installed: ati_8.401.1_bioshock_hotfix_xp
*Restarted
*Installed PowerDVD 7.3 Ultra (anyone know how to find the exact version number? I think I have build 2911)
*Restarted
*Tried a decrypted HD-DVD from my hard drive, <30% CPU utilization, yay!

HD-DVD's do not play correctly in non-full screen mode however. Attached is a screen shot of what I'm seeing, a garbled green flashy mess. Anyone know the fix for this?

Thanks everyone for tips on how to get things going for me!

[voicecoils]

attachment for above post

[roosterx]

This is maybe a bit off topic but i need to know if i am the only one with these issues.

First off i've been trying to get HW acc on h264, vc1 and mpeg 2 with mixed results, so i gave that up, and runs like most of you with some registry hacks and ati mpeg 2 codec + ffdshow SW decode of all other material, since all other things makes the computer unstable, and even tried coreavc 1.5 and that works fine for so - so long, before picture gets 'an overlay of garble'(much like one picture i saw somewhere of these ati cards with capacitors that aint working - but for me it does not fill whole screen, just partially and even goes away after a second or something)

Now to my real problem/worry - why can't i even start any version of 3dmark without computer freeze and then automaticly reboot(after half a minute freeze), any 3d game that i have tried do work, and i also have latest patches + DirectX on WinXP pro.

Can this be a compatibility problem between Motherboard chipset maybe?
Is anyone else having similar problems on nforce chipsets?

I believe i have tried everyting..I have even RMA'd my first Asus EAH 2600XT GDDR3..

My HTPC hw is:

Asus EAH 2600XT (PCI-e)
Asus A8N-sli premium (latest 1303 bios - nforce 4-sli)
2x 1Gb Corsair TWINX cl2 - 1T
X2 3800+ with Cool&Quiet enable
Coolermaster 500W psu

+++

[tobytwo]

roosterx Try running 3DMark from the command line and type the following C:\Program Files\Futuremark\3DMark06\3DMark06.exe" -nosysteminfo. That should fix it!

Back to topic, does anyone have 5.1 AC3 audio working over the HDMI output into an HDMI 1.2 or higher receiver. I am only ever able to get 2 channel PCM. It will will not run any compressed 5.1 audio format from standard or high definition DVDs using PowerDVD Ultra (latest build) tried 7.7 and 7.8. I've seen several users who have posted here with this problem. I know optical or coaxial digital works fine, as does analogue.

I also had a very old pre-release driver, and strangely, with this I could get 5.1 audio over HDMI to be picked up by my receiver, but only when a non-hdcp display device was also connected to the system as a secondary display! So my theory is there are problems with the HDCP handshake and multichannel audio. Video appears to work fine though.

Please note, this is only when audio is sent over the HDMI connection. I am using Windows XP Media Center. Have tried 3 receivers, including a Denon and the latest Onkyo with the same results.

Thanks,

Toby

[arfster]

Did you try this yourself on a 1080p screen?

Yeah, it works :-)


Anyway, I know it's an annoyance and ATI don't know what they're doing since they did fix it for SD, but is it such a big deal for HTPCs?

It is if your HDTV clips <8, like a lot do :-( Also, it means switching calbration between SD and HD, which is just a pita.

[arfster]

Can this be a compatibility problem between Motherboard chipset maybe?


That's my best guess too - there are just too many weird random problems with these cards. That or some hardware component failure.

[mine]

Now to my real problem/worry - why can't i even start any version of 3dmark without computer freeze and then automaticly reboot(after half a minute freeze), any 3d game that i have tried do work, and i also have latest patches + DirectX on WinXP pro.


+++

you need a 3D mark fix for ATI 2xxx cards . sorry for the missing link..
you may try to google for it.

best
m

[DooMer_MP3]

Hi all,
I've been reading this thread a bit. I'd like to purchase one of these cards for my HTPC. I was leaning towards the 2400XT, specifically this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102699

However, I noticed in the reviews that the drivers and/or BIOS have an issue when trying to install new drivers. Can anyone give me a brief rundown on this? From what I'm seeing in this thread, its that the BIOS or drivers don't recognize the card properly. I'm leery of ordering one until I know exactly whats going on. Some of those reviews on Newegg say the card needs to be sent in to manufacturer to get re-flashed?

Anyhow, what do people recommend here? 2400Pro, 2400XT, or 2600Pro? I want fanless cooling.

Thanks!

[DooMer_MP3]

Also, I should mention - I'm using MCE 2005. If I purchase a Blu-Ray burner in the future, will MCE 2005 be able to decode these? I'd rather not have to use PowerDVD. Also, will this card automatically pick up the slack on my 720p/1080i content that my onboard x300 struggles with?

[eklee]

Tried the new drivers above? Might be worth adding the standard regtweaks to reduce the load on the shaders - trdenoise/dxva_detail to zero, and same with colour/fleshtone defaults/mins, then switch em off in CCC.

Couldn't find those registry keys. Do they exist for 2600PRO in Windows XP?

[arfster]

Couldn't find those registry keys. Do they exist for 2600PRO in Windows XP?

Trdenoise and dxva_detailenhance don't exist by default on any install, you have to add them (i think dwords in XP? reboot needed also). They're like a number of other ATI keys which default to 1 (aka on) when they don't exist in the registry - the infamous dxva_nohddecode is another of these, although that doesn't affect 2600s.

ColorVibrance_DE_MIN and ColorVibrance_DEF should exist already though, and default is 25 on the 2600. Set both to zero, cos they cause problems. You can do the same with Fleshtone_DE_MIN and Fleshtone_DEF. Then reboot for the new defaults to take hold, goto CCC, advanced color, hit default and the sliders actually go to zero now (before these regtweaks they go to 25 when default is hit, or they're turned off). Then turn em off, and OK.

With some drivers (or perhaps XP?) these options don't seem to appear in CCC though, in which case you should manually set the registry settings ColorVibrance and Fleshtone to 30 00 (aka zero).

Hopefully at some point this will be fixed, I haven't tested with 7.8/7.9 but I'd be surprised if they had sorted it.

[Demi9OD]

TRDenoise and dxva_detailenhance are both strings in XP.

[butters2006]

I think the consensus is that these cards (more specifically their software/drivers) are not ready for prime time. I have the 2600xt but not recommend it unless you like playing around with your registry settings.



Hi all,
I've been reading this thread a bit. I'd like to purchase one of these cards for my HTPC. I was leaning towards the 2400XT, specifically this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102699

However, I noticed in the reviews that the drivers and/or BIOS have an issue when trying to install new drivers. Can anyone give me a brief rundown on this? From what I'm seeing in this thread, its that the BIOS or drivers don't recognize the card properly. I'm leery of ordering one until I know exactly whats going on. Some of those reviews on Newegg say the card needs to be sent in to manufacturer to get re-flashed?

Anyhow, what do people recommend here? 2400Pro, 2400XT, or 2600Pro? I want fanless cooling.

Thanks!

[dildano]

HD-DVD's do not play correctly in non-full screen mode however. Attached is a screen shot of what I'm seeing, a garbled green flashy mess. Anyone know the fix for this?
Voicecoils, do you by any chance have an MSI card? The picture you posted looks exactly like what I was getting on both an MSI RX2600XT and an RX2600PRO. Here's the deal: If you use the MSI drivers from their website, you can play HD-DVDs and Blu-Rays in non-full-screen-mode without corruption, however you won't be able to adjust for any underscan on your HDTV (the old MSI drivers don't have the slider). I've got a 1080p LCD and not being able to adjust for the underscanning was a dealbreaker for me, so I have a Sapphire 2600XT on the way now. If you do want to use the latest ATI drivers, then you'll always have to run PDVD in full-screen, and you'll have to hope that your machine doesn't crash before you can get it into full-screen.

