HA problems with ATI3450 (1 Viewer)

[globaldonkey]

TV-Server Version:
MediaPortal Version: 1.0 Final (no SVN)
MediaPortal Skin: StreamedMP
Windows Version: Windows XP SP3
CPU Type: Intel Core2 Duo 3GHZ
HDD: 2 x Samsung 1TB
Memory: 2 x 2GB DDR2
Motherboard: ASUS P5E-VM HDMI
Video Card: ASUS ATI 3450
Video Card Driver:
Sound Card: Realtek HD Audio
Sound Card AC3: Realtek HD Audio
Sound Card Driver: 5.10.0.5404
1. TV Card: DNTV Live Dual PCIe S3
1. TV Card Type: DVB-T x 2 + Analogue x2
1. TV Card Driver:
2. TV Card:
2. TV Card Type:
2. TV Card Driver:
3. TV Card:
3. TV Card Type:
3. TV Card Driver:
4. TV Card:
4. TV Card Type:
4. TV Card Driver:
MPEG2 Video Codec: PDVD7
MPEG2 Audio Codec: MPC-MPA
h.264 Video Codec: CoreAVC 1.9.5
Satelite/CableTV Provider:
HTPC Case: Silverstone LC16M
Cooling:
Power Supply: Zalman ZM460B-APS 460W
Remote: Soundgraph IMON IPAD
TV: Pioneer PDP 506HD
TV - HTPC Connection: HDMI

I can't seem to be able to get HA working correctly with the ATI 3450. Running V.847 of the video drivers from ASUS at the moment. Here's what I've found:

I'll focus on the MPEG2 HA for now in this description, but h.264 HA is also broken. When I enable HA in PDVD7, fullscreen MPEG2 (ie DVD or TV) runs fine. 0 dropped frames, and HA is working. However, as soon as I go to a reduced screen size (eg TV Guide with TV on), I get lots of dropped frames. It seems there is some problem with scaling and HA. Any suggestions?

 

[Owlsroost]

I used to run a 3450 in my system - I eventually concluded that (driving a 1920 x 1080p display) it didn't have enough performance to cope with HA/de-interlacing plus the 3D rendering load of the MP user interface in the 'PIP' situation you describe. When video is playing it has to render the user interface at the same frame rate as the video.

If your version of Catalyst control centre has overclocking support, take a look at the GPU load when MP is running.

Tony

 

[globaldonkey]

Thanks Owlsroost. You probably saved me hours of failed attempts to get this working. You were right, as soon as you drop back to PIP on a large display, the GPU went through the roof. Went from about 50% to 80% when running in a window, and the de-interlacing started to miss a fair bit too. Of course I couldn't see MP running in full screen and watch Catalyst at the same time, but safe to assume it was maxing out. I don't know why I didn't think of that.....

Found this on AnandTech about the 4350 and 4550. Looks like the 4350 might struggle with this scenario too.

AMD states that while both the 4550 and 4350 support full hardware Blu-ray decode acceleration, the 4350 may not be able to fully accelerate a high bitrate 2nd stream for picture in picture scenarios. We didn't have the opportunity to test this on our 4350 but we'll be following up with more HD decode tests in a future HTPC article. Both GPUs should decode a single stream 1080p Blu-ray movie without any issues, offloading 100% of the decode pipeline to the GPU; we confirmed that the 4550 works as expected and we're assuming the 4350 is the same given that the hardware is identical.


Got any recommendations for a better card that's passively cooled?

 

[Owlsroost]

It's hard to advise but....

I jumped ship to an XFX nVidia 9500GT (my PC case can only take low-profile cards, and this was the most powerful I could find at the time). This has been fine for me to date but is (quietly) fan-cooled. If you can take full-size cards you might be able to find a passively cooled version.

People seem to like the ATi 4550 - these are are basically the same chipset as the 4350, but with much faster RAM (twice the memory bandwidth) so can support higher-quality HD de-interlacing. No personal experience so you'll have to look around the forums.

Tony