CPU speed or videocard?

[Daldana]

Just asking a general question; which is more important to achieve smooth HD live tv, cpu speed or high quality videocard?

Dave

[psycik]

A capable video card. The cards needed for most 1080p h.264 decoding are actually quite small. You're not doing 3d games so the work load is pretty light in reality.

Something from about the 8500gt+ range. or 9500 gt range and upwards is pretty much sufficient for 1080p decoding on the graphics chip. Therefore reducing the load on a CPU.

I run an AMD x2 3600 dual core and a 8600Gt video card and have no problems with 1080p.

[pBS]

yea, i'd have to agree there...i have yet to see a software only solution that could deinterlace properly by itself...no matter how fast the cpu...video card has to at least deinterlace..

so for mpeg2, anything that can properly deinterlace and can handle the throughput should do..say a hd1550/1600 on ati side.. i use with ffdshow for mpeg2 and it's flawless...
[ffdshow can NOT accell decode, only deinterlacing] but it gives perfect smooth scrolling..
ati avivo codec works well for total hardware decode [atidvcr.dll] but i experience the occasional hiccup on extra high rate material..still very watchable...and avivio is great on sd decode...enhances it..

but for h.264 and vc1 etc. you'll want a good hardware decoding card...hd3xxx or better..

soon i'l be trying my 3450 with a p3 MB and i bet it'll be sweet...
[i get about 8%x2 cpu usage on my c2d w/avivo, and about 15%x1 w/ffdshow]
[ffdshow only uses the second core for grunt work]

[hoborg]

Here is table with GPU's,and what they can really do:
http://www.missingremote.com/index.php?o...mitstart=1

[Daldana]

If I'm understanding this correctly it seems to be the features of a videocard that matter, so overclocking a card won't affect performance much. Thanks for the info, guys.

Dave