Core i7, i5 & i3 LGA1156 Processors Thread: Clarkdale Supports HD Audio Bitstreaming! - Page 115

I looked into the customization aspects in the link above and also talked with our resident notebook reviews senior editor, Jarred Walton. This is what I have from him:


However, the EB series you are considering doesn't advertise 'switchable graphics'. So, it looks like the dGPU will completely disable Intel HD graphics.

You will be better off with something using Optimus (nV) which is much more popular compared to ATI switchable graphics. Also, the latter is dependent on vendor driver updates, but Optimus works well with driver updates direct from nV.

Of course, there are people who prefer ATI, and for them, I would suggest not trying to use Intel HD Graphics on the same m/c, but that is just my opinion.

Thanks Jakmal. So Nvidia GPU's have none of the problems plaguing Intel and ATI? Funny that here in Canada, I have rarely seen notebooks with the Optimus set up, except with Asus notebooks. Haven't seen these being paired up with other manufacturers. Would you be able to point one or two mid-priced notebooks with the Optimus switch? Are these switchable based on user preference or automatically controlled?


What sort of computers are out there?

Every GPU vendor has some issue or the other and there is no ideal solution out there for HTPC which has everything perfect. It all depends on how much you are willing to put up with the shortcomings

How long are you willing to wait before making this purchase? Looks like there will be some 400M based Optimus notebooks coming out in 2 - 3 months, and these are quite future proof too with their HDMI 1.4a output support.

Thanks for the heads up. I can wait 2-3 months for a better product. My receiver but not my TV has HDMI 1.4a support, which I believe is only for 3D, right? I'm not an early adaptor but seeing how prices have dropped for notebooks, even new introductions enter mainstream sooner than later.

I fixed the clipping of 17 in the pluge pattern I was seeing by bumping up the brightness setting in the driver to 1.0.

Has anyone done any color calibration with the Clarkdale? It seems like the saturation is a bit too low and needs to be bumped up a little to be closer to Rec. 709. I'd be interested to know if anyone else sees the same thing.

These observations are with the 2202 driver.

They took forever to release hardware VS drivers, so maybe its still a driver problem. But then the lack of support on the 4 series chipset doesn't make sense, so it could be hardware too.

Hello there, still on the mobile GPU topic, I am facing exactly the issue above. I have a Fujitsu SH760 that has the dual core Arrandale (i7-620M) which has Intel HD Graphics (and capable of streaming HD audio codec untouched). But Fujitsu chose to put in an nVidia GeForce 310M which I have not been able to figure out a way to disable the nVidia and use only the Intel HD Graphics when I wanted to stream HD audio. Any clues to this?

The GeForce 310M is capable of Optimus implementation but I believe it is not done on this notebook as there are no Optimus stickers anywhere on it. It is also unfortunate that the region I am living in does not have the option of getting this notebook without the nVidia.

You are at the mercy of Fujitsu here. Ask them for the Optimus drivers. However, it also involves some board level design I think (not sure about this), so a driver only solution might not be able to help you :|

I'm trying to output YCrCb colorspace via HDMI, but I can't seem to get Clarkdale to do so. Am I missing something?

ATI does this with ease and even defaults to YCrCb with the same display.

The driver can only output RGB.

Thanks for the confirmation.

Hopefully that's something that changes w/ Sandy Bridge.

Yeah, I've discovered the reason why my color is off on my display by default. I don't think it is really the fault of Clarkdale, it seems to be a bug in the display for decoding RGB colorspace. When I use YCrCb, the color is pretty close to perfect. Fortunately, the display has a good Color Management System and I can mostly correct even the inaccuracy in the RGB space, but I'm pretty sure I could get it perfect with YCrCb output. I'm looking forward to seeing what is in store with GT 430 and 6xxx...

hi together,

has anyone already tried to get HD-Audio-Bitstream via XBMC with the newest ffdshow (integrated or however in XBMV). Thinking on buying a new HTPC System with i3-530 / Gigabyte H55 Board / 4 gig Kingston Value

Thanks, Greetings, Michael

You cannot bitstream HD Audio from the current XBMC. You either need to have MPC HC launch or use the DSPlayer version. Here is my writeup on using DSPlayer (http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010...sing-dsplayer/) and launching MPC HC (http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2010...layer-in-xbmc/).

