PureVideo FAQs: Will be updated as necessary.

[McArra]

67.03 also supports PVP, they were the first PVP enabled drivers.

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: McArra
67.03 also supports PVP, they were the first PVP enabled drivers.

However they were not the first official ones from Nvidia and anytime we are testing real issues we should stick with official drivers....

I have seen many drivers have newer numbers now and actually be older then official ones with lower numbers....Gets confusing...

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: Duvie

Originally posted by: McArra
67.03 also supports PVP, they were the first PVP enabled drivers.

However they were not the first official ones from Nvidia and anytime we are testing real issues we should stick with official drivers....

I have seen many drivers have newer numbers now and actually be older then official ones with lower numbers....Gets confusing...

yes nvidias driver team are getting abit too happy with the numbers....its like they just discovered base 10!

 

[mdahc]

Please keep the bludgeonings light...I have read and searched through the various threads concerning the 6800 series' video processor. However, I still cannot seem to get a straight answer on whether or not the PCIe 6800 standard supports PureVideo (i.e. DVD decoding and WMVHD decoding). I could have sworn that I read somewhere that it (the PCIe version only) does (not just the half-a$$ed to non-existant support of the AGP version). Is this not true?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

mdahc, The DVD Decoding definitely works, wether the HD decoding if functional, and if so to what extent is still unknown and will evidently remain so until we get the necessary DLLs.

Anyone have feedback on xtknight's suggestion for the FAQs? Yea or nay?

I think Duvie makes a good point about the Drivers so I will hold off on compiling a list of PureVideo supporting beta drivers since users are free to experiment with them on their own Also, I haven't read anything more about the X-bits claim yet either so if there is any new development hopefully someone will have the skinny on it and post up.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

yeah i think from all the threads and articles, i think that at the moment the only broken feature is the wmvHD decode. i mean DVD decoding is fine right? and then its up to the other guys who develope divx and xvid and other MPEG4 codecs to get there asses into gear to provide support for their codecs on nvidias hardware. so DivX and Xvid encode decode still has the possibility to happen

of course feel free to correct me

edit: oh my, they are alive!!! just installed the winDVD that came with my 6800GT, and began playing gumball 3000 the movie, cpu usage was about 35-45% on my A64 3200, this seems quite a taxing DVD,basically lots of "Handy Cam" filming (due to the nature of the film), beautiful engine notes, and lots fast paced things being filmed so i guess that makes the cpu work harder. turned on the hardware decode and wow, cpu time is down from a max of around 50, to a max of only 20. probably not as good quality wise as the NV DVD decoders but damn good all the same. roll on DIVX support!

just asking, does the hardware decode feature in WinDVD do deinterlacing by anychance? havent watched this DVD for a while, but dang it looks well sharp

 

[otispunkmeyer]

erm i know this is OT, but i see in WinDVD that it says my audio device is a default direct sound device with 8 channels and 48Khz sample freq.

now i have a Audigy 2 OEM, not ZS or PRO or what ever, this came in a static bag, and with a CD, i havent updated the creative drivers from the ones on the disc, as tbh creative arent too clear whats what, and what i need. but this card is a 6.1 not 7.1 or even 8.1, but it has everything else the ZS has barr the the extra 2dB signal to noise.

i mean sound is coming out of my audigy, and onboard audio is turned off in bios, but this just seems wierd that it thinks its possibly using my onboard

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: mdahc
Please keep the bludgeonings light...I have read and searched through the various threads concerning the 6800 series' video processor. However, I still cannot seem to get a straight answer on whether or not the PCIe 6800 standard supports PureVideo (i.e. DVD decoding and WMVHD decoding). I could have sworn that I read somewhere that it (the PCIe version only) does (not just the half-a$$ed to non-existant support of the AGP version). Is this not true?

