GeForce 8200 - 8 Channel LPCM Output Fully Supported!! - Page 19

More importantly I think is that less power generally = less heat -> lower noise cooling solutions... so goodness all around for lower power consumption.

are there any intel (socket 775) mobo's that support this yet? or plans for any?

i've got a PSU, case, 4GB of RAM, and a Q6600 just waiting to find the right mother(board)

Yes, the G35, works great (finally). And the G35 with TMT is a really nice match. And later you can upgrade to the G45 if you want.

The 8200/8300 will eventually come out with an Intel version, but given nVidia's lack of fixing the black/white crush problems with their drivers, I'd stay away from any nVidia-based HTPC solution.

If you are talking about 8 Channel LPCM, the G35 boards have had it since November, and it works very well. The big problem with the G35 is that it has no hardware acceleration for AVC, and minimal HA for VC1. However, that won't be a problem with your Q6600. I don't overclock my Q6600, and CPU usage never goes above 50% during AVC playback.

The Intel drivers have a problem with HDCP through an AVR, so you will need AnyDVD. Hopefully this will be fixed soon. Also, be aware of the Denon EDID issue. It's possible that nVidia will have the Denon issue too.

-Dave

Edit: AbMagFab beat me to it.

oh wow, i live under a rock. will something like the ASUS P5E-VM HDMI support 7.1 LPCM & 1080p via on board HDMI?

please say "yes" ... for some reason i thought there were issues with this board & I stopped looking at G35 - thinking that this "hybrid" 8200 technology was the thing to wait for.

thanks guys



EDIT: actually, I just found my answer here. coincidentally, it was your response

curious, though. do you recall why you suggest that that person wait for 8200 in that case?

If you are really interested, you might want to read the G35 thread.

I recommended waiting since the 8200/8300 boards are so close. Why not wait a month and compare how the 8200/8300 users are doing compared to the G35 users. If you were asking in November, my answer would be different since you could have enjoyed 6/8 channel LPCM over HDMI for almost six months before the competition caught up.

You do pay a premium for the G35. First, the P5E-VM HDMI is $50 more than the ECS GF8200A. Second, the lack of HA means you need a more powerful CPU. You can probably spend at least $100 less on the CPU if the integrated video has decent HA. Also, you need to get AnyDVD HD if you plan on sending HDMI through your AVR. Even with the 20% sale right now, it will cost close to $100 (of course, many people already own AnyDVD HD). Finally, I found the stock Intel cooler to be noisy, so I spent another $50 on a decent Zalman cooler. The stock cooler on a lower power CPU might be quieter, and it might be adequate. You add up all these costs, and you are paying an extra $300.

Now in your case, you already have PSU, case, 4GB of RAM, and a Q6600. Your Q6600 is more than powerful enough for the G35. Also, it will probably be July before we have the G45, and the Intel version of the 8200/8300. Assuming you don't want to buy an AMD CPU, you still might have a three month wait. Therefore, you might want to consider a G35 now.

-Dave

Edit: And to answer your first question, yes, the G35 does support 7.1 LPCM & 1080p via on board HDMI. One more thing. The G35 is bad for gaming. If you want to do gaming, the 8200/8300 will be a lot better, especially if you take advantage of SLI.

I agree, but the 8200 over the 780G power consumption is minimal. I plan to run completely diskless using AoE or iSCSI anyhow to save on heat/power.

Uh what? Do you mean ATI's level expansion (ie. black/white crush) problems?

I have had an NVIDIA 6800GT, an NVIDIA 7900GT, and an NVIDIA 8800GT - none of them had black/white crush, dating back to 2004 at least.

Are you saying the NVIDIA 8x00 chipsets have those issues?

Sad to say, on both my 9800gt on my old HTPC and on my new HTPC with a fresh Asus 8200 mobo, the most recent versions nVidia's driver sets crush black for HD ( inc blu ray) playback though for DVD, on the 9800, it looks okay (PDVD), and on the 8200 I can modify the player output settings (TMT).

In general, now that I just completed building my new HTPC with the Asus 8200 mobo, I'm pretty impressed except:

1. even when set to video levels (eg, sRGB) it outputs expanded computer levels (RGB) and clips btb for all sources (though I can modify the TMT playback settings to get btb back).

2. so far, I cannot get MLPCM out -- just two channel PCM -- but I need to install PDVD on the 8200 based system and try that.

Which brand of AVR are you using? Is it a Denon? There is a known issue with the Denon EDID block that has already be covered in this thread, although there is still an open question as to how the nVidia drivers will deal with it.

