Do ATI 4xxx cards work with hardware accel under XP?

[AndyPro]

As the subject says... I'm looking for a new video card to replace my X1650 pro. I was wondering if anyone had any of the 4xxx cards with working hardware accel under XP? I'm using VMR9, not EVR, if that makes a difference. All these newfangled video cards confuse me... I've been out of the game for too long!!

--Andy

[johnsonx42]

For me HW Accel works sort of, but not well enough. When I enable HW accel, SD and 720p HD channels are great, but 1080i HD is too stuttery to watch. This happens with every decoder I've tried (including ATI's own decoder!). Ultimately I've had to resort to Cyberlink PDVD8 (or PDVD6) with HW Accel disabled in the registry. That way produces watchable output, though I get some tearing on interlaced channels and the decoder doesn't de-interlace very well.

I've tried every catalyst from 8.11 to 9.2 with no change at all. I've given up for now, have just resigned myself to poor de-interlacing and tearing.

I've tried various nVidia cards with different but ultimately no better results. I thought I almost had it with a 9400GT, but my joy was short-lived (you can look for a thread I started called '9400GT - success at last' or something like that).

pBS says HD3000 cards work correctly with Catalyst 8.11, but he's using different source material than I am. I'm only willing to try a card I can pick up at (& return to) my local Fry's, and they don't carry HD3000 cards any more.

[gazoo]

sorry, I have vista. It does do HA under vista 32 with EVR.

[mikiem]

All ATI cards with HD in the model have some video accel. ATI typically produces 3 model types or series: low -- mid-range -- hi or gaming... the 1st 2 digits of the model reflect the chip (GPU) used, while the last 2 reflect: lo - mid - hi performance. Typically the lo & mid models have an add-on chip just for video accel, which is missing on the hi performance versions -- it's handled by the GPU. Additionally, the 48XX series have encoding acceleration available, though driver/software support is evolving (ATI's version of CUDA).

While it can be wonderful when it works properly, this hardware video handling, called Avivo, can open up several cans of worms. 1) for the last 1.5 years roughly every other driver release has included changes in Avivo -- roughly 50% were positive changes, & the negative ones in extreme cases rendered the driver useless. It can seem almost impossible to revert to the older driver in these cases, so ***Highly*** recommend a full image backup beforehand.

2) Depending on the driver version, in XP Pro SP3 32 I've had to disable hardware video accel in various video-related apps to keep them working. Disabling h/w accel is often tricky, & in my experience can happen in the drivers, the registry, &/or in seemingly unrelated software.

3) h/w accel may / may not work depending on brand/model of card, especially 2xxx & 3xxx series [I know you're asking about 4xxx, but a bit of what you'll read concerns those earlier GPUs, & it's not always clear]. An awful lot can also be effected by your choice of monitors, though again this is worse with the pre 48XX models.

4) ATI seems to have had their driver writing team concentrating on Vista & win7, so much of their driver control (Catalyst Control Center) is by default disabled in XP only. A PITA really, I've found every driver update I've had to manually change the registry to make controls available in CCC. This effects everything for video, not just H/W accel, & includes automatic picture adjust & color spaces -- with it all on by default many have had problems with video appearing almost cartoonish. Loads of info in the AVSForums, including scripts to automate the registry changes, most of it is simply setting the value to "0" for relevant keys ending in _na, meaning that particular control is / isn't available in CCC.

When all is said & done, h/w accel can be nice... I recently picked up a 4870 on closeout (new cards coming), & encoding SD mpg2 in Vegas (in XP), encoding time was cut by almost 2/3! A pleasant surprise, verified by GPUZ showing the GPU was active (& no display during encoding so that wasn't it). Haven't tackled AVC in Vegas since installing the new card yet, so can only hope it's active there too. OTOH for the past year I've been using a 2600 Pro [current when I got it], & h/w accel for playback only has been nice, but IMHO nothing close to being worth bragging about.

