GeForce 6 series video processor OFFICIAL THREAD

[bpt8056]

A few months ago, DAPUNISHER started a thread on which CPU/video system can handle an intensive WMV HD trailer called "Step Into Liquid". At the time, I had just received my GeForce 6800 GT and there were no official drivers from nVidia and it was evident at the time that the video processor was not enabled. One of the reasons I bought the 6800 was the video processor and I'm sure some of you are in the same boat. Just a few days ago, I began wondering about the video processor and decided to browse for information on whether the video processor was finally enabled or not.

A couple reviews caught my eye when they discussed about the video processor on the 6800 series. The one at Xbitlabs showed that the video processor was working when using the 65.76 driver. I decided to test my card with the 65.76 driver and CPU utilization still hovered at 99%. So I decided to dig around and find answers to why it wasn't working. I found this article over at Hexus that showed the video processor on the 6800 was not functional with the 65.76 driver (even the 5900 was better). They said, "NVIDIA acknowledge that's the case with early NV40 (units that shouldn't have made it to retail) but insist it's working in retail samples and in NV45".

Now I need your help on whether your video processor is functioning or not. Follow these steps.

1) Download the "Step Into Liquid" trailer here. IMPORTANT: Download the 1080p version.

2) Open up in Windows Media Player (version 10 if possible) and monitor your CPU usage. You can also use the statistics in WMP to view the amount of dropped frames. Go to View > Statistics (Use Advanced).

3)While you play the video, monitor your CPU usage and report your findings. You can do it by doing this: Go to "Run" on the start bar, type "perfmon.msc" - hit the "New Counter Set" button (first one on top of the graph), right click on the graph and select "Add Counters" then press "Add" on the already highlighted option (Which sould be "Processor" - "% Processor Time") and it'll graph the CPU usage and calculate the average.

If the video processor on your GeForce 6800 GPU is working, your CPU usage should be around 20-30% and the GPU temperature should steadily climb up. Please test this with 65.76 driver or newer. Make sure HT is disabled if you have a P4 that supports it.

Unfortunately, mine doesn't work regardless of which driver I used and CPU usage was still at 99%. If you can test yours and post your results, that would be appreciated. Thanks.

UPDATE: There has been no evidence that the video processor in the GeForce 6 series is fully functional. It is unknown at this time whether it will be enabled with a driver update in the future. There is supposed to be a new official driver from nVidia within the next couple weeks and hopefully it will address this issue.

UPDATE #2:Anand just published the status of the video processor in one of his articles. You can read it here.

UPDATE #3:Apparently the miracle driver that was supposed to enable the video processor has not been delivered by the end of November as some folks have claimed. I speculate that nVidia may have run into unforseen issues and may have delayed the release OR they realized that there is actually a number of chips that are borked and the drivers cannot restore the functionality of the video processor. Stay tuned.

UPDATE #4:The VP-enabled drivers that were supposed to surface in November may actually be released on December 20. This may come at a good time for a nice Xmas bonus for current GeForce 6 series owners. Keep your fingers crossed.

UPDATE #5: Nvidia has officially announced PureVideo technology and you can find more information on their website here

UPDATE #6: Unfortunately, the video acceleration features at the time of the GeForce 6800 series launch has been greatly exaggerated. There is no WMV acceleration for the GeForce 6800 GT/Ultra, but it is available in the 6600 series and the 6800 vanilla. It appears that PureVideo is a stripped-down version of the original promise that nVidia made eight months ago. You can read Anand's article on PureVideo here. link

Contact your tech support:

BFG

Gainward

MSI

XFX

ASUS

Chaintech USA

LeadTekhere

 

[Phreck]

My CPU was at 100% the whole movie and the temp of the GPU didn't rise at all. I'm using the latest Forceware 66.72.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Good thread idea. :thumbsup:

With that said - mine doesn't seem to be working at all. :thumbsdown:

Constant 80%+ CPU usage, and my GPU temp did not budge. I have a PNY 6800GT with the 66.81 drivers.

When are they going to enable this feature that was supposed to be working five months ago? :roll:

Isn't this supposed to be able to do encoding too? At this rate we'll be on the next generation of (paper-launched) video cards before this gets sorted out...

 

[CharlesMcKinney]

I also am not noticing this working...when I try to view any of the 1080i WMV9 movies, my CPU is at 100% and I get dropped frames. I realize my rig isn't the greatest, but that said, the video card definately didn't improve these videos, which leads me to believe the processor isn't working. There isn't a huge gain in performance over my old FX5200.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Watching movies i dont think qualifies.

