Set top GBPVR client machine project

[pBS]

especially for that MB i'd get the whole catalyst package, the video drive/avivo/CCC should match versions, unlikely that the video driver on MB cd and the avivo d/l'd are same ver.

i'd bet the drivers on cd aren't as new as what's currently available and sometimes they mess up the installer by making it themselves...
and there have been lots of changes with respect to the newer chipsets and probably many more still to be made...i know mine works ok, but MB video drivers are always an adventure..

it may be the shared memory that's causing it...might wanna play with the settings in BIOS as far as video card memory as they have a huge effect...
[plus i believe it uses some actual mem, and some shared...]

oh and be sure to *completely* remove old video drivers when installing new ones, as they work differently if you do...

[zed]

I just built up a system with the same MB...M3A78-EMH HDMI...and I think I'm seeing the same issues...SD works great but it stutters on HD. I'm using an X2 5000+ CPU and 2G memory and VMR9. I'm trying to use the Nvidia PureVideo decoder but I have to turn hardware acceleration off or I get only a black screen with HD files...SD works fine with about 5% CPU. With acceleration off, it shows 35-40% CPU on one of the cores for HD with stutters every few seconds but sound is fine. HD plays great in WMP with the Nividia decoder & 35-40% CPU (accel off). I'm trying the Nvidia decoder because I have it and it works well with the 2600XT card in another system. I haven't tried the ATI decoder or the hotfix mentioned in your other thread yet...just got the thing together and haven't had much time to work on it yet. At any rate, please post on any progress.


UPDATE: I set it to use the EVR (with the patch) and it seems to work well...no stuttering on HD. Still using the PureVideo decoder but now it works with HW accel checked but it doesn't seem to be doing any...CPU still around 45%. Where did you get the ATI decoder? It doesn't seem to load with the rest of the ATI stuff. I also loaded the most recent stuff from the ASUS site...don't know if that made any difference. It seems to be working pretty well driving my 32" LCD over HDMI at 1080i...even the sound works. I'd like to find a decoder that would use the hardware, tho...

[gazoo]

Zed, I got the avivo package on the ATI website. I can't remember where but the filename is 8-3_xp_xcode_59746.exe - I had to dig around a bit (first one I got was for vista!)

I can't play hardly any codecs in VMR9 mode (ffdshow only works), everything except cybervideo works on evr mode. cybervideo crashes the system by locking up at black screen. Next step is to download the full ati package and trying that. I was getting 0% on left core, 40% on right while using avivo codecs playing back 1080i content.

I'm gonna try the evr patch next. I don't know what it does, but evr is already working pretty good without the patch.

This really seems to be a video driver problem in my opinion. Weird thing is, I sometime turn something off and it resolves the problem. So I keep that off after the next reboot and I get the same thing again. THis happen with the firewall (windows firewall) last time. I shut it down and the stuttering stopped, but it was back on again afterwards.

[Pob]

I would still like to know if the 780G boards can hardware accelerate HD content in PVRX2 - and not just when using Power DVD etc. Or is it Nvidia cards that will that only accelerate using using certain software?
I have re-read the review at Tom's Hardware:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/03/04/a...index.html
And it is still not that clear!
I still like the idea of a dedicated HTPC using a 780g. With the iminent launch of Freesat here in the UK - offering HD channels with no subscription - I reckon you could build a HD 'PVR' cheaper than the mooted £299 they will be charging for the official Freesat HD PVR's. However the question will then be if any of the DVB-S PC cards will receive the channels, and if GBPVR will work with it...

[gazoo]

I would still like to know if the 780G boards can hardware accelerate HD content in PVRX2 - and not just when using Power DVD etc. Or is it Nvidia cards that will that only accelerate using using certain software?
I have re-read the review at Tom's Hardware:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/03/04/a...index.html
And it is still not that clear!
I still like the idea of a dedicated HTPC using a 780g. With the iminent launch of Freesat here in the UK - offering HD channels with no subscription - I reckon you could build a HD 'PVR' cheaper than the mooted £299 they will be charging for the official Freesat HD PVR's. However the question will then be if any of the DVB-S PC cards will receive the channels, and if GBPVR will work with it...