[roosterx]

roosterx Try running 3DMark from the command line and type the following C:\Program Files\Futuremark\3DMark06\3DMark06.exe" -nosysteminfo. That should fix it!


This did actually work, thank you very much. :)
Now i am only curious of why this worked..

however you won't be able to adjust for any underscan on your HDTV (the old MSI drivers don't have the slider)

If i understand the problem right is the solution a registry entry, or the really easy way, use an executable that fixes this in a click, i don't remember where i read about this when me myself got this problem, but a google for 'FixMyUnderscan.exe' size - 1 318 971 bytes should fix the underscan problems.

What i really can't understand is why Ati did have underscan as a default setting for 1080p resolution, though now that they included this as a part of CCC settings it's more like a bonus for those who bought a LCD without support for 1:1 pixelmapping.

If you can't find this file, i would gladly send it to you.

[dildano]

If i understand the problem right is the solution a registry entry, or the really easy way, use an executable that fixes this in a click, i don't remember where i read about this when me myself got this problem, but a google for 'FixMyUnderscan.exe' size - 1 318 971 bytes should fix the underscan problems.
Very interesting! A quick Google search reveals that FixMyUnderscan.exe doesn't work with Vista32, but there is a registry hack (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/printthread.php?t=729041&page=6&pp=30) to accomplish the same thing. I'll try it out tonight, and let you know how it goes.

As a side note, it still drives me up the wall that I can't use the regular ATI drivers with the MSI cards. Will probably still switch to the Sapphire card...

[KeithHurst]

Solution to 7.8 or 7.9 problems with PDVD not filling the screen with HDDVD/Bluray playback: set VForceMaxResSize to a higher value under umd\dxva, or under the root 0000 or 0001 in XP (depending on which output socket you're using). It refers to the number of pixels in use, so have it >2.25 million for 1080p screens, >4 million for 2560*1600. If you set it zero there's no limit, but probably better to play safe and just set it to a large value.

By default it seems to allow up to around 1080p output, maybe less with the 2400. This replaces sortoverridevidsize which was used for the same purpose in 7.7 and before.

Hi,

long term lurker...more regular poster on our UK equivalent ;)

I'm using a 2400xt 7.8 drivers etc, PDVD Ultra latest patch. At 1920 x 1080 my PDVD certainly doesn't fill the screen the way I thought it would, so this thread is of interest to me.

However I have searched my registry and found no mention of VForceMaxResSize or sortoverridevidsize.

Coiuld you please give the exact key path to where this should be located. Do I have to add it ?

Sorry but I'm not too sure what is meant by "root 0000 or 0001 in XP"

Any help appreciated.

Thanks
Keith

[arfster]

The vforce ones only exist if you put them there - the sort ones only existed in 7.7 and earlier.

For XP, look in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video

Under there, you have lots of entries, each representing a particular card. To find yours, browse through all until you find one with tons of entries under its 0000 and 0001 keys (most are empty or semi-empty). In theory, there should only be one that's full of keys.

Then, make a new key called VForceMaxResSize under 0000 and 0001 (each one represents one socket, so just do both unless you know which is which), and set it to 2500000 (2.5 million). Only problem is I'm not sure whether it's a string or dword in XP, since I use Vista - try a string first. Then reboot, and see if it works.....

[Sarvatt]

I don't normaly get a green/black screen though.

Do you use dxva_nohddecode on yours though? I only got that problem you were quoting without it using the MS decoder at HD resolutions in pre 7.9 beta drivers, cyberlink played fine but it only used software decoding in YUY2 colorspace which doesn't have anything more than bob and weave available on hd 2400 pro at HD resolutions and only adaptive level available for SD resolutions for directshow :( You need a decoder that can interact directly with ati's deinterlacing and not one that picks its options through directshow because these are the only ones the crappy drivers enumerate..

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/1706/deintos8.jpg

[voicecoils]

Voicecoils, do you by any chance have an MSI card? The picture you posted looks exactly like what I was getting on both an MSI RX2600XT and an RX2600PRO.

If you do want to use the latest ATI drivers, then you'll always have to run PDVD in full-screen, and you'll have to hope that your machine doesn't crash before you can get it into full-screen.

Mine's an ASUS EAH2400Pro. But I'm experiencing what your talking about. I'm using the latest ati website drivers and it works fine in full screen, if the computer doesn't crash before it gets there. If I could just get PDVD to automatically start in full screen...:rolleyes:

[Sereny]

Hi,

I bought a Club3D HD2400 AGP for my older K7S5A Athlon XP 1600+ Mobo/CPU, using WinXP SP2 pro.

However, I am not able to get acceleration for h.264 content at all. I've tried with .TS caps and .mkv encodes. Mpeg2 works in some combinations.

PowerDVD gives this info while playing such a file:
Video Accelerator: DirectX VA (not in use)
It does write '(in use)' when playing mpeg2.

Playing it via Graphedit (to rule out vobsub or other filters which could possibly be problematic) or mpc also results in no acceleration.

I've tried this with 7.6 (arfster edition), 7.7, 7.8, 7.9 beta drivers and powerdvd 2911 and newer on a fresh winXP SP2. Modifications to .inf files were necessary as the drivers otherwise would not detect the card (vendor 94C4).
All necessary registry keys were set (especially DXVA_Only24FPS1080H264), taken from mine's guide: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=11019368&postcount=148


This is getting frustrating. Does someone of the HD2400 AGP owners have a definitely working .TS/mkv h.264 clip? If yes, which OS, catalyst version and powerDVD version do you use. Also, which CPU do you have? My AthlonXP 1600+ does not have much of sse2/3, which could possibly be related.

If someone needs more information about this piece of AGP hardware, I can provide.

[jkcheng122]

This is getting frustrating. Does someone of the HD2400 AGP owners have a definitely working .TS/mkv h.264 clip? If yes, which OS, catalyst version and powerDVD version do you use. Also, which CPU do you have? My AthlonXP 1600+ does not have much of sse2/3, which could possibly be related.

If someone needs more information about this piece of AGP hardware, I can provide.

.ts and .mkv files from what i understand are x264 rather than h264. i dont think powerdvd even plays those file formats. as far as i know there isn't a way yet to use hardware acceleration on .ts and .mkv files. you need a much faster cpu, prob 2.6GHz or higher, to play 1080p video smoothly.

[Sereny]

.ts and .mkv files from what i understand are x264 rather than h264. i dont think powerdvd even plays those file formats. as far as i know there isn't a way yet to use hardware acceleration on .ts and .mkv files. you need a much faster cpu, prob 2.6GHz or higher, to play 1080p video smoothly.

Wow, fast reply :)

x264 and h264 are basically the same. One is a short BBC sample I frequently use to test is called BBC.HD.Robin.Hood.S01E03.H.264.1080MBAFF.AC3.5.1-BBC.sample.ts. [note: I hope this does not go against board rules]
It does play in Cyberlink, however very slow with dropouts, ie not accellerated.
I know for sure that this clip does work flawlessly on some pci-e cards.

The Cyberlink Codec in conjunction with HD2x00 can generally be used to watch DVB-S2 (which uses h264), if I remember correcty, fellow board user mine does this.
However, my AGP card does not seem to be able to do this.

[Sarvatt]

Do you have .net 3.0 installed? I am not sure if PowerDVD uses EVR in XP or not but .net 3 (or manually registering dxva2 and evr dlls) is needed for EVR. It's very possible SSE2 is required though as I know nvidia's purevideo needs SSE2 for h264 acceleration or at least did when I was in that situation, cyberlinks codec refused to use DXVA when it loaded cl264sse.dll instead of cl264sse2.dll :( Can you run this and post a screenshot of the main screen if you have .net 3.0 and VC2005sp1 runtimes installed?

http://bluesky23.hp.infoseek.co.jp/DXVAChecker_1200.zip

edit: Also, do you have the latest august 2007 DX9 runtime installed?

