Time for a Video Card Upgrade?

[dj4monie]

Okay, I have had a ATI AIW 9600XT for about 3 years now and it has work flawlessly when I haven't caused the problem myself.

Right now my Dell 4550 is a MCE2005 Rollup 2 machine and it works great all the way up to 720p on KABC and KCET here in Los Angeles.

But when I try to watch action on KCBS (CBS), KNBC (NBC) and KTTV (FOX) usually the NFL or NCCA Football (also the ALMS race from Road American early this year), I get choppy playback. I thought it was audio related because the sound would freeze and the PC in an effort to keep the video in sync with the audio stops playback until the audio catches back up to the video.

I upgraded from a Creative SB Live! Dell Edition to a Turtle Beach Montego DDL 5.1 card and that didn't fix the problem. The card is staying because my new Surround Sound system will use the optical S/DIF out (and through) from my Media Center so I get multi-channel on regular TV or DDL where supported.

I would really like to solve the studder before the bowl seasons goes into high gear and the NFL playoffs start.

I am reluctant to change out my AIW card, it works great and ATI had the best multi-use card on the market, a shame they aren't doing them with the new GPU's they are making now.

Would upgrading from 2.4Ghz to 3.0Ghz solve this problem or should remove the AIW and add a new ATI 2400HD or 2600HD AGP card?

@ Newegg they have Bare CPU's for around $80 and the heatsink on my Dell is pretty larger with a vent and fan, I have never had any cooling problems. Some Artic Silver and the new CPU with the same heatsink and fan should work out fine and come out to around $95 shipped.

If I upgraded to new ATI 2xxx card, I would need a new Tuner card to keep using my Direct TV card, more than likely a Win TV PVR-150 MCE.

If I did all three that would run about $350. If I include the new sound card, MCE2005 and the 3 hard drives I bought since installing it, it might have been better to get a new PC after all...

Suggestions welcome....

[jagabo]

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3047

[rallynavvie]

You really should use dedicated tuners and not VIVO cards like the AIW. It's much easier to troubleshoot one or the other with botched drivers rather than have it all in the same device.

To that end I can speak from experience on HD playback with AGP. I went with the best AGP video card I could find with two DVI outputs: a 7600GT. It also has nVidia's hardware MPEG2 decoder which is optimized for HD playback. I'm using a Hauppauge HVR-1600 for my OTA HD content with MCE 2005. I also ran into stutter issues (there was a huge thread here about it under the name of my tuner card) but I found it to be my onboard audio. SPDIF passthrough just wouldn't work without stutter when the audio source was AC3. Regular programming was fine, only the HD suffered. I found out that I need a sound card compatible with the nVidia decoder.

Now I'm running two HD displays: a 24" widescreen at 1920x1200 and a 37" TV at 1920x1080. MCE plays on the TV leaving the other screen free to monitor email, IM, etc. HD content plays fine with this setup but I had to downmix the AC3 to stereo in order to prevent the stutter. I did this using AC3Filter. I only get FOX HD right now but NBC has been getting better in the last few months. Once I get more HD content I'll get the new video card to playback surround from the HD channels. When playing any recorded TV I get almost no CPU utilization. Seriously it sits around 1-2%. You may need to double that for most other systems given my HTPC rig is a little "unique". But still <5% utilization is great. I don't know where they were getting 10-15% utilization on those benches on that link.

Now buying these two will cost you a bit and getting the AGP card is going to prevent you from carrying it over to any new build so now may be a good time to consider building an entirely new box and switching to PCI-E.

[dj4monie]

You really should use dedicated tuners and not VIVO cards like the AIW. It's much easier to troubleshoot one or the other with botched drivers rather than have it all in the same device.

To that end I can speak from experience on HD playback with AGP. I went with the best AGP video card I could find with two DVI outputs: a 7600GT. It also has nVidia's hardware MPEG2 decoder which is optimized for HD playback. I'm using a Hauppauge HVR-1600 for my OTA HD content with MCE 2005. I also ran into stutter issues (there was a huge thread here about it under the name of my tuner card) but I found it to be my onboard audio. SPDIF passthrough just wouldn't work without stutter when the audio source was AC3. Regular programming was fine, only the HD suffered. I found out that I need a sound card compatible with the nVidia decoder.

