Broad question I know, but I am trying to find out if I need a decent video card for my HTPC. I have a motherboard with no onboard video that I want to build a HTPC out of, I have a 6 year+ old AGP video card I can throw in there just to get video but I am wondering if MKV's and AVI's use the CPU or the GPU to decode the video. Or is it a combination of both?
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Does video playback/decoding use CPU or GPU?
- Thread starter Exce
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depends on the video player and codec being used.
this section would be better for answering these types of questions.
http://hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=-1&f=103.
this section would be better for answering these types of questions.
http://hardforum.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=-1&f=103.
Dangman
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HD content, such as Blu-Ray and DXVA encoded MKV files, will use the GPU if you can properly set up playback. However, you must have a DXVA supported GPU in order to do that. So in other words, an AGP card will not cut it due to the majority not having good support for hardware accelerated video playback.
Whatsisname
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depends on the player and the codec.
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Indeed, it depends on the video you want to playback. Danny has you covered, though.
sirmonkey1985
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like danny said.. the gpu needs to either be a nvidia 8 series higher or ATI HD3k/4k/5k series gpu to support hardware accel(DXVA).. the G80 gpu's while having cuda support actually only support VC-1 and mpeg2 hardware accel(DXVA) while the G92, G94, and GT200 have full cuda support and can run VC-1, mpeg2 and h264(if encoded correctly) hardware accel(DXVA)..
on the ATI side the HD3x/4k/5k series supports all the same codecs as the ones i posted above..
on another note i do know the HD2k series supports hardware accel but i believe its limited to VC-1 and mpeg2.. but i cant remember nor ever tried it with my HD2600pro AGP card..
AVI's use CPU and MKV is a container so has no baring on whether hardware accel is supported or not.. but H264 uses cpu and gpu.. x264 3.1, 4.1, 5.1 allow for hardware accel but can also use the cpu..
Shadowssong
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No offense but you just bought a video card and don't even know what model it is? Don't see something wrong there? lol
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That and he mentioned he had an AGP system in his first post...I have yet to see a 5xxx series with an AGP slot.
It has 1GB of memory, PCI-E and HDMI out, I dont need to know much else for HTPC. As long as it had HDMI out I knew it would have the minimal specs to run video decoding with a AMD 6000+. If I was buying a gaming card I would have done a lot more research.
The motherboard has both AGP and PCI-E.
Dangman
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Actually, there are many video cards out there with HDMI out that do not offload the decoding of HD content. Nor does VRAM have that much to do with video playback.
So please find out what video card you bought.
Radeon 5450 I guess its only 512 memory but either way, more than enough. Newegg reviews seem to favor it for HTPC.
Dangman
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Holy crap $80 for a card that costs $50 on Newegg? Ouch.
But yeah, you got lucky. The HD 5450 is an excellent card for HTPC usage.
I am impatient so I cant wait for delivery so I had to go to Failbuy. To my advantage, I was actually set out to buy a $50 video card at BB but when I got there, they had these sitting in the $50 spot, the old bait and switch. When I got to the counter it rang up as 80 bucks, so we wasted about 15 minutes walking back and fourth to where I got it from and agreed on buying it for $70 instead. Still expensive but I hate waiting. I have been doing some more research now that you made me google which one I had and it seems this was the jackpot for HTPC. Go me!