[Sarvatt]

Wow, fast reply :)

x264 and h264 are basically the same. One is a short BBC sample I frequently use to test is called BBC.HD.Robin.Hood.S01E03.H.264.1080MBAFF.AC3.5.1-BBC.sample.ts. [note: I hope this does not go against board rules]
It does play in Cyberlink, however very slow with dropouts, ie not accellerated.
I know for sure that this clip does work flawlessly on some pci-e cards.

The Cyberlink Codec in conjunction with HD2x00 can generally be used to watch DVB-S2 (which uses h264), if I remember correcty, fellow board user mine does this.
However, my AGP card does not seem to be able to do this.

Ahh interlaced, that brings another set of variables as to what the problem could be. Do you have any progressive clips to test to start?

[Sereny]

@Sarvatt: Thanks for the fast reply. I will install dotNet3 now and run the checker tool.

I have also used progressive clips with 23,976 and 25fps, the BBC MBAFF one was just one of many.

[Sereny]

Installed dotNet3 and the mentioned sp1, did a reboot, acceleration stays unchanged.

Screenshots of DXVAChecker are attached. Perhaps you can see something in them, I can only guess, without something to compare them to.

It is getting late here, so I'll get back here after a few hours of sleep.

[Rick Guynn]

Interesting - have you got HD acceleration on? Might also be a result of the mode PDVD uses for XP HDDVD/Bluray playback. Perhaps also it won't expand if there is <16 detail already.


Anyway, I got an email back from ATI, and they say HD levels expansion is both correct and intended. Idiotic.
Yes, everything is working great. I only have HDDVD at the moment. I am currently using a full-build install of 7.3 2911, and 7.8. I previously was using a pathced install of 2911 and 7.6. With that setup, I was getting some weird glitches, like the movie sometimes crashing the system unless I waited for the feature to start before going full screen. But now, everything is pretty much perfect. Very smooth and very pretty.

When I saw the comments about levels expansion, I decided to check it out. I boosted brightness to make the blacks come out and the -4% bar was definitely darker than the background. I was pretty sure this would be the case since I set it up not long ago and thought it was then.

[gvagolf]

Hello. I have a 2600 Pro AGP with 512 MB of ram on the way and wanted to ensure I have everything ready for its arrival. I have a P4 3.2Ghz system with 1 GB of ram and currently using the built in audio from ASUS (which only gives me analog in Vista).

Is anyone having problems with using the HD 2600 as the audio source? This would be a nice addition as I can only get anolog sound in Vista.

Did the DVI to HDMI dongle come with the video card or will I need to get that seperately? If so will a standard DVI to HDMI cable work or will it not include the sound.

Lastly, I have the 7.8 version drivers for Vista 32 downloaded from AMD. I have read about version 7.9 but have had some difficulty finding them.

Is there anything else I should need?

I forgot to mention that I have the Xbox 360 HDVD drive and PowerDVD Ultra 7.3.

Thanks in advance.

[dildano]

Very interesting! A quick Google search reveals that FixMyUnderscan.exe doesn't work with Vista32, but there is a registry hack (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/printthread.php?t=729041&page=6&pp=30) to accomplish the same thing. I'll try it out tonight, and let you know how it goes.
Unfortunately, the registry hack did not solve the underscan problem with my MSI RX2600PRO. I'm guessing that the registry key only works with the X1000 series cards, but who knows? Guess I'll definitely switch to the Sapphire...

[mine]

Do you have .net 3.0 installed? I am not sure if PowerDVD uses EVR in XP or not but .net 3 (or manually registering dxva2 and evr dlls) is needed for EVR. It's very possible SSE2 is required though as
http://bluesky23.hp.infoseek.co.jp/DXVAChecker_1200.zip

edit: Also, do you have the latest august 2007 DX9 runtime installed?

Hi
so far under XP no luck with EVR and PDVD

tested : EVR works with MPC (casimir edition)
and DVBViewer GE (as player)

more testing needed

only benefit under XP I found on the fly was a slightly reduced judder of the alltime dvb/s orgasmic judderqueensisters NVidia /7600/ 8600 GT .....:rolleyes:

best
mine

[Mntneer]

Finally success! Like voicecoils, I uninstalled the 7.8 drivers, uninstalled PDVD, did a cleaning of the registry, installed the new "hot fix" drivers mentioned a couple pages back, reinstalled PowerDVD and applied a few of the registry tweaks. Rebooting along the way.

Jutter free playback on all my HD-DVD titles, with CPU use down around 30-40. HW Acceleration on my MPEG2 .TS files. HW Acceleration on my DVD's. I also thought the tweaks arfster mentioned about Colorvibrance and Fleshtone helped with the picture quality of my DVD's. Many thanks to him and everyone else that has researched these cards and drivers to the point that it greatly helps the rest of us.

Now if I can just get a new NIC to replace my fried one I can test playing back my HD-DVD's and TS files over my network.

BTW. I think a big part of the problem I was having was I was running an older version of PDVD.

[Nils_lars]

Wow, fast reply :)

x264 and h264 are basically the same. One is a short BBC sample I frequently use to test is called BBC.HD.Robin.Hood.S01E03.H.264.1080MBAFF.AC3.5.1-BBC.sample.ts. [note: I hope this does not go against board rules]
It does play in Cyberlink, however very slow with dropouts, ie not accellerated.
I know for sure that this clip does work flawlessly on some pci-e cards.

The Cyberlink Codec in conjunction with HD2x00 can generally be used to watch DVB-S2 (which uses h264), if I remember correcty, fellow board user mine does this.
However, my AGP card does not seem to be able to do this.


I am running a 2600pro AGP with 7.9 drivers on a Athlon 2800 and was having similar problems and it finnaly got acclerated from patching version 7.3 2911 of Powerdvd up to 3104 and then I got acceleration and my CPU went from 100% to 15% and GPU runs at 30-40% at 44C.

I had a heck of a time clearing old versions of Powerdvd and finally went with a format/reinstall and that worked.

[roosterx]

Unfortunately, the registry hack did not solve the underscan problem with my MSI RX2600PRO. I'm guessing that the registry key only works with the X1000 series cards, but who knows? Guess I'll definitely switch to the Sapphire...

It did work for me and my x2600xt when i tried to install older ati official drivers to get the card more stable, but this was under winxp.

[voicecoils]

is there a consolidated post with all the registry tweaks for XP? I've been searching through the thread but it's easy to get lost, it's so long!

Also, does anyone know if there is a DWORD that could be used to get video to be stretched for Constant Image Height purposes (anamorphic horizontal expansion lens on my projector)?

A registry tweak that would stretch VC-1 video to go from say 1920x1080 to 1920x1440?

[voicecoils]

great! glad to hear you've got things working. can you play hw accelerated hd-dvd's in windowed (non-fullscreen) mode for more then a few min with out things getting garbled or crashing?

[alfonxs]

I am running a 2600pro AGP with 7.9 drivers on a Athlon 2800 and was having similar problems and it finnaly got acclerated from patching version 7.3 2911 of Powerdvd up to 3104 and then I got acceleration and my CPU went from 100% to 15% and GPU runs at 30-40% at 44C.

I had a heck of a time clearing old versions of Powerdvd and finally went with a format/reinstall and that worked.

I have PDVD 2911 and my 2400 Pro AGP is HW-accelerated. The problem for Sereny is somewhere else, I guess.

My Config:

Gecube 2400 Pro
XP SP2
Catalyst 7.7 with Reghacks
PDVD 7.3.2911
DVBViewer Pro with Overlay or VMR7/9 (doesn't matter)

Graphedit is ok with HW-acc. too.

