1080P and single core opty

[Falloutboy]

gonna throw together a HTPC with some extra parts I have laying around. would my single core 939 opty be able to play 1080p video reliably when overclocked to 2.5ish?

 

[v8envy]

My experience: a 3200 venice at 2.4ghz + 7600GT = yes to 1080p mpeg2 encoded content and most stuff I've found on the net, HD-DVD not so much: had problems with skipping frames and audio getting out of sync. Played from either the disk, or ripped onto HD. Using XvMC hardware playback acceleration with a Mythtv box.

That machine is RIP as of last week or I could give you a better idea of CPU loads doing various playback. In general it was < 30% cpu for anything mpeg2 encoded, 100% for h264 or mpeg4. My guess a 2.5 ghz opty single core may be just enough.

But since you have the parts it costs nothing to try it and see.

 

[aigomorla]

my own personal experience

you need minimum a C2D @ 2.0ghz with 1gb of ram for smooth playback on H.264 @ 1080p

this is assuming your using onboard GMA900.


For an AMD thts like 2.2-2.4ghz


If you dont have the processor you can cheat it by getting a 8800GT card.

 

[MarcVenice]

Why a 8800gt ? That's major overkill, plenty ATI cards, like the 2600xt will offer full high def video playback, taking the complete load of the CPU. Could prolly go even cheaper, but I don't know the exact cards which do and don't offer HD playback.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Why a 8800gt ? That's major overkill, plenty ATI cards, like the 2600xt will offer full high def video playback, taking the complete load of the CPU. Could prolly go even cheaper, but I don't know the exact cards which do and don't offer HD playback.

didnt know that.. i thought only the 8800GT had it.

Then listen to marc, his recomendation is cheaper and therefore better.

 

[MarcVenice]

Yeah, even some 8600gts offer HD playback, it depends on the brand/model though. Most of it is pretty confusing.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
Yeah, even some 8600gts offer HD playback, it depends on the brand/model though. Most of it is pretty confusing.

heh...

you should link him an example.

I dont even know which ones have it, and it would be nice to know.

 

[MarcVenice]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814161179

That's one of them I think. This one might be even better, since it's silent: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814161185

 

[downhiller80]

Sorry to hijack, but I have a 8800gt and when I playback 1080p files my system uses 70% cpu (3.2GHz E6750).

If I can offload this onto my GPU how do I do it?

(PS I'm using VLC - do I need to use a different program for playback to get the hardware decoding?)

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: sebfrost
Sorry to hijack, but I have a 8800gt and when I playback 1080p files my system uses 70% cpu (3.2GHz E6750).

If I can offload this onto my GPU how do I do it?

(PS I'm using VLC - do I need to use a different program for playback to get the hardware decoding?)

according to anandtech it shouldnt...

post this in the gpu forum. They would have more info. I dont have a 8800GT, i have a GTX which doesnt have playback.

 

[Falloutboy]

yeah I see the 2-2.2 ghz c2d repeated alot, but I wasn't sure if the speed was for single core performance, or if the codecs had caught up to multithreading.

 

[Falloutboy]

Originally posted by: Falloutboy
yeah I see the 2-2.2 ghz c2d repeated alot, but I wasn't sure if the speed was for single core performance, or if the codecs had caught up to multithreading.

guess i'll give it a go if its no go i'll just spring for a cheap video card with decoding (2400pro I read has the ablity to decode .h264)

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Falloutboy

Originally posted by: Falloutboy
yeah I see the 2-2.2 ghz c2d repeated alot, but I wasn't sure if the speed was for single core performance, or if the codecs had caught up to multithreading.

guess i'll give it a go if its no go i'll just spring for a cheap video card with decoding (2400pro I read has the ablity to decode .h264)

sounds like a good plan.

But as i said you can pull that off on an AMD @ 2.2-2.4ghz fairly easy for any AMD to pull this off.

 

[skillyho]

Originally posted by: Falloutboy
gonna throw together a HTPC with some extra parts I have laying around. would my single core 939 opty be able to play 1080p video reliably when overclocked to 2.5ish?

Yep...plenty! As long as you get a PCI-Ex card (like 2400Pro on up) with right software suite to utilize your native GFX decoders.

 

[v8envy]

From product specs of the HD2400: HDMI output support by adapter
High definition H.264/AVC, VC-1, DivX and MPEG-2 decode acceleration
MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, WMV9, VC-1, and H.264/AVC encoding and transcoding
ATI Avivo HD Video and Display Platform

So, that should definitely be enough under windows.

As with CPUs, the amount of work the GPU will offload depends on the GPU's clock rate as well as number of pipelines to do math with. Back in the dawn of time (late 2005) ATI claimed they could do h264 1080p with an X1800XT when paired with a 2ghz (aka 3200+) cpu. And even 720p when using a X1600XT. So yes, there is a minimal combination of graphics card, software and your cpu that'll work just fine.

My point was your CPU may be good enough on its own. My 2.4ghz venice *almost* was.

 

[heyheybooboo]

^^^^^^ Thank you!

Nearly any grapics card with DxVA mpeg2 hardware acceleration should playback 1080p content full screen without issue with proper codecs and configuration. The Opty @ 2.5GHz should be fine .... I have had no problems playing back 1080p content smoothly on 2GHz Athlons and lowly FX5500s at 70-80% cpu utilization.

The ATI 2600/2400 and nVidia 8600/8500 specifically were designed for HD-DVD/BluRay hardware accelleration (with HDCP 'content protection') and substantially remove HD-DVD/BluRay vc1/h264 decoding off the cpu.

Some original versions of the nVidia cards were not HDCP enabled.

PowerDVD supports GPU DxVA mpeg2 hardware acceleration and will partially code vc1/h264 through DxVA. Cyberlink was not very friendly to ATI with hardware acceleration at one time and workarounds were necessary to enable hardware acceleration.

Not all 1080p content is HD-DVD/BluRay. There are massive amounts of 1080p content with AC3 audio avaialble at birates you will be able to play quite comfortably if the content is rendered properly.

If the intention is to view 1080p Matroska files kharma will prevent you from successful playback.

There are an endless stream of 'issues' that can occur in video playback. Most config problems are easily corrected. It p's me off when instead of addressing the underlying issues of a buggy configuratioin some people roll in and tell you to purchase hundreds of dollars of hardware you do not need.

 

[newbieKC]

Do you think my PC can handle 1080P/Blu-Ray/HD-DVD video?

Athlon 64 3000 (2.0 GHZ Venice) FSB 1600 MHZ Hypertransport
Socket 754
ECS Nforce 3
1 GB PNY DDR 400 memory
AGP only

I am thinking about getting an ATI Radeon HD 2400 pro AGP

 

[Marty502]

I don't know jack about this, but I'll just add that in my "old" system...

Athlon 64 3000+ @ 2.4 Ghz
1 GB RAM DDR400
XFX 7600GT

...1080p went like crap. Audio was out of sync and frames showed up slowly.

So if you don't have a proper video card, a single core A64/Opty will struggle. Any of those mentioned with proper HD playback qualities will do it easily.