GeForce 6 series video processor OFFICIAL THREAD

[bpt8056]

The truth on nVidia's video processor published here on Anandtech.

Link

 

[DeeSlanger]

I doubt they will be able to fix it, then what can we do?

 

[rbV5]

So there is a problem on the 6800 PVP, and a "fixed" version is on 6600/6200 cards. Thanks to Anand for getting the straight scoop (at least the details he could) Personally, I'm disappointed at this little bit O'news..

NVIDIA is currently aiming to have us a functional driver and codec that will enable the Video Processor and take advantage of its capabilities in the next month or so; given that the feature has already been on cards (in one form or another) for 6 months now, we're just going to have to wait and see.

 

[SynthDude2001]

So....basically it was something Nvidia never bothered to make work right? :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown:

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: bpt8056
The truth on nVidia's video processor published here on Anandtech.

Link

Most excellent! Anand getting involved and pursuing this matter with gusto was the best we could hope for! :beer: nV won't be able to squirm out of this one now!

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: rbV5
So there is a problem on the 6800 PVP, and a "fixed" version is on 6600/6200 cards. Thanks to Anand for getting the straight scoop (at least the details he could) Personally, I'm disappointed at this little bit O'news..

NVIDIA is currently aiming to have us a functional driver and codec that will enable the Video Processor and take advantage of its capabilities in the next month or so; given that the feature has already been on cards (in one form or another) for 6 months now, we're just going to have to wait and see.

They probably need the time to spin this in a manner that will provide the best damage control :frown: I will be greatly surprised if they manage to provide drivers that will get the decoding working well, and truly :shocked: if they show a substantial boost with any type of encoding. I certainly hope they pull it off for our sakes and theirs'.

 

[lordtyranus]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER

Originally posted by: rbV5
So there is a problem on the 6800 PVP, and a "fixed" version is on 6600/6200 cards. Thanks to Anand for getting the straight scoop (at least the details he could) Personally, I'm disappointed at this little bit O'news..

NVIDIA is currently aiming to have us a functional driver and codec that will enable the Video Processor and take advantage of its capabilities in the next month or so; given that the feature has already been on cards (in one form or another) for 6 months now, we're just going to have to wait and see.

They probably need the time to spin this in a manner that will provide the best damage control :frown: I will be greatly surprised if they manage to provide drivers that will get the decoding working well, and truly :shocked: if they show a substantial boost with any type of encoding. I certainly hope they pull it off for our sakes and theirs'.

WTF? The PVP works on their lowend cards but not the 6800 series? :|

Fvcking BS. One of the reasons to own a 6800 card is for the PVP. Those of us with Athlon processors (XP here), can't play that Step into Liquid video properly. I (and I assume everyone else) don't give a damn about DVD and mpeg-2 encoding that can be done on a 1 ghz CPU, its the 1080i HD that I care about.

If they gave us a borked product, its time for them to replace the card IMO.

 

[bpt8056]

To be honest, I was extremely disappointed when I read what Anand wrote. I am absolutely disgusted that nVidia was promoting something that didn't work in the first place and decided to be discreet about it. The PVP feature was one of the main reasons I bought this card. I know this won't do anything, but I am going to write to nVidia about this. I think we should at least an official apology from them and that would be a start but I wouldn't hold my breath.

I'm no lawyer, but does anybody know if this is enough for a class-action lawsuit?

 

[DeeSlanger]

They ,"Nvidia" are prolly hopeing by next fall or winter everyone will just fugidaboudit and buy a new "High End Next Gen GPU" with working PVP...

Fool me once shame on me

 

[lordtyranus]

Someone should write an open letter to Nvidia complaining about the lack of the PVP. Then we could all sign it.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Yep, at the very least nV has intentionally misled us to believe we would get this killer new video processing tech on our 6800 series cards while knowing they couldn't deliver any time soon, if at all. I'm not a happy camper about this, and nV had better fix this with drivers or BFG will be replacing my GT with another if/when they start manufacturing one with a functioning PVP on it. I'll also be of the mind that a class action and/or e-mail campaigns will be in order if they don't make good.

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: lordtyranus
Someone should write an open letter to Nvidia complaining about the lack of the PVP. Then we could all sign it.

Go for it, we can help with editing and then create a petition thread so someone can email it to Nvidia and show them how many people they've pissed off. We should probably add up the total we've all spent on NV40 based cards to show how much money they've ticked off.

 

[rbV5]

One of the biggest problems is that without the PVP working, the 6800 handles video processing poorly compared to prior gen and post gen NV parts. Luckily, if you have a powerful enough CPU (or HT with Intel) you can at least decode WMV HD, but I'm affraid instead of being a leader...the best it'll ever be is "almost" adequate.

First the Forceware Multimedia Suite nonsense, and now this. I'm not a happy camper, and I can only imagine what kind of magic fix they are going to have for this, I'm sure they didn't just now realize its FU. Damn it

 

[lordtyranus]

Originally posted by: MDE

Originally posted by: lordtyranus
Someone should write an open letter to Nvidia complaining about the lack of the PVP. Then we could all sign it.

Go for it, we can help with editing and then create a petition thread so someone can email it to Nvidia and show them how many people they've pissed off. We should probably add up the total we've all spent on NV40 based cards to show how much money they've ticked off.

I don't really have the writing skills needed; but I'll give it a thought. Meanwhile, I'd wait until we hear from a couple lawyers here somewhere on how strong our case is.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

CPU was at 24% the whole time and I got no audio and VERY choppy video

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Complain about it here

http://support.nvidia.com/Cont...rt.asp?RequestTypeID=1

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: bpt8056
The truth on nVidia's video processor published here on Anandtech.