I can give further details when I'm back home in a few hours.

[Sarvatt]

Installed dotNet3 and the mentioned sp1, did a reboot, acceleration stays unchanged.

Screenshots of DXVAChecker are attached. Perhaps you can see something in them, I can only guess, without something to compare them to.

It is getting late here, so I'll get back here after a few hours of sleep.

Interesting!! So deinterlacing support is either much better on XP, or it is a difference between the PCI-E and AGP versions as your's is much better than mine. Your screenshot of the acceleration capabilities is odd, why only 720p for WMV postprocessing for instance? No resolutions reported for mpeg2 or h264 is ok, readme said it could do that with XP and it wouldn't be there at all if there was no support. Here are what the HD 2400 pro PCI-E acceleration capabilities look like with 7.9 hotfix drivers and no registry tweaks

http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/4750/dxva2rp9.jpg

I'm at a loss towards the fix though.. sounds more like a problem with cyberlink since it persists through other drivers, but it could be something else. you also could try those visiontek 7.9 betas that arfster linked a few pages ago made for AGP cards as they have newer acceleration dll's.

[TheFranchise]

Hmmmm, I take that back.. 1080i mpeg2 is working for me without dxva_nohddecode in the registry on 7.9 ATI betas using the ATI Mpeg Decoder filter only now, but the CPU usage is a little too high for my liking.

With the test clip I am using (http://samples.mplayerhq.hu/HDTV/LingerieBowl.ts) I was getting maxed out GPU loads and crappy decoding performance with horrible deinterlacing on every previous driver, but the CPU load is the same and the GPU load is down to 20% with functional deinterlacing now. This clip is pretty stressful because there are glitches in the stream that always spiked the GPU load to 100% even with software decoding and hardware deinterlacing, but it doesn't go above 40% now. Mpeg2 GPU loads do not go over 40% for me now in these drivers on anything I have tried actually!

I've been reading this thread the past few days, and this and Mtneers's mpeg2.ts mention was the news I was hoping for since my main HTPC use is for OTA ATSC.

For comparison, I played that clip on a 1.8 or so ghz e2140 with an underclocked-at-half-speed-because-it-overheated-and-is-now-broken 7600gt, and VLC player plays it fine with the cpu around 25% with occasional spikes to 35%, and then add 10-15% to that when turning the various built-in VLC deinterlacings on. The infamous "The Greatest Game Ever Played" 1080p trailer is around 45%, maxing about 60%.

Of surprise to me is the fairly small difference I saw playing clips on an e2140 @ 1.6-1.8ghz and an e6300 @ 2.8-3.0ghz. Good news for people who might otherwise think they need a top-line cpu for this stuff. Even the e2140 is overkill if I didn't plan on encoding other files while watching 1080i ATSC.

This is a thanks post for everyone. I already had a 2400pro on order since I knew if ATI can't get hardware acceleration/decoding working right on these things that someone here probably could. This thread and some faith are the main reasons I didn't buy an 8500GT or 7600GT.

[KeithHurst]

The vforce ones only exist if you put them there - the sort ones only existed in 7.7 and earlier.

For XP, look in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video... ..

Arf,

many thanks for this I will try when I get home later.

Keith

[Mntneer]

great! glad to hear you've got things working. can you play hw accelerated hd-dvd's in windowed (non-fullscreen) mode for more then a few min with out things getting garbled or crashing?


I've not noticed any corruption yet. Though with 300, if I tried switching monitors while PDVD was running I'd get some screw ups. And I don't think PDVD likes me using the Media Center remote that much, because if I tried going to fast with the remote (going to menus, jumping to scenes, etc.) I'd get some brief stuttering and once I got a crash.

[Sereny]

I'm at a loss towards the fix though.. sounds more like a problem with cyberlink since it persists through other drivers, but it could be something else. you also could try those visiontek 7.9 betas that arfster linked a few pages ago made for AGP cards as they have newer acceleration dll's.

I installed Visionteks 7.9 AGP drivers on a fresh WinXP SP2, followed by powerdvd 2911, followed by patch to 3104 after having tested 2911.

The only thing which I could get to accellerate is a SD DVB-S mpeg2 TS from a TV station. GPU goes up to 50% then, I guess with Vector adaptive deinterlacing.

However, HDTV mpeg2 streams do not get accelerated, as well as anything h264. I also tested LingerieBowl.ts, and I'm running out of ideas. Perhaps its time to test this card in another computer.


/edit: I just put the card into another computer (intel celeron 2.8 something), using my standard procedure, and h264 just worked out of the box , mpeg2 not as of yet.
So it has either something to do with my athlon-mobo and its drivers or there really is a requirement for sse2.

[Mntneer]

I've been reading this thread the past few days, and this and Mtneers's mpeg2.ts mention was the news I was hoping for since my main HTPC use is for OTA ATSC.

For comparison, I played that clip on a 1.8 or so ghz e2140 with an underclocked-at-half-speed-because-it-overheated-and-is-now-broken 7600gt, and VLC player plays it fine with the cpu around 25% with occasional spikes to 35%, and then add 10-15% to that when turning the various built-in VLC deinterlacings on. The infamous "The Greatest Game Ever Played" 1080p trailer is around 45%, maxing about 60%.

Of surprise to me is the fairly small difference I saw playing clips on an e2140 @ 1.6-1.8ghz and an e6300 @ 2.8-3.0ghz. Good news for people who might otherwise think they need a top-line cpu for this stuff. Even the e2140 is overkill if I didn't plan on encoding other files while watching 1080i ATSC.

This is a thanks post for everyone. I already had a 2400pro on order since I knew if ATI can't get hardware acceleration/decoding working right on these things that someone here probably could. This thread and some faith are the main reasons I didn't buy an 8500GT or 7600GT.

I've got 2 1.8Ghz Pentium machines in the house that I use as HTPC's as well, and the success I've had with the 2600XT in my bedroom, makes me want to try an AGP version for those machines now as well. On both of those I've never had trouble playing TS files I recorded over the air, or captured from my cable box via firewire (for example, I've watched TNT's The Company that way), but I'd also like to store my HD-DVD's on a media server, like I do many of my favorite DVD's, and then watch them anywhere in the house.

[arfster]

When I saw the comments about levels expansion, I decided to check it out. I boosted brightness to make the blacks come out and the -4% bar was definitely darker than the background. I was pretty sure this would be the case since I set it up not long ago and thought it was then.


OK, here's a possible explanation, posted by Andy O:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=11377727&postcount=2701
---------------------------------------------------------
EDIT: So a bit more testing made me realize that the reason why "normal quality" shows no levels expansion, is that the latest ATI drivers don't do expansion for SD content, but they do for HD content. And this "normal" quality setting is actually downsampling to SD quality, as far as I can tell. Looks horrible, compared to HD, that is. So the no levels expansion thing should be a unintentional by-product of them doing that. In any case, if SD quality in HD video is "normal" quality for Cyberlink, we probably should question their video quality standards."
---------------------------------------------------------

He's in XP like you. I use Vista, with the exact same Sapphire DDR3 2600XT as you - no change between PDVD normal/best settings though.

[Sarvatt]

I installed Visionteks 7.9 AGP drivers on a fresh WinXP SP2, followed by powerdvd 2911, followed by patch to 3104 after having tested 2911.

The only thing which I could get to accellerate is a SD DVB-S mpeg2 TS from a TV station. GPU goes up to 50% then, I guess with Vector adaptive deinterlacing.

However, HDTV mpeg2 streams do not get accelerated, as well as anything h264. I also tested LingerieBowl.ts, and I'm running out of ideas. Perhaps its time to test this card in another computer.


