The importance of DirectX 9 (1 Viewer)

[DuudeliDuu]

Hi

I am currently using a radeon 9200 series video card. And I know it's not DirectX 9 compatible.

How does it show when someone is not using that "required" directX 9 card. I would like to know if there is any reason I should upgrade my video card.
Does it make, for example, video playback smoother ?

My mediaportal is working great in general, but just want to make it better


cheers!

 

[mPod]

If a card is not DirectX 9 compatible, a lot of rendering and video stuff will be done by your CPU (main processor). Depending on your CPU it will always work at quite a high level. If you get a DX9 card, all is done in the GPU (the graphics card). Whatever will be rendered & displayed, your CPU will be low at about 3%. This gives more processing power to other stuff, e.g. plugins, background processes, etc.

Also a DX9 card usually produces a better video image, but that depends on the codecs you use. Best choice would be a recent NVIDIA card (7xxx, depending on your budget) in combination with the PureVideo codec.

 

[DuudeliDuu]

Ok, thanks for the fast reply Dude!

The CPU I'm using is athlon 2400+ , and it sure is working like a small animal
..and getting quite hot too.

If it really helps the CPU load I'm definitely going to upgrade my video card.

 

[SciDoctor]

What drivers are you using with the Radeon and what codecs?

What cpu usage with just the gui showing ?

Is there a particular page that causes high cpu?

Which

I don't see excessive cpu usage with any of my test Radeon spec cards from an original 64vivo to X800PE when running the MP gui interface.

Now your cpu may see high cpu usage if you mainly watch AVI files of high enough resolution as most codecs have no hardwware assist. This will happen with all GPU and is CPU specific.

MPEG files should be mutch lower cpu usage as they have some GPU hardware assist.

The ATI codecs should give you the lowest cpu as they have the best affiliated hardware assist with the Radeon chipset.

 

[DuudeliDuu]

I believe I have the latest radeon drivers ATI has to offer. I also have tried many different codecs in MP.

CPU load stays rather low when showing GUI only. It sound's quite possible that avi -content makes CPU load go high. Now that I checked it, I don't even have any other video files than avi files.

p.s. Bought a new geforce 5200 video card yesterday and playback got really much smoother instantly. I installed also nVidia purevideo -codec. One big advantage that I gained was that now I'm able to plug the s-video cable to the SCART -connector of my TV. With ATI card that wasn't possible.

 

[SciDoctor]

Good to hear you have seen some improvement.

Has the cpu usage dropped, if so by how much ?