Linux HEVC - Underpowered hardware?
#1
I ran into an issue trying to play back my first HEVC stream last night. I'm using Kodi 15.2 on Ubuntu 14.10, general system specs below:

Quote:CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 245 (Regor), Socket AM3
MB: ASUS M4N78 Pro
RAM: 16GB/4x4GB DDR2 800
GPU: Nvidia GeForce 8300 (onboard)

I fear I already know the answer to this question, but I wanted to pose it to the community as you all clearly know far more about this than I do. My understanding is that there exists next to zero GPU decoding support for HEVC at this point in time (only the GTX 960 can do it, and I'm not about to drop one of those in an otherwise-silent HTPC) and even then it's only with a Windows driver. This leaves it up to the CPU to crunch the stream. Is my Athlon II up to the task at all? If so, is it a matter of tweaking a setting or waiting for v.16 and if the former, what would I need to change? If not...any guesses on how long before HEVC decoders trickle down into low-end, passively-cooled video cards?

Thanks for the help. I know these questions get asked a lot and I appreciate your patience. I'm happy to re-ask the hardware questions in the hardware forum if that's more appropriate, but I'd be very grateful for any guidance on tweaking Kodi if there's anything to be gained from it.
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#2
(2015-12-01, 03:17)CelticWhisper Wrote: I ran into an issue trying to play back my first HEVC stream last night. I'm using Kodi 15.2 on Ubuntu 14.10, general system specs below:

Quote:CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 245 (Regor), Socket AM3
MB: ASUS M4N78 Pro
RAM: 16GB/4x4GB DDR2 800
GPU: Nvidia GeForce 8300 (onboard)

I fear I already know the answer to this question, but I wanted to pose it to the community as you all clearly know far more about this than I do. My understanding is that there exists next to zero GPU decoding support for HEVC at this point in time (only the GTX 960 can do it, and I'm not about to drop one of those in an otherwise-silent HTPC) and even then it's only with a Windows driver. This leaves it up to the CPU to crunch the stream. Is my Athlon II up to the task at all? If so, is it a matter of tweaking a setting or waiting for v.16 and if the former, what would I need to change? If not...any guesses on how long before HEVC decoders trickle down into low-end, passively-cooled video cards?

Thanks for the help. I know these questions get asked a lot and I appreciate your patience. I'm happy to re-ask the hardware questions in the hardware forum if that's more appropriate, but I'd be very grateful for any guidance on tweaking Kodi if there's anything to be gained from it.
Who needs Video Cards when at least 8-bit GPU HEVC hardware decoding can already be done on relatively cheap Intel Braswell or Cherry Trail Hardware:

http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=231955
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=229096

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