Hard acceleration not working in GBPVR, but does outside of it

[gazoo]

Big Moose-
I have the same setup as you as far as MB and CPU goes + Vista. I get no problems playing back H.264 films and clips I find on the internet. Since here in the US we don't use H.264 for any broadcast, those are the only ones I can play back. We use 1080i and 720p MPEG2 here - and those don't HA for me at all, but it doesn't matter since the CPU can keep up with those via software.

H.264 plays back fine with the MPC project's codecs on Vista only. XP, I can't get any HA to work. Everything is smooth.

I would give the MPC codecs a try.

If I get a chance today, I will tell you the exact files and what to do. But I just got back from a long trip for work, so there's alot of catching up to do so it might not be today.

[BigMoose]

That would be very handy when you get the chance - cause even using PDVD I get the same stutter in clips previously recorded that I know are fine. I've tried the Vista64 codec pack (along with the vist32 one) and it now offers me FFDshow for H.264 playback in gbpvr config which gives roughly the same results as the cyberlink codec. Having said that, it seems to play fine for longer but then suddenly goes total jumpy and crap!

[gazoo]

The file you're looking for is MPCVideodec.ax. Get that from the MPC website above, put it in system32 folder. Open a command line window, and type regsvr32 MPCVideodec.ax while in the system32 folder.

The codec will then be registered. I'm not sure if sub has it listed in the config for h.264 playback, which I believe to be the where you choose the codec you want for playback on systems in other parts of the world where h.264 is the norm. If not, you would have to edit the config.xml file to add the name to it.

If you also want it as your system default playback for playing back from video library, you must make it the default on your system. I would use GSpot to raise the priority high enough above whatever else you have that may have been installed previously. Once you've done all those steps, playback and see what you're getting on the cpu's..should be around 5-7% for h.264 playback. Additionally, to check to make sure the change "took", open up the graphedit program and drag and drop the h.264 file you are testing with into it. It will build a graph with it and should show that the MPC decoder is in use.

You may have an issue with MPC trying to take over your mpeg2 playback. If that happens, raise whatever your mpeg2 codec is higher than the MPC one.

Let me know how it goes..

[sbiddle]

I posted this in the support forum before someone kindly pointed me in the direction of this thread that I've somehow managed to miss! While I dont seem to be having the same SD HW accel issues (using Vista and EVR) my HD playback is a nightmare. Here's my earlier post, any help gratefully received:

I'm wondering if anyone else here has the above motherboard with built in HD3200 graphics and has any issues with H.264 HD channels? I'm struggling to get stutter free playback on the BBC and ITV HD channels (DVB-S) using one of these with a 45w dual core 2.5Ghz AMD CPU. It's running on Vista Ultimate in 720p using EVR on GBPVR 1.2.13 - did the same on 1.2.9. HD will play back fine for a few mins, then stutter sometimes for a few seconds only, sometimes until I get annoyed. Changing the channel over and back often solves the problem for another few mins as can restarting PVRX2 - but equally sometimes it makes no difference. SD channels play fine - the news tickers are silky smooth at 720p. I've never got 1080i25 to work well (awful deinterlacing on the new tickers and worse HD stutter) and 1080p60 is even worse. 1080p50 is never offered and I've never sussed out how to get it to happen.

I installed the latest ATI 8.6 driver yesterday which made the interlacing on HD much worse. I've previously had perfect BBC HD playback using an inferier system (celeron 2.5Ghz, APG HD2600XT) but that was with 7.12 ATI drivers so maybe I should try them... I'm using the Cyberlink decoder, I've tried the version I got with the LG Blu-ray drive and the full retail 7.3 version and get the same results with both.

Just wondering if anyone has a similar setup and what combination of ATI drivers and video codec work best with HD playback. If you have any advice for 1080i or p50 I'd also be grateful!!

Interlaced H.264 channels have caused plenty of grief for users here in NZ with ATI video cards - it just doesn't work well. I gave up on my PCIe ATI2600 under Vista months ago and moved to an NVidia 8500. There were issues with picture breakup and blockiness, occasional green screens and problems changing channels. None of these issues occured with 720p channels, just 576i and 1080i. There are definately issues with ATI's Catalyst drivers, hopefully one day they will fix them..

[gazoo]

Interlaced H.264 channels have caused plenty of grief for users here in NZ with ATI video cards - it just doesn't work well. I gave up on my PCIe ATI2600 under Vista months ago and moved to an NVidia 8500. There were issues with picture breakup and blockiness, occasional green screens and problems changing channels. None of these issues occured with 720p channels, just 576i and 1080i. There are definately issues with ATI's Catalyst drivers, hopefully one day they will fix them..

Yeah, if it's h.264 576i, that (I believe) is not supported in HA on the HD3200. At least that's what dxvachecker says. You MAY get a green screen if HA is enabled on a 576i program since it's not supported, or it may work fine by switching into software decoding - it all depends on the codec.

[gazoo]

I just had a thought - that cpu can handle most forms of h.264 fine without hardware assist. You might want to load CoreAVC and call it a day and let the CPU do it. If memory serves me right, it should run around 30% for 720p and maybe 50-60% for 1080p with that CPU (I have the same one). FYI, CoreAVC is a very good H.264 software decoder. That's what I'm using in XP because I can't get my XP machine to do any HA.

[zed]

Which version of CoreAVC are you using? Will 'Standard' work OK, or do you need 'Pro'?

[gazoo]

I'm using standard. However, I'm in the U.S. so I only use it for video library and not for recorded programs like would be using in NZ or wherever else.

[sbiddle]

I just had a thought - that cpu can handle most forms of h.264 fine without hardware assist. You might want to load CoreAVC and call it a day and let the CPU do it. If memory serves me right, it should run around 30% for 720p and maybe 50-60% for 1080p with that CPU (I have the same one). FYI, CoreAVC is a very good H.264 software decoder. That's what I'm using in XP because I can't get my XP machine to do any HA.

It's interesting to compare the different "variants" of H.264 broadcasts. Here in NZ CoreAVC performs like a dog. The only way to get decent performance from our H.264 Freeview|HD transmissions (particularly the TV3 1080i feed) is to use a H.264 codec capable of hardware acceleration such as the Cyberlink PowerDVD one. TV3's 1080i feed will max out any software based codec and result in dropped frames running on an AMD5000+ - whereas a codec using hardware acceleration will drop that to ~25%

[gazoo]

It's interesting to compare the different "variants" of H.264 broadcasts. Here in NZ CoreAVC performs like a dog. The only way to get decent performance from our H.264 Freeview|HD transmissions (particularly the TV3 1080i feed) is to use a H.264 codec capable of hardware acceleration such as the Cyberlink PowerDVD one. TV3's 1080i feed will max out any software based codec and result in dropped frames running on an AMD5000+ - whereas a codec using hardware acceleration will drop that to ~25%

OMG, what's in that H.264 stream?... a nuclear physics equation? :confused: :o