6800gt for watching DVDs ?

[jbass]

I read some threads stating the Video processor on the 6800gt is not working and video playback is being forced onto the CPU. Would it be better to get the Radeon x800 if i do 50% games and 50% watching DVDs on my system? Or should DVDs still play fine on teh 6800 GT ?

 

[spdfreak]

I have a 6800 and it won't play DVD's full screen without getting lines and sometimes shadows all through it. Works OK in a window, but not full screen. I've tried PowerDVD, MP10, and Nvidia's own player- all do the same thing. If you do a lot of DVD watching, stay away from the 6800 series. I am returning mine this week because of the VPU problems.

 

[bytor33]

As long as you have a fairly fast computer you won't even need the hardware decoding from the video card. Dvd's look and play fine on my 3200 winchester and evga 6800 gt.

 

[scout007]

You would see this problem only if you want to play HD WMV DVD's ... AKA imax DVD

 

[BFG10K]

Standard DVDs have absolutely nothing to do with the nVidia's dormant VPU. That has been accelerated since the original GeForce series.

 

[spdfreak]

Mine plays dvd's fine, it is just the full screen problem that has me baffled. My Ti4200 played fullscreen fine. I think the fullscreen problem is a driver issue, but Nvidia hasn't beeen very qiuck to release new drivers to fix video playback problems, so I don't have much faith they will.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Standard DVDs have absolutely nothing to do with the nVidia's dormant VPU. That has been accelerated since the original GeForce series.

Exactly i dont know what spdfreak is talking about. SOunds like you have a problem with your DVD Player as well. The 6800 is fine for watching DVD's and doing Encode/Decoding and HD. Its just not doing it as well (or at all for that matter) like it was supposed to do. THe Radeon's dont do it any better.

-Kevin

 

[scout007]

http://www.microsoft.com/windo...m/ContentShowcase.aspx

download the "Step Into Liquid" 1080P file watch the entire 2 minutes, you will see occational lag, this is cause by 6800 series vid cards disabled Video Processing Unit. So the Video Processing has to be done through the CPU. During that movie, you'll see your CPU utilization @ 90-100% where as if you play the same video on a 9800 PRO you will see about 50% CPU utilization and no lag what so ever.

 

[dartworth]

Originally posted by: scout007
http://www.microsoft.com/windo...m/ContentShowcase.aspx

download the "Step Into Liquid" 1080P file watch the entire 2 minutes, you will see occational lag, this is cause by 6800 series vid cards disabled Video Processing Unit. So the Video Processing has to be done through the CPU. During that movie, you'll see your CPU utilization @ 90-100% where as if you play the same video on a 9800 PRO you will see about 50% CPU utilization and no lag what so ever.

hmm..damn that sucks

I just watched that on my puter too.... the lines show up in full screen mode.

<--BFG 6800OC &amp; A64 3500@2.3GHz

 

[Ackmed]

Mine does the same, its very annoying.

 

[Pete]

I believe a 300MHz PII is fast enough for DVD playback.

IIRC, the GF4MX (not the GF4Ti) was the first nV GPU to offer DVD acceleration (iDCT) and IQ (scaling, alpha) on par with ATi and S3. (nV may well have had some acceleration starting with the GF, I just don't know.)

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: scout007
http://www.microsoft.com/windo...m/ContentShowcase.aspx

download the "Step Into Liquid" 1080P file watch the entire 2 minutes, you will see occational lag, this is cause by 6800 series vid cards disabled Video Processing Unit. So the Video Processing has to be done through the CPU. During that movie, you'll see your CPU utilization @ 90-100% where as if you play the same video on a 9800 PRO you will see about 50% CPU utilization and no lag what so ever.

That's not a DVD though, that's a WMV HD video. Considerably higher quality (and bitrate) than DVD.

DVD playback is fine on the 6800 series.

 

[jbass]

Originally posted by: jiffylube1024

Originally posted by: scout007
http://www.microsoft.com/windo...m/ContentShowcase.aspx

download the "Step Into Liquid" 1080P file watch the entire 2 minutes, you will see occational lag, this is cause by 6800 series vid cards disabled Video Processing Unit. So the Video Processing has to be done through the CPU. During that movie, you'll see your CPU utilization @ 90-100% where as if you play the same video on a 9800 PRO you will see about 50% CPU utilization and no lag what so ever.

That's not a DVD though, that's a WMV HD video. Considerably higher quality (and bitrate) than DVD.

DVD playback is fine on the 6800 series.

Well judging form the 50/50 split DVD playback is not fine on the 6800s. Some people are claiming it does not perform well at full screen. This kinda sucks since i want to establish one of my PC's as a media center for the living room.