Yes. The PCIe 6800 standard supports every single PureVideo feature that is listed on nVidia's site, just like the 6600GT PCIe. We just have to wait for it to be enabled by Microsoft's updated WMV DLLs, which will enable it on the PCIe version only, because that's the only version of the 6800 standard that supports it. The only thing the 6800 standard AGP lacks is hardware accelerated WMV decoding. Please read the post I made above and click the PureVideo Support link if you want the complete details.

Thanks for making this thread DAPUNISHER. I'm surprised it hasn't turned into a barbeque even yet.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
yeah i think from all the threads and articles, i think that at the moment the only broken feature is the wmvHD decode. i mean DVD decoding is fine right? and then its up to the other guys who develope divx and xvid and other MPEG4 codecs to get there asses into gear to provide support for their codecs on nvidias hardware. so DivX and Xvid encode decode still has the possibility to happen

of course feel free to correct me

edit: oh my, they are alive!!! just installed the winDVD that came with my 6800GT, and began playing gumball 3000 the movie, cpu usage was about 35-45% on my A64 3200, this seems quite a taxing DVD,basically lots of "Handy Cam" filming (due to the nature of the film), beautiful engine notes, and lots fast paced things being filmed so i guess that makes the cpu work harder. turned on the hardware decode and wow, cpu time is down from a max of around 50, to a max of only 20. probably not as good quality wise as the NV DVD decoders but damn good all the same. roll on DIVX support!

just asking, does the hardware decode feature in WinDVD do deinterlacing by anychance? havent watched this DVD for a while, but dang it looks well sharp

Amazing. Do we finally have a success story? Do you have the nvDVD hardware decoder installed? Well I'm not an expert on DVDs, but yet it does do deinterlace. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to watch it, unless it was progressive, which it could be. Who knows?

 

[rbV5]

However, that doesn't mean that Multimedia Center is the problem. I believe it uses Video for Windows for capturing video, rather than DirectShow like Windows Movie Maker.

ATI Multimedia Center uses DirectShow not Video for Windows. You could have a conflict or bug with the software, but I've noticed no issues with my ATI tuners using NV DVD decoders, and my HDTV Wonder (both the analog side and digital) worked fine with my 6800 and 71.24drivers using NV DVD decoders.

"Purevideo" needs supported software, so its not even used when you use ATI's MMC.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: rbV5

However, that doesn't mean that Multimedia Center is the problem. I believe it uses Video for Windows for capturing video, rather than DirectShow like Windows Movie Maker.

ATI Multimedia Center uses DirectShow not Video for Windows. You could have a conflict or bug with the software, but I've noticed no issues with my ATI tuners using NV DVD decoders, and my HDTV Wonder (both the analog side and digital) worked fine with my 6800 and 71.24drivers using NV DVD decoders.

"Purevideo" needs supported software, so its not even used when you use ATI's MMC.

Odd. I also notice crappy deinterlacing in comparison to my other rig. I could have sworn that had something to do with it. I'm really not sure what else it could be. Are you sure it's not possible it defaulted to a DXVA pixel format? I think that's what invokes PureVideo, but as always, I could be wrong. I'll go experiment with GraphEdit and try to reproduce the bad banding.

 

[zakee00]

link
i took this while playing LOTR. for some reason, printscreen didn't capture the movie playing, but i assure you, it was.
purevideo is obviously working in this pic, as my normal idle/windows temps for my GPU are 52C. CPU useage was very low, it stayed at 0% and occasionaly jumped up to 5-10% for just a second.
im using the modded 67.66 drivers, and a 6800GT@ultra speeds. I don't have nvidias decoder, and hardware acceleration was checked in the options panel, along with an effect, which should increase the CPU/GPU utilization even more

stickify this thread
BTW, has anyone tried ENCODING with their 6xxx card? I'm sure alot of people want to know about that too. Maybe add that as a question?

 

[rbV5]

Are you sure it's not possible it defaulted to a DXVA pixel format?