I would love to see some screen shots showing what the nVidia HDMI control panel applet looks like. I have previously posted screen shots of the G35 HDMI control panel, and it would be interesting to compare them:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attac...9&d=1201923939
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attac...0&d=1202171077

The first PDF has several pages, so make sure you scroll to the bottom to see all the screen shots.

Also, are you using Vista or XP?

-Dave

I was able to fix the crushed blacks on my nvidia (integrated 7050PV) using the registry tweak listed here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...4#post13494104

I use Media Player Classic, and in order to get rid of the crushed blacks, I needed to select VMR9 (windowed) as my renderer. I think both VMR7 and 9 in renderless mode will work as well. Also, you could try Haali's Video Renderer, which has a switch that enables you to switch between PC and TV video levels easily.

I still have the 163.75 forceware drivers (Windows XP SP2), so this may or may not work for your forceware version. I would at least give it a try.

Most people with 8800GTs and newer cards cannot use the 163.xx drivers. Oh well. I'm not sure about the .inf hacks though...

Yes, for quite a while. Since the ~163.75, they've had severe black/white crush problems.

And sadly, the newer cards don't appear to be able to use the older drivers anymore. There's a potential hack, but it looks like the last few hacks and it doesn't really work.

The Black/White crush debate really isn't that cut and dry.

For a full discussion about it we need to state which renderer is being used and in which application, whether expansion is being performed in driver or the playback application (or both) and how well the display is calibrated.

There's ongoing debates about this in every forum and a decent discussion going on here now at http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1020388 in response to a recent review.

I've love to see someone try and summarise the issue in two paragraphs or less

Wo0zy

Thanks for the tips. I may try the registry tweak, but I'm running Vista with more recent drivers (and trying to install the older drivers gives me the error saying that there is no compatible hardware, since those drivers predate the cards/chipsets I'm running, I guess).

I too like MPC a lot, but not for Blu-Ray since it requires too many kludges.


Onkyo pre-pro seems to not have that problem.


Although I have both Xp and Vista on the box, I've only installed players on the vista partition.

The control panel is actually a realtek control panel. The nVidia control panel only has options for the video stuff, nothing for audio. EDIT: Just reviewed your PDFs and I see what you are asking about. The control panel is about the same with one exception that jumps out at me: For the HDMI audio out, it doesn't say a single digital out, and then have balance controls for 5.1 speakers. Rather, it says " L + R out" for HDMI jack, and only has balance control for two channels.

Onkyo has good EDID data, so that's probably not your problem.

Before I saw your edit, I did a screen cap of my Vista Control Panel Sound Applet. I will post it anyway for the benefit of others that are following this. The screen caps in the PDFs above were generated by highlighting the HDMI Device and clicking Configure, and then Properties.

Please keep us updated on your progress. Obviously everyone is interested because 6/8 channel LPCM is a primary reason why people are following this thread, as is evident by the title of the thread.

Perhaps the nVidia drivers only support 2-channel LPCM at this point.

-Dave

Here are the pictures of the HDMI output in the sound control panel:















I took the pictures when nothing is connected to the HDMI port (right now this system is having some good time in my working room, so it is connected via VGA).
When I tried it with an Onkyo 605 receiver the result was the same - Only DD/DTS bitstreams and 2ch PCM.

As for white/black crush,
With PowerDVD 7.3 Ultra I didn't experienced black/white crush (I test it with Spider-Man 3 in two dark scenes - the first is when Harry chasing after Peter, and the second is near the end, when Peter and Harry fights Venom and Sandman), But I did see a black crash when I was using Media Player Classic Home Cinema (this time I tested it with CoreAVC as video decoder and I was watching the forest scene of Harry Potter and the Prisoner from Azkaban), with VMR9 Renderless as Video Renderer.

I then switched to Haali Video Renderer (I needed to switch the output levels to video levels) and it was fine.
I also tried EVR as renderer and again, the picture was fine.

Thanks for posting the screen shots.

Just curious, why do you say that you only get 2-channel PCM? It looks like you can select 7.1.

Overall, it looks very similar to the G35, except that you do not have the Levels and Enhancements tabs. There are a few other differences too, such as the number of sample rates and the Quadraphonic option, but those might be a result of EDID data from my Onkyo 905 AVR.

I suspect that these applets are provided by Microsoft, and not Intel or nVidia. In my case, the Levels tab showed up when I installed Vista SP1, even though I had the same Intel HDMI audio drivers.

Under XP, I had a much more limited set of options. It may be too early to know for sure, but at this point, I think that Vista may be required to get the most out of HDMI audio.