The current DSPlayer build does not incorporate Dharma, and won't under Dharma becomes an official release (it is still beta)

thanks for the fast answer! Will the autoframe-function still work with DS-player? Will hd-Audio get integrated to xbmc in the next few month, without the use of an external player?

I believe XBMC is based on ffmpeg, which to my knowledge does not support HD Audio bitstreaming. I don't follow the development of ffmpeg so I have no clue if support is in the plans down the road. For the foreseeable future I would not expect HD Audio bitstreaming integrated into the native XBMC player

Eagerly awaiting my LGA2011.

I'm having an odd issue and I can't find anything in this thread. I'm sometimes seeing a quick flash of a green line when watching live or recorded tv. I haven't really tested with movies, but I think this is a system issue and not related to a specific media type. The green line is horizontal and flashes in random places stretching all the way across the display. It's not the same issue that some where having with green banding. This is very quick and very subtle. It just started happening about a week or two ago.

My hunch is that my pc is just getting too hot. Would this explain the odd behavior? If so, any suggestions for a fan or cooling system?

First I'd make sure it is a cooling issue; most non-Intel boards will work with Speedfan (if you have an Intel board use IDU).

It sounds more like a playback issue; either with source material, PC decoding, or conversion in the display. What DVR SW are you using? Do you have any 3rd party codecs installed? Do you have the latest GPU drivers installed?

HD Audio is now planned for the native XBMC player as part of the new AudioEngine which will handle all XBMC audio functions, the developer hasn't yet started on HD audio but progress can be monitored at http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=78289, see post 94 onwards.

Thanks for the reply. I suspect a cooling issue because the pc is in a pretty tight spot and probably gets less than adequate ventilation. I just opened up the case and blew out all of the dust, so I'll see if that makes a difference.

I'm running Windows 7, no other players (except TMT3 for BD) and no 3rd party codecs. I don't have the most up-to-date Intel drivers, I'm still on 2141.

I've got an ASUS board. Is Speedfan a software to measure heat? I also suspect a cooling issue because I haven't changed anything in my configuration in months and suddenly these little green lines came out of nowhere.

Just to be clear, Dharma does now support decoding of TrueHD, though not bitstreaming. It can neither decode nor bitstream DTS MA.

And several folks have suggested that the Beta 3 had problems with a new audio decoder and DTS audio, causing picture stuttering. I've seen reports that Beta 4 fixes this problem.

Yep, Speedfan measures heat and provides fan control on most motherboards. I believe Asus also has an application for that as well.

Yes I know, I'm talking about AudioEngine which is a new audio core for XBMC that is being developed for inclusion into the next Eden release, so fingers crossed that the planned bitstreaming of HD Audio will also make it into Eden.

Ooh, nice. Any M-ITX boards yet?

I'm sure several will be available, just like there are several H55/H57 ITX boards available today. I don't know if any pics have leaked yet, though.

I'm just happy to see the legacy PCI slot dropped in favor of another PCIe slot. I wish my H55 uATX board had another x1 slot instead of a legacy PCI slot. PCI has been around for 17 years, which is a virtual eternity in computer time. At 32 bit 33 MHz (133 MB/s), the PCI bus could be completely saturated by today's hard drives.

There are currently four LGA-1156 boards still available (ECS, GIGABYTE, Intel and Zotac). However, the choice is usually between the GIGABYTE GA-H55N-USB3 and Intel DH57JG. It'll be interesting to see other reputable board manufacturers such as ASUS and MSI jump in the fray.

I was previously running a Asus P5Q Pro mobo with a ATI 5770 video card and everything worked great. I recently changed my setup to a Gigabyte GA-H55M-S2H mobo with i3-530 using onboard video. I tested and everything was ok except and few high bitrate MKV's.

I am using MPC-HC for playback. In MPC-HC I was using EVR Custom Pres under output but changed it to Haali renderer and now EVERYTHING plays perfectly with HD audio (DTS-MA and true HD) but now the edges are really blocky and you can notice a big difference between the two. If I leave it on EVR Custom Pres then some high bitrate mkv's are a slide show.

Is there any settings I can try to smooth the edges out or is it due to using Haali? The only other codecs I have installed besides MPC-HC is FFDShow for HD audio.

Any help is greatly apprecaited... I could put the 5770 back in but would prefer not too because the reason I went with the H55 is for a cooler quieter machine that uses less power and the 5770 is going to kill all that.

Thanks in advance