User experience with AMD 780G and MediaPortal (4 Viewers)

[KRA]

Domini0n, first off, you are not using Hardware Acceleration (Coreavc doesn't support it) your cpu is doing all the work. Read the rest of the thread to get an idea what we are talking about

doornjoostje, I've tested some more with powerstrip, and I now use the 1360x768 (LCD) option wich works fine. I've never managed to get 100% pixelmapping with hdmi on my cheap lcd though, only with vga. But the mapping is so close I'm fine with it.

 

[Domini0n]

You might be right that I don't really have hardware de-interlacing, but it does lower my CPU usage, also I set the bios memory from auto to 512Mb improving video playback for me as well. I still don't fully understand when there is or isn't hardware support enabled, my CPU % with full HD range from 25% to 40%.

I just wanted to explain that the problem doesn't manifest itself everywhere as I haven't had any problems. I'm however curious how it will work with a tuner in my HTPC and HD signal. Currently I don't own any tuners for in my HTPC. What ensures that I do use HW support? As the CPU load is the same if I play it with PowerDVD 8 with the ATI HW switched on in the setup. If anyone could shed some light on this HW enabling I would appreciate that.

For the problem occurring with this chipset I'll post all my settings here and maybe it might help, if you haven't tried it all yet.

Motherboard rev 1.0, now I own 1.1, but haven't tryed this rev. yet
Driver: Catalyst 8.9
Resolution: 1920x1080p at 60Hz
CPU Load with Full HD: 25% - 40%
Codec's: AC3 Filter 1.51a and CoreAVC 1.8.0 (with the setting HW de-interlacing on)
Bios F5: Set Graphics memory from auto to 512Mb (I have 4GB so 512 won't be missed)
MP v1.0 RC2: Audio set to AC3 and H.264 to CoverAVC, DVD to MPV. - All audio options are set to output on SPDIF. (I don't use the HDMI audio as my TV does not like dolby digital)
Catalyst settings are all default for one thing. That is the scale option, I set it to GPU scaling.

These settings work for me with Blu-ray playback from Blu-ray and with rips, FULL HD and 720p.

Hope it helps, if not then I'm out of ideas and will leave it to some more professional guys.

Greatz,
Domini0n

 

[KRA]

Only thing I can think of is that your not using EVR render. HA only works with EVR.

I have a relative weak 4050e cpu, it can play HD fine in software alone, but it can't handle live-tv HD (Singleseat) the TV-Server alone is a massive hit on the cpu.

 

[kiwijunglist]

You might be right that I don't really have hardware de-interlacing, but it does lower my CPU usage, also I set the bios memory from auto to 512Mb improving video playback for me as well. I still don't fully understand when there is or isn't hardware support enabled, my CPU % with full HD range from 25% to 40%.

I just wanted to explain that the problem doesn't manifest itself everywhere as I haven't had any problems. I'm however curious how it will work with a tuner in my HTPC and HD signal. Currently I don't own any tuners for in my HTPC. What ensures that I do use HW support? As the CPU load is the same if I play it with PowerDVD 8 with the ATI HW switched on in the setup. If anyone could shed some light on this HW enabling I would appreciate that.

For the problem occurring with this chipset I'll post all my settings here and maybe it might help, if you haven't tried it all yet.

Motherboard rev 1.0, now I own 1.1, but haven't tryed this rev. yet
Driver: Catalyst 8.9
Resolution: 1920x1080p at 60Hz
CPU Load with Full HD: 25% - 40%
Codec's: AC3 Filter 1.51a and CoreAVC 1.8.0 (with the setting HW de-interlacing on)
Bios F5: Set Graphics memory from auto to 512Mb (I have 4GB so 512 won't be missed)
MP v1.0 RC2: Audio set to AC3 and H.264 to CoverAVC, DVD to MPV. - All audio options are set to output on SPDIF. (I don't use the HDMI audio as my TV does not like dolby digital)
Catalyst settings are all default for one thing. That is the scale option, I set it to GPU scaling.

These settings work for me with Blu-ray playback from Blu-ray and with rips, FULL HD and 720p.

Hope it helps, if not then I'm out of ideas and will leave it to some more professional guys.