/edit: I just put the card into another computer (intel celeron 2.8 something), using my standard procedure, and h264 just worked out of the box , mpeg2 not as of yet.
So it has either something to do with my athlon-mobo and its drivers or there really is a requirement for sse2.

Yeah HD mpeg2 will not be accelerated without applying the DXVA_NOHDDECODE registry entry, that is normal for the 2400. I have HD mpeg2 acceleration working without it in vista ONLY with the ATI Mpeg Decoder from the avivo package, any other codec requires the registry entry and has problems with HD deinterlacing. I've waited 32 days now for a response from ATI about the MPEG2 acceleration problems on HD 2400 and they just now got back to me asking how they can determine DXVA2 capabilities available.. Not holding my breath on getting that fixed anytime soon :D You may not have the issue with the DXVA_NOHDDECODE though as it seemed to be a deinterlacing mode problem and your deinterlacing cap list would be fine in XP! It is really low acceleration level so do not be surprised by 60% CPU usage or something with DXVA working, my 6600GT was the same way but had nowhere near the deinterlacing abilites these have. Hate to say it but it does sound like a SSE2 problem that I've ran into before :(

[roosterx]

With CCC bioshock beta drivers and ati avivo mpeg2 codec, it seems every thing with a pink tone to it (like human skin can be) gets amplified so it does not look good, but not extremely much, just a little bit too much, is this the Fleshtone_DEF setting that controls this?

Im running XP pro and Fleshtone_DEF = 0.

Something i've forgotten?

[millerbrad]

Still can't get audio from both DVI-to-HDMI ports at the same time with the Bioshock hotfix...

...Back to the 7.7 tweaked drivers...

[Sereny]

Small update (still on the sse2 capable comp):

All my mpeg2 caps play in PowerDVD and directshow players. Fighting with various de-interlacing stuff is the only thing left to do.

Basically all h264 .TS caps play in powerdvd, but not in directshow players, x264/mkv not at all, yet.

When playing in directshow players, I sometimes get green junk (no picture, only screen filling flickering bars, boxes and stuff) instead of a totally black picture. CPU usage ranges are from what I would expect when playing back such content, roughly about 20-30%.

Is there some trick to directShow? :) Considering the same content h264/.TS plays basically flawless in PowerDVD.

My best hope would be that ATI pushes out some nice h264 codec. It can't be that hard, can it? Given that the card does almost all hard work ...

[KeithHurst]

The vforce ones only exist if you put them there - the sort ones only existed in 7.7 and earlier.

For XP, look in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video

Under there, you have lots of entries, each representing a particular card. To find yours, browse through all until you find one with tons of entries under its 0000 and 0001 keys (most are empty or semi-empty). In theory, there should only be one that's full of keys.

Then, make a new key called VForceMaxResSize under 0000 and 0001 (each one represents one socket, so just do both unless you know which is which), and set it to 2500000 (2.5 million). Only problem is I'm not sure whether it's a string or dword in XP, since I use Vista - try a string first. Then reboot, and see if it works.....

Arf,

perfect thanks. I entered 2500000 as a DWORD into both sockets. Running PDVD in 1920 x 1080 full screen, no loss of pic.... sweet, very sweet :)

Thanks again
Keith

[Andy o]

OK, here's a possible explanation, posted by Andy O:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=11377727&postcount=2701
---------------------------------------------------------
EDIT: So a bit more testing made me realize that the reason why "normal quality" shows no levels expansion, is that the latest ATI drivers don't do expansion for SD content, but they do for HD content. And this "normal" quality setting is actually downsampling to SD quality, as far as I can tell. Looks horrible, compared to HD, that is. So the no levels expansion thing should be a unintentional by-product of them doing that. In any case, if SD quality in HD video is "normal" quality for Cyberlink, we probably should question their video quality standards."
---------------------------------------------------------

He's in XP like you. I use Vista, with the exact same Sapphire DDR3 2600XT as you - no change between PDVD normal/best settings though.

Mind you that I'm using a x1900GT on that machine, though, so no HW accel option for me. It could be Rick's problem too, but he'd have to have HW accel unticked, and his picture besides not having expansion, would look pretty much like an upscaled SD source (pretty bad for HD) so he would probably have noticed that, especially when running DVE-HD. I was suggesting that the other poster in the other thread had that because he's running the non-beta Nvidia drivers that don't allow for HW accel on XP, but Rick should be perfectly able to do so.

On the other hand, it may happen too with HW acceleration ticked. I would like to know more about this, if it's an XP thing, or a Cyberlink thing.

By the way, arfster, do you know how to manage deinterlacing options with the Nvidia 8600 cards in Vista 32? I do get deinterlacing, but I have no control whatsoever. The PowerDVD HW deinterlacing options don't seem to do much, nor differentiate from each other. I still get the 3c5 or whatever the ATI Vector thing was, and I think the other ATI options too. I get those and 3 or 4 more from Nvidia. Nothing in the Control Panel, though, and even when deinterlacing is disabled in Powerdvd, I still get it, HD 1080i/60 OTA mpeg2 runs just fine even in weave or with deinterlacing off altogether, which makes me think Nvidia is just applying auto deinterlacing. Doesn't look bad, though. Using 163.44 betas

[Rick Guynn]

OK, here's a possible explanation, posted by Andy O:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=11377727&postcount=2701
---------------------------------------------------------
EDIT: So a bit more testing made me realize that the reason why "normal quality" shows no levels expansion, is that the latest ATI drivers don't do expansion for SD content, but they do for HD content. And this "normal" quality setting is actually downsampling to SD quality, as far as I can tell. Looks horrible, compared to HD, that is. So the no levels expansion thing should be a unintentional by-product of them doing that. In any case, if SD quality in HD video is "normal" quality for Cyberlink, we probably should question their video quality standards."
---------------------------------------------------------

He's in XP like you. I use Vista, with the exact same Sapphire DDR3 2600XT as you - no change between PDVD normal/best settings though.

I went and made sure that it was set to 'best' and tried it again. The -4% field is still darker than the background. And I'm using the .evo from my HDDVD disk, that I ripped with DVDFab to get rid of HDCP, so I don;t think it's downconverting. I have watched Serenity, or certain scenes of it, several times. I very certain I am seeing full res. oh, and I am running with accel on. Being that I only have a single-core XP3000, I kinda have to. Accel is definitely working, and working well.

So does anyone else have DVE HD that they can test with to see if they get the same results?

[arfster]

I went and made sure that it was set to 'best' and tried it again. The -4% field is still darker than the background. And I'm using the .evo from my HDDVD disk, that I ripped with DVDFab to get rid of HDCP, so I don;t think it's downconverting. I have watched Serenity, or certain scenes of it, several times. I very certain I am seeing full res. oh, and I am running with accel on. Being that I only have a single-core XP3000, I kinda have to. Accel is definitely working, and working well.

So does anyone else have DVE HD that they can test with to see if they get the same results?


Thanks. Can you try some HD in other apps?

[arfster]

By the way, arfster, do you know how to manage deinterlacing options with the Nvidia 8600 cards in Vista 32?

Sorry, no idea. The PDVD control is kinda dependant on the drivers allowing it - some ati drivers don't either.

[Joseph Clark]

There's a thread in the HTPC section which some of you here might find interesting. Its goal is to simplify the whole process of putting together a working HTPC. It has over 4,600 views in the last 6 days, and I think it has the potential to help a lot of people. If you haven't checked it out yet, please do.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=891768

I think some of the people here who are providing valuable information about nVidia and ATI graphics driver issues might be able to lend their expertise to this project.

I'm cross posting this in the ATI 2xxx threads, too.

[dastrong]

Just a quick one folks Can you use the avivo codecs in Vista MCE they dont show up using the Vist MPEG 2 codec changer app!!

