video card and playback

[tenders]

hi

anyone know how much your video card influences playback as far as the quality goes? ie. , if i get a better video card , will video like HD look better ? i ask partly because i see claims from manufacurer and i'd rather not fork out for a new card if it makes no difference.

thanks

[guns1inger]

Your GFX card already has hardware assist for HD, if you have a player/codec that is capable of using it. Have a look at Media Player Classic Home Cinema.

[edDV]

Which formats are you trying to play? The 8400GS lacks most support for h.264 or VC-1. I'm looking for the NVidia PureVideo spreadsheet. For PureVideo, that second number is key. "6" up is what you want.

[jagabo]

anyone know how much your video card influences playback as far as the quality goes? ie. , if i get a better video card , will video like HD look better ?

Quality? Not much, except for some specific areas (IVTC of odd pulldown patterns, deinterlacing). Hardware VC1 and h.264 decoding helps playback smoothness if you don't have enough CPU power for high definition video (dual core CPU or better).

[tenders]

Which formats are you trying to play? The 8400GS lacks most support for h.263 or VC-1. I'm looking for the NVidia PureVideo spreadsheet. For PureVideo, that second number is key. "6" up is what you want.

sorry , i have no idea what you mean about the number thing? format would be mkv. i can play 720 and 1080 fine , just wondering if i buy a better card , will i have a higher quality playback.

[jagabo]

What's wrong with the playback you're getting now? And what are you watching on?

[edDV]

See if this helps. http://www.nvidia.com/object/purevideo_hd_faq.html#1Q2

They now have a "PureVideoHD" terminology that differs from "PureVideo". The old spreadsheet seems missing. But the answer to your question is Yes. The model number of your card makes a difference.

[tenders]

See if this helps. http://www.nvidia.com/object/purevideo_hd_faq.html#1Q2

They now have a "PureVideoHD" terminology that differs from "PureVideo". The old spreadsheet seems missing. But the answer to your question is Yes. The model number of your card makes a difference.

thanks , but i was talking more about hardware than software

[edDV]

See if this helps. http://www.nvidia.com/object/purevideo_hd_faq.html#1Q2

They now have a "PureVideoHD" terminology that differs from "PureVideo". The old spreadsheet seems missing. But the answer to your question is Yes. The model number of your card makes a difference.

thanks , but i was talking more about hardware than software

That is hardware. The current NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS is the weakest card they make that has some HD support.

[TooLFooL]

try a 9600.. they are cheap and fully support HD

[jagabo]

If your CPU is too slow to decode HD video you will get jerky playback. In that case GPU decoding will eliminate the problem. But your C2D probably only requires about half it's CPU power to decode 720p60 or 1080i30 h.264/VC1 video. So the only real benefit of using the GPU to do the decoding is to free up CPU cycles that you might use for something else.

Deblocking is a normal part of HD decoding so all software and hardware HD decoders do it by default. Some SD decoders/players have the option to to it too. Again, hardware decoding won't help with this unless your CPU is too weak to perform the deblocking and decoding.

Functions like colorspace conversion, brightness, contrast, gamma, color controls exist on all the modern graphics cards. These are probably the main issues you should be concerned about. A better card won't help.

Some other functions like noise reduction, edge enhancement, deinterlace, and IVTC vary depending on the graphics card. You will have to check to see what might improve if you upgrade. But clean HD sources don't need edge enhancement or noise reduction. Many sources won't need deinterlacing or IVTC. Broadcast 1080i TV, and HD camcorders are main sources of interlaced/telecined HD.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3420
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-blu-ray-video,2030.html
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3047

GPU based encoding of video may eventually pan out. A faster GPU will help with that. But the state of GPU based encoding isn't great right now.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3475
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2337057,00.asp

Obviously, a faster GPU will get you better 3D gaming. But that wasn't your question.

[tenders]

thanks guys

bought a new card today. http://www.sapphiretech.com/ca/products/products_overview.php?gpid=253&grp=3

the price was right and it will be better than what i have now

[jagabo]

it will be better than what i have now

In what way?

[tenders]

it will be better than what i have now

In what way?

lol..just about every way. did you not mouse over my PC specs?

[edDV]

it will be better than what i have now

In what way?

lol..just about every way. did you not mouse over my PC specs?

Let us know what differences you see.

[tenders]

will do

[jagabo]

it will be better than what i have now

In what way?

lol..just about every way. did you not mouse over my PC specs?

