[alanwww1]

Hi all !

I've just got my new Nvidia G210 desktop card which as most of you know equipped with vdpau feature set c capabilities. This means it has a better sd upscaler, can decode all major video codecs no matter if sd or hd including also divx, mpeg4.

The high quality upscaler was implemented to xbmc by the great vdpau guru Motd2k. The hw accel decoding of the new (old) formats is not yet made it into the main ffmpeg code therefore it is not in xbmc yet, but there are already patches available for ffmpeg so we can hope.

To get to the most important point, how it is working:

When i booted i realized that i don't have the hdmi audio alsa device when i make aplay -l in a terminal. On the box it says the card is hdmi 1.3a capable with 7.1 audio integrated. Well i think we just have to wait until Alsa starts supporting this. So no hdmi audio yet, but let's see the video stuff.

Vdpau decoding of x264 goes well as with all other cards and integrated chipsets. Now i tried the hq upscaling. I set it to level 1 and than level 9 but i did not see any difference in upscaling quality. It is the same (not too good) quality as we have seen with vdpau feature set B cards.

Here are some screenshots



The images are zoomed but the difference can be clearly seen.

I think that the vdpau hq upscaler does not work yet.

Here is the log with vdpau renderer set.
http://pastebin.com/f33292e47

with GLSL renderer xbmc crashes at the begining of the playback.

[motd2k]

What are the images? Before and after, new card vs old card or?

My G210 is arriving tomorrow, so i'll be finally able to see what its doing.

[alanwww1]

What are the images? Before and after, new card vs old card or?

My G210 is arriving tomorrow, so i'll be finally able to see what its doing.

Sorry i forgot to make labels. The first image is with Lanczos SD upscaling, the second is vdpau feature set "C" (but i think it only does the same as "B" now)

There are a lot of error messages in my log.

By the way i found a great review of gt220
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3657&p=3

[michal]

I can't even get the VDPAU scaler to work for me. When enabled XBMC crashes when I begin playback with:

Code:

21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2717872128  NOTICE: Using GL_TEXTURE_2D
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2717872128   DEBUG: GL: Requested render method: 4
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2717872128  NOTICE: GL: Selecting Single Pass YUV 2 RGB shader
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2717097984   DEBUG: GL: Shader compilation log:
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2717097984   DEBUG: GL: Shader compilation log:
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2716749824  NOTICE: GL: NPOT texture support detected
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2716749824   DEBUG: GL: Creating YUV NPOT texture of size 1915 x 1080
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2716577792   DEBUG: GL: Creating YUV NPOT texture of size 957 x 540
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2716577792   DEBUG: GL: Creating YUV NPOT texture of size 957 x 540
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2716577792   DEBUG: GL: Creating YUV NPOT texture of size 1915 x 540
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2716577792   DEBUG: GL: Creating YUV NPOT texture of size 957 x 270
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2716577792   DEBUG: GL: Creating YUV NPOT texture of size 957 x 270
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2716577792   DEBUG: GL: Creating YUV NPOT texture of size 1915 x 540
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2716577792   DEBUG: GL: Creating YUV NPOT texture of size 957 x 270
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2716577792   DEBUG: GL: Creating YUV NPOT texture of size 957 x 270
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2716577792   DEBUG: GL: Creating YUV NPOT texture of size 1915 x 1080
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2716577792   DEBUG: GL: Creating YUV NPOT texture of size 957 x 540
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2716577792   DEBUG: GL: Creating YUV NPOT texture of size 957 x 540
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2716577792   DEBUG: GL: Creating YUV NPOT texture of size 1915 x 540
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2716577792   DEBUG: GL: Creating YUV NPOT texture of size 957 x 270
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2716577792   DEBUG: GL: Creating YUV NPOT texture of size 957 x 270
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2716577792   DEBUG: GL: Creating YUV NPOT texture of size 1915 x 540
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2716577792   DEBUG: GL: Creating YUV NPOT texture of size 957 x 270
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2716577792   DEBUG: GL: Creating YUV NPOT texture of size 957 x 270
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2716577792   DEBUG: ------ Window Deinit (VideoOverlay.xml) ------
21:59:03 T:3041093520 M:2715115520   ERROR: ffmpeg[B5436790]: swScaler: Exactly one scaler algorithm must be chosen

Obviously this is all bleeding edge, but I'll gladly provide additional information to help further this along.

