ATI Catalyst 8.7 finally fixed H.264 issues

[csy]

Cat 8.7 has fixed the green screen issue and channel-change corruption issues on my Freeview-HD (H.264). I can now also FF/REW recorded TV.

I'm very happy to finally be able to watch Freeview-HD without display issues

Edit:
For those with AMD chipset motherboards, you now have to separately download the chipset drivers. At the AMD/ATI download page, select Integrated/Motherboard option and select closest match chipset & Go. Scroll down to the "additional downloads" section and download the "South Bridge Driver". This contains the Northbridge Filter, IDE Controller, and SATA RAID Controller.

[Pob]

Lordy Lou, attempting to upgrade to 8.7 on my GA-MA78GM-S2H caused me a big headache
I followed the instructions, uninstalled all ATI software first, but as soon as 8.7 was installed the PC would BSOD when rebooted. I guess it must work with most 780g boards but I did find some forum posts from others with the same issue. Maybe it only affects revision 1 boards? Anyway back to 8.42 now - at least it works! Would like to hear from anyone with the same board if they got 8.7 working...

[nemulate]

Hi Pob, I have the Asus 780g board and 8.7 is working with no problems. As a matter of interest I think the installation program is different in 8.7 ie you don't have to uninstall and reboot first. Think I read somewhere its still best to do this so that's what I did. Uninstalled 8.5 - reboot - installed 8.7!

[Pob]

Yep I am thinking it is a problem specific to the Gigabyte board - maybe when used with XP Pro SP3?
Other threads like this one:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthrea...3&page=107
seem to indicate it is not unique to the revision 1 boards...
BTW the install instructions on the download page http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_cataly...egrated-xp do tell you to uninstall ALL ATI software, reboot, then go back to make sure nothing is left - and then uninstall 'DAO' - which I did not have anyway!

[nemulate]

Yeah looking at other boards sounds like a XP and 8.7 problem. Sounds like Vista users not affected!

[feilh]

Pob, I installed the 8.7 drivers installed on my GA-MA78GM-S2H no problem this week. I'm running Vista Home Premium. I actually had DRM problem on DVD playback before I did. I feel like I keep getting DRM problems every time Microsoft sends me another auto-update. I didn't bother with the Southbride update. I don't know if that will mitigated your BSOD. I was planning on doing the SB, just not enough free time at my HTPC.

[Pob]

It is definate now - the 8.7 drivers do not work on any 780g board using XP. The forums at AMD Game are full or tales of woe.
I think the 8.6's had serious issues too, and a hot fix was released. Some have said that the 8.7 betas work OK - but not wiling to try it!
Funny thing is that I always associated ATI with dodgy drivers - going back to the days before Nvidia, when 3DFX ruled, and then ATI came along with some of the first OEM boards available to the public. They had nice demos, but you could'nt actually use the cards for anything! I had forgotton why I only purchased Nvidia for so long...

[gazoo]

This is good to know so that I don't bother with this. I gave up on HA on XP long ago when I switched to CoreAVC (software only, a good one.)

On Vista with the gigabyte board, HA works for me but only for H.264 - I'm not getting MPEG2 HA going. It's ok either way, the cpu's for either one can handle software decode.

[Pob]

This is good to know so that I don't bother with this. I gave up on HA on XP long ago when I switched to CoreAVC (software only, a good one.)

On Vista with the gigabyte board, HA works for me but only for H.264 - I'm not getting MPEG2 HA going. It's ok either way, the cpu's for either one can handle software decode.

I do get Mpeg4 H264 HA in XP, using the MPC HC guide posted here somewhere. I temporarily switched to CoreAVC when playing with HD satellite channels, as MPC would not use HA with the Mpeg2 H264 transmissions (and used twice as much CPU as CoreAVC!).
SO it does seem none of the decoders do Mpeg 2 HA. I also tried the Cyberlink PD8 decoders, and they report that DXva is being used - but I'm sure it's not. Usually it would not matter as mpeg2 not very taxing - until you do try BBC HD or ITV HD...
Anyway on a related point, after trying the 8.7 drivers I uninstalled them in safe mode and installed the most recent ones from the Gigabyte website - 8.475. But ever since my desktop and any video looks really 'washed out'. Could a different driver version cause such a thing?

[Pob]

I uninstalled the latest drivers from Gigabyte and installed the ones on the motherboard CD - My desktop and video look fine again. So there must be some registry setting in the later drivers that increase gamma.
Gazoo I assume you also have a revision 1 board? Only with revision 1.1 the main thing they changed was putting a much larger heatsink on the Northbridge chip. I don't know if you have ever touched it when the PC is on, but mine does get red hot! Easytune reports system temps and CPU temps are fine. I am wondering if the Northbridge getting too hot is the cause of generally flaky behaviour, and the reason they stuck a bigger heatsink on the rev.1.1 boards? If I have ever had a crash, it usually seems to revolve around ati2dvag -and I think this is something to do with DXVA hardware acceleration.
I asked Gigabyte tech support outright "Is there a problem with HA on the revision 1 board"; they did not give a direct anwer, but simply said "most issues are caused by overheating" and they suggested trying a new board! Easier said than done...