[mythtv-users] New NVidia drivers, 7676.. not much changed.

[Chad]

On 8/24/05, Todd Ignasiak <ignasiak at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yeah, I primarily use software decoding, because of the XvMC issues.
> My system is not as beefy as yours (Socket754 3200+) but it can handle
> a single HD stream (though, I think my playback is smoother with
> XvMC..  I see a 'judder' effect on panning scenes with software
> decode).
> 
> But, with the capability there in the hardware, I would like to take
> advantage of it.   I'm hoping it would let my relatively modest system
> be able to handle PiP with two HD streams,  postprocessing while
> viewing other material, or any random Linux function running without
> effecting MythTV.
> 
> 
> Prior to MythTV, I used a "MyHD" card in windows.  It had a hardware
> decoder, so I got used to doing HD with low CPU overhead..  I'm trying
> to get close to that effect in Myth.
> 
> On 8/24/05, Isaac Richards <ijr at case.edu> wrote:
> > On Wednesday 24 August 2005 02:07 pm, Todd Ignasiak wrote:
> > > I noticed that Nvidia posted a new driver version, 7676, a week or so ago.
> > >
> > > I downloaded the AMD64 version, hoping to get reliable XvMC operation,
> > > but it didn't have any noticeable improvements on my system.
> > >
> > >
> > > XvMC still fails to initialize.    I didn't bother messing with it any
> > > more, but I assume it's still the same behavior as 7667, where you
> > > have to try initializing it 20+ times, then finally you get lucky and
> > > it works.  After that it works every time.
> >
> > What do you need XvMC for on an amd64 system?  I can pretty easily decode,
> > deinterlace, and display three 1080i streams simultaneously with pure
> > software decoding on my dev system.  Might be able to do four with a little
> > tweaking, if I cared to.  Granted, it's a dual-core 4400+, but that's similar
> > enough to two 3500+ chips that I can't imagine 1080i not playing smoothly in
> > software on almost any xp 64.
> >
> > On this machine, one 1080i stream doesn't even trip the powernowd thresholds,
> > so the cpu stays downclocked/volted to it's minimum level - at that point,
> > I'd rather keep load on the CPU and off of the video card so the videocard
> > doesn't start adding more heat to the system.
> >
> > Isaac
> > _______________________________________________

This would be nice, but I don't have mpeg2 cards, just generic cheapy
bt8x cards.  So my AMD64 is feeling pretty used at times, like
recording times.  And during those times, if XvMC was working, I could
watch HD streams without worrying if the systems going to get unstable
or the playback get choppy.

I do see your point though, it is nice having the ability to playback
the HD stream when nothing else is going on, I even think my system
could handle 2 streams simultaneously if nothing else was happening...

Cool