DXVA is supported depending on the hardware class and graphics driver support. Provided you have driver support, DX9 class hardware supports DXVA if the calls are made. So, the banding is probably just a software/driver issue, since the different softwares are handling it differently. Graphedit should show that.

Purevideo is the combination of hardware (NV40+) and software (Supported Drivers + Supported Software) to support specific hardware features according to Nvidia.

My AIW 9700 supports hardware acceleration using NV DVD decoders for instance. If I uncheck hardware acceleration, cpu usage goes up to 27% to 35% with a typical MPEG-2 recording of SDTV, checking "hardware acceleration" drops the cpu use down to between 5% and 18% on the same file.

Is my AIW 9700pro using "purevideo"? No, but its definately using DXVA to accelerate video using Nvidias decoders as shown by the decoder properties and performance testing with similar results to my 6800.

I suspect much of Purevideo's assist will be simply due to DXVA and the shader pipeline anyway rather than the PVP itself "depending" on what chip you have. Thats probably why my ATI and Nvidia cards have similar cpu utilization on the same media using the same software...even Nvidias own DVD decoders.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: rbV5

Are you sure it's not possible it defaulted to a DXVA pixel format?

DXVA is supported depending on the hardware class and graphics driver support. Provided you have driver support, DX9 class hardware supports DXVA if the calls are made. So, the banding is probably just a software/driver issue, since the different softwares are handling it differently. Graphedit should show that.

Purevideo is the combination of hardware (NV40+) and software (Supported Drivers + Supported Software) to support specific hardware features according to Nvidia.

My AIW 9700 supports hardware acceleration using NV DVD decoders for instance. If I uncheck hardware acceleration, cpu usage goes up to 27% to 35% with a typical MPEG-2 recording of SDTV, checking "hardware acceleration" drops the cpu use down to between 5% and 18% on the same file.

Is my AIW 9700pro using "purevideo"? No, but its definately using DXVA to accelerate video using Nvidias decoders as shown by the decoder properties and performance testing with similar results to my 6800.

I suspect much of Purevideo's assist will be simply due to DXVA and the shader pipeline anyway rather than the PVP itself "depending" on what chip you have. Thats probably why my ATI and Nvidia cards have similar cpu utilization on the same media using the same software...even Nvidias own DVD decoders.

Thanks for explaining it all in depth. I'm still confused about the encoding though.. I thought that was permanently dead. I'll do some graphediting later tonight.

 

[rbV5]

i mean DVD decoding is fine right? and then its up to the other guys who develope divx and xvid and other MPEG4 codecs to get there asses into gear to provide support for their codecs on nvidias hardware. so DivX and Xvid encode decode still has the possibility to happen

I think you have that backward. While initially we were led to believe that Video decoding would be transparent to the user, currently Nvidias own decoders are required to access "purevideo" MPEG decoding features.

It won't be any different will other video formats. Nvidia will need to code the chips for the codec support, and they will then have to provide the access to the codecs. Whether that will be through more Nvidia decoders (think pay for each decoder for each video format), or some kind of licensing, or whether it will simply intercept the calls from the CPU transparently remains to be seen. If Nvidia doesn't do it, it isn't going to get done.

 

[rbV5]

I'm still confused about the encoding though.. I thought that was permanently dead.

I've never seen a Nvidia statement saying that. I do think there will be different features for different chips going forward. They could decide that they went in the wrong direction with the next gen and drop it completely, or come out with something that really offers some exciting functionality....or anything in between. The NV40/NV45 cards might be "what you see now, is what you get"

 

[DAPUNISHER]

^

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: zakee00
link
i took this while playing LOTR. for some reason, printscreen didn't capture the movie playing, but i assure you, it was.
purevideo is obviously working in this pic, as my normal idle/windows temps for my GPU are 52C. CPU useage was very low, it stayed at 0% and occasionaly jumped up to 5-10% for just a second.
im using the modded 67.66 drivers, and a 6800GT@ultra speeds. I don't have nvidias decoder, and hardware acceleration was checked in the options panel, along with an effect, which should increase the CPU/GPU utilization even more

stickify this thread
BTW, has anyone tried ENCODING with their 6xxx card? I'm sure alot of people want to know about that too. Maybe add that as a question?