Regards,
Michal

[alanwww1]

I can't even get the VDPAU scaler to work for me. When enabled XBMC crashes when I begin playback with:

Probably Motd2k already knows about this. Check this thread:

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showpost...ostcount=4

We must be patient. Ha can do magic things

[michal]

Thanks for the info. I'm looking forward to reaping the benefits of his work

If I can provide any basic help then let me know.

BTW, I just tried compiling vdpauinfo and it claims it can't find the necessary files even though I believe I have all the relevant dev package installed:

Code:

checking for VDPAU... configure: error: Package requirements (x11 vdpau >= 0.2) were not met:

No package 'vdpau' found

Any tips on how to configure and compile it?

[JackieBrown]

You need to install the dev filed for vdpau (probably something like libvdpau-dev)

[motd2k]

Few changes on SVN regarding this - you might want to update.

[alanwww1]

Few changes on SVN regarding this - you might want to update.

Thanks for the info. I try it out tonight with my "famous" test movie and report back to you.

[alanwww1]

@Motd,

I made a fresh compile using nvidia-190-libvdpau-dev package from nvidia ppa.
After setting renderer to vdpau, ticking hq upscaler level on, the movie starts playing with the same (bad) quality as it was with normal upscaler. After that i got a 190MB xbmc log file with full of these messages:

Code:

22:18:11 T:2981948304 M:1932804096   ERROR: Decode - avcodec_decode_video returned failure
22:18:11 T:2981948304 M:1932804096   ERROR: ffmpeg[B1BCEB90]: [h264_vdpau] get_buffer() failed (-1 0 0 (nil))
22:18:11 T:2981948304 M:1932804096   ERROR: ffmpeg[B1BCEB90]: [h264_vdpau] decode_slice_header error
22:18:11 T:2981948304 M:1932804096   ERROR: ffmpeg[B1BCEB90]: [h264_vdpau] no frame!
22:18:11 T:2981948304 M:1932804096   ERROR: Decode - avcodec_decode_video returned failure
22:18:11 T:2981948304 M:1932804096   ERROR: ffmpeg[B1BCEB90]: [h264_vdpau] get_buffer() failed (-1 0 0 (nil))
22:18:11 T:2981948304 M:1932804096   ERROR: ffmpeg[B1BCEB90]: [h264_vdpau] decode_slice_header error
22:18:11 T:2981948304 M:1932804096   ERROR: ffmpeg[B1BCEB90]: [h264_vdpau] no frame!

Maybe i made something wrong by compiling ?

It was with rev 24203
Were you be able to check the new upscaler with your card ?

[motd2k]

Try again with my latest effort please!

[alanwww1]

Try again with my latest effort please!

Thanks, i'll report soon!

[alanwww1]

Hey Motd !

You made it ! The vdpau hq upscaling on featuire set C gpus now work great. There is a great difference in picture quality now if hq upscaling is enabled. CPU utilization is an average of 1%

just check for example the cross on the church image:
with hq without hq

Zoom into these full hd images. Check out the edges of the circle. Best way is to open the two pictures in two tabs of your browser UNSCALED, and switch back/forth:
with hq without hq

The new nvidia g210 and gt220 cards (despite hdmi audio is not working yet) are the best buys for xbmc and htpc with this capability.

Thanks Motd2k. Again a huge improvement for xbmc. One that other media center apps don't have.

Now the nirvana would be if we could use vdpau for mpeg4 xvid and divx avi files so that we could enjoy this great feature also on these SD movies.
Do you know the ffmpeg status implementing these codecs' hw acceleration ?

[Zeppstar]

Recently upgraded to a GT220 and all I can say is WOW! Silky smooth and crystal clear with vdpua. On a Full High Def screen its truly something to behold.

Many thanks again to the devs of xbmc

[Zeron]

Now if only we had VDPAU on SD MPEG2...