Cuda and Avivo?

[Mango1970]

So I have a computer set up to just stream movies to my PS3. The vast majority are H264 movies... ISO, DIVX. I am using PS3 media player. I currently am using a 8800 GTX card in there which to my dismay does not support Cuda. I bought the CoreAVC pro to offload some of the decoding to my video card but LOL found out my 8800 GTX does not support full cuda etc.

Is it worth it for me to go get another video card which supports full CUDA? I am still a bit confused as to what exactly decodes what or how and when. I have an ATI 4550 sitting around which was great for actually using PowerDVD and AVIVO but my PS3 Media server takes no advantage of that card to the best of my knowledge and recommends CoreAVC which seems to be CUDA only.

When I am transcoding or streaming a 1080p movie I am seeing some serious CPU usage and temps from my CPU. Again is it worth it for me to go and get a newer nvidia CUDA based video card?

 

[Forumpanda]

If the Heat from the CPU when encoding is the problem then I am not sure putting in a current gen video card is going to be the solution.

What I mean is, if the CPU is fast enough for what it is doing but it is just the heat which is the problem, then maybe the money should be put towards better system cooling?

 

[lopri]

Don't worry about video cards for streaming to PS3. PS3 will take care of any transcoding duty without a sweat. (of course if supported) The only thing you need is a good, stable network connection.

Edi: Wait. How exactly are you streaming your media? I am not sure why your CPU usage is high.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Mango1970
So I have a computer set up to just stream movies to my PS3. The vast majority are H264 movies... ISO, DIVX. I am using PS3 media player. I currently am using a 8800 GTX card in there which to my dismay does not support Cuda. I bought the CoreAVC pro to offload some of the decoding to my video card but LOL found out my 8800 GTX does not support full cuda etc.

Is it worth it for me to go get another video card which supports full CUDA? I am still a bit confused as to what exactly decodes what or how and when. I have an ATI 4550 sitting around which was great for actually using PowerDVD and AVIVO but my PS3 Media server takes no advantage of that card to the best of my knowledge and recommends CoreAVC which seems to be CUDA only.

When I am transcoding or streaming a 1080p movie I am seeing some serious CPU usage and temps from my CPU. Again is it worth it for me to go and get a newer nvidia CUDA based video card?

All 8 series Nvidia GPU's and above ARE the CUDA architecture.

CoreAVC ver 1.9.5: Link



Get the most advanced directshow H.264 Video decoder in the industry.
- H.264 Baseline, Main, High profile support
- Interlaced support (PAFF and MBAFF)
- SMP (multi-core CPU) support (limit 4)
- GPU support (NVIDIA CUDA)

CoreAVC Knowledge base: http://forum.corecodec.com/vie...fdfe54c011e3818ad21776

 

[lopri]

Yes but I thought he's trying to stream video from PC to PS3. PC just sends the data via network and PS3 does the decoding/rendering. At least that is how it works with Windows' native UPnP works. Now, if he's using a different streaming proggy that does decoding on server side that'd be a different story - though I'm not familiar with this type of media serving. I also think it isn't the desirable way to stream video because it means PS3's all the processing power is just wasted.

OP: What CPU & motherboard do you have? And what anti-virus software?

 

[Keysplayr]

I think if he's using CoreAVC, he is using the PC to decode. And just using the PS3 as a passthru due to lack of ports on the back of the TV? I do wish he would make it a bit clearer exactly what he is doing, what he wants to do, and how.

 

[BenSkywalker]

The way PS3 media server works is that it decodes everything on the PC then sends it to the PS3 to be displayed. It's advantage over letting the PS3 do it itself is that it will play codecs that the PS3 doesn't support. I have mine set up for files not supported by the PS3 in a partcular directory that the PS3MS handles and the rest are handled by the PS3 itself.

As far as why you would do it this way instead of wiring straight to the TV, my PC is upstairs in my bedroom, I stream video to the living room which is downstairs without issue(wireless networking is slightly less of a hassle then a 100' HDMI cable ). With all of that said, I don't get very high CPU useage at all while running PS3MS to stream so I'm not sure what's up with that(although my 1080p collection is almost entirely limited to BRD).

 

[Scali]

Originally posted by: Keysplayr
All 8 series Nvidia GPU's and above ARE the CUDA architecture.

Yes, but 8-series are Cuda 1.0 compute capability.
I've seen some Cuda-based encoding software that required 1.2 at the least.
So perhaps his software doesn't support the 8-series.

At this point I'd say Avivo is not an option.
Firstly it has major issues with compatibility and quality.
Secondly, even it it works, its speed is usually not up to Cuda standards.

 

[lopri]

I dunno.. I still think it's much less of a hassle to let PS3 deal with the decoding part depending on one's need. The OP has listed H.264 and DIVX, both of which are natively supported by PS3. ISO (disc images, I assume) isn't supported but there is a workaround, I believe. So for those codecs and formats you need not waste time. (I am responding to the OP here. If one wants to stream .FLV or other unsupported format then 3rd party utility as well as CPU/GPU usage might come into play)

I have two PS3's that play musics and videos off my systems (my house is hard wired) and CPU usages from streaming is about 5~10% (if that, it's mostly network overhead and anti-virus checking things that go in and out of the PC's). Under this scenario, CPU/GPU is completely out of the equation of performance.

 

[evolucion8]

http://www.tomshardware.com/re...ream-gpgpu,2335-4.html

So is CUDA doing anything? You bet. There?s a 35% drop in output time with GPU acceleration enabled, so CUDA is plainly throwing everything it can at the job. But here?s the interesting part: AMD and Nvidia show essentially the same encode time in CPU-only mode, but Stream yields a 108% performance gain, easily trouncing the CUDA result while averaging 40% less CPU utilization than CUDA.

As we?ll see, this is not a universal result. There are times when CUDA shines brighter. But tests like this show that AMD?s balanced platform statements are based on real benefits, not empty marketing meant to sell processors.


http://www.tomshardware.com/re...ream-gpgpu,2335-6.html

You?ve already had a preview of the first test, going from high-def to low-def MPEG-4. Here?s you can see the results more plainly. This marks a pretty obvious win for AMD, especially if you factor in the CPU usage numbers.

We ran a similar second test, increasing both the file size of the source video (another YouTube HD file) as well as the resolution of the MPEG-4 target (720x480). With the larger numbers, we have more chance for test factors to even out. Sure enough, we see AMD breezing past Nvidia again, although not by quite such a large amount this time. Our CPU-only tests confirm the level playing field. Adding in GPU acceleration, we get a 91% improvement with CUDA but a 142% improvement in Stream?a narrower gap than the first test but still a fair drubbing for Nvidia.


http://www.tomshardware.com/re...ream-gpgpu,2335-7.html

Encoding to MPEG-4, layer 10, we should see decent GPU acceleration times by both cards, but Stream sort of snoozes through this test, offering only a 10% improvement. Meanwhile, CUDA kicks in a 34% boost. Why the sudden change of roles? No idea, but a win is a win.


http://www.tomshardware.com/re...ream-gpgpu,2335-8.html

The outcome here was a little odd for two reasons. First, we finally see a slight disparity in CPU-only encode times, although a 7.6% variance on a three minute file is nothing to fret about. Second, even though Nvidia had the higher CPU-only time, it manages to scoot just past AMD on the GPU-assist score, beating Stream by 11 seconds, or 13.5 percent, and contradicting our earlier results.


http://www.tomshardware.com/ga...-214086-0----jpg-.html

In overall in my opinion, the difference in speed depends of the codec used, in image quality is hard to pin point which looks better, but overall, CUDA implementation is more polished and is less prone to image quality issues.