GF6 Series Video Processor controversy

[nRollo]

I forwarded some of the negative/hostile chat going on about the 6800 VP to my friend at nVidia as many of you seem most concerned about it.

I can't share what he showed me (my apologies) but it looks like the issues of GF6 series video encoding/decoding with WMV are going to be resolved very soon.

I thought you all would want to know, I would were I as concerned about this issue as some of you seem to be.

I'd imagine if I got to see this stuff on my word you'll all be seeing it soon on AT etc.. Better days ahead for the video community.

 

[darkswordsman17]

My question is, will they do anything to compensate those who already have a card with a broken PVP?

Is the fix through software (drivers or other) or BIOS or is it a hardware thing?

Oh, and BTW, thanks Rollo. Also, its good to hear its being resolved.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: darkswordsman17
My question is, will they do anything to compensate those who already have a card with a broken PVP?

Is the fix through software (drivers or other) or BIOS or is it a hardware thing?

Oh, and BTW, thanks Rollo. Also, its good to hear its being resolved.

From what I understand the PVPs aren't broken, just not being utilised at this point.

I can't really go into details on it, my buddy said this info is all under NDA at this point, but that they do want you guys to know that help is on the way. I was impressed by what I saw.

You're welcome, I know a lot of you are very concerned about this issue and anxious for a resolution. Hopefully I'll get a chance to try it out soon and let you know how I like it. LOL- if you would have told me two months ago when I got the 6800s I'd care about any video that didn't involve pRon I would have doubted you.

Now I've seen that Step Into Liquid trailer more times than a campaign ad.

 

[bpt8056]

That is really good to hear and I appreciate you sharing that information with us. I sure hope nVidia exceeds my expectation when their solution comes out.

 

[tobit]

Yeah thanks for the post Rollo.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Great news.

Its been my only problem with nVidia's new cards. It wouldn't end up being a problem until HD DVDs and videos start showing up more often, so them taking a while doesn't bother me at least, as long as they're fixing it.

Now all you have to do is make sure that they have enough PCI-Ex cards for me to get a dual 6800GT setup.

 

[kylebisme]

I honestly don't care one way or the other, but I'm to glad that those that do have something to hope for.

However Rollo, since you have a freind at Nvidia, please for the love of God try and talk him into getting them to put triple buffering on by default in D3D and give us an option to force it though the drivers in Opengl. I'd be so much happier with my 6800gt if they would do that.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: TheSnowman
I honestly don't care one way or the other, but I'm to glad that those that do have something to hope for.

However Rollo, since you have a freind at Nvidia, please for the love of God try and talk him into getting them to put triple buffering on by default in D3D and give us an option to force it though the drivers in Opengl. I'd be so much happier with my 6800gt if they would do that.

I can forward the suggestion, but I just have a friend that works there (no more influence than you) so I don't know if that will help you.

 

[yezhou]

Wow good stuff!! Thanks Rollo!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Rollo
From what I understand the PVPs aren't broken, just not being utilised at this point.

Is this specifically about the PVP in the 6800 AGP, or only generally speaking about hardware-accelerated video-playback, more specifically about using an NV-branded DX9 card to utilize the shader units to allow for hardware-accelerated "enhanced" DVD/Mpeg video playback? In other words, will it make a darn bit of difference for playing back and/or encoding WMV-HD content, in terms of reducing the load on the host CPU?

I've known that the latter has been in development for some time now, before even this whole 6800 AGP PVP controversy, and that it was intented for inclusion in some upcoming version of NVDVD. I just hope that NVidia isn't using it as a way to cover-up the (alleged) lack of hardware functionality of the 6800 AGP PVP, by releasing it and pointing, "Hey, look! There's your hardware-accelerated video-playback feature!". While that is technically true, it doesn't in any way prove/disprove the defective PVP issue, if it is using the shader-unit hardware for acceleration instead.

What would be really interesting, is to use a kernel-debugger and step through the drivers, and see if the 6600 cards perform differently than the 6800 AGP hardware does. Perhaps someone with both of the cards, and some experience doing this, would be willing to look into this issue in more technical depth?

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: Rollo
[
I can forward the suggestion, but I just have a friend that works there (no more influence than you) so I don't know if that will help you.

At least he might know the right people to bring it up with, which is better than I can do. Thanks in advance if you do get the message to him.

