2009-02-28, 11:58
motd2k,
i really appreciate your work. the fix for the judder issue helped a lot. my biggest issue with VDPAU was choppy playback; which is definitely much improved. im stilling crossing my fingers an XRandR solution can be figured out so that 24p playback can be done without headaches. anyway, i digress...
everyone else,
the 512 MB fanless 8400GS seems to be the most recommended card. i'm wondering if im the only one experiencing the following issues with it. two are possibly (probably) VDPAU related, the other two are not. I only mention this here because 8400GS seems to be the prevailing advice and i feel like ive wasted $40 and dont want others to do the same. (not that i blame anyone but myself).
(none of these issues existed with my 256 MB 8600GT using GLSL, all are present with the fanless ASUS 512 MB 8400GS):
1. pauses while video is buffered
once a video is initially loaded, and often while it has played, video rendering will pause completely for a few seconds. eventually it will unpause, and "catch up" by rendering all frames very quickly. seems to happen 100% within the five minutes of loading a 720P or higher video, and then intermittently every hour playing back the same video. 8600 GT did not exhibit similiar behavior.
2. GUI is choppy.
this is not VDPAU related but would definitely be an issue for anyone using the 8400GS on a 1080P display. transitions between screens, loading of fan art, and other actions are just plain slow on the 8400GS at 1080P, even at 60Hz. Same issue was not present on higher end card. seen on both MediaStream and PM3.HD
3. HOT
these fanless cards are incredibly hot. i expected a slight increase in ambient temperature, but it was far worse. i experienced sound drops because my northbridge was overheating. i had to increase my system fans to much higher levels, and the total Db output from my HTPC is now far higher then it was with the single heatsink fan the 8600 GT had on it before.
4. playback is still far from silky smooth
video is definitely better (and much better with thursday's fix from motd2k) but it is not as good as GL with a more powerful card. im wondering how may of those coming out in favor of these "lightweight" cards are on displays > 32" and with 1080p video? anyone expecting blu-ray quality playback of 1080p sources is going to be disapointed.
(system specs are 690G gigabyte board, 2Gb dual channel RAM, amd 5600+, integrated intel_hda sound)
i really appreciate your work. the fix for the judder issue helped a lot. my biggest issue with VDPAU was choppy playback; which is definitely much improved. im stilling crossing my fingers an XRandR solution can be figured out so that 24p playback can be done without headaches. anyway, i digress...
everyone else,
the 512 MB fanless 8400GS seems to be the most recommended card. i'm wondering if im the only one experiencing the following issues with it. two are possibly (probably) VDPAU related, the other two are not. I only mention this here because 8400GS seems to be the prevailing advice and i feel like ive wasted $40 and dont want others to do the same. (not that i blame anyone but myself).
(none of these issues existed with my 256 MB 8600GT using GLSL, all are present with the fanless ASUS 512 MB 8400GS):
1. pauses while video is buffered
once a video is initially loaded, and often while it has played, video rendering will pause completely for a few seconds. eventually it will unpause, and "catch up" by rendering all frames very quickly. seems to happen 100% within the five minutes of loading a 720P or higher video, and then intermittently every hour playing back the same video. 8600 GT did not exhibit similiar behavior.
2. GUI is choppy.
this is not VDPAU related but would definitely be an issue for anyone using the 8400GS on a 1080P display. transitions between screens, loading of fan art, and other actions are just plain slow on the 8400GS at 1080P, even at 60Hz. Same issue was not present on higher end card. seen on both MediaStream and PM3.HD
3. HOT
these fanless cards are incredibly hot. i expected a slight increase in ambient temperature, but it was far worse. i experienced sound drops because my northbridge was overheating. i had to increase my system fans to much higher levels, and the total Db output from my HTPC is now far higher then it was with the single heatsink fan the 8600 GT had on it before.
4. playback is still far from silky smooth
video is definitely better (and much better with thursday's fix from motd2k) but it is not as good as GL with a more powerful card. im wondering how may of those coming out in favor of these "lightweight" cards are on displays > 32" and with 1080p video? anyone expecting blu-ray quality playback of 1080p sources is going to be disapointed.
(system specs are 690G gigabyte board, 2Gb dual channel RAM, amd 5600+, integrated intel_hda sound)