system idle high cpu rendering hd useless... advice needed.

[tvshowman]

wow what a week. been racking my brain on this one, 2 installs of xp and same thing... nothing has changed since before but I get high cpu usuage from the system idle in task manager making video and audio messed up. once the usage drops doing whatever it is it's doing then hdtv is fine again. the recordings seem fine as once the cpu levels drop the video plays fine even from when it was messed up.

posts around the net suggest uninstall the index service... it was never installed lol so that can't be it.

does the 8600gt support hardware h.264?

i've defragged today and have installed xp the same way everytime for as long as I can remember and never had this problem until now.

it all started after I tried the new ffdshow from the posts claimed it was killer for h264 hdtv decoding so I wanted to try it and it didn't like my card as it stuttered so I went back to the tme decoder which worked fine in in 1080i.

after going back I noticed I was having studders and audio dropouts so after a day of uninstalling installing every codec pack etc.. I installed xp fresh and tried again and after a movie or so the stuttering came back so I uninstalled gbpvr thinking it was now my config or database complicating it and it seemed fixed for a movie or two and was back.

I don't know if tme updated their codec on me but I am stumped

anyone experience this idle cpu max load? people on the net say it's cause the computer is doing nothing and people say that's bs cause the computer is maxed and they can't use it lmao...

thanks for any input.

sry for the weird info... trying to type this while at work lol it's hard to think clearly multitasking

specs
dual core duo
1gig ram
sata
8600gt 1gig mem
xp sp3

EDIT
Questions
Do I want dxva checked in a codec and if so do I want v1 or v2 or both? Is DXVA supported in XP?

Thanks guys

[ElihuRozen]

If you don't already know about it, I would think that Process Explorer from SysInternals would be helpful. It's like Task Manager if Task Manager was actually useful. They might have some other tools that are more specific to your situation. Go to http://www.sysinternals.com. (Don't worry when you get redirected to a Microsoft site. MS bought SysInternals, but they are still good.)

[tvshowman]

hi!

thanks for the reply. i tried process explorer and it has no listings under under system idle evven tho it shows high cpu usuage. I wonder if the system idle is simply the negative of your cpu usuage and maybe something hidden is really running in the background..

man i hate this can't figure it out and can't watch any tv like this.

thinking i may need to unhook the pvr to watch live tv while I figure this out

serious.. even mpeg is stuttering when this thing craps out and the thought of installing windows again makes me want to pass out for a couple days

[Graham]

System Idle in Task Manager is telling you the percentage of time that the CPU is idle ... doing nothing.

It sounds like you have a video problem and not a CPU problem. Your decoder is probably not using hardware acceleration ... yes hardware acceleration is good in XP

[tvshowman]

Hey thanks so much for your reply. I did some checking and I am 100% for sure now that my card will do hardware h.264.

The GeForce 8600 GT and 8600 GTS both feature NVIDIA's second generation Pure Video HD engine, making it the world's first and only GPU to provide 100% offload for H.264 decoding. Current PCs require both a high end CPU and high end GPU in order to reliably decode and playback all types of HD content. With the GeForce 8600's new Pure Video technology, HD playback can be done on nearly all PCs.

A new video processor (VP) block provides more advanced video post processing to improve overall video quality. A new integrated bitstream processor (BSP) allows the 8500 and 8600 GPUs to perform full HD decode. They are the world’s first video processors to offload from the CPU 100% of Blu-ray and HD DVD H.264 video decoding, enabling playback on mainstream CPUs and providing unsurpassed movie picture quality and low power consumption. PureVideo HD support for Vista is available now for GeForce 7 and 8 series GPUs. PureVideo HD support for the 8500 and 8600 GPUs under Windows XP is expected in June 2007.

You are correct and I will now focus on decoder software and why it is not letting hardware passing along to windows/gbpvr...

I recall a long time ago reading a post somewhere on tme blocking third party software from accessing their codec... If I remember correctly the person registered some .ax files to windows somehow to enable the codec to work.

Does anyone know of software that can show that I am in hardware mode? not sure how to describe that..

I should note out that High Def plays fine for a while and smooth no dropped frames at 1080x1920 but once the computer goes crazy nothing plays good and gbpvr's menu's seem jerky and this happens both if recordings in progress and with no recordings and the only thing in task manager is the high cpu load from idle..

frustrated

[martint123]

Don't you need their PureVideo decoder to be able to let applications use the hardware decoding? http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_HD.html

[Graham]

I have just had a brief tinker with DXVA Checker ...

http://bluesky23.hp.infoseek.co.jp/en/in...XVAChecker

It tells me more than I need to know and more than I understand. On the Decoder Device tab, click Check DirectShow decoders and choose a video file. You can then click on items listed and choose options like Benchmark and then spend hours trying to figure out what it's telling you.

[Graham]

Don't you need their PureVideo decoder to be able to let applications use the hardware decoding? http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_HD.html

Nvidia don't provide a HD decoder to consumers ... the download on the Nvidia website is only for SD.

Purevideo HD is licensed to the likes of Cyberlink and is built into their decoders. I dunno how the authors of free decoders access HD acceleration in Nvidia cards

[JonnyCam]

Does anyone know of software that can show that I am in hardware mode? not sure how to describe that..

Only way I've found is with cpu load around 10-15% playing 1080i

I dunno how the authors of free decoders access HD acceleration in Nvidia cards

reverse engineering? or is it just part of the DX compliant frameworks?

[gEd]

nothing has changed since before but I get high cpu usuage from the system idle in task manager making video and audio messed up. once the usage drops doing whatever it is it's doing then hdtv is fine again. the recordings seem fine as once the cpu levels drop the video plays fine even from when it was messed up

I think I am missing something here or am having a senior moment.

In XP, at the bottom of task manager and also in the performance tab, it shows % CPU utilisation not %idle.

Are you saying that playback is fine unless you are currently experiencing high cpu usage when windows is suppoosed to be idle?