[Repost from the Multimedia forum - thought the nvidia users might know also]

Hi guys,

I have a unique problem. The following is my setup:

* Core 2 Duo E6400 @ 3.2 Ghz watercooled running very cool @ 35c even on load

* 2 GB DDR2 G Skill Ram

* 750GB (2 drives - lots of space left on system and backup partition)

* Asus EN 8800 Ultra 768MB on Forceware 169.25 / video bios version 60.80.18.00.12

* desktop and workspace resolution - 2560x1600

* Two PSUs powering the system (550w antec true power and 300w generic psu - enough power for sure)

* Vista 32bit newest drivers

* Matrox Community Pack for MKV, FLV, H.264 etc based codec format playback
* Media Player Classic
* Power DVD 7.3 Ultra with its H.264 codec

So it's a pretty beefy system by local standards with all the necessary software to playback High Def Movie rips available on torrents and other *uhem* helpful sources

Problem:

have obtained the following HD movies all encoded using H.264:

* Doom 720p (1024x768) around 4.3Gb
* Transformers 1080p (1920x1080) around 9.5GB
* matrix trilogy 1080p (1920x1080) around 9.5GB

With the default Matrox video codecs loaded and using Media Player Classic I get the following CPU utilizations

* Doom - around 50%-60% peak on single core
* transformers and matrix trilogy - up to 100%

as you might guess, I'm having SEVERE lag in most action packed sequences which makes the system skip frames also misalligns the video from the audio for the 1080p movies

Hypothesis
Obviously looks like there is no GPU based hardware acceleration thus every bit of decoding for H.264 codec is being handled by my poor E6400

Worst, its being done on a single thread not utilizing my 2nd core

First Easy Solution
Get a multi threaded decoder for H.264 and force Media Player Classic to use it - Power DVD Ultra 7 has a nice H.264 decoder thats multi threaded so i decided to install it and force media player classic to prefer that decoder over its native FFDSHow decoder.

Result of first Solution
Smooth Acceptable playback - with nearly 80% average utilization of Both F'ng cores - at least I can watch the movies now

But where the F is the H.264 hardware acceleration from my 80k behemoth of a GPU?

If someone can please tell me whether they have tried something similar to this and have any results to share where they can watch a 1080 movie on a NV80 based 8800 model gpu with hardware acceleration for MKV files (H.264 based)

I saw an article on anandtech where they show an 8600/8500 use on 25% cpu where gpu does the rest.

Please help if you have any info on this - I WANT HARDWARE ACCELERATION FOR H.264

720p is 1280x720 i thought.
anyway, eastern promises at 720p h.264 mkv

4.34 GB
° ViDEO.CODEC...: X264, 2 pass
° FRAMERATE.....: 23.976
° BITRATE.......: 4674 kbit/s
° RESOLUTiON....: 1280x688
° AUDiO.........: English, DTS 5.1, 1536 kbit/s

on an x2 6000+ with 2gb and an 8800gt i see 12% and 40% on the cores.
i dont have anything of higher resolution to test.

I think hardware acceleration only applies for the files from BR or HD DVDs instead of the .mkv files. Don't take my word for it though.

If you want a better playback, try using CoreAVC Codec with MPC, I used to have choppy playbacks running on 1080p but CoreAVC made the movies much playable.

If you cannot watch them, try VLC (google it) I use it instead of the R3tarded media player built in to windows. (needs no codecs). Or you could try Xvid instead.

Purevideo support can help take a certain load off of the cpu, on any 8 series card (newer version support more decoding capabilities...) BUT the h.264 and VC1 decoder you are using must support it.

I HIGHLY suggest CoreAVC, as weychun recommended. The newest version supports basic Nvidia hardware acceleration (still in the early stages) and drops cpu usage on 1080p content, but mainly it is a very efficient software decoder.

WMP10 or 11 is the best player ive found for my H264 collection, Ive used VLC, MPC, etc... but AFTER INSTALLING THE RIGHT DECODERS FIRST the experience with WMP is great. Nothing out-of-sync, no skipping or slowing down, you can fast forward easily. Everything is perfect actually.

1. Install FFDShow
---Configure it to disable its video decoder, but use the audio.
2. Instal CoreAVC (pro version if you buy it (or find it), along with the Haali Media Splitter that is included.
---Set it as the preferred Video Decoder
3. Open your video file using Windows media player
--- check the popup box, and say YES

Enjoy!

I play all forms of HD using this method. 1080p h.264 encodes between 5 and 12mbit... and everything else below that. Also direct BD streams at up to 40mbit... and everything below that.

The 8800GTX/Ultras (and old GTS?) use a slightly older version of the video decode hardware that doesn't accelerate as well as newer hardware like the 8600GT you mentioned. There have been articles, I trust someone will find them.

-mcg

i did a comparison between wmp with ffdshow and VLC with several different file formats. DTS wav, xvid, mkv, mp3, FLAC.

the sound quality is terrible and the video quality is fuzzier and less crisp.
VLC is something people settle for when they are too lazy to figure out how to get things to work right.