[mythtv-users] PCI Graphics card and HDTV

[Steven Adeff]

On 2/3/07, Rod Smith <mythtv at rodsbooks.com> wrote:
> On Saturday 03 February 2007 17:35, Matt Jordan wrote:
> > I am looking at a mini-ITX board with a 1.5GHz VIA processor.  To
> > avoid the onboard GPU, would putting a nVidia GeForce FX5400 (128MB)
> > in the PCI slot and using hardware decoding work for HDTV?
> >
> > This is planned to be a Frontend ONLY.
>
> I can't be certain, but my suspicion is that a 1.5GHz VIA processor would be
> inadequate for HD playback, even with the help of a video card with XvMC
> support. My experience is with a 3.06GHz Celeron D, and I find that playing
> back HD content (to an NTSC TV for the moment, so not at full-resolution
> playback) takes 50-60% of my CPU time, according to top, just for
> mythfrontend, when XvMC is involved; X itself takes another 10% or so. Of
> course, if that VIA CPU is substantially faster on a per-cycle basis than an
> Intel Celeron, it might be fast enough, but my initial suspicion is that it
> won't be. I'd suggest you look at 3GHz or faster Intel CPUs or AMD CPUs with
> similar speed. AFAIK, VIA makes no CPUs in this speed range.
>

That and the PCI bus does not have the bandwidth required for HDTV
without XvMC (which lowers the amount of data being sent to the card).

-- 
Steve
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