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: Rollo
From what I understand the PVPs aren't broken, just not being utilised at this point.

Is this specifically about the PVP in the 6800 AGP, or only generally speaking about hardware-accelerated video-playback, more specifically about using an NV-branded DX9 card to utilize the shader units to allow for hardware-accelerated "enhanced" DVD/Mpeg video playback? In other words, will it make a darn bit of difference for playing back and/or encoding WMV-HD content, in terms of reducing the load on the host CPU?

From what I've seen /heard, this is all GF6 series GPUs, and will make a big difference playing/encoding WMV-HD content.

I've known that the latter has been in development for some time now, before even this whole 6800 AGP PVP controversy, and that it was intented for inclusion in some upcoming version of NVDVD. I just hope that NVidia isn't using it as a way to cover-up the (alleged) lack of hardware functionality of the 6800 AGP PVP, by releasing it and pointing, "Hey, look! There's your hardware-accelerated video-playback feature!". While that is technically true, it doesn't in any way prove/disprove the defective PVP issue, if it is using the shader-unit hardware for acceleration instead.

What I've seen is in direct contradiction of this, but out of curiosity, why would this matter? If nVidia programmers could figure out a way to make a capacitor on the pcb perform the hardware acceleration, what would you care if the end result was the same offload from the cpu? That doesn't make sense to me:
Your argument is basically: "I don't care if some other area on the chip can perform the advertised functionality with a software update, it only matters to me if the PVP on this card can do it."
Unless you work at ATI, or expect to be using the shaders to play HL2 while you're encoding your home movies?

What would be really interesting, is to use a kernel-debugger and step through the drivers, and see if the 6600 cards perform differently than the 6800 AGP hardware does. Perhaps someone with both of the cards, and some experience doing this, would be willing to look into this issue in more technical depth?

Again, what would the difference here be?
The 6600s are a later design than the 6800s. If they had a more advanced PVP, would that be a bad thing? If the 6800 can offload 50% of the processing work and the 6600s do 65%, I personally wouldn't consider this the crime of the century.

If you do, you should start rallying all the 9700Pro owners to start storming the gates of ATI- their GPUs have a smaller instruction set and less efficient occlusion culling than the 9800Pro! Willikers!

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Thanks for staying on this brudda :beer: All I have asked for from the beginning is answers, so getting some is very mollifying.

 

[James3shin]

rollo deserves a :thumbsup::wine::beer:

 

[imported_Harbinger]

/me prays to see that cpu util bellow 100%

 

[Marsumane]

Wow thanks for the update. I was curious as to what was to become of this.

 

[rbV5]

I hope its true, thanks.

 

[nRollo]

You are all welcome, happy to help if I can.

 

[Ice27181]

Well, were'nt we told that nVidia would bring some new driver with at least some VP capabilities on the 8th of November (i.e. in 3 days)?
This wouldn't be trying to buy some time here, would it?!
And finally, if nVidia knew it could deliver what it promised and considering that the lack of VP problem got rahter popular by now, wouldn't nVidia just release some official confirmation of their "glorious hardware VP" soon to come?!!

 

[reever]

When has nvidia not said "help is on the way" to any problem?

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: RolloAgain, what would the difference here be?
The 6600s are a later design than the 6800s. If they had a more advanced PVP, would that be a bad thing? If the 6800 can offload 50% of the processing work and the 6600s do 65%, I personally wouldn't consider this the crime of the century.

If you do, you should start rallying all the 9700Pro owners to start storming the gates of ATI- their GPUs have a smaller instruction set and less efficient occlusion culling than the 9800Pro! Willikers!

The only problem with that line of thinking is that the 6800 is a high-end part and the 6600 is a mid-range chip.

 

[chinkgai]

i know this is off topic, but are ati x8 series card owners screwed? or do they have something similar on their cards?

 

[Acanthus]

Tell your friend at NVIDIA to stop selling all the pci express high end cards to dell and alienware ><

 

[CrystalBay]

Thanks Rollo...

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Ice27181
Well, were'nt we told that nVidia would bring some new driver with at least some VP capabilities on the 8th of November (i.e. in 3 days)?
This wouldn't be trying to buy some time here, would it?!
And finally, if nVidia knew it could deliver what it promised and considering that the lack of VP problem got rahter popular by now, wouldn't nVidia just release some official confirmation of their "glorious hardware VP" soon to come?!!

One word. Valium.