5x faster video encoding with X1xxx

velis

Senior member
Jul 28, 2005
600
14
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I sure wish xvid would use these capabilities. Then one wouldn't have to rely on custom tools.
gpgpu.org should work on releasing a lib with as-general-as-possible functions one could use for any purpose.
As long as they only show some examples that are all custom coded, there is no real effect :(
 
Mar 19, 2003
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I was gonna call repost but it looks like a different article than was posted before :p

I would LOVE to get my hands on an R520/R580 though, even if for this feature alone. I did finally upgrade to an Opteron 170 :)D), but hardware acceleration of encoding would be even better. (I do a fair amount of HDTV watching, and recording when I have the space to do so, so this kind of thing would be great for archiving shows.)

Edit: Since the article mentions the Avivo transcode tool takes up 100% of the CPU usage...I wonder if they'll optimize it for dual-core (or other dual CPU) systems too? I wonder if that could make it even faster...
 

TroubleM

Member
Nov 28, 2005
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Most impressive is that they test on a Radeon x1300 Pro. So, looking also at the test done by ExtremeTech awhile ago on an x1800 XT, it seems that the encoding part is independent of the power of the GPU.
 

tuteja1986

Diamond Member
Jun 1, 2005
3,676
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AHh Ohh cool ... MY X1800XL has some use now since i am using 7800GTX to play all my game basically : ) Fast PSP video encoding = awesome

ALso it could be cheap to just buy a X1300XL or something better to do your encoding and decoding for video : ) if you do alot video editing that is ..
 

Goi

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
6,754
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Is there specialized encoding hardware on the X1000 chips, or is the software just using the VS/PS of the GPU to encode videos? I saw an academic paper from Stanford that basically used the GPU pipelines for general purpose programming, to really great results. IIRC it worked for r4xx/5xx as well as NV4x/G70 GPUs.
 

dunno99

Member
Jul 15, 2005
145
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Originally posted by: velis
I sure wish xvid would use these capabilities. Then one wouldn't have to rely on custom tools.
gpgpu.org should work on releasing a lib with as-general-as-possible functions one could use for any purpose.
As long as they only show some examples that are all custom coded, there is no real effect :(

I think that's what the Brook language is for. Granted I haven't used it yet, since I'd rather write my own custom shaders.

Originally posted by: Goi
I saw an academic paper from Stanford that basically used the GPU pipelines for general purpose programming, to really great results.

Check out this link. It is maintained by the authors of said paper.
 

elkinm

Platinum Member
Jun 9, 2001
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If the X1300 is that good, I wonder if I can use one a backup card only for encoding.

If they get this to work right, and maybe a driver instead of just the software so it can be used for general encoding, then this could easily offset most performance deficits in games.
 

IeraseU

Senior member
Aug 25, 2004
778
0
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Wow that's very impressive. I often encode DVD or timeshifted movies into Divx/WMV and it is a very, very lenghty process even with a DC CPU.
 

biostud

Lifer
Feb 27, 2003
18,193
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Our Avivo XCode beta supports 11 video codecs/profiles: MPEG 1/2, VCD, S-VCD, DVD, MPEG 4 (DivX Compatible), WMV9, Portable Media Center, H.264 (AVI), MPEG-4 (Sony PSP Compatible Video) and H.264 (MP4 Apple iPod Compatible Video). So Avivo XCode is suitable for PSP and iPod Video fans as well as owners of modern cellphones - they support the H.264/3GPcodec, too.
 

JackBurton

Lifer
Jul 18, 2000
15,993
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Holy Crap, that is some awesome news from ATI!!! This might be all I need to move to a X1800XT instead of a 7800 GTX 512MB card.
 

Gamingphreek

Lifer
Mar 31, 2003
11,679
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You know i wonder, i just ordered my 7800GT. If i order an X1300 as well and just use it for encode/decode ops, and put it in the second x16 slot without enabling SLI, will it work?

Unlikely, but it would be pretty neat.

-Kevin
 

IeraseU

Senior member
Aug 25, 2004
778
0
71
Originally posted by: kamranziadar
Well Nvidia has its own encoder we will see if any comparison comes out between these two.


I don't believe Nvidia supports encoding, rather only decoding assist.
 

Cookie Monster

Diamond Member
May 7, 2005
5,161
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Originally posted by: IeraseU
Originally posted by: kamranziadar
Well Nvidia has its own encoder we will see if any comparison comes out between these two.


I don't believe Nvidia supports encoding, rather only decoding assist.

I think pure video support it. But not really sure.
 

DaveBaumann

Member
Mar 24, 2000
164
0
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Note: Whats being discussed here is neither encoding or decoding, but transcoding - i.e. converting an already digitally compressed video file from one codec to another (inclusive of whatever compression mechanism is used by each of the input and output formats).
 

Matthias99

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2003
8,808
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Originally posted by: DaveBaumann
Note: Whats being discussed here is neither encoding or decoding, but transcoding - i.e. converting an already digitally compressed video file from one codec to another (inclusive of whatever compression mechanism is used by each of the input and output formats).

To be fair, I'm not aware of any (software) transcoders that go right from one format to another without going through an uncompressed format in between (so they're really more like a combo decoder/encoder). Considering this thing seems to be programmable, they're probably doing the same.

I'm not sure if it would be feasable to do real-time decoding/encoding through this mechanism, but if it can do faster-than-real-time transcoding, it certainly seems like a possibility.
 

Snakexor

Golden Member
Feb 23, 2005
1,316
16
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so does anyone know if it is possible to have say a:

dfi lanparty ultra-d
x800gto
x1300

and use the x1300 for just encoding??