HD Tips?

[ptaylor]

Is there a list of Tips somewhere on how to get decent HD playback?

I picked up an ATI HD Wonder about a week ago. (Yes, I know that's not the best card to get, but it was local.)

On my Sage Server (a 2.4 P4 with HT enabled and an Nvidia 5500), I can get a good smooth picture in Overlay mode (w/ nVidia codec).

On a Sage client (A 2.66 P4 with HT enabled and an ATI X300 SE), I can't seem to get the same smoothness. I'm using Overlay (since nothing I did on the Sage server worked unless in Overlay mode). I've tried multiple codecs.. It is interesting to me that the nVidia codec gives a stuttering playback, but the Sonic codec doesn't skip, though it exihibits another undesirable effect... The video moves faster and slower... So, someone walking along the screen will do without frame skipping, but they will speed up and slow down as they move across the screen. It constantly does this... Slow for about a second, then fast for about a second...

Thanks for any help,
Paul

[ptaylor]

No comments?

[GTwannabe]

What drivers are you using for the ATI card?

Try these Omega drivers on your card:

http://www.omegadrivers.net/

I am concerned about your X300 SE. All ATI SE cards are severely gimped in some way. Your card may only have a 64-bit memory interface, and also might rely on HyperMemory.

[ptaylor]

Thanks for the reply!

Actually, I tried these drivers just today.. I'm not sure if there was a big difference, as I tried many modes. I really wanted to get it working well in VMR9 mode, but that has eluded me so far. One thing really nice thing with these drivers is that it shows the fps count in the upper right corner. When watching SD in VMR9, I typically got right around 60 fps, sometimes dipping to around 56, but it was very difficult to see anything unusual at all... When watching HD in VMR9, the fps depends heavily on the codec. The best was nVidia's at about 20-24... Sonic was in the mid teens, I believe, and the default Sage codec was similar to Sonic (perhaps a bit lower).

I had an unusual lockup occur (not sure if it was related to the omega drivers or not) but found that I was running older ATI drivers (before putting the Omega version on)... Not knowing if the lockup was driver related and knowing the wife would rather not have technical reasons keeping her SD soap from playing back, I downloaded the latest official drivers and the performance seems to be about the same as the Omega ones.. (Of course, according to the site, they are based off of the official drivers, so you would expect similar performance)...

Anyhow, I'm now watching in Overlay mode with 3D accelleration enabled and things seem pretty smooth in HD. I'm thinking that an nVidia 7300GS card might be a good buy, especially if the content played through the PureVideo codec really looks better on an nVidia card.. Anyone successfully using one of those with HD content? Newegg has them in the $75-$85 range. (Which is cheaper than my X300SE from BestBuy, BTW)

Paul