NVIDIA GeForce 8600: Full H.264 Decode Acceleration
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 27, 2007 4:34 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Serenity (VC1)
Our final test is a VC1 test, meaning the new BSP engine remains idle in the GeForce 8600 while running this test as it is hardcoded to H.264 CAVLC/CABAC bitstreams. When decoding VC1 content, the new 8600 (and the 8500) are essentially the same as the GeForce 8800 GTX or the GeForce 7 series GPUs. While they do include support for inverse transform, that doesn't appear to make any significant difference to the strain on the CPU.
For some reason ATI's offerings continue to give us much higher CPU utilization figures. In this case it's as if hardware assist isn't working at all. We haven't been following ATI's AVIVO over the past several Catalyst revisions, so it is possible that somewhere along the line ATI broke compatibility. It could also be just one more software bug that needs to be fixed by PowerDVD. ATI's hardware is supposed to handle motion compensation while the NVIDIA hardware does not, so in theory ATI should be producing lower CPU utilization numbers in these VC1 tests.
Under WinDVD the story is no different; the new GPUs (as expected) do the same amount of decode work as the old ones and CPU utilization remains unchanged. Given that VC1 is predominantly an HD-DVD codec, the CPU utilization figures we're seeing here aren't terrible.
While NVIDIA has stated that it will look into adding a VC1 compatible BSP in future GPU revisions, it's not absolutely necessary today.
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Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, April 27, 2007 - link
I corrected the statement, we will have our 8500 review sample in the coming weeks :)Take care,
Anand
kilkennycat - Friday, April 27, 2007 - link
Anand, you need to keep an eye on both ZZF and Newegg on release dates for new computer hardware, just in case your review versions don't materialize. The MSI 8500GT (o/c version, irc) was orderable and In Stock at ZZF @10PM Pacific Time on April 16 and continued to be in stock for at least part of April 17.JarredWalton - Saturday, April 28, 2007 - link
We know they're available, but if we ran out and purchased every piece of new hardware for testing rather than relying on our partners, that can start to put a pretty sizable dent in the old paycheck. Not that we don't often purchase hardware anyway....mmp121 - Friday, April 27, 2007 - link
Page 3 paragraph 1, last sentence ends abruptly.Could you comment on what you are confirming?
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, April 27, 2007 - link
Just confirming that the two 8600s perform the same despite their differences. Thanks for the correction :)Take care,
Anand
WarlordBB - Friday, April 27, 2007 - link
Did I miss it, or did you mention it in a previous article?What the heck are you using for your HD-DVD drive?
mmp121 - Friday, April 27, 2007 - link
Most likely the XBOX360 HD-DVD drive. Or heck, maybe he ripped it to HDD?Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, April 27, 2007 - link
We used the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive. We would never rip a HD-DVD movie to HDD, that would be illegal of course ;)DerekWilson - Friday, April 27, 2007 - link
quite ... of course, inspite of the fact that ripping the HD or BD movie is illegal (DMCA violation), *having* the HD or BD movie on your HDD is protected by fair use ...as Anand alluded to, though, playing back content that isn't aacs protected would result in lower cpu utilization and wouldn't be reflective of the average consumer experience.
Ard - Friday, April 27, 2007 - link
Well, strictly speaking that's not exactly true. Having a ripped movie on your HDD, assuming you legally own the movie in question, is certainly a fair use due to the software archival provisions in the Copyright Act. However, since the DMCA is itself a part of the Act, having the movie on your HDD essentially becomes de facto illegal because the only way you could put it there is through ripping, which, as you stated, is illegal anti-circumvention. It's things like this (the chilling of fair use and extension of copyright owners' rights) that make me hate the DMCA and all who would use it for their gain.On topic, I'm glad to see that the 8600 line is capable of significantly decreasing CPU utilization. I wasn't expecting a drop from 80+% to 24%. It's really incredible.