Yeah, I'm still wondering if that's going on or not. I fixed my problems - it was a driver. Here's what I did from the support thread:

--------------------------------------
Problem solved...sort of. Loaded the latest catalyst drivers and once the southbridge/ixp drivers were loaded, that fixed the skipping every 5-7 seconds.

However, I discovered that Cybervideo and "Mpeg decoder" (whatever that is - that's how it shows in gbpvr config) don't do hardware acceleration for this board. ATI/avivo and ffdshow seem to be doing acceleration (CPUs at 61% during 1080i) but the other two are at 80% of both CPUs.

Once I went to EVR, everything dropped by 20% or so on 1080i (40-43% on one CPU) on both avivo and ffdshow.
---------------------------------------

I'd really like someone to tell me if 40-43% on one CPU for a 1080i show is considered good or not considering what we've heard about this board. I have no frame of reference so I'm not the one to ask .

By the way, EVR is the way to go. It seems much smoother, regardless of CPU usage. I heard about that DVD FF bug, but since my DVD just died I can't really test that.

[gazoo]

Ok, back to the review portion of this post.

Here are some power consumption numbers:

Boot up, varied between 65 - 120 W
67 W Idle, hard drives spun down
71 W Idle, hard drives powered
95 W Playing 1080i content (EVR)
82 W Playing 480 content (EVR)
.68 Efficiency (yes, crappy power supply)

I use episodes of American Gladiators for 1080i and Aeon Flux for 480 testing. Also, I have a dual core CPU, not a Sempron like in the Toms Hardware test.

I used a Kill-A-Watt for the measurements.

[zed]

Thanks...I found the AVIVO download and installed it. It dropped the cpu usage down to 30-40% as opposed to 45-55% and it seems to work OK. I notice some jitter/stutter when the OSD is displayed but otherwise it seems OK. I'll try loading the rest of the 8-3 package and see if that makes any difference. There are other parameters that can be set in the drivers so I'll probably dink with those as well when I have a chance.

By way of comparison, in another system I have a 4000+ X2 and an HD2600XT card and it runs 15-20% cpu on HD files using the Purevideo decoder with HW accel...quite a bit less, esp. considering the relative cpu speeds...the gpu is getting a pretty good workout.

At this point I'm a bit disappointed in the MB as I hoped it would be at least as good as the other system. I guess I could pick up a 2600 card but that kinda defeats the purpose. Maybe the drivers will improve over time. At least I get sound over HDMI with the new MB and I can't get it to work on the 2600.

[gazoo]

I'm just happy I don't have to put a GPU in this thing because the MB comes with it.

[nitrogen_widget]

I had to download it. The system didn't like this either. There's something extremely screwed up when I run in vmr9 - only certain codecs play well. I'm also having quartz.dll like issues - although it's probably not that considering I've patched it to hell (new quartz, hotfixes, cpu affinity patches,etc.)

I've got a suppot thread open about it.

any chance you removed something with Nlite that is causing the problem?
Or are you no longer using the Nlite's version you made?

[gazoo]

I used the nlite one, but it turns out it was all the drivers fault. I had to use the southbridge and graphics drivers that came on the dvd with the motherboard. Then, after that, I downloaded the full catalyst package from ATI and all was well. It really needed the new ati southbridge drivers vs those that came on the motherboard driver dvd.

The only weirdness I'm seeing is certain codecs (described above) aren't hardware accelerating. I've heard of this happening to others on here so that isn't so far fetched. Since this is such a new MB, it's possible that I would have to get a newer version of those codecs. Thing is, I don't know how to get a REALLY new version of cyberlink, for example.