[Rick Guynn]

Thanks. Can you try some HD in other apps?


What would you like me to check? I have ZPlayer, which I use to watch my recorded OTA .TS files. That, by the way, uses about the same-maybe a bit more- CPU than the HDDVDs I have checked. I use the NVidia decoder for this.

I haven't really tested any .wmv material. And I haven't tried an h.264 HDDVD yet, but I am willing to d/l and try some different files if you have suggestions.

[arfster]

That mpeg2 ts sounds fine, as long as it's outside PDVD and it's hardware accelerated. Could you pls post a screenshot?

Thanks

[chenjc]

On my magnovox 42" 1080p lcd... via hdmi,
the radeon 2400 displays very brightly.. but
the windows xp text is blurry and looks overscanned.

excel and internet explorer also display blurry text.

it plays 1080p ok.. there is skipping.

horrible job on 3d games such as scarface

only good at playing standard definition dvd's

overall.. my old nyvidia 6800 beats it everywhere except
in being able to display brightly hdmi (nyvidia cannot display hdmi)

any suggestions?
disappointed, i will probably return it.

[IAM4UK]

any suggestions?
disappointed, i will probably return it.
My suggestion is do what I did after trying two different 2x00HDPro cards: return it and get an 8500GT (or 8600GTS if you want some gaming performance along with your HD media playback).

[chenjc]

Were you able to get the nyvdia cards to work
with hdmi ?

[dildano]

It did work for me and my x2600xt when i tried to install older ati official drivers to get the card more stable, but this was under winxp.
Yeah, you're right. I initially got the wrong registry entry, so I found another one and tried it out last night. It did work and got rid of the underscan on my MSI RX2600PRO, however my hardware acceleration stopped working properly. Or maybe that's not the right way to say it. Basically, with the MSI cards if you get true full-screen 1080p 1-to-1 pixel mapping working (whether using newer Catalyst drivers or the registry hack with the MSI drivers), then H264 and VC1 video will be horribly corrupted in a window in PDVD (not full-screen). It may work in full-screen in PDVD if you can manage to get to full-screen before Vista32 crashes. It's truly bizarre.

My Sapphire card shows up today, so I'm crossing my fingers for a better experience.

[IAM4UK]

Were you able to get the nyvdia cards to work
with hdmi ?

My 8500GT has HDMI, but I use DVI. My Samsung DLP has DVI and not HDMI, and I would never use the speakers in the television set anyway.

[Andy o]

Were you able to get the nyvdia cards to work
with hdmi ?

All DVI-D connections can be converted to HDMI via an adapter, but without audio. If you want audio via HDMI on an Nvidia you have more limited options,though those for me work much better than the ATI one. Check out these MSI cards http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_list.asp?class=vga&cpu=1#NVPCI

The ones that say "HDMI Ready" have an HDMI output which supports audio, but you need to connect your sound card's S/PDIF audio output to it. So you'd need a sound card or mobo that has a coaxial or a two-pin S/PDIF output, but if you do, it works excellent, just like any other S/PDIF connection. Meaning you can pass through multichannel digital audio to your receiver without having to reconvert to Dolby Digital, which is what people have to do right now to bypass the current incompatibility of software like PowerDVD that cannot detect ATI's HDMI output as a direct digital out, not to mention the troubles people are having with this particular HDMI audio device.

I also like IAM4UK had trouble with the ATI cards, and got tired of messing with the registry at every new driver release, so I got myself the MSI 8600GTS with HDMI, which is working pretty much perfectly, including HDMI with audio. But I also see people complaining about the Nvidia cards, so I will only say that in my particular case, I've had as much good luck with Nvidia (tried an 8500GT and 8600GTS) as I've had bad luck with ATI (2400 pro and 2600 pro).

Another thing, in the global MSI website (http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=prodpage2&maincat_no=130&cat2_no=136), the other, regular DVI-D cards are listed as compatible wit HDMI with audio, although with the same requirement of an external S/PDIF source. And the adapter is suspiciously similar to ATI's, I wonder if it would work. This is not mentioned in the USA website, I wonder if the USA cards have the S/PDIF input.

[roosterx]

Yeah, you're right. I initially got the wrong registry entry, so I found another one and tried it out last night. It did work and got rid of the underscan on my MSI RX2600PRO, however my hardware acceleration stopped working properly. Or maybe that's not the right way to say it. Basically, with the MSI cards if you get true full-screen 1080p 1-to-1 pixel mapping working (whether using newer Catalyst drivers or the registry hack with the MSI drivers), then H264 and VC1 video will be horribly corrupted in a window in PDVD (not full-screen). It may work in full-screen in PDVD if you can manage to get to full-screen before Vista32 crashes. It's truly bizarre.

My Sapphire card shows up today, so I'm crossing my fingers for a better experience.

Maybe something to do with you running Vista? Or Has it to do with the ati not supporting HW acc on some types of codecs with resolutions above 1280x720 in the current versions of Ati drivers.

Don't exactly remember which it does not support, but it is mentioned under 'known bugs' in CCC 7.8.

Quite funny since i upgraded my whole htpc from a perfectly working agp system(x1650) to be able to view video in 1080p in its full glory.

I must say i'm dissapointed in Ati, and i am not so shure i will be getting an Ati card after this.

[Rick Guynn]

That mpeg2 ts sounds fine, as long as it's outside PDVD and it's hardware accelerated. Could you pls post a screenshot?

Thanks

What do you want to see in the screenshot? Monitor with CPU graph?

[alluringreality]

So does anyone else have DVE HD that they can test with to see if they get the same results?

When I get the 2600XT I ordered I'm planning on using http://www.w6rz.net/ because I already have standalone HD players and the $400 LG combo drive isn't yet available. I'm going to guess that you should get the same results with say the first pattern under "Some New Patterns" as you get with DVE HD.

[arfster]

What do you want to see in the screenshot? Monitor with CPU graph?

Nah, don't worry about that, just need the output itself. Just printscreen, copy to mspaint, save as png. Any scene with dark bits is good.

Here's the weird thing: I have the same card as you, so I installed 7.8 on my XP install, and backtracked to PDVD 2911. That's an identical setup, yet it still expands all video playback, in all video apps.

Oh, and hardware acceleration doesn't seem to matter - even in vmr9 software mode it seems to expand. At least Vista gives that option.....


ps what connector type and screen are you using?

[eklee]

Am I the only one using MCE 2005 as the main player here? Anyone using MCE 2005 getting smooth HD MPEG2 1080i TV playback with 2600PRO?

I have tried 4 decoders:

1. AVIVO, XP Decoder Utility says this one is not compatible with MCE2005, I tried it anyway and got stuttering/frame lost all over the place with 1080i MPEG2 content.
2. ffdshow MPEG2 decoder, SD content is fine, crash on any HD content.
3. NVIDIA PureVideo DVD Decoder, stuttering/frame lost with 1080i MPEG2 content.
4. PowerDVD 7.3 decoder, takes a long time initially to tune to a TV channel, sometimes got black screen when switching to a channel, some 1080i channels shows stuttering symptom too.

Using the latest bioshock hotfix drivers, 'Adaptive' deinterlacing mode and my CPU usage is still more than 80% when viewing 1080i channels.

[td911]

I'm ready to throw my card out!

MSI RX2600XT Diamond 512MB

Upgraded(yeah, right!) from an Nvidia 6600GT. All was well, could display on my LCD monitor(1680x1050) and my TV Samsung HLS-5087W(1920x1080). Just had problems with some h264 and EVO files. Note this was just with a DVI>DVI and a VGA/VGA cable.

Now with my brand new POS, I can not get my Samsung to display anything above 1280x720 with a DVI Dongle>VGA>VGA. So I bought a DVI>HDMI cable and now I can't get any picture on my Samsung. CCC is showing my TV as a MAX 1024x768 resolution.