Link

That does not look good for people who want this feature and Nvidia who could actually face a class action lawsuit over this.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

So, do the 6600GT cards feature a "fixed" processor, like the Anandtech article says, or not?

 

[Ronin]

Here are my results. Average CPU usage was around 80%, rarely went above, and dipped below several times, to a low of about 65%

http://server.counter-strike.net/images/misc/sil.png

 

[rbV5]

I've sent a letter off to eVGA and awaiting their response, I suggest everyone else do the same if it matters at all to them. I can't come up with a scenerio where the boardmakers themselves wouldn't be completely aware of this issue, but I'll give eVGA a chance to get back to me.

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: RadiclDreamer
Complain about it here

http://support.nvidia.com/Cont...rt.asp?RequestTypeID=1

That's for NVDVD support.

 

[lordtyranus]

Well, I went ahead and typed something up. Like I said before, I am not much of a writer, so this will require a good deal of editing.






Dear Nvidia,
I am the recent owner of a Geforce 6800 class graphics card purchased in the last few months. Upon the purchase of my video card, I was informed that there would be an on-chip video processor to assist the CPU in several types of video processing. Your own website mentions this video processor here:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/feature_on-chip-video.html

Here are links to various news sites reporting this programmable video processor back in April.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...o/display/nv40_11.html
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2023&p=7

This video processor unfortunately does not seem to be taking any real load off of the CPU. Hardware enthusiasts at the anandtech.com and nvnews.net forums have been testing the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the video processor in playback of the new WMV HD format. Various official and beta drivers have been tested with no success.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...8216&enterthread=y
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=37673

The new WMV HD format is extremely CPU intensive. Those of us with Athlon processors in the neighborhood of 2.1 ghz (rated at 3 ghz equivalent) are unable to maintain completely fluid playback of WMV HD, especially in its 1080i form. A 3 ghz processor is certainly no slouch, and far above the average consumer today. Our testing shows that anyone without a Hyperthreading capable processor has some difficulty in viewing the video. Lesser formats like Mpeg-2 are easily decoded with slower CPUs and thus are of less concern to the end user. If you wish to test this for yourself, try downloading the Step Into Liquid trailer here.

http://wmvhd.com/

Anandtech has recently written an article about the Video Processor. The opening paragraph is quoted below:

?When NVIDIA launched NV40, they were very quick to tout a huge hunk of transistors on the chip, which they called the NV40 Video Processor. This "Video Processor" was composed of more than 20 million transistors and NVIDIA was proud to announce that they put more transistors into NV40's Video Processor than they did in the entire original GeForce 256 chip itself. NVIDIA promised quite a bit with the Video Processor. They promised full hardware accelerated MPEG1/2 and WMV9 encoding and decoding at 1080i resolutions. What it meant was that our CPU video encoding tests would be a thing of the past - a slow CPU paired with any graphics card featuring NVIDIA's Video Processor would be able to handle even the most tasking video encoding without a problem. NVIDIA originally told us that they would have a driver which could take advantage of the processor 2 weeks after the launch of the GeForce 6800 Ultra. We even pressured NVIDIA to work on getting support for the Video Processor in the DiVX codec, since it's quite popular with our readers. The launch came and went, as did the two weeks with nothing from NVIDIA.?

Hexus.net has released a benchmark detailing CPU utilization while running WMV HD video under various video cards. In the benchmarks, it is quite clear that the 6800 series of cards is doing nothing to relieve the CPU workload, while the 6600 series is.

http://www.anandtech.com/video...oc.aspx?i=2238&p=2
http://www.hexus.net/content/r...04NTMmdXJsX3BhZ2U9MTM=

Frankly, it is highly unreasonable and unfair to your customers to have this feature enabled on mainstream cards and absent on your more expensive flagship cards. Those of us with Geforce 6800 series of cards paid at least $250 for the standard 6800. Due to the low supply for the first several months, many customers have purchased their cards at over MSRP. The most attractive card of the 3, the 6800 GT, was extremely difficult to find at its $400 MSRP until recently.

One of the primary reasons I chose a 6800 series of cards was for this video processor. There was little, if any, performance advantage of the 6800 GT and Ultra cards over their x800 counterparts, with the exception of Doom 3. The video processor was possibly the only way those of us with AMD and non-Hyperthreading Intel processors could give a fluid level of WMV HD performance. Numerous benchmarks have shown the Athlon XP and 64 processors to provide superior gaming performance over their intel HT-capable counterparts, thus the majority of gaming enthusiasts own AMD processors.

This is a serious case of false advertising of your product. For several months the enthusiast community has urged you to enable support for the video processor, with no response. I have been a customer of Nvidia and their manufacturers for years now, and have held the company and its products in high regard. I would prefer not to do anything to terminate our relationship. I will say right now that I will NOT be buying another Nvidia graphics card until this issue is resolved.

Signed,
<insert name here>

 

[Algere]

Well said

 

[DBoy00]

AMD Athlon 64 3200+
DFI Lanparty nforce3 250GB
OCZ 3200+ RAM
Leadtek A400 TDH Geforce 6800

Running the test i got 65-75% (usually at 69%) cpu usage during the test. The temperature went up by 1 degree, from 54°C->55°C. The video, Step into Liquid, ran completely smooth at full screen.

 

[Genx87]

Well written.

We need to have the reviewers put pressure on Nvidia to come up with an answer and solution to this. It doesnt matter to me because I have an AIW card. But to ship something that has a known defect is not good business practices.