You need to do real time encoding/decoding for it to kick in.

-Kevin

 

[Schadenfroh]

seriously, it says on my box of my 6800 GT that it has a built in video proccessor, there is gonna be a class action about this..............

 

[Schadenfroh]

FYI

Text

MPEG 1/2/4 encode/decode
WMV9 decode acceleration

 

[MDE]

Not working here with a 6800GT and 66.81 drivers. CPU usage shoots up and drops frames like crazy.

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
Watching movies i dont think qualifies.

You need to do real time encoding/decoding for it to kick in.

-Kevin

I don't believe the PVP will support accelerated WMV at all, but it is supposed to support accelerated WMV decoding..it however currently does not. MPEG-2 acceration which the newer beta drivers reputably have finally enabled is fubured on my rig as well.

My testing with HD Mpeg files from my HDTV Wonder card and MS graphedit looks like the Nvidia decoder is conflicting with the MPEG demultiplexor <sp> filter. Building a filtergraph with the elecard demultiplexor in the filter chain allows for OK playback using the 6800 card, but at best, its only slightly less CPU load than my AIW9700 card on these high bitrate 1080i MPEG-2 files. The 6800 also has obvious blooming in light areas, the Radeon has the superior PQ, and I had not noticed the blooming with prior offcial NV drivers.

The PVP is still an immature feature, so I'm sure driver revisions will correct the issues, it qwould be nice if they spent some serious effort on it however, and WMV decode acceleration needs to be enabled as well.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Ok, well, I didn't play the step into liquid one, but I've got several of the others (T2 1080, and 4 others).

My CPU Utilization would go from 40-something to around 60%. I've got a Gainward 6800GT @ Ultra speeds and a stock Athlon 64 3000+.

Running 66.00 Betas

Ran 3 of the others, all of them being 1080p and CPU hovers around 60%, sometims going as low as 30-something, others as high as 83. It drops below 60 fairly often, and only would go higher for about a frame or two it seems like.

So, the video processor is apparently working on my card?

 

[Zebo]

Yet another reason to not buy these cards.

77-91% here w 66.70's 6800GT


37-45% w/ 5950 same drivers.


My temp does'nt move off 47C ever due to h2o.

 

[rbV5]

So, the video processor is apparently working on my card?

No, the reason "step into liquid" is used in that thread is because of its the most stressfull of the demos. Try that particular demo and report back.

The one at Xbitlabs showed that the video processor was working when using the 65.76 driver

It does not show it working with WMV files, those are all MPEG-2 files including the HD chart. WMV acceleration is not enabled.

 

[yezhou]

Wow this is seriously NOT cool on NVidia's part...:|

 

[NotMrT]

Maby if you have them in sli mode it may work hehe
seriously though how did this manage to slip through , i would imagine it was part of standerd testing

 

[otispunkmeyer]

wel i ju splayed it an tho i never reached 100% with the 1080 clip of step into liquid, the highest i got was 97% still evident its not working, how ever there is no sound ? is there ment to be sound with this clip?

 

[bpt8056]

There should be sound in this clip.

It does not show it working with WMV files, those are all MPEG-2 files including the HD chart. WMV acceleration is not enabled.

I already tested a HDTV playback video and that is definitely not working for me. WMV acceleration is enabled in some of the cards as some users over at nvnews are reporting a 20-40% CPU usage while playing the "Step Into Liquid" video. I suggest you read some of the posts over there, very interesting.

seriously, it says on my box of my 6800 GT that it has a built in video proccessor, there is gonna be a class action about this..............

That's exactly what I was thinking. They're still touting the PVP as one of the main benefits of the 6800 series on their website. Grrr!!

 

[rbV5]

WMV acceleration is enabled in some of the cards as some users over at nvnews are reporting a 20-40% CPU usage while playing the "Step Into Liquid" video. I suggest you read some of the posts over there, very interesting.

I see exactly 1 user claiming low cpu use on "step into liquid", I guess its possible, but his would be the first card that I've heard. BTW, WMV acceleration is yet to be enabled on ATI cards as well, so its not just NV's problem...both camps claim WMV decode acceleration as part of their feature set.

I've tried the 66.70 drivers also. AFAIK, only MPEG decoding is currently enabled, and its fubured (at least MPEG-2 HD) Remeber that PVP is programmable, so all that is reputably required is programming the codec into the processor.

