OEM or ATI Drivers? (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 1.95
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

Per my system description above, I have an ASUS ATI 3450. I was running V8.47 of Catalyst (I think from ASUS), and last night updated to ASUS Catalyst 8.60. This appears to be the latest version from ASUS that I could find.

I was doing this because hardware de-interlacing of 1080i avc interlaced content on this card is horrible. It looks like the de-interlacer is messing up the field order and playing the frames out in the wrong order, resulting in very "jumpy" video. If I use CoreAVC's Bob de-interlace, I get a good result, but of course high CPU.

One thing I noticed with the "upgrade" of the video drivers was the de-interlace options changed. I used to have all the advanced de-interlace methods like motion adaptive and vector adaptive, but with 8.60 I only have Bob and Weave.

So my next thought was do I use the drivers from ATI, so I can get V9.4 and see how that goes. Is it recommended or ok to use the "native" drivers on these cards instead of the OEM drivers?

 

[Taipan]

I have only ever used the drivers from ATI (and not from the card's manufacturer) and they have always been fine.

Also, are you aware of the ATI HD Registry Tweaks for HTPCs?

 

[globaldonkey]

Thanks for the advice and link Taipan. My upgrade of video drivers completely stuffed things - something went badly wrong with MPEG 2 decoding and all my TV and DVD's started dropping massive amounts of frames. Had to backout and restore from backup. Probably need to do the complete uninstall of the ATI drivers before re-installing. I'll give it a shot again soon.

Also found I was getting confused between Catalyst versions and video driver versions. I think ASUS quote the driver version 8.60, which "equates" to Catalyst 9.4, according to this link:

Previous Catalyst? Drivers for Windows XP

8.476, which I had before, was Catalyst 8.4.

How confusing can ATI make this????