Best agp card for viewing Hi-def material

[fallwood]

I'm currently using a radeon 9600se in my shuttle mce 2005 pc but it seems to struggle with some 1080i material, not a cpu problem as its only running at about 40% when playing, it doesnt judder badly just the odd jerk every now and then on pans and very busy scenes, only thing I can think of is that the graphics card isnt fast enough, seen a radeon x700 at my local supplier, I know its a lot faster for gaming but will it be any faster for video.

[evolution400]

What spec is your PC ?
Have you tried setting the nvidia codec to "combine fileds"
AGP fast write turned on in bios ?
Its nothing to do with your card and getting a better card wont help you I get smooth playback from an old radeon 9000 64mb card !

[fallwood]

athlon xp3000+ clocked to 3300, 1gig ram ,fastwrite turned on, my mate has an amd 64 3000 and he has same problems on some 1080i material, cpu usage is at the most 70% when playing 1080i stuff and around 30% when playing 720p stuff so it cant be that the processor isnt fast enough, not tried the combine fields does that make it faster.

[DanH]

Have you tried using overlay instead of vmr9? (Assuming your using vmr9 that is)

[fallwood]

Originally Posted by DanH

Have you tried using overlay instead of vmr9? (Assuming your using vmr9 that is)

Already using overlay, tried both and not really any difference, using combine fields produces interlace tearing on fast moving objects so I use automatic. Was told by my local pc supplier that the problem was most likely the graphics card . My mate tried a radeon x700 today but that didnt solve the problem, does nyone else suffer from judder on 1080i using the nvidi pure video codec, what other codecs are know to be good for hidef playback.

[Cable Monkey]

Minimum spec for reliable HD playback is 9600pro/XT territory. Your card lacks
bandwidth not necessarily power. You need to move up to a later generation card such as a 6600 or X700/X800. ATI's SE cards are often mere shadows of their pro or XT cousins.

[evolution400]

Originally Posted by Cable Monkey

Minimum spec for reliable HD playback is 9600pro/XT territory. Your card lacks
bandwidth not necessarily power. You need to move up to a later generation card such as a 6600 or X700/X800. ATI's SE cards are often mere shadows of their pro or XT cousins.

Thats totally inaccurate I get smooth playback of 1080p material on a XP 3000+ with radeon 9000 64mb ram using DXVA without using DXVA the playback is not watchable because HD requires about 2.4ghz of punch to run HD without using DXVA.The combine fields options doesnt make it fast it just smooths the playback.
Are you just getting mild judder during pans ?
Or is it all the time ?
Your CPU alone doesnt have sufficient power to play 1080i back flawlessly so if it is really bad then I dont think you have DXVA activated if its just on the pans then its a dettings issue on your Htz or interlacing.

[fallwood]

The juddering is very inconsistent, it doesnt always judder on pans it just seems to drop a few frames now and then as if the video gets stuck for a split second and then carries on, its never in the same place and just seems to be totally random when it occurs. For example , playing shrek 2 1080i (transport stream) cpu load is only at 20-30% yet it still drops a frame every now and then, playing Imax amazing caves 1080i (wmv) cpu is at 80% and it judders qute a lot at it flys trough the canyon at the start , why the big difference in cpu usage between the 2 files. Gonna try the x700 in my machine today to see if it makes any difference, would an nvidia card in conjunction with the pure video codec take more load off the processor.

[neilios]

Mines not a agp card but a asus 7800gt card pci express with a dual core core 3800 cpu.
When i first used it for playing ts files i used zoomplayer and nvidia pure video decoder and there was no juddering but after tweaking and fiddling i somehow cocked it all up and started to get poor playback .
So i now use the elecard mpeg2 codec and wmp10 and it seems to have solved all the problems ,cpu usage never got over 10% anyway with numerous progs running in the background .
I seem to think its a nvidia problem ,but i could be wrong ,the trouble is you start tweaking to try get a better image and then it all goes wrong lol ,so you have to start all over again .
Bloody pc's lol.

[fallwood]

Originally Posted by neilios

the trouble is you start tweaking to try get a better image and then it all goes wrong lol ,so you have to start all over again .
Bloody pc's lol.

Couldnt agree more mate, had mine working lovely but started to mess about with it to try and see why mine worked ok and my mates was jerky, now mines jerky , i find that its a lot smoother if i turn hardware decoding off for playing mpeg2 ts files, cpu runs a lot higher but video is judder free, wmv files seem to take the same cpu if wmc acceleration is on or off in catalyst control panel, dxva is enabled in registry as far as i can see but cpu remains at 80-100% when playing imax dolphins 1080i. Did the "can my pc play this video" test on windows media showcase site and my pc shows that its above the recommended for 1080p so why doesnt it play them properly.

[evolution400]

Originally Posted by fallwood

Couldnt agree more mate, had mine working lovely but started to mess about with it to try and see why mine worked ok and my mates was jerky, now mines jerky , i find that its a lot smoother if i turn hardware decoding off for playing mpeg2 ts files, cpu runs a lot higher but video is judder free, wmv files seem to take the same cpu if wmc acceleration is on or off in catalyst control panel, dxva is enabled in registry as far as i can see but cpu remains at 80-100% when playing imax dolphins 1080i. Did the "can my pc play this video" test on windows media showcase site and my pc shows that its above the recommended for 1080p so why doesnt it play them properly.

Your hardware system spec is fine i.e 1gb is plenty of memory, CPU and Hardware decoding is fine.
Try chnaging the nvidia settings from smart to > film and the other one on right hand side to "combine fields" see if that helps.
Have you got the elecard codec installed ?
I would install that if you haven't already.

[TheDoctor]

Try the Elecard Moonlight Player (30 day free trial download from the site). I have found, for HD material, it is the only player that is 100% consistent. I even stream 1080p video wirelessly to my HTPC connected to my plasma (from another PC).

WMP 10 (with Nvidia codec) and VLC only score 95% compared to the Moonlight player. My system eats 1080p without even swallowing, but these 2 players have some flaws with certain files. I have found the Moonlight player to adapt to different files seamlessly (even poorly/unusually coded material).

Doc.