Greatz,
Domini0n

CoreAVC doesn't support hardware acceleration yet.

However you can get h.a. working fine with Catalyst 8.9 + MP1 RC2 + PDVD8 Ultra 2021 + DVB-T Card + (VRM9 in XP or EVR in Vista) However the hardware acceleration has bugs if you watching an interlaced HDTV channel. Progressive is fine. Vista seems to handle interlaced DVB-T better than XP but at a higher CPU useage.

eg. with hardware accleration of mkv 1080P cpu useage is 0-5% in XP/MPC-HC
with hardware acceleration of 720P HDTV cpu useage is 10-20% in XP/MP1 RC2
with hardware acceleration of 720P HDTV cpu useage is 20-40% in Vista/MP1 RC2

PS - I have 780G Mobo w. AMD X2 4200+ CPU

 

[Domini0n]

Do I need a upgrade?

Oke, then it's clear i'm not using HW acceleration. I'm going to put in two DVB-C Tuners in my HTPC, will my current setup be strong enough to handle LiveHD or will I need a more powerful CPU. Software will probably be a lot better by the time I'm getting these DVB-C Cards. As my 4850e doesn't support HT3.0, I was looking to maybe sell this CPU and buy me a X4 9350e. These X4 Phenom's do support the full HT3.0, will I need this when using dual tuners?

As for the problem this thread has started with, I'm no longer able to give any input, if I find any new data I'll let ya know.

Greatz,
Domini0n

 

[kszabo]

However the hardware acceleration has bugs if you watching an interlaced HDTV channel. Progressive is fine. Vista seems to handle interlaced DVB-T better than XP but at a higher CPU useage.

Honestly it is not a bug but a restriction of yor CPU with HT 2.0. With a Phenom with HT3 you will have much less deinterlacing problems. I upgraded my X2 BE2400 (2x2,3 GHz) to the smallest Phenom X3 8450 (3x2,1 GHz) AND 1080i HDTV became a dream! Motion adaptive deinterlacing up to 1080i. Nothing to do with your HD3200 GFX or h.264 codec.

This is true to nVidia and Intel chipsets / GFX also.

By the way Catalyst 8.5 had a bug with 1080i HWAcc (macroblocking around moving objects after jump fwd or bckwd in video), disappeared after Upgrade to Catalyst 8.9.

 

[Domini0n]

However the hardware acceleration has bugs if you watching an interlaced HDTV channel. Progressive is fine. Vista seems to handle interlaced DVB-T better than XP but at a higher CPU useage.

Honestly it is not a bug but a restriction of yor CPU with HT 2.0. With a Phenom with HT3 you will have much less deinterlacing problems. I upgraded my X2 BE2400 (2x2,3 GHz) to the smallest Phenom X3 8450 (3x2,1 GHz) AND 1080i HDTV became a dream! Motion adaptive deinterlacing up to 1080i. Nothing to do with your HD3200 GFX or h.264 codec.

This is true to nVidia and Intel chipsets / GFX also.

By the way Catalyst 8.5 had a bug with 1080i HWAcc (macroblocking around moving objects after jump fwd or bckwd in video), disappeared after Upgrade to Catalyst 8.9.

So upgrading from a X2 4850e to a X4 9450e would be a good thing if you're going to use dual tuners.

 

[kszabo]

So upgrading from a X2 4850e to a X4 9450e would be a good thing if you're going to use dual tuners.

I guess the number of the CPU cores play no role. 1 is enough. You just need the bandwidth of Hypertransport 3, and this feature is available from Phenom upwards. For 2 tuner you don´t need more cores untill one stream is decoded only (MP does not have picture-in-picture), the other is only steamed or recorded. Further I don´t think that the HD3200 could hardware accelerate two streams the same time... But as you see no need of it.

 

[Domini0n]

Oke, so the triple cores would be sufficient as they also use HT3.0.
Thanks for the info, I'll go and see what I'm going to do, probably wait a little, doesn't hurt the prices of the CPU ...

 

[kszabo]

Oke, so the triple cores would be sufficient as they also use HT3.0.

Honestly for HTPC the less cores the better = less heat. less noise.

There will be X2 CPUs available soon with the Kuma core and HT3. Even better is to wait for the 45nm Phenoms.