Now I'm running two HD displays: a 24" widescreen at 1920x1200 and a 37" TV at 1920x1080. MCE plays on the TV leaving the other screen free to monitor email, IM, etc. HD content plays fine with this setup but I had to downmix the AC3 to stereo in order to prevent the stutter. I did this using AC3Filter. I only get FOX HD right now but NBC has been getting better in the last few months. Once I get more HD content I'll get the new video card to playback surround from the HD channels. When playing any recorded TV I get almost no CPU utilization. Seriously it sits around 1-2%. You may need to double that for most other systems given my HTPC rig is a little "unique". But still <5% utilization is great. I don't know where they were getting 10-15% utilization on those benches on that link.

Now buying these two will cost you a bit and getting the AGP card is going to prevent you from carrying it over to any new build so now may be a good time to consider building an entirely new box and switching to PCI-E.

Thanks Rally, that is what I was thinking, I ran into the limitations of the CPU via Software decoding. If I off loaded it to a supporting GPU, then I don't really need a CPU upgrade, but I could use one since I would like to speed up video conversion which is a bit slow with only 2.4Ghz.

I have a VBox 150 HD card and its been flawless, no issues at all. (Gateway FPD2485W 24" monitor)

Well its nice to know, I won't have any audio problems once my Surround System gets here (mental note: never buy from Buy.com again!)

I'm a ATI supporter, that means I would go with the 2400HD or 2600HD as they support hardware acceleration with MPEG-2 and run faster than 7xxx series of Nivida cards. Unless I got a Nvida card DIRT CHEAP.... I give Nvidia credit for having stable drivers 90% of the time, never had any problems with the GeForce 4 MXX 64gb card the PC came with, just became too slow for DX9 games...

Of course with ATI stuff you have to install it with kid gloves or it just won't work right, lol and if the drivers are buggy, look out!

That was the case with early driver releases for the 2xxx series cards, but those seem to have been solved with the latest driver updates from the various card makers, again ashame that ATI doesn't make there own cards anymore but I guess they are looking at the Nvida business model.

I might just do the 2400HD if I go this route because I only need stable playback up to 1080i, I will be getting a PS3, so any Blu Ray movies I get will be played over that, for the cost might as well make use of it...

I am really waiting until I move to build a new system because I am after a tiny footprint with my new system.

Thanks again...

Edit:

During playback it will studder on CBS but not on NBC daytime which is 480p on both.

I think Riva Tuner will monitor GPU usage.

I can't see if GPU usage is being maxed out... I'll edit again once I find out what's happening

Hmm, KCAL 9 is the only HD broadcast right now at 3pm PST and its studders slightly, okay this is a newscast and not sports, but I missed the Laker game that was on yesterday to see if makes a difference. I am having signal problems with CBS and it still studders.

I installed and I am watching the Riva Tuner monitor and Core Clock never goes over 526.50 and of course this is MPEG-2 so not Hardware Acceleration

CPU usage goes hover between 80% and 97%

It will be cheaper to upgrade to a faster CPU than to buy aging I/O in a AGP card.

Is it worth it however????

[edDV]

So KCET is using 720p for HD as well? KVIE up here (Sacramento market) runs 720p bitrates around 12.5 Mb/s with two SD 480i subs KVIE-2 and VME. In recent months they feed Comcast the 720p conversion rather than network 1080i.

NBC here like San Francisco runs a Weather Plus subchannel with primary 1080i at ~ 16Mb/s. We have a CBS O&O here that runs flat out 19Mb/s with no subchannels. My HVR-1600 (QAM mode) struggles with CBS but does OK with NBC at 15-16Mb/s. No problems for ABC, Fox and PBS at 720p. I'm curious about the AC3 audio theory.

1080i MPeg2 playback is no problem with low end ATI (9550) or NVidia (7xxx) up using VLC, PowerDVD or Nero Showtime.

[dj4monie]

Hmmm so maybe I need to change my decoder? I am only using the Decoder that came with MCE.

The KPBS feed I heard is 1080i, but your local channels are 720p. The War documentary was EXCELLENT! Man that is HD at its best!

I think there is something to the AC'97 codec as it was never designed to handle a heavy bit stream like DDL and since all HD is in some sort of Dolby, it will put a load on your sound card if it wasn't up to snuff.

I love to post stuff here and have edDV comment on them, man your a wealth of information.

Looks like I need to check out those codecs you suggested...

[edDV]

I meant playback after recording goes well. Playback during recording is more difficult especially for full 1080i. It may be an audio decoding issue. I never considered that.

[dj4monie]

I meant playback after recording goes well. Playback during recording is more difficult especially for full 1080i. It may be an audio decoding issue. I never considered that.

