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nvidia 6600GT no better than FX5500?

1033 Views 16 Replies 9 Participants Last post by babgvant, Feb 28, 2005

MadMyers

Discussion Starter · Feb 26, 2005

Ok... I was having trouble displaying 1080i content with my FX5500. I figured it was that my video card was underpowered.

I purchased a PNY 6600GT card tonight. It works no better. And I thought the nVidia 6600 series had way cool hardware support for MPEG-2 decoding.

Does this make any sense? I'd really like for it to work.

I installed the nVidia DVD drivers but they didn't make any difference.

Here is what happens: Using DTV player, I get no video on 1080i channels. Sometimes I get choppy audio. CPU runs around 100%

If I play it in File Player, I get audio and video --- but it's very choppy. CPU runs around 90-100%. Pretty much the same effect under Windows Player 10 and PowerDVD 6.

I have a 2GHz Athlon XP. I know it's not super fast, which is why I was looking for some serious HW MPEG-2 support.

Maybe 2GHz just isn't enough.

Anyone have success with 1080i and the 6600?

...MadMyers

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1 - 17 of 17 Posts

DaGamePimp

· #2 · Feb 26, 2005

Your CPU is the bottle-neck ... I am even having some slight stutter with 1080i streams on an OC'd Barton 2500+ @ 3200+ in VMR9 [ using a 6600 GT as well

] . Overlay plays perfectly smooth but does not look near as good as VMR9 .

-------- Jason

RSawdey

· #3 · Feb 26, 2005

No, that's not the problem here... it's that NVidia cards don't support interlace... and for good reason since interlace sux for text... Interlaced PC monitors and card res's died out 20 years ago for good reason. The best presentation of HDTV on a display capable of progressive scan is 720p60 or 1080p60. If you want support of (gag) interlace you have to use ATI chip based cards.

Omnius

· #4 · Feb 26, 2005

I don't think he meant he was trying to run his monitor at 1080i, he is simply trying to play back HDTV transport streams that are 1080i. I have no problem playing them back on my 6600GT with full hardware accelleration, but I do have a faster CPU. And also, nvidia cards do support interlaced output resolutions too, but I've never tried them myself because I have a LCD projector as my output device.

DaGamePimp

· #5 · Feb 26, 2005

Quote:

Originally posted by Omnius
I don't think he meant he was trying to run his monitor at 1080i, he is simply trying to play back HDTV transport streams that are 1080i. I have no problem playing them back on my 6600GT with full hardware acceleration, but I do have a faster CPU. And also, nvidia cards do support interlaced output resolutions too, but I've never tried them myself because I have a LCD projector as my output device.

Exactly [ or at least that is what I think he meant ] , just playing back 1080i streams NOT setting the Display for 1080i [ which does work just fine on the GeForce 6600 GT by the way , I have done it already just to see if it worked as well as my previous Radeon

] .

------- Jason

MadMyers

Discussion Starter · #6 · Feb 26, 2005

Yes... I'm talking about 1080i MPEG-2 content displayed on a progressive device.

Thanks guys.

Is the 6600GT any better at MPEG-2 decoding than the lower chips (FX5500, for example)?

...Mad

hammerdwn

· #7 · Feb 26, 2005

Quote:

Originally posted by MadMyers

Here is what happens: Using DTV player, I get no video on 1080i channels. Sometimes I get choppy audio. CPU runs around 100%

If I play it in File Player, I get audio and video --- but it's very choppy. CPU runs around 90-100%. Pretty much the same effect under Windows Player 10 and PowerDVD 6.

Is this an HD OTA Tuner card, which one?

What is "DTV player" & "File Player"?

Software mode w/ffdshow or hardware accellerated mode?

Using overlay or vmr9?

OS ver?

DirectX ver?

nVidia driver ver?

I have no problem using ZP to playback ts files (overlay,dxva), on a 2.4GHz with a GF4 MX440! So you must be doing something wrong.

Hammer

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pohnl

· #8 · Feb 26, 2005

I have a FX5200 and I believe the problem is driver related, not hardware. My setup:

P4 3gig, gig of Ram (2100 or 2700)

ATI HDTV Wonder

Seperate IDE Drive for windows and recording on different channels

FX5200 128mb AGP

Scenario 1:

Running the latest nvidia drivers 66.93 (I believe), also tried the latest betas yesterday and had same result.

720p playback on DTV is perfect. 1080i does not display video and sound plays.

Scenario 2:

Running nvidia drivers 61.77.

1080i playback is perfect, 720p has a vertical scrolling problem that I was unable to resolve.

Up until the point where I got fed up with the ATI software and stopped using it (and the card), I was running two partitions of Windows XP with two sets of Nvidia drivers, one for 1080i and one for 720p. Obviously watching a 8pm show on FOX and a 9pm show on NBC required rebooting in between, and forget about trying to do recordings.

I'm waiting for 9.06 but I doubt it will address this and I can find nowhere to submit a driver glitch to nvidia.

Try using 61.77 and see if it fixes your problem (but creates a new one).

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MadMyers

Discussion Starter · #9 · Feb 26, 2005

Hammer,

Answers to your questions...

This is with the HDTV wonder.

DTV Player and File Player are part of HDTV wonder.

No FFDShow

I believe overlay is being used

Windows XP SP1

DirectX 9.0b

nVidia 66.93

I haven't upgraded to SP2 and DX 9.0c because the system is running well and I didn't believe any performance benefit would be gained.

...MadMyers

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hammerdwn

· #10 · Feb 26, 2005

Wow, mixing an ATI board with an nVidia board!? Talk about asking for a challenge. Good luck with that.

Hammer

MadMyers

Discussion Starter · #11 · Feb 26, 2005

Thanks Pohnl... The 6600GT is going back, but I'll try the older nVidia drivers with the FX5500.

Might pick up an ATI card.

...MadMyers

mlbdude

· #12 · Feb 26, 2005

An ATI tuner card works fine with any brand video card, yes even nVidia. I would recommend trying something like ZoomPlayer in Overlay to see what kind of playback you get. Also, as others have mentioned the old card is probably just fine.

hammerdwn

· #13 · Feb 26, 2005

Quote:

Originally posted by mlbdude

An ATI tuner card works fine with any brand video card, yes even nVidia...

Well except for these two people at least. I agree that it's probably not the nVidia video card. You should start reading all the ATI HDTV Wonder threads, you may find something.

Sounds to me like ATI has not created a decent product. If you can't even watch live DTV without using 100% processor? Does the ATI card/software have a dxva/software mode setting? My Fusion card uses less than 35% (dxva) for live DTV.

Hammer

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Shape

· #14 · Feb 26, 2005

The video capture of the HDTV Wonder only uses about 4% of the CPU on my computer with Media Center. All it is doing is saving the video stream to the hard drive. It is the playback that takes so much CPU time.

babgvant

· #15 · Feb 27, 2005

I have an ATI HDTV wonder, FX5200, XP2500+ setup and 720p and 1080i content plays back just fine in MCE05. Might be a ram issue, how much ram do you have?

MadMyers

Discussion Starter · #16 · Feb 27, 2005

Interesting... 384MB... I have a Athlon XP 2400+ (2Ghz). What is the GHz of the 2500+ ?

... MadMyers

babgvant

· #17 · Feb 28, 2005

Quote:

Originally posted by MadMyers
Interesting... 384MB... I have a Athlon XP 2400+ (2Ghz). What is the GHz of the 2500+ ?

... MadMyers

1.83Ghz...

Probably a RAM issue, you want a minimum of 512, 1gb is prefered for HD.

1 - 17 of 17 Posts

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