[Skin] GPU Accelerated loading of fanart/images (1 Viewer)

[matejdro]

Currently very popular HTPCs are ION boxes which have slow Atom CPU + fast Nvidia ION graphics which allows computer to play 1080p at full speed while consuming very low amount of power.

But problem is, that mediaportal is in that case using Slow Atom CPU to load images and fanart, while it could use much faster ION GPU and make movie browsing experience much faster and better.

I don't know much about how is that done, but XBMC already have this feature and they did something with DDS image format.

(More info about XBMC feature: http://devolblog.devolfamily.com/gpu-accelerated-fanart-for-xbmc-liveubuntu/)

Images could be converted to DDS manually in settings or even automatically after downloading them.

(Demonstration, how fast this works on previously mentioned ION box: YouTube - XBMC Live 9.11 - DDS Fanart Loading )

Please consider this one, it would make browsing movies and other lists with images much smoother.

If that is too much to change in current MP1 (which probably is), then please count that suggestion in MP2.

 

[azzuro]

+1

 

[DieBagger]

Well this would be a great addition but it would also mean a lot (really a lot) of work for a developer. So unless one of the MP devs really wants this or someone else takes the time to create a patch this almost certainly won't happen for MP1.

 

[DJBlu]

Well this would be a great addition but it would also mean a lot (really a lot) of work for a developer. So unless one of the MP devs really wants this or someone else takes the time to create a patch this almost certainly won't happen for MP1.

I really want this as my ION is suffering from slow image loading!

I am going to take a look into it.

Not promising anything.

Just looking.

 

[DJBlu]

Ok,

Looked into this and,

As MediaPortal is DirectX orientated the only problem I forsee is converting the JPEG images to DDS. The Texture Loader will accept DDS images.

I am going to covert mine this afternoon and give it awhirl to see.

I'll let you know how I get on.

 

[DJBlu]

Ok so it works,

And its simple.

I will upload a how to in a few hours.

There is a down side to this.

The file sizes of the converted images are larger than normal.

It also takes a while to convert the images.

I will take a look at MP-TV Series code and Moving Pictures to see if I can automate the image conversion.

This will be the hard part as you have to have images with widths and heights that are a power of 2.

2,4,8,16,32,64,128 etc

Not impossible.

It is quicker too!

 

[tourettes]

2,4,8,16,32,64,128 etc

Are you sure all GPUs are affected by that power of two requirement? At least only Intel cards itself have the texture size limitation (ATI/Nvidia can have non power of two texture sizes).

It would be quite bad for the quality for fan art if you are forced to use power of two dimensions since 1920x1080 is not such resolution so the texture scaling would inroduce some new artifacts to the image.

 

[DJBlu]

2,4,8,16,32,64,128 etc

Are you sure all GPUs are affected by that power of two requirement? At least only Intel cards itself have the texture size limitation (ATI/Nvidia can have non power of two texture sizes).

It would be quite bad for the quality for fan art if you are forced to use power of two dimensions since 1920x1080 is not such resolution so the texture scaling would inroduce some new artifacts to the image.

You are right m8. I am just using stuff off the net to convert at the minute and it requires 2^n thats all. I am trying Nvidia's encoder too but not having any joy.

The speed difference is quite remarkable.

Even on my quad core. There is a half second increase with the Backdrop files.

 

[matejdro]

Awesome! Is there any good DDS converter out there? Possibly one that allows you to convert whole folder at once?

 

[Truri]

AW: GPU Accelerated loading of fanart/images

Only to get it right, that will work, when its done with all GPUs, so with ATI too?