Ah, well I checked out the AC3 Config and sure enough 16-bit was checked and not 24-bit. I thought it was minor, but then I reopened Live TV and just about all the studder is gone from KCBS. However I see that CPU usage is topping 100% when as I post this. Okay if I close Firefox completely I will gain back some recourses and that might stop the studding all together.

So it seems edDV was spot on, audio is causing the video problems. Off loading the audio onto a faster audio card has helped more than I thought it would considering I just installed it a few days ago.

I mean that little adjustment hasn't cause it to skip yet! We'll see during some football games on Saturday and Sunday. I might go ahead and get the 3.0Ghz processor from New Egg because honestly even though off-loading the video from the CPU and onto the video card would allow me to skip the CPU upgrade, it would add another card to my machine. I can remove the modem which isn't being used at all and that gives me 2 PCI slots.

Let's see what I find deal wise and I'll consider it.... Thanks again ED

[rallynavvie]

Stupid AC3 audio decoding making me upgrade to a new sound card

I really only need a cheap one with SPDIF outs on it and a friend offered me his old Audigy ZS. I'm just too lazy to mess with my PC, and it's having some strange issues right now, so it'll have to wait. The only thing I don't like about the AC3 downmix to stereo is that I have to crank the audio during the program and then have to mute while I skip through commercials. The audio in commercials must be encoded differently.

I also run a PS3 next to my HTPC. I hope you're getting a receiver with HDMI inputs on it. I wish I had. The PS3 works as a SACD player but will only output over HDMI (for the content protection) so that's a nifty feature. Plus there are some other audio bits from BluRay that work with HDMI receivers such as raw PCM audio.

[jagabo]

Stupid AC3 audio decoding making me upgrade to a new sound card :evil:

Why don't you try using a different AC3 decoder instead of new hardware. Or configure the decoder to output audio with a sample size that works better with your current sound card?

[rallynavvie]

The onboard sounds is so basic I don't think it will allow for it. Some of the other codecs have just produced loud static so AC3filter was a good option allowing me to test a variety of things. Ultimately the AC3 decoder will fight with the MPEG codec used to offload the decoding to the video card, or at least that's why other codecs haven't worked very well.

[jagabo]

I wasn't suggesting changing your onboard sound settings. I was suggesting you change AC3Filter to output something your sound card can handle better. AC3Filter has a lot of output options. You may find that some of them work much better than others.

[dj4monie]

Don't even bother with Creative stuff, it won't do multi-channel passthough. Meaning your Live TV output is always 2 channel stereo even though SDIF. I got a Montego DDL from Fry's for $60 and there's a $10 Rebate with it.

It will do pass-though and even has a plug-in for MCE, you can see it under More Programs.

It has a digital (optical) out and optical IN as well...

[dj4monie]

Oh and one more thing, I was watching Letterman last night and I got the typical 100% CPU jerky head movement, otherwise the audio was almost completely skip-free.

I guess that means I finally have to dispatch the AIW card, it will be missed and not much use pretty soon (at least the tv tuner part) but I might build another cheap machine for it and use it for something else, say a garage PVR.

I think I going to pull the trigger on a HD2400 (prolly Diamond) and Vistontek TV Wonder 650 HD

Add a Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive and gee I could run HD-DVD's from Netflicks! lol

PS3 I might get soon as 60gb models are becoming rarer by the min and I rather have hardware PS2/PS1 gameplay than emulated game play on the 80GB model.

[dj4monie]

Stupid AC3 audio decoding making me upgrade to a new sound card

I really only need a cheap one with SPDIF outs on it and a friend offered me his old Audigy ZS. I'm just too lazy to mess with my PC, and it's having some strange issues right now, so it'll have to wait. The only thing I don't like about the AC3 downmix to stereo is that I have to crank the audio during the program and then have to mute while I skip through commercials. The audio in commercials must be encoded differently.

I also run a PS3 next to my HTPC. I hope you're getting a receiver with HDMI inputs on it. I wish I had. The PS3 works as a SACD player but will only output over HDMI (for the content protection) so that's a nifty feature. Plus there are some other audio bits from BluRay that work with HDMI receivers such as raw PCM audio.

No video switching!

Its the Pioneer HTS-G51 designed for Xbox 360 and small/medium room use. I found it on the Slick Deals forum at Buy.com for $99. It has 2 optical inputs, 1 coax and 1 analog input. So 3 total digital inputs.