 

[dartworth]

Originally posted by: jiffylube1024

Originally posted by: scout007
http://www.microsoft.com/windo...m/ContentShowcase.aspx

download the "Step Into Liquid" 1080P file watch the entire 2 minutes, you will see occational lag, this is cause by 6800 series vid cards disabled Video Processing Unit. So the Video Processing has to be done through the CPU. During that movie, you'll see your CPU utilization @ 90-100% where as if you play the same video on a 9800 PRO you will see about 50% CPU utilization and no lag what so ever.

That's not a DVD though, that's a WMV HD video. Considerably higher quality (and bitrate) than DVD.

DVD playback is fine on the 6800 series.

I get the lines when playing a DVD @ full screen too...and it shouldn't matter if it is a WMV or DVD...it is unacceptable for both...

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Try older dets like the 61.77 and see if you still get the distortion@full screen. I didn't have any issues with it till I installed newer ones.

 

[Malichite]

I am a bit confused with comments people make about the Radeon and older GFFX being faster at WMV HD "Step Into Liquid" demo. I was under the impression that NO other main stream video card currently offers hardware accelerated playback via the VPU, so if that is the case it should be dependent on your processor since the video card isn't helping at all. Thus is the 6800 causing other conflicts to slow it down below a GFFX 5900 / Radeon 9800 series or is it playing about the same and people are just torqued since it isn't doing more of the work like it should?

 

[gururu]

some DVD players attempt to use hardware acceleration if the gpu supports it. Perhaps, the full screen switch is an artifact of the vpu not being unable to offload some of the work when this setting is applied.

 

[Hikari]

I don't get lines when playing DVDs. I just watched the Matrix full screen and it looks great. This is on a BFG 6800 OC. I was just using VLC to play the DVD though.

 

[dartworth]

rolled back to older drivers...lines are gone.

CPU is way high using WMP to watch that video however..

 

[spdfreak]

So what are the latest drivers that don't have corruption when in full screen? I am using the 66.93 drivers now and it is terrible.

 

[Thermalrock]

Originally posted by: Malichite
I am a bit confused with comments people make about the Radeon and older GFFX being faster at WMV HD "Step Into Liquid" demo. I was under the impression that NO other main stream video card currently offers hardware accelerated playback via the VPU, so if that is the case it should be dependent on your processor since the video card isn't helping at all. Thus is the 6800 causing other conflicts to slow it down below a GFFX 5900 / Radeon 9800 series or is it playing about the same and people are just torqued since it isn't doing more of the work like it should?

no they do. the 6xxx series video processor would have been the first to do encoding tho. playback / decoding has been accelerated for a long time.

 

[Malichite]

I am specifically talking WMV HD, what other cards officially support that? From my readings it seems that only the 6600 officially supports it and the 6800 support was implied. I know that ATI is currently working towards that with their Catalyst drivers, but they aren't final as far as I could find. As for the other 6800 VPU issues, I think they were address here: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...ce6600gt-theory_6.html.

 

[spdfreak]

OK, I switched to the 66.81 drivers, and that fixed the fullscreen problem. It also seems to use less CPU. My system is a P4 2.8 @ 3.5 w/HT and it uses 40-50% CPU watching the coral reef vid (my favorite). My Laptop is a A64 3200 w/ 9600 vid and it plays the same file but with 80-90% CPU. Both play smooth with no dropped frames. So it seems that the drivers do play a significant role in vid playback and CPU utilization. Hopefully Nvidia will get off their a$$ and get us some new drivers that do better than this.

 

[iamtrout]

Hey, everyone, I just want to know if these lines that you're having are the same as these:

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...3&amp;threadid=1456416

Please let me know. Unfortunately, I have lines in fullscreen in EVERYTHING that's video, including VLC, Quicktime, Winamp, PowerDVD, mpg, avi, divx, xvid, you name it, and with the 66.81 drivers too!

 

[Chippy99]

Originally posted by: jbass
Well judging form the 50/50 split DVD playback is not fine on the 6800s. Some people are claiming it does
not perform well at full screen. This kinda sucks since i want to establish one of my PC's as a media center for the living room.

Jbass, I can state with 100% certainty that there is *nothing wrong* with the 6800 series for watching DVD's.

The video decoder problem *does not* affect mpeg2 playback. Anyone with a problem playing back DVD's (whether it be windowed or full screen or whatever) either had a broken card or borked drivers. This is a fact.

You will find your CPU usage is around 10% average (circa 5% min, 20% peak) when playing a DVD. So you will get no skips, dropped frames or anything else.

Chip