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dbldown768 · 2008-12-31, 05:43

So after all this talk about the killa sample as a benchmark, I wanted to see what exactly this video was. I decided to try and play the file on my dell xps 420 desktop to see how well it would perform. I have a Q9450 processor with 4gigs of ram and a Geforce 8800 GT video card. I don't know if there is any tweaking that is needed, but this pc is relatively brand new and this video plays horrible. Shouldn't my pc be able to play this video better since the GPU is available to the video unlike xbmc in linux? Is there something I would need to change in vlc media player to make it run better?

Evanrich · 2008-12-31, 06:17

don't worry about it, those killa sample videos are garbage.

I have a Q6600 OC'd to 3.3Ghz, 8GB of PC6400 DDR2 Ram, and an EVGA 260 SSC card, as well as Raptor Drives, and I can't even get one frame out of that video in VLC, yet I can play all HD content without a single dropped frame at 1920x1080 on XBMC. The datarate in the killa samples is like 45MB/sec, faster than most 1080 HD content @ around 20-25MBps

**Hitcher** · 2008-12-31, 08:43

The Killa Sample is not a benchmark, it's more of a stress test than anything else.

For some standard 1080p test files check my sig.

althekiller · 2008-12-31, 08:49

XBMC doesn't offload decoding to the GPU on any platforms.

dbldown768 · 2008-12-31, 16:35

althekiller Wrote:XBMC doesn't offload decoding to the GPU on any platforms.

Yeah, i am aware of this, which is why i was surprised that using VLC the video did not play well. I assumed that VLC can take advantage of the video card in my system to help process the video along with the CPU - allowing this video to play.

**ashlar** · 2008-12-31, 16:35

VLC is not better off than XBMC where hardware decoding is concerned.

With your machine I'm still surprised it can't pull it off. The h.264 decoder must be really slow. I have no problem playing it on an E2180 overclocked to 2.7GHz, using CoreAVC.

Actually... I have no problem playing it back on XBMC with an overclock to 3.0 GHz, with digital out passthrough (ie. with audio decoding happening on the receiver). It spikes at about 87.6% CPU use but doesn't drop frames.

2GB RAM and an 8800GT with latest certified drivers, vsynch forced on in the drivers and "let driver decide" in XBMC.

Edit: also, that video is not crap. The spike at around 40Mbps is right there with some of the most tough scenes on some Blurays (I'm pretty sure X-men 3 is one of them).

dbldown768 · 2008-12-31, 17:17

Before trying this video, i never played a .mkv file on my new system. I didnt want to install a whole bunch of different codecs to try and get this file to play correctly - whether thats in windows media player or some other application. I read that VLC will play mkv files out of the box, so i figured i would just try that program as i know it is highly respected. I dont know much about CoreAVC and if their codec is better than what is already included in VLC. It appears by what you are stating, that the performace is better.

Maybe my problem is just with the codec that is trying to decode this file, compared to the hardware on my pc.

TomJensen · 2009-01-06, 11:16

dbldown768 Wrote:Maybe my problem is just with the codec that is trying to decode this file, compared to the hardware on my pc.

VLC uses FFmpeg to decode many of the codecs, same as with XBMC, so it doesn't have HW-accel for H.264 either. CoreAVC is also a software codec, but is optimized for speed, although I've read that it takes some shortcuts that compromised visual detail.

I'd say the problem is with your system, as even w/o HW accel, your CPU should've been able to play any 1080p vid smoothly. It may be your hardware setup, but more likely your OS environment has gotten bogged down with too many garbage. As another noted, I had built an OC'ed (3.0GHz) 2180 box a year ago, and tested it with multiple concurrent 1080p feeds of Matrix 3, each playing full screen on separate monitors, with no problem. It wasn't the killa sample, but almost as high bit rate (where the drones were battling the human-mechs in the underground city). In short, if you have a C2D or better, you should not be having ANY video problem, period.

dbldown768 · 2009-01-06, 21:04

actually the problem was resolved once i installed haali media splitter. The file will now play.

Gamester17 · 2009-01-06, 21:55

XBMC does not use VLC nor any other third-party player, XBMC has its own player:
http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Video_Players
http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=DVDPlayer
...and XBMC video player (DVDPlayer) does not utilize the GPU for video decoding.