Nvidia's Programmable Video Processor

[rbV5]

Still eagerly awaiting some review of the capabilities of Nvidia's new video processor, any word on when it will be implemented?

 

[gunblade]

As you probably already aware, it needs driver to expose its capability. In a time when their card is getting beaten, I don't think the video processor will be high on their driver's priority list. Performance enhancement and compiler's static loop unrolling will definitely get higher priority over this cool feature. So, probably until everything kind of settling down, we can't expect anything that is not already there, ie I heard it worked in Linux and partially in Opengl.

Hopefully we will see it soon.

 

[yhelothar]

wait for official det 60s..

 

[darkswordsman17]

The X800 has a video processor too. I think even the Pro version does, which only the 6800 Ultra has it, so that's another thing to consider when comparing the lower cards. Once they start taking advantage of these it will be awesome. The cards could function as tv tuner/capture cards. Also, since they can take the signal and convert it on the fly, it'lle be nice to take a lower end card (say a Winfast TV2000 Expert like I have) and make it put out in HDTV. I've been wanting to make use of my component cables for my Xbox and Gamecube and if properly supported then I'll be able to run them into the card and have them convert to HDTV as well (compare buying a $500 graphics card to an over $1000 HDTV). Very cool things. In fact, I don't know that I could justify paying the price for one of these new cards without the feature. I think that both companies have thus far overlooked the importance of this feature, they should be promoting it more. I might even go as far as to say that implementing this might be the deciding factor on who "wins" this round of the graphics wars. Like me, it'll be easier for people to justify paying a steep price for a card that is not only the best graphics card but can do so much more.

Sadly, I agree that implementation of this feature is lacking and will most likely continue to be for at least a little while longer. I'd say they'll probably take time out for it after the big hoopla over the new cards is done (this would include going to PCI-E), so I'm gonna say maybe late summer, early fall. Then again who knows, and also I'm sure there's plenty of people out there who would love to make use of this feature and so maybe 3rd parties will develop something.

Just my thought on this (can you tell I've been excited about this feature since I heard it was going to be on the card(s)? I was even deadset on nVidia because it seemed as though ATi wasn't going to do the same (I thought AIW cards), but thankfully they did and so competition will likely breed innovation).

 

[Mingon]

The nvidia PVP is much more advnced then ATI's according to people on the Beyond3d forum. Ati's capabilities are dependant on Pixel shaders for their cpabilities instead of being an independant 'fixed' part. It is interesting that the PVP is clock independant in that it can run faster e.g. 400mhz in a slower part.

 

[LTC8K6]

It is interesting that the PVP is clock independant in that it can run faster e.g. 400mhz in a slower part.

How much power will this PVP chip draw?

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: LTC8K6

It is interesting that the PVP is clock independant in that it can run faster e.g. 400mhz in a slower part.

How much power will this PVP chip draw?

Enough to make every hair on your body stand up.

 

[LTC8K6]

Well, everybody was wondering about NV's PS recommendation because reviewers didn't seem to need a big PS. I thought maybe it has to do with this not being used yet.

 

[rbV5]

I don't think the video processor will be high on their driver's priority list

Why wouldn't it be? Its a highly touted feature and the cards will be shipping in a couple weeks if not sooner. Its not like they have but 2 guys writing code either. Its a bit suprising to me they didn't have it working at all for the test cards, but I'm guessing if they had something to show, they would be showing it off now to at least rain a little on ATI's parade this week. They must have run into some issues or it would be ready, hopefully its a software issue rather than a hardware problem.

Another possible scenario is that they are simply waiting for Forceware Multimedia Suite (Nvidia's in-house suite of multimedia applications). Its several months late now, so perhaps we'll see it and the features implemented soon. I've been waiting for Forceware for longer than NV40 (last fall) It looks to be pretty sweet for the feature set, and NVDVD is a very good DVD software in its own right.

Has it been confirmed that it is only available on the Ultra cards only? That would be a shame if its true, as it should be a great feature for the lower powered cards also (maybe even more so).

Here's X-bit labs take on the PVP, I notice they mention shader pipeline support The video processor doesn?t seem to be an independent functional unit. It is more likely that the pixel processor of the NV40 bears the load of processing video. This is our supposition, though, as NVIDIA haven?t yet clarified the situation. Which seems to contradict other previews which show the VPU out of the processing loop for Video acceleration.

Link

 

[paperfist]

I thought this was standard on NV40 based cards and for ATi you'd have to purchase an AIW version. I must of read the wrong ATi reviews on encoding...

 

[rbV5]

B3D's preview shows the VPU (shader pipeline) out of the loop. Looks like CPU and PVP doing the work.
Link

I thought this was standard on NV40 based cards and for ATi you'd have to purchase an AIW version. I must of read the wrong ATi reviews on encoding...

It could be, I know accelerated decoding is available on all the ATI cards, with the formats dependant on the GPU or VPU, and some only with enabled players. I'm not sure about the new line though. It would be nice if the entire NV40 line was equipped with the PVP, it would make the less powerful cards more attractive for entertainment PC's, or video editing rigs without having to pony up for an ultra.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Lets hope they do put it on the lower end cards. Hopefully ATi won't relegate use of their features to only the AIW cards. Maybe they'll just do away with the putting the inputs on the card itself and have an adapter that accepts coax cable/ant. and all the other video inputs (hopefully component in too) and this way instead of being gouged in price and being stuck if you want to keep the tuning capabilities but want to upgrade the card.

 

[Mingon]

Originally posted by: rbV5
B3D's preview shows the VPU (shader pipeline) out of the loop. Looks like CPU and PVP doing the work.
Link

I thought this was standard on NV40 based cards and for ATi you'd have to purchase an AIW version. I must of read the wrong ATi reviews on encoding...

It could be, I know accelerated decoding is available on all the ATI cards, with the formats dependant on the GPU or VPU, and some only with enabled players. I'm not sure about the new line though. It would be nice if the entire NV40 line was equipped with the PVP, it would make the less powerful cards more attractive for entertainment PC's, or video editing rigs without having to pony up for an ultra.

It depends on the chip, the nv40 manufactured at IBM all consist of 222million transistors, according to a recent interview with an nvdia person the extra count over the ATi card is due to shader vs3.0 and the VPU. The 12pipe card is (theoretically) the same chip except for 1 set of quads (4 pipes) disabled so it should still have the PVP onboard. What will be interesting is if the 180million 12 pipe part manufactured at TSMC (nv40 pro or perhaps nv41) has the same functionality. Personally I dont see any reason why nvidia wouldnt be working on it as a priority. The ability to encode at high frame rates on a low cpu is a 'massive' bonus.

 

[rbV5]

The 12pipe card is (theoretically) the same chip except for 1 set of quads (4 pipes) disabled so it should still have the PVP onboard.

According to Tom's, you're correct NVIDIA's GeForce 6800 as well all other versions of the NV4x graphics processor come with a separate, programmable video processor. Think of it as a chip within a chip which will handle video acceleration functions and also sports a real video hardware encoder/decoder.
Link

So if I'm understanding this correctly, the PVP is an independant part of the NV40 core (so of course, anything could be disabled, I guess?) and is able to run at independant seperate clockspeed from the VPU? rather than an actual. seperate chip.

Forceware Multimedia Suite may very well what they are waiting on to expose the funtionality. Also, apparently for encoding, special software will be required In the case of MPEG 1/2/4 encoding, however, special software is required. Adobe has already announced support in upcoming versions of the After Effects suite. which seems odd to me, (not even considering the equally odd choice of After Effects) Perhaps Lars has some of the finer points wrong.