What is the most powerful nVidia chip that has VPE?

StormRider

Diamond Member
Mar 12, 2000
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VPE is nVidia's Video Processing Engine that used in the MX 420/440 chips. They supposedly offer even more support for hardware accelerated DVD playback than even ATI's chips. Basically they have something called Inverse Quantization or something. Anyways, I was always dissapointed that the more powerful Geforce4 did not have this.

Now I'm wondering if any of the FX chips have VPE. Does anyone know?
 

mfs378

Senior member
May 19, 2003
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Does it really matter? I think the reason those low-end cards have it is because they are usually paired up with less powerful PCs. With a decent computer and a 'standard' non-VPE video card, you should be fine.
 

XZeroII

Lifer
Jun 30, 2001
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It just takes some of the load off the CPU. If you have a decent CPU and motherboard, you don't need to worry about it.
 

StormRider

Diamond Member
Mar 12, 2000
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I just like the idea of the video card doing all the DVD processing. I'm hoping the 5200 FX series have VPE but I can't tell from nVidia's website.
 

Booster

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May 4, 2002
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Originally posted by: StormRider
I just like the idea of the video card doing all the DVD processing. I'm hoping the 5200 FX series have VPE but I can't tell from nVidia's website.

Get a different card then, for example, ATI or other non-nVidia, like Matrox.
 

StormRider

Diamond Member
Mar 12, 2000
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Originally posted by: Booster
Originally posted by: StormRider
I just like the idea of the video card doing all the DVD processing. I'm hoping the 5200 FX series have VPE but I can't tell from nVidia's website.

Get a different card then, for example, ATI or other non-nVidia, like Matrox.

But I read somewhere that nVidia's VPE actually does more hardware acceleration than ATI's card and I just wanted to try it out. Matrox's DVD support is less than ATI's from what I understand.
 
Oct 16, 1999
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There is some discussion about this on the HTPC forum at avsforum.com. Nobody seems to know whether or not the FX line has this, including Nvidia.
 

Marauder-

Platinum Member
Nov 29, 1999
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What does it matter? If you have like a 1Ghz comp, you can run any DVD w/o skipping and w/o any decoder. I recall using a Sigma Hollywood Plus decoder when I was using that Cel 300-> 450. They would probably NOT want to include it if it is just for DVD playback b/c they would want to keep the costs down to (edit*SPUR*) more sales.