Any benefit for adding a video card?

[rayman2k2]

Here's my current HD HTPC setup:

Athlon64 X2 4400+
Biostar TF7050PV-M2
2GB DDR2-800



I'm running onboard video and audio from the SPDIF header to a receiver. My tv can play 1080p content (current refresh rate is 60hz, does not support 1080p24). I was wondering, would I have any added benefit of adding a video card?

I do watch 1080p movies/tv shows, primarily x264 mkv's. However, I've noticed that there is a slight hiccup every now and then, I assume its from the movie loading into cache or w/e.

I use the 64bit version of ffdshow with Vista MCE (I'm considering switching to Vista 32 bit in the winter possibly), CPU usage is in the mid 70's on average and creeps up to the 90's occasionaly, but I've never seen it go past 95%. Would adding a video card, such as the upcoming HD4350 or 4550, have any added benefit for just x264s?

 

[MrSmegzabush]

The thing is w/ x264 and hardware decoding (as I understand it) is that the encoding settings have to match what decoders can do. Encoders in video cards, PS3's and what not can accelerate if it is out of your decoders specs. I will try to find you some citation on this in the meantime. However your CPU should be sufficient to play 264 content, but you can always upgrade to a faster Athlon if need be. Also, what player are you using?

 

[Toytown]

I use the 64bit version of ffdshow with Vista MCE (I'm considering switching to Vista 32 bit in the winter possibly), CPU usage is in the mid 70's on average and creeps up to the 90's occasionaly, but I've never seen it go past 95%. Would adding a video card, such as the upcoming HD4350 or 4550, have any added benefit for just x264s?

I have not used the 64bit version of ffdshow for sometime, but last i remembered it was behind the 32bit version in terms of performance. So you may get some benefit by dropping down to 32bit OS It would also give you a chance to try out CoreAVC (32Bit only, but 64bit coming) which is probably the fastest software decoder out, however in the past the picture quality has not been as good 100% of the time.

In terms of adding a card, such as any of the ones mentioned, this would allow any H264/AVC Level 4.1 streams (i believe) to be accelerated using DXVA on the card, this would drop the CPU usage for playback them to around 1-2%. However any H264 movies that have been encoded using any option/settings above 4.1 break DXVA acceleration and would need to fall back to a cpu based software decoder to playback the movie.

If you are encoding the movies yourself you can make sure that all of them benefit from DXVA accleration by choosing the correct encoding profile when creating them. If you are getting them from elsewhere then typically all new stuff will be accelerated and older stuff will be hit/miss.

Also of note, the latest Nvidia drivers released in the last week, were meant to enable DXVA playback for options/settings above L4.1, ive only seen a few posts on it, but some people seem to indicate positive results, if so this would mean that the nvidia cards could probably accelerate the majority of all H264/AVC files, wheres currently ATI would only acclerate L4.1.......of course ATI will catch up at some point.

 

[MrGuvernment]

e4400 @ 2.7Ghz
7600GT Stock
CoreAVC + Media Player

FTW - 1080 content smoooooooooooooooth as butter!

if it is true about new NVIDIA drivers it could explain why my 7600GT helped my CPU usage go down vs the integrated intel x3500 in the P5E-VM HDMI board, to which i could not do 1080 content even with my cpu @ 3ghz.