I'm loathe to do a XP reload, and may just send the not-yet-ready for-lunchtime card back.

Any suggestions, commments, guffaws are welcome.


OK, did a VISTA dual-boot install. Installed CCC. It see both monitors and works fine on both using DVI>DVI and DVI>HDMI.

Looks like my XP registry is fubared, time for a clean install.

[123456]

Am I the only one using MCE 2005 as the main player here? Anyone using MCE 2005 getting smooth HD MPEG2 1080i TV playback with 2600PRO?

I have tried 4 decoders:

1. AVIVO, XP Decoder Utility says this one is not compatible with MCE2005, I tried it anyway and got stuttering/frame lost all over the place with 1080i MPEG2 content.
2. ffdshow MPEG2 decoder, SD content is fine, crash on any HD content.
3. NVIDIA PureVideo DVD Decoder, stuttering/frame lost with 1080i MPEG2 content.
4. PowerDVD 7.3 decoder, takes a long time initially to tune to a TV channel, sometimes got black screen when switching to a channel, some 1080i channels shows stuttering symptom too.

Using the latest bioshock hotfix drivers, 'Adaptive' deinterlacing mode and my CPU usage is still more than 80% when viewing 1080i channels.


for item 2 hd content try the Matroska Splitter at
http://haali.cs.msu.ru/mkv/MatroskaSplitter.exe

described at
http://haali.cs.msu.ru/mkv/

[Rick Guynn]

Nah, don't worry about that, just need the output itself. Just printscreen, copy to mspaint, save as png. Any scene with dark bits is good.

Here's the weird thing: I have the same card as you, so I installed 7.8 on my XP install, and backtracked to PDVD 2911. That's an identical setup, yet it still expands all video playback, in all video apps.

Oh, and hardware acceleration doesn't seem to matter - even in vmr9 software mode it seems to expand. At least Vista gives that option.....


ps what connector type and screen are you using?

Using DVI to Dell 2005FPW. Here's a snap from an ep of 24 I still have on the HDD.

[Joseph Clark]

Is there anyone who is getting smooth, consistent, accelerated playback for MPEG2, VC-1 and MPEG4 with any of these 2400 or 2600 cards? If so, will you describe your hardware and software configuration.

I've been trying to follow these threads, but I'm having trouble sorting through the bug reports.

[Mntneer]

Joseph,

I initially had problems getting acceleration.
I have an AMD 3500+
512MB Ram
Windows MCE 2005

I uninstall the drivers. Cleaned out the registry, removing any and all references to the ATI drivers. Uninstalled PDVD. Install the Hot Fix drivers mentioned a few pages back. Rebooted. Installed the latest version of PDVD (this is what I think was causing my original problems. The PDVD build that I had gave me fits, once I upgraded, no problems). Rebooted. Get hardware acceleration on all video now.

It takes some patience, and multiple reboots, but it does work.

BTW. I've got an ASUS motherboard, but it's a Compaq PC, so the motherboard isn't listed on ASUS's offcial site.

[Joseph Clark]

Joseph,

I initially had problems getting acceleration.
I have an AMD 3500+
512MB Ram
Windows MCE 2005

I uninstall the drivers. Cleaned out the registry, removing any and all references to the ATI drivers. Uninstalled PDVD. Install the Hot Fix drivers mentioned a few pages back. Rebooted. Installed the latest version of PDVD (this is what I think was causing my original problems. The PDVD build that I had gave me fits, once I upgraded, no problems). Rebooted. Get hardware acceleration on all video now.

It takes some patience, and multiple reboots, but it does work.

BTW. I've got an ASUS motherboard, but it's a Compaq PC, so the motherboard isn't listed on ASUS's offcial site.

Thanks. I really want to try a 2600XT, but the volume of people having problems getting clean video playback has me fidgety. I can work from a clean install, so that's not a problem, but I just don't want to have to deal with too many headaches.

I think I might give this a try. Worst case, I just hang on until the driver situation resolves itself more.

Which video card are you using?

[eklee]

Joseph,

I initially had problems getting acceleration.
I have an AMD 3500+
512MB Ram
Windows MCE 2005

I uninstall the drivers. Cleaned out the registry, removing any and all references to the ATI drivers. Uninstalled PDVD. Install the Hot Fix drivers mentioned a few pages back. Rebooted. Installed the latest version of PDVD (this is what I think was causing my original problems. The PDVD build that I had gave me fits, once I upgraded, no problems). Rebooted. Get hardware acceleration on all video now.


Mntneer, do you have HDTV tuner in your PC? If so, I am guessing you should have no problem viewing 1080i HD channels?

Which deinterlacing method are you using in CCC and in PowerDVD? Also, what version # is your PowerDVD?

[RussKingUK]

Well for me, it seems that the Sapphire 2400 Pro does work very well. I previously reported problems with screen corruption of HD-DVD's for about 10 seconds at a time, a few times throughout the course of a movie. It turns out that it was a PowerDVD update that was causing this. I uninstalled PowerDVD 7.3 (3041) and reverted back to a clean version of PowerDVD 7.3 (2911) and this fixed the corruption issue. I am now using the latest hotfix ati drivers (7.9) and so far, so good. Would just like to get x264 mkv's working properly (which I believe is probably a halli problem) and will now start experimenting with MPEG2 accelleration again.

That reminds me. What was the registry key to enable MPEG2 accelleration on a 2400? DXVA_NOHDDECODE = 0 perhaps? Would that still be the case for the 7.9 hotfix drivers?

Thanks,

Russ.

[arfster]

Is there anyone who is getting smooth, consistent, accelerated playback for MPEG2, VC-1 and MPEG4 with any of these 2400 or 2600 cards? If so, will you describe your hardware and software configuration.


Sure: 2600XT vista and xp32, various drivers, gigabyte ds3, e4300. Had some problems with the 2400pro because it's just a bit tight on power with 1080i, and with a 2400XT overheating in a passive case, and others with hd levels expansion, but acceleration actually working has never been an issue. Well, except with screwed reg settings with the 2400 :-)

The problems seem to be more with specifically those with AGP cards, and there does seem to be a lot of complaints with MSI. Also there were problems with corruption on Sapphire 2400s, probably down to failed passive heatsinks.

[arfster]

Using DVI to Dell 2005FPW. Here's a snap from an ep of 24 I still have on the HDD.

Thanks. Bad news: that's expanded :-( Check the black pixels anywhere, they're all 0/0/0. There's also plenty in the 0-16 range - on a calibrated HDTV you get pretty severe detail loss in the shadows as a result, which is only visible on my 0-255 PC monitor.

I wonder if PDVD is doing anything different with .evo files, or it's something strange with DVE.

[tekno]

Thanks. I really want to try a 2600XT, but the volume of people having problems getting clean video playback has me fidgety. I can work from a clean install, so that's not a problem, but I just don't want to have to deal with too many headaches.

I think I might give this a try. Worst case, I just hang on until the driver situation resolves itself more.


Could someone bring me up to speed? Is it safe to say the 2600XT has video playback issues? What is the picture quality like? Is this applicable to Vista and XP or only to one of those operating systems? Also, does it matter if you use 32 or 64 bit (a question about drivers?) Vista?

I don't know if the cpu would be a factor in those assessments but if it is, how would a Quad Core or faster Core 2 Duo cpu impact those issues? Is it mostly driver and OS-related? Or is the ATI hardware also a major factor?

[RichB]

I am considering another 2600 card. This time an XT instead of a Pro. I am concerned about idle power usage in my HTPC.

I have intake fans, but only my Seasonic Power supply for output.