58 degrees? you must have a cooler card than mine

i used WinDVD, the nvdecoders are uninstalled on my system (30 days is up) my graphics card idles at 56 degrees ish and the temp while playing Gumball 3000 went up to 62 so thats a 6 degree increase...something is working wether its the PVP or just the pixel pipe lines its working

and again cpu time down from a high of 45-50 to 20%

 

[DAPUNISHER]

^

 

[zakee00]

linky
proof
yeah, my card idles fairly low (default GT voltages btw) but it gets up to 78C load in RTHDRIBL. thats with 100% stock cooling btw.
the dvd decoding was diffenately working (<10% CPU, usually was at 0%), and i tried Step Into Liquid (1080i) today and i was getting about 60% average CPU useage (fullscreen 12x9). but, thats with a really fast proc...Winnie@ 2.65GHz.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: zakee00
linky
proof
yeah, my card idles fairly low (default GT voltages btw) but it gets up to 78C load in RTHDRIBL. thats with 100% stock cooling btw.
the dvd decoding was diffenately working (<10% CPU, usually was at 0%), and i tried Step Into Liquid (1080i) today and i was getting about 60% average CPU useage (fullscreen 12x9). but, thats with a really fast proc...Winnie@ 2.65GHz.

seems you just have a cooler overall computer, in my stuffy litttle uni dig i get idle temps of 56, back home where theres a fresh supply of freezing cold north sea air filtering through my window things look much better

i have a A64 3200 @ stock, i havent tried another dvd yet, gumball 3000 is the only one i have on me that is a DVD, the rest of my movies are DviX'd

the gumball dvd is pretty taxingit seems for a dvd, and i think it is just the nature of the film, not very many still shots, its all jerky handy cam actions, and filming people driving fast. ill see if i can pick up a more sedate dvd, maybe then ill get down to 0% cpu time, and well if that doesnt show its working i dunno what does.

so u played step into liquid through what? WinDVD? powerdvd?

 

[rbV5]

ill see if i can pick up a more sedate dvd, maybe then ill get down to 0% cpu time, and well if that doesnt show its working i dunno what does.

A comparison of a similar DX class hardware graphics card not equiped the PVP using the same software might give you a decent idea. DXVA alone will reduce the cpu load using NV Decoders even on ATI hardware, and the shader pipeline working to decode video will heat up the VPU without using the PVP as well.

 

[zakee00]

so u played step into liquid through what? WinDVD? powerdvd?

windows media player 10
edit: i just monitored my temps while playing SIL and they went up a ton!!!






















cpu temps, that is

 

[xtknight]

Sorry I'm kind of getting off-topic, but I'm still having problems with my TV tuner, which through process of elimination I have determined the problem as being either the ForceWare drivers or PureVideo. Since the drivers themselves are almost identical (for video purposes) except for the PureVideo function, I basically have to blame PureVideo. The bands of corrupt video do not occur in Microsoft AMCap (DirectShow) or VidCap32 (Video for Windows), or on anything with the older release drivers.

If someone could tell me how to disable PureVideo, or where the f@#$ the control panel for it is (like the one shown in the Anandtech article), that would be greatly appreciated. This is annoying me to no limits.

 

[rbV5]

Sorry I'm kind of getting off-topic, but I'm still having problems with my TV tuner,

Troubleshooting your issue should probably be done in your own thread, this is the Purevideo FAQ thread. Have you just tried different drivers?

or where the f@#$ the control panel for it is

The NV DVD decoder control panel is in the system tray when it is being used. Double click on it to access the property sheet. Again it is only supported in supported software, if its not in the tray...its not being used.