[mikiem]

@johnsonx42

When I enable HW accel, SD and 720p HD channels are great, but 1080i HD is too stuttery to watch. This happens with every decoder I've tried (including ATI's own decoder!). Ultimately I've had to resort to Cyberlink PDVD8 (or PDVD6) with HW Accel disabled in the registry. That way produces watchable output, though I get some tearing on interlaced channels and the decoder doesn't de-interlace very well.

It might be driver settings from previous attempts -- can try one of the driver cleaners, uninstall .NET, & start over basically. FWIW I wouldn't try Pwr DVD 6, but 8 should work by itself, or I use 7 for other apps, & you don't have to touch the registry to enable/disable h/w accel -- it's on the top of the setting's menu... use GPUZ to verify it's on/off.

Deinterlacing (h/w) is broken I think for some cards/drivers, & the settings in the XP registry may be a problem at their default, but in Pwr DVD should work OK. Playback can also vary a lot depending on the monitor used -- I believe some folks have had success working with the more monitor specific settings in the ATI CCC. Other software you have installed could also be effecting things -- I know the Sonic DS filters for example can clash rather badly with Cyberlink software.

I don't know if anyone has really nailed down all the causes for tearing. Like the crashes in Vista with Gforce or ATI cards, it's something I think that effects some, not others, so likely a combination of factors. The Home Theater version of MPC might help, with options just for tearing.

I think the 2XXX & 3XXX series are both more or less obsolete today, though the Egg still carries some models as far back as the X1XXX series. With new models out & coming out, I don't see there being any huge price advantage to avoiding the 4XXX cards. The Egg (Newegg) is generally excellent about returns -- check reviews -- & traditionally Best Buy offers some killer deals on cards that are being closed out due to new models.

[johnsonx42]

Thanks for the tips mikiem; I do intend to look into all of this again sometime soon. I bought the HD4550 on the belief that it would be an excellent HTPC card; it has SVideo, composite, component, vga, dvi, and HDMI output (eventually my 61" projection SD set will be replaced with a 1080p LCD). It has a fan, but it's whisper quiet.

I may also go back to Vista at some point. My original build was Vista, but I was crashing alot so I switched to XP Pro - it was better at first, but the crashing returned. Eventually I concluded that the mainboard was responsible for the crashing; after replacing that I've been rock-solid. I'd like to use EVR of course, but I depend on several aspect ratio modes with a negative number which don't work with EVR.

[gazoo]

I'd like to echo the problems with HA. In the end I gave it up. Same motherboard from XP to Vista and different builds within the same OS I've had problems with HA. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I finally stuck with software decode using CoreAVC for H.264, and AVIVO or Cyberlink for MPEG without HA.

On Vista, EVR is IMHO the only way to go. XP, you have VMR9, VM9FSE, or even fake EVR. Vista seems to work best if you do want to try HA, at least for me. I have never had deinterlace problems on the 4 machines I've built for HTPC purposes. A lot of people on here have had nightmares though. All these HTPCs I have built have had AMD graphics (either integrated or 48xx series).

Oh, and despite what anyone says on here, HA isn't working unless your CPU is like <10% (I would even dare to say like 6-7%, but threw in some points for good measure and tolerances), with the assumption that 0-1% is your standard idle CPU utilization. This assumption is on a low end dual core also. If it's higher, then something whacky is going on, maybe a partial deinterlace HA or something but I've never seen that myself.

[hoborg]

I Have ATI HD4550 and XPSP3.
All DXVA modes work great (MPEG2 with PoverDVD h264 and VC-1 using MPC-HC), but make sure you have Catalyst 9.3 or newer installed.
DXVA is broken in cat. 9.1-9.2 under XP.

To remove tearing simply enable vsync.

You can found lot of answers here: http://forum.team-mediaportal.com/codecs...saf-44614/

[johnsonx42]

To remove tearing simply enable vsync.

Yes, you'd think that would work... but it doesn't, at least not for me and most others who have tried it.

Thanks for the info though, perhaps I'm just one driver release away from finally having it work.

[hoborg]

Yes, you'd think that would work... but it doesn't, at least not for me and most others who have tried it.

Thanks for the info though, perhaps I'm just one driver release away from finally having it work.

That is wierd, i newer have problem with tearing.
Vsync set on always ON.
You are on XP, right?