I was hoping for some advice:

1. GDDR3 or GDDR4 - I do not think I need extra power and I read that the GDDR4 uses more power idling.

2. Silent Heat-Pipe, Regular Fan, or Dual Slot (HIS) - Dual slot is the best for cooling, but a heat pipe is the quietest and hottest (Probably). Right now the Sapphire 2600Pro is quiet enough for me.

3. 256MB or 512MB - I know that video playback should be fine with 256MB, but with Vista will the extra memory help?

Of course there is always a 8600GT but that is another story ;)

Thanks all,

Rich

[Mntneer]

Mntneer, do you have HDTV tuner in your PC? If so, I am guessing you should have no problem viewing 1080i HD channels?

Which deinterlacing method are you using in CCC and in PowerDVD? Also, what version # is your PowerDVD?

I don't have an HDTV tuner card in my Bedroom HTPC, but I do have one (MyHD 120) in my basement HTPC.

I have the 2911 build of PowerDVD, and I think that's the real key to achieving success. I don't think the problems lie in the ATI drivers as much they do the software using those drivers.

I'll have to double check my deinterlacing method.

[Sarvatt]

Sorry about the delay arfster, have not had any free time to mess with it until now. Here's some samples you asked for a few pages back showing how I don't notice color expansion differences between SD and HD. If there's some other example that would show the problem better let know and I will try to reproduce it.

1280x720 h264 coreavc MPC EVR
http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/6659/gurrenlagann1280x1024evwh5.png

1024x576 divx ffdshow MPC EVR
http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/2665/gurrenlagann1024x576evrfj2.png

Different movie-

960x540 h264 coreavc EVR
http://img471.imageshack.us/img471/585/darkerthanblackh264960xvx5.png

1280x720 h264 coreavc EVR

oops, guess that last one didn't save right, I'll edit it in later tonight. I realize they are all expanded, but as long as it is consistant I am satisfied with the colors :) Is it possible something using a straight media foundation protected path such as WMP11 or powerdvd (playing hd-dvd or bluray from disk) handles the expansion differently? anyone noticed a SD special feature having a different color range than the main feature for instance?

[Peter La Fleur]

I'm a long time lurker, first time poster. My thanks especially to arfster and Sarvatt for their work.

For those of you that think everyone's systems are experiencing issues, I have some good news. I have the Gigabyte 2600 Pro PCI-e Fanless (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125074), and it works great on decoding/deinterlacing mpeg2. I haven't tried VC-1 or h.264, but I'm not as worried about that, since that's all done on the UVD. My cpu is an Athlon 64 3200+ running at the stock 2.0GHz running Vista32. I'm using the 7.8 AMD drivers with arfster's registry tweaks from his custom made 7.7 drivers. I'm using Media Center for mpeg2 playback and I've set Media Center to use the AVIVO mpeg2 decoder. De-interlacing is set to Vector Adaptive and 3:2 pulldown is enabled. I have not made any other changes to get mpeg2 to work.

On a Dell 17" LCD at a resolution of 1280x1024, I've been able to watch the 22.5 Mbps 1920x1080 "Park Run" .ts file from http://www.w6rz.net, and my CPU averaged 65% usage, and my GPU averaged 60% usage. Temps were from 44 to 54 degrees Celsius. This clip is very demanding, and I would expect OTA HDTV would be less demanding.

The "park run" clip is probably the highest bitrate mpeg2 clip I've been able to find, and it plays flawlessly - no stuttering, artifacts, etc. Other test clips have the CPU at about 60% and the GPU at about 40%. The AVIVO mpeg2 decoder works beautifully. It would appear that the mpeg2 files are being decoded in hardware, and the deinterlacing is being handled by the CPU. When using Bob or Weave deinterlacing, CPU usage drops to about 30%.

I think a lot of users (including me) new to mpeg2, ATI drivers, and HTPCs in general are having a tough time figuring this stuff out, so I put together a few things I've learned:

De-interlacing: The only way to tell what de-interlacing the video card is actually doing is by observing what you see on the screen. If you see a lot of lines and blurriness, it's probably using the less advanced bob/weave methods. If you set CCC to VA and it looks awesome, then VA is probably working. Doing A/B comparisons of the Hilary Duff clip from http://www.dvbportal.de/projects/hdtvpump/index.html is a great way to see how good your deinterlacing is.

Using the AVIVO mpeg2 in Vista MC: Two tools from http://www.jtow.net/users/triess/ will let you use AVIVO inside Vista Media Center. Run the "Video Decoder Checkup Utility" (deccheck.exe) first and set the ATI mpeg2 decoder (atidvcr.dll) as the preferred decoder (ignore the red X's). Then run "Vista MediaCenter MPEG2 decoder selection" (vmcd.exe) and set the default to the ATI mpeg2 decoder. In post #1513, kiffies states that he can't FF or RWD clips with the AVIVO decoder, so hopefully that is fixed in the future. I plan on using DVRMS toolbox to remove commercials before I watch TV anyways, but this is still a potential issue for some users.

RivaTuner: Download and install RivaTuner to monitor your CPU and GPU loads. The Hardware Acceleration monitor/graph does NOT show if your card is using hardware to decode mpeg2. I think it only monitors 3D acceleration.

EVR + DXVA2 in Vista: Vista uses EVR, which uses DXVA2 to display video (at least in Media Center and WMP 11.) It does NOT use Directshow 9 (it uses DS10), and I found no tools akin to DXVA Checker, GraphEdit, dxdiag.exe, etc that would display available mpeg2 modes. Also, I don't think ffdshow would work either, but I haven't tried it). I'm taking it on faith that Media Center and WMP 11 are using the AVIVO mpeg2 decoder, and the picture is excellent. I tried viewing the "park run" clip mentioned above in Media Player Classic, and I got 100% CPU usage and 8% GPU usage, indicating no hardware acceleration. I suspect the same would be true for VLC.

The Lingerie Bowl test clip: This clip has some major stuttering problems, which may throw you for a loop when testing, since the stuttering is in the file, not in the playback. I'd recommend not using this clip at all for testing.
Edit: Sarvatt uses this clip as a stress test to see how corrupted streams are handled, so if that's what you want to do, then use it.

I hope this helps someone, and if I'm wrong about anything, please let me know and I'll edit my post.

Edit: Also, I'd highly recommend the HDHomerun from SiliconDust for an OTA HDTV tuner. It has dual ATSC tuners, and connects to your computer using ethernet, which is great if you have two HTPCs - the tuner isn't tied to one particular computer.

[Rick Guynn]

Thanks. Bad news: that's expanded :-( Check the black pixels anywhere, they're all 0/0/0. There's also plenty in the 0-16 range - on a calibrated HDTV you get pretty severe detail loss in the shadows as a result, which is only visible on my 0-255 PC monitor.

I wonder if PDVD is doing anything different with .evo files, or it's something strange with DVE.

I took it into Paint.net and looked at it. I see what you mean now. I still don't understand the DVE HD results though. That background is definitely lighter than the -4% bar. Too bad they disabled the screenshot function for HD, I could pull that out and look at it as well.

-Rick

[Sarvatt]

Great post Peter! And about the lingerie bowl test clip, I use it more as a codec stress test to see how it handles corrupted streams to see if they show corruption and play in sync or drop corruption and stutter. It was just something I happened to notice the odd behavior changed with in the 7.9 drivers, glitching in the stream didn't spike the GPU to 100% and mess up deinterlacing anymore. I suggest using something like ffdshow for audio that will let you get detailed information on all the codecs in use during playback via the tray icon to spy on VMC and WMP11. Another way you can tell if DXVA is engaged is to have the CCC overclocking page open and watch the GPU clock frequency when you start playback if you have a card that automatically adjusts speeds. When DXVA is on it switches to full power no matter what the GPU load is versus staying at a low speed. Mine runs at 110mhz pretty much full time when not u