Right now that would be -

Optical from the PC

Optical from the PS2

Coax from RCA Direct TV but honestly the software filtering done by the ATI card looks better than 480p via component and I might just use its PC's PCM for Live TV instead of switching inputs on the monitor and switching audio inputs just to get an average picture.

I got it mainly so I can have audio for my PS2 and surround from my OTA HD broadcast and whenever Live TV had DDL in its broadcast.

And for $99 ($127 overnight shipping) it couldn't be beat!

[lordsmurf]

It's hard to beat the quality of an ATI AIW 9000-series card, even today. But the graphics side of the card doesn't handle the newest hoggy video and graphics. AVC and mega-fps games mostly just piss it off.

I kept my main video machine intact, because it's a workhorse. I added a laptop, which comes with an Intel Core 2 Duo and a modern nVidia card, for handling faster encoding, output to tv with real-time filtering, and watching any number of newer formats. Added benefit is that it is portable.

[dj4monie]

It's hard to beat the quality of an ATI AIW 9000-series card, even today. But the graphics side of the card doesn't handle the newest hoggy video and graphics. AVC and mega-fps games mostly just piss it off.

I kept my main video machine intact, because it's a workhorse. I added a laptop, which comes with an Intel Core 2 Duo and a modern nVidia card, for handling faster encoding, output to tv with real-time filtering, and watching any number of newer formats. Added benefit is that it is portable.

LS, you are the best when it came to making that thing work right!

I love the card it does a great job, but yes it was never met to decode MPEG-2 it just passed it off to the CPU. Trust me if there was a way I could keep it in here I would.

This PC will be put out of pasture within 2 years anyway I'm just waiting for the mini ITX market to catch fire as I believe that is the next big thing for HTPC; tiny footprint.

I could always use it for recording S-video coming out of my D*TV box in the future as while the Tuner might not work anymore after 2/19/2009 its VIVO functions are always welcome...

I have a laptop (hand me down) from my late father (AMD XP Mobile, ATI IGP!) I have upgraded it to 1GB and maxed out the on broad IGP memory to 128MB which should match the at least a 9200 XT in regards to gameplay and progressive DVD playback, might be a little short of CPU power for 1080i however, I might try a HDTV dongle and see what happens...

[dj4monie]

Okay I felt I should update -

I have both a Geforce 7600GS and a ATI HD2400Pro both AGP cards sitting here and this is what happen.

I backed up a few items I deemed worthy of keeping as I kept most of my junk on my previous drive just in case. It took a couple of hours to move about 230gb of shows off the boot drive onto a new 500GB external and of course that cut overall size in HALF immediately

As it stand I have about 500gb of shows I need to convert to WMV (to keep the MCE functions in tact) without issue (wrong aspect ratio, etc, etc) kinda working on that....

Anyway way upon installing XP on the new drive, I was unable to install the Rollup 2 disc or download from the MS because I kept getting that brutal NET Framework 1.1/1.1SP install error and I couldn't get it go away. I spent 5-6 hours on it and grew weary!

I said screw it and popped in the Vista Home Premium disc to find out I needed to be in Windows to do the install (unless its from a blank drive) and since this was an error-less install of XP, I decided to install over it.

Well everything went smooth and I like the fact that MC is completely integrated into Windows as oppose to being a add-on to XP Pro and no Framework issues!

Now I find out that all the little tricks you could do to get MCE to play HD smoothly with older hardware are null and void for the most part in Vista, the easiest being the switching of default video and audio decoders using the DDCheck utility (there's one for vista as well) and it looks like only the Power DVD Ultra decoders will work in MC along with DVD playback and HD transport stream via Live TV.

I am AMAZED at actually the lack of REAL information about Vista and HDTV playback. The HD2xxx thread on the AVS Forums is just filled with issues about BD and HD-DVD playback, I was about to make a post and ask does anybody actually WATCH TV??? I mean I don't find myself watching much OTA content but I watch the Lakers and Clippers which are both in HD and included decoders just produce a stuttering picture.

Audio is perfect since upgrading to the Montego DDL card, I can't say the same for my GPU adventure.

I bought the Diamond HD2400Pro 512MB AGP card and I come to find out Hardware Acceleration is disabled by ATI in the AGP versions of the card. It has been announced that Cat 7.12 might finally allow MPEG-2 transport acceleration using standard MPEG-2 decoders (DXVA)

I then bought a Geforce 7600GS based on rallynavvie post. Yes I know he bought a GT version of the card, but I found the GS version at CC for under $90, so I jumped on it.

