It seems to me like a 1080p video would require less than 250MB/s of bandwidth, which I think is comfortably less than even a cheap Intel card would provide (correct me if I’m wrong).

Also, for those who don’t want to buy CoreAVC, ffmpeg does have a multi-threaded option which shows speedups of around 2.5x on quad-cores.

And yes, a cheaper nvidia will do too, but NOT one with a slower bus. What matters is the bus speed and raw throughput here, not the latest 3D chipset.

That is, I agree with your article on the software side, but I disagree on the hardware one. I’d rather see you recommending the lowest end nVidia, since the results will be exactly the same at a fraction of the cost.

Besides, why overworking a PC? If a PC can barely do 30fps with a specific player (as I said, in my case the 2.4 Ghz QuadCore with VLC), there will be scenes/formats that will eventually struggle (depending on the complexity of the h.264 encoding used, e.g. if CABAC/HighProfile was used). So there’s always a reason to get better performance without upgrading the whole PC.

The problem with your comment is that you ASSUME that people own PCs that already can do real time playback in h.264 without a problem. I don’t assume that all. I am living proof that not all geeks have the latest and greatest PCs (my daily machine is my P4 3Ghz, a 5 year old DELL PC, and my video *editing-only* station is the 2.4 QuadCore PC). Therefore, I NEED every juice I get squeeze out of them when it comes to playback. And I can tell you right now, that most people are in the same boat, they don’t buy the latest and greatest every year. Therefore, if this article helps them get up to 20% faster h.264 playback, then it’s a win-win situation for them. It was for me.

>Faster memory bandwidth and transfer rates between the gfx chipset and mainboard result in FASTER playback.

I do not discuss that. I’m sure that if instead of having a 1080p video we had a 5320p one, the Intel GMA 500 would fail and the nVidia 8800 GT might survive. But when watching videos we don’t need FASTER playback, we need FAST ENOUGH playback. You certainly don’t want to play a video shot at 30fps at a higher frame rate.

So sure, a 20 meters truck would take your kids to school all right. You just don’t need it. If you have 400 kids, then yes, but if you have 2 it is overkill.

If you can play a 1080p h264 video on a 4.3 watt platform (and the test I linked to proves that, on the lowest end Intel card and Linux no less, and using 2.2% CPU), you don’t need a 400 watt one.

No, it is not. Faster memory bandwidth and transfer rates between the gfx chipset and mainboard result in FASTER playback, because SIMPLY, the data arrive to their destination *faster*. It is NOT a matter of getting a card with the fastest 3D chip, but it’s a matter of getting a card with a FAST BUS. Understand the distinction please.

I have seen this time and again when upgrading from ATi to nVidia cards with fast buses, let alone when it comes to much slower (in terms of bandwidth/bus speeds, not 3D) Intel cards. My kernel engineer husband even agrees with this, so it’s not just “people like Eugenia”.

So hold up your bitter and INSULTING comment for yourself. You obviously have no freaking idea about video and common sense, and you have not tested this yourself. You are just talking out of your ass, just because Intel is the only gfx manufacturer that plays nice with Linux.

And who the fuck cares about Linux anyway? These results are about Windows. On Linux, the X architecture is the real limitation, so if you don’t see any advantage, you know who you should blame. But on Windows, the faster the gfx bus, and manufacturer drivers (as opposed to Microsoft’s generic drivers), **the faster the playback**. And that’s a freaking FACT, observed time and again.

Now, if you upgrade a generic 2D nvidia X driver to nVidia’s official drivers, you might also see a big speed boost, although I fear that X11 itself will limit how much gain you will get in apps that use xvideo. On Windows there are no such limitations, and so upgrading to official drivers, *and* by using a fast bus card, you can get up to 20% faster playback!

>and have not for years.

So, you are one of these Linux weenie haters of mine, from my OSNews days, huh? Explains your stupidity.

There’s absolutely *NOTHING* wrong with Intel video chipsets for playing video files with.

The Toshiba A205-S500 laptop with a Intel Celeron 1.86 ghz processor w/i965 graphics chipset that I bought for $350.00 US play pretty much anything I throw at it while under Totem,VLC,mplayer and Gnome mplayer under fedora 10 and 11.

So what’s interesting is that today, you can purchase cheap video cards, which require low power, is well supported both under linux and windows, and is able to decode any video using hardware (WMV/VC-1 is not fully done in hardware for NVIDIA but sufficiently so that real-time decoding is always achieved).
IMHO, software h264 decoding speed is not relevant anymore. Everybody does it better using hardware. ATI has full hw support, under windows at least (I’m not sure under Linux due to drivers..). And Intel will have soon full hardware support, using DX-VA for windows and VAAPI under linux (which is also implemented in mplayer).
As for Vegas, I believe (or wish) they’ll have hardware support in their decoders sooner rather than later, considering how important it is to have real-time decoding during edition.

Regarding integrated graphics, are you sure these results would have been any different if you used an integrated nvidia 9400 card? Personally I don’t think so, but I haven’t tested it.

To get a nvidia 8800 card to play video seems like a crazy idea to me. Not only those high end cards are very expensive, they also use a lot of power, produce a lot of heat and therefor, noise. They are just designed for violent teenagers to play stupid games.

Regarding Intel, the problem are drivers and decoders’ support. Hardware wise, even the very underpowered GMA 500 that can hardly move windows around can decode 1080p h264 video on an atom processor with low CPU usage with the right drivers. And that platform (processor + graphics card + I/O controller) has a combined TPD of 4.3 watts, while the only card you used alone might be around 150 watts).

IOW, video decoding does not require lots of power. On the contrary, just some very low powered hardware with specific capabilities and working drivers and decoders that take advantage of it.

I agree that NVIDIA with updated drivers and latest coreAVC are a winning option now. But I disagree with the high-end, non-integrated solution.