-Dave

Whatever I select, I still get only 2-channel PCM.

I really hope this problem only occurs with the Onkyo 605 and not with higher level models like Onkyo 805, Yamaha RX-V1800 etc.

If this is a driver's problem, I hope nVidia will eventually come with a solution.

Right now it doesn't bother me, because I don't need the new audio formats at this point (I don't even own a receiver with an HDMI port, the Onkyo 605 was borrowed from a friend).

A bigger issue for me right now is that the CPU runs very high when using PowerDVD for playing a BD movie (I have an A64 X2 5200+ Brisbane CPU, and PowerDVD states that it is using DXVA).

Surprisingly, if the PowerDVD H.264/AVC decoder is being used outside of PowerDVD, with EVR as a renderer, there is hardware acceleration and the CPU runs low, but the image stutters.

Did you try outputting just 5.1 instead of 7.1? I know that the Onkyo 605 can't matrix a 5.1 PCM source into a 7.1 source, so I wonder if it's processing capabilities were unable to handle the 7.1 LPCM sound from the nvidia. I could be wrong, and the 605 may be able to handle a 7.1 LPCM source just fine, but it could be worth checking, if you ever borrow your friend's receiver again.

Hopefully once Gary Key publishes his long awaited roundup, we will have some more info on how to get both full multi channel LPCM and hardware acceleration working on these boards.

Over at the G35 thread, Rainmaker002 has stated that he has the Onkyo 605. He has also stated that the output of HD tracks over multi-channel PCM is amazing. I really don't think this is an issue with the 605.

-Dave

One more thing, in your screen shots, you have the green check by the Realtek speakers, so the speaker configuration screen you posted applies to the Realtek analog output, not the nVidia HDMI digital output. On my G35, if the HDMI input is not connected, I can't even click the Configure button for HDMI audio. It is grayed out.

-Dave

Those screen shoots were taken today. When the HDMI output was connected to the Onkyo, the default output was HDMI of course.

I am experiencing the same HDMI output limitation, as well. Someone (was it in this thread?) said they could get multi-channel LPCM output via HDMI after installed a BETA upgrade BIOS. I *have* updated my BIOS to the most recent release version on the ASUS web site. I am not sure where to get the BETA BIOS and I'm not sure I would want to install it.

It seems more likely that this is a driver limitation right now, and not a BIOS limitation, but I suppose anything it possible. As long as it is not a HARDWARE limitation, I'll be pleased.

FYI, in the MarioMan screen shots, the "default" output device (ie, the one with the green check mark) is the Realtek speakers output (ie, analog out, not HDMI) but on my setup, changing it to be HDMI default for the output doesn't resolve the two-channel LPCM limitation.

BTW, I sent a request for information via the "ask a question" link at the nvidia support page:


Got this back:


Kinda odd they don't have "details on reference design boards", when partner boards are already being sold.

I like the "Thanks for your patience?"

I'm planning on buyin a 8200 mobo for my htpc.
Because of the problems with edid of denon receivers i mailed my distributer in holland and got an answertranslated)
Dear Sir,

Thanks for your reaction.

What the reason is of the discribed problem with the avr 3806 is not clear to us, but is the problem is probably due to an error in the source and not in the receiver.

Multi-channel Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) digitale audio streams can be send over every version of HDMI. All Denon receivers support 24Bits/192kHz 7.1PCM.



EDID stands for Extended Display Identification Data.
This is data that is deliverd by a Display and discribe the capacities of the display this edid is passed to the videocard. This is how the PC "knows" what kind of display is connected.
This has nothing to do with PCM audio and so the discussion about standard Denon EDID funkiness is a mystery to us.


Not allowed to post url so discussion about denon is in this tread on avs forum: Denon's EDID Issues - anyone know anything?

That is just not true. You might want to refer your distributer to the EDID article at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDID#Ex..._Block_Details

The bottom line is that the Denon implementation is arguably within the EDID spec, but it is also different than the implementation selected by every other AVR manufacturer of which I am aware. It's a great situation for finger pointing. Maybe if Best Buy ends up owning Denon, Best Buy can fix it (just kidding).

In all fairness, the nVidia drivers might not even have this issue with the Denon AVRs. We need to see people getting it working with other AVRs, but not Denon AVRs, before we are sure.

-Dave

When will we be able to purchase the nVidia geforce 8300-based motherboards? I only see the offering from Asus..and no other company.

The 8 channel audio via HDMI - is this also available via spdif? ie sound from the chipset and not from the extra Realtek chip onboard?