Okay after having problems with installing XP, I installed Vista with the card inside and it installed without issue along with both tuners (TV Wonder 650 PCI and VBox 150).

PureVideo HD I suppose will work with the 7xxx series card as is the only decoder available from Nvida that is said to work with Vista.

So I am basically stuck with the same HD playback issues as I had before.

I will not spend money for the decoders (Power DVD Ultra or Nvida PureVideo HD) until I know for sure that my money ($99 or $49) will solve my issue.

I am just tried of messing with it now as that means hours of not being able to even watch Direct TV as this monitor is my TV as well. I had Vista installed and running in about 2.5 hours and then spent another 3-4 hours looking through threads and Google searching for information.

I do have a small RANT however -

I am amazed at how many people concede that having the latest and greatest hardware is what is needed to render HDTV in all its formats smoothly without issue on a PC.

That was true until about a 6 months ago. When ATI released their HD2xxx series cards it touted HDTV, BD and HD-DVD playback via AVIVO hardware acceleration with PCI-e only it seems.

Realizing there are many, many AGP systems out there still running and looking to make a buck, ATIi's 3rd party supporters produced these cards and ATI's typical buggy driver set was released with the card. This hardly effects PCI-e users as I understand HWA worked with those versions of the card, but not the AGP cards.

Also Nvida instead of producing a decoder set themselves for Vista to use HWA, they have basically passed it onto to 3rd party developers like Cyberlink.

When they saw the potential for BD and HD-DVD they said well, we can release HD version of PureVideo but no white paper or any other facts related to accelerated MPEG-2 HD playback are not mentioned directly in anything I have seen. In testing on the various tech web sites, they don't use true low end machines to test these features out, calling early dual cores low end enough to run HD, BULL SHIET!

The problem with most of these sites is they are not made up of real world users and can not relate. They get free or discounted hardware in return for reviewing product, which is fine. That means there isn't alot of money in the PC hardware review business, but they could pick up a cheap box someplace and go, hey this represents the "typical" mainstream PC in the marketplace as not everybody is willing too or can afford a brand new system either pre-built or home built.

With home-builds you are an enthusiasts and want to "future proof" yourself from additional investment in a 4-5 year window.

I would call myself a mainstream user with an *

I occasionally play games and want enough graphical power to play say GTR2.

As racing games evolve I will need more power, so will upgrade but as a lesser rate than typical power users/gamers who are basically one in the same and using similar hardware.

I wish somebody would setup forward and say "Hey you want something that works, you need 100% this and this to make it work..."

Rant Off -

I have enough power to run Vista and even play HD-DVD/BD if I had HWA...

Anybody have any insight??

[lordsmurf]

Actually, the ATI AIW Radeons do have some hardware MPEG decoding in there, but for DVD-Video, not HD.

[rallynavvie]

There is a 30-day trial for the PureVideo decoder. The HD portion is supported only on chipsets that support PureVideo HD. I know my 7600GT does but I'm not sure about the GS. I thought the only difference was that the GT had extra memory bandwidth and dual DVI so I'd think it supports HD MPEG decoding. See if the trial works, or if you're worried start talking to the tech support for the manufacturer of the 7600GS now so that perhaps they can offer you a refund if the decoder doesn't work for you.

[dj4monie]

Actually, the ATI AIW Radeons do have some hardware MPEG decoding in there, but for DVD-Video, not HD.

Yeah MPEG-2 DVD accelerate, 2D accelerate, WMV accelerate, but yep no MPEG-2HD streams... Not even with their own tuners.

[dj4monie]

There is a 30-day trial for the PureVideo decoder. The HD portion is supported only on chipsets that support PureVideo HD. I know my 7600GT does but I'm not sure about the GS. I thought the only difference was that the GT had extra memory bandwidth and dual DVI so I'd think it supports HD MPEG decoding. See if the trial works, or if you're worried start talking to the tech support for the manufacturer of the 7600GS now so that perhaps they can offer you a refund if the decoder doesn't work for you.

PureVideo HD is in the current driver set, however its not listed as a service or feature and not available for only 8xxx series cards

I can't seem to find where to download it if its available separately.

I am getting closer and closer to just saying its time for new hardware period, not just the video card.

I really don't want to switch back to XP just to use PureVideo, I am falling in love with the slick Vista MC menu and guide....