Please Help - Hardware Acceleration - Radeon HD 4200

[Xsabre]

I have been try to get hardware acceleration on a Gigabyte GA-MA785G-UD3H with onboard Radeon HD 4200 without success. Here are the specs:

Athlon X2 4500
3 GB DDR2 Memory
Gigabyte GA-MA785G-UD3H with onboard Radeon HD 4200
Vista x64 (Clean Install)
SageTV 6.6 with SageMC (Clean Install)

I am playing a backup of "Avatar" in 1080p in a MKV container format. I have tried different decoders in SageTV without success:

1) CoreAVC - Doesn't support ATI hardware acceleration
2) PowerDVD 10 - Cyberlink Video Decoder
3) Arcsoft TMT 5 Trial - Decoder not an option in SageTV
4) MS DTD decoder

The CPU utilization is around 50% pretty much in all cases. The strange thing about it is if I play the file in PowerDVD or Window Media Player CPU is 25% and movies plays without stuttering.

Additionally, isn't the MS DTD Decoder the one that media player uses so why isn't it playing with hardware acceleration. This would be the best option as I am minimalist and don't like to install additional software just to get one feature working, but if I have to I have to.

I even found this thread about [URL="http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?p=465092&postcount=1"]Additionally, isn't the MS DTD Decoder the one that media player uses so why isn't playing with hardware acceleration. This would be the best option as I am minimalist and don't like to install additional software just to get one feature working, but if I have to I have.

I even found this thread about Rendering HD files on Win/Sage 7. This is for SageTV 7 but I am on SageTV 6 so it doesn't work in my case. I believe as this thread states that SageTV is getting in the middle and not allowing it.

Please point me in the right direction. Your help is greatly appreciated.

[joematt]

Do you have:
"always_use_dshow_player=true"

in your sage[client].properties file?

[Xsabre]

Originally Posted by joematt

Do you have:
"always_use_dshow_player=true"

in your sage[client].properties file?

Closed Sage and changed setting to true. Restarted Sage played file. The CPU still @ 50-60%

Tried with MS DTD decoder and Default. (Restarted Media Player)

I am open to any additional ideas. Thanks for your help...

[Fuzzy]

My guess is you've got some other codecs on there that are hijacking the graph sage is trying to create. If you've put any codec packs or such on there, you might try removing them. I've found that my 785 based machine has no problem playing anything right out of the box (win7, so the built-in MS decoder). Only thing I add is ffdshow, to use for audio.

[Xsabre]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

My guess is you've got some other codecs on there that are hijacking the graph sage is trying to create. If you've put any codec packs or such on there, you might try removing them. I've found that my 785 based machine has no problem playing anything right out of the box (win7, so the built-in MS decoder). Only thing I add is ffdshow, to use for audio.

I tested PowerDVD 10 and TMT3 without success. After that I restored the computer back to an image with a clean install of Vista and SageTV 6.6 with SageMC. The only codec that was on the image was CoreAVC and I removed it after researching and testing that it doesn't provide ATI hardware acceleration. I believe that it may have installed Haali Splitter as well but that is not the problem.

When playing the highest bitrate movie that you have what is your CPU utilization?

I know that windows media player plays the file with half the CPU. Without stuttering. What am I missing? I am at a lost...

[Xsabre]

OK, it looks like uninstalling and reinstalling Haali Splitter fixed the problem. I really don't know why, but results are results.

Fuzzy, I sent you a PM with additional questions as your setup is very similar to mine. I hope you don't mind.