You won't see much difference between a Nvidia 8400GS and an ATI 4600 in terms of video playback.

[vhelp]

About the only difference you might see is with the IP in each graphic cards' chipset, not to mention, the settings written in the registry, and not to mention, the actual video file: how standardized is it, etc., and not to mention, the software player doing the processing/playing.., etc etc etc

About two months ago, I upgraded my on-board graphics card (was using the older gen nVidia chipset--was because I upgraded my aged 15" LCD monitor with new-er 19" LCD Westinghouse widescreen monitor) to a new ATI Radeon HD-3450, PCI-e card.

All I can say is that I saw no apparent difference, asside from the stair-stepping I was getting from the previous onboard nVidia I was using. But, whenever I inserted a DVD movie or played any of my H264 (via x264 cli) encoded videos, or my MPEG-2 encoded videos in Windows Media Player, the hardware IP (image processor) would kick in and all my videos would come out filtered and whatnot. And if you had encoded some poor mpegs of your own, you were in for a surprise. I had an Farscape episode that I captured and hardwared encoded on the fly using my WinTV HVR-1600 (I purchased last year ago, and threw out shortly thereafter, and replaced with a Pinnacle PCTV Pro hd stick) and the video was horible. The image had a pastic look. It was pretty bad.

Mileage varies depending on your: video; graphics card features; and installed default settings; and maybe a few more things.

There are ways to turn off (or adjust) the IP functions through hack or tweak tools. There are one made for each brand, nVideo and ATI 3000/4000 series. You'll most likely be happy you found the way to turn it off. If anything, adjusted some settings. Otherwise, you mpegs will look horrible, like mine did. On my HD-3450, I have all the IP featurs turned off. And if you are a reg hacker yourself, you can always tweak it with other features, etc.

You can find them on the AVSFORUM boards:

For the ATI 3000/4000 series, look for the file: "ATI_HD_Reg_Tweaks_0.15.vbs"

-vhelp 4986

[tenders]

i recieved and installed my new card a few days ago and i'm quite impressed! HD playback (mkv) has improved dramatically IMO. colours and contrast are both better and picture is much clearer. with the old 8400GS i had a bit of grainyness which has dissappeared. i used the same file with both cards. games are much better also. i can actually use AA and AF and other features with no lag at all. tested on the newest game i have which is need for speed undercover.

there are other features i would like to test , but in order to acsess them you need to do an advanced install which of course i didn't find out till later i'll check them out next time i upgrade drivers.

for a cheap card...i'm more than happy

[jagabo]

i recieved and installed my new card a few days ago and i'm quite impressed! HD playback (mkv) has improved dramatically IMO. colours and contrast are both better

That could easily have been fixed by adjusting the old card's proc amp controls.

[tenders]

i recieved and installed my new card a few days ago and i'm quite impressed! HD playback (mkv) has improved dramatically IMO. colours and contrast are both better

That could easily have been fixed by adjusting the old card's proc amp controls.

so what is your PC specs? i noticed you have none. stop being a know it all. ok.

[greymalkin]

I have been doing a lot of research as of late regarding the newer ATI HD 47-4800 series cards and in terms of PQ all of the reviews i have read said there are real measurable differences in the quality of the scaling/noise reduction/de-interlacing/etc. done with the new hardware on both the ATI/Nvidia cards. Each review uses the same HQV test and the results vary greatly from card to card:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,1916968,00.asp

that's just one example..just do a search for HQV benchmarks and you will surely find a wealth of information and even bigger tables with more cards compared. For this reason I find it surprising that some would keep coming in saying it doesn't matter when everything I've read from reputable sites says it does. You may want to look into this.

[jagabo]

The 8400GS already scores well on most of the core HQV tests. Many of the other tests involve IVTC of odd telecine patterns which most people will never see. HQV doesn't bother to test saturation, hue, contrast, brightness, and gamma because all cards made in the last 10 years have proc amps that fully support them. All can be adjusted to produce accurate colors or to extreme unwatchable settings.

[tenders]

wow some newer demos(games) look awesowe ; again , maxed out. Ati's Avivo technology works wonders with HD(once i figured out how to use it :P )

[INFRATOM]

The first thing to consider is if your motherboard supports to days video cards. I am not familiar with your motherboard but for good video card you need extra power supply and PCIe 2.0 . If it doesn't qualify go for something like 4670 if you have PCIe. Weaker video cards may not be able to drive a big screen. A better monitor makes more difference than video cards.