Minimal graphics card requirements for PVRX2 (VMR9 Custom)?

[vmq]

Hi, I am wondering if I have an installation problem or if my graphics card is just so low end that it is not able to handle the VMR9 Custom mode for PVRX2.

It is not that I am CPU power limited, depending on the video decoder that I choose in the GBPVR config utility the cpu usage is around 20-30% when watching recordings from my HVR-1600 (analog cable, medium quality, default, I can post the actual settings if needed.). Everything is smooth with VMR9 on the old GBPVR, but if I choose (VMR9 Custom) then both GBPVR and PVRX3 produce very choppy playback.

Is that expected, what might be a reasonable (as low end as possible) graphics card for VMR9 Custom or even EVR? (Currently PVRX2 says: "Sorry, this system does not support VMR9 video render" if I choose EVR.)

Volker

[Koenie]

You touch a very difficult subject here. There are lots of post talking about this. From my perspective it seems that stutter problems become less with increasing graphics card power. However there is no absolute guarantee that a powerful graphics card will take all the stutter away. ie on my own ATI X1800GTO which is definitely powerful enough I get perfect playback with the Hauppauge decoder but very choppy playback with the ATI decoder (which I would expect to be the best for this card). Others report perfect playback with the ATI decoder. There are clearly other factors that influence the playback performance (background processes, hard disk activity, ...).

Nevertheless your card should be enough for SD, for HD it is definitely not powerful enough. I wonder why you want the custom renderer if standard VMR9 plays well (don't know what the extra is we get).

[Bathman]

i am not convinced the better the graphics card the better the playback.

Within the last month i have used the following without any problems

PCI - Nvidia 5200 (But ran too hot in my ITX case and drew to much power)
- Nvidia 6200 (Only been it for 2 days not yet fully tested)

PCI-X
- Nvidia 7200Le
- Nvidia 6200 (Gives best picture of all my cards on CRT SD telly)

Onboard
- GMA 900 (inel extreme graphics)

There are also reports of Geforce 440 working on the forums.

[vmq]

Nevertheless your card should be enough for SD, for HD it is definitely not powerful enough. I wonder why you want the custom renderer if standard VMR9 plays well (don't know what the extra is we get).

Just to explain my wish for VMR9 Custom, I need to use PVRX2 for the SkipTool and BurnDVDX2 plugins, they don't run on the old GBPVR .exe.

So currently I have to choose (and switch) between PVRX2.exe for the cut and burn feature but suffer choppy playback, or use GBPVR.exe for smooth playback but no cut-n-burn. Not a big problem, but sub indicated that GBPVR.exe will be end-of-lifed at one point in the future.

[nitrogen_widget]

I have a gforce 2 mx400 in my recording server.
The cpu is 2.5 ghz celeron D.

It runs the PVRX2 interface with zero problems.
I havn't actually attempted to play a recording with it as I just wanted to upgrade to the latest for schedules direct.

I'll see if it will play SD recordings without any issues this weekend.

[HarryH3]

Just to add another data point... I'm just running onboard Intel graphics here. No problems watching video on the PC with PVRX2.

[Koenie]

wish for VMR9 Custom

Try the VMR9 full screen exclusive renderer. On my system it needs less than half the processor power. Maybe it help yr video card too????

Further you should play with some different decoders as there are quite large differences as well.

[vmq]

Just an update, I upgraded my graphics card to a Radeon HD 2600PRO (512MB) AGP (coming from a Radeon 9200) and everything up to 720p recordings plays smoothly. I don't have a 1080i recording yet, so I don't know yet if it is good for this too.

Volker

[4zm4r3d02]

I have a gforce 2 mx400 in my recording server.
The cpu is 2.5 ghz celeron D.

It runs the PVRX2 interface with zero problems.
I havn't actually attempted to play a recording with it as I just wanted to upgrade to the latest for schedules direct.

I'll see if it will play SD recordings without any issues this weekend.

Which version of the forceware drivers are you using? Which decoders are you using?