ATI's solution is also programmable using the shader pipeline, and I've seen marketing that shows it working on x700XT...but again, its rumor untill I see it for myself.

IMO, the crap about early chips having a fubured processor is suspect as well..if its true...grrrrr

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
wel i ju splayed it an tho i never reached 100% with the 1080 clip of step into liquid, the highest i got was 97% still evident its not working, how ever there is no sound ? is there ment to be sound with this clip?

Something is wrong if you aren't getting sound because there is auido with the trailer.

P4 HT users will have better results than AMD users, even A64 users, at least from what I've seen so far. I'm not certain if it is due to optimizations for the platform and/or clockspeed dependent, but P4 owners tend to finish the clip with no dropped frames and lower CPU usage=HT@work here? It seems to be just over 2.3ghz that AMD systems get over the proverbial hump and playback flawlessly, but having fastwrites enabled is also necessary for AMD owners with this WMV HD trailer.

I'm using MP10 now with the 66.81's, I dropped my A64 from 2.4 to 2.3ghz, I just played with all the setting under performance-advanced and nothing brought the CPU usage down significantly. I dropped 8 frames@2.3ghz in the same places each run. So, I turn off all the following- the video mixing renderer, drop frames to keep AV in synch, and use video smoothing. Before in WM9 if I turned off video mixing it was terrible, now with that disabled and the other 2 settings turned off as well, I dropped zero frames@2.3ghz. The playback was flawless and the audio and video perfectly synched, as mentioned, CPU usage stayed very high@90% average.

I'm not certain what the video smoothing is all about so if someone can dig up some info on that feature it'd be great Obviously the drop frames to synch AV is self-explanatory, but oddly turning it off resulted in smoother playback due to no frames being dropped while AV stayed perfectly synched.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Just checked that link, the user has a P4 HT that is why his CPU usage is so low

EDIT: of course be certain to use the 1080p version of the trailer when testing, and don't expect the same results from all the trailers because this one seems to be one of the most system taxing among the clips on the content showcase page.

 

[rbV5]

Just checked that link, the user has a P4 HT that is why his CPU usage is so low

I doubt it, thats a huge difference from any other result I've seen. If his CPU use is that really that low, its because of the card, not the CPU.

DAPUNISHER, have you tried using graphedit to check your video playback? Its superior to any other software player in that you can use any registered directshow filter to build filter graphs and check framedrops with any of the renderers. Its a part of the DirectX SDK.

 

[naruto1988]

i tried playing the clips and i'm surprised my system is struggling along. i always thought video cards helped the playback of video. i got amd64 3000+ and radeon 9800 pro (flashed to XT)

edit: oops, i was using media player classic. switched to WMP10 and i had a few frame skips, but that's about it. CPU usage at between 80 and 100%.

 

[rbV5]

Interesting how there are 5 votes claiming theirs is working perfectly, any of those 5 care to elaborate?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: rbV5

Just checked that link, the user has a P4 HT that is why his CPU usage is so low

I doubt it, thats a huge difference from any other result I've seen. If his CPU use is that really that low, its because of the card, not the CPU.

DAPUNISHER, have you tried using graphedit to check your video playback? Its superior to any other software player in that you can use any registered directshow filter to build filter graphs and check framedrops with any of the renderers. Its a part of the DirectX SDK.

I haven't used graphedit before, sounds handy so I'll google it up, thanks!

I doubt it, thats a huge difference from any other result I've seen

A P4 HT CPU can run many apps and yet the CPU usage will show only 50% even with CPU intensive stuff, I got this info from speaking to owners, so if that is the case, and given the actual clockspeed of his CPU, I would lean towards HT being the reason he is seeing sub 50% CPU usage over the PVP. I speculate 3ghz+ P4 HT owners will see sub 50% usage on average even with ATi cards, but time will tell as results are offered up

EDIT: this was posted by Cat in my thread on the subject "Dual 2.8 533 Xeons, 6800 GT. 14% CPU usage in MPC and WMP" That is by far the lowest CPU usage listed I've found. True MP+HT and the CPU usage is almost nothing :Q Draw your own conclusions as to wether MP, HT, or both are effecting playback.

 

[Cat]

Was I running the Step into Liquid video? I can't remember, so I'll rerun it at work on Monday.

 

[Necrolezbeast]

yeh, P4 usage is due to HT. Even while stress testing P4 owners have to run 2 instances of Prime95 to get 100% cpu load, with just one open it caps out at 50%.