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[WINDOWS] Experimental H.264 DXVA2 hardware acceleration support with Intel GPUs
#1
Information 
Hardware-accelerated playback of H.264 material was fixed today in ffmpeg for Intel GPUs (patch originally from VLC, many thanks!).

The fix is in xbmc, starting with r34924 (trunk) and r34927 (Dharma), and concerns the Intel Core i3-5-7 and X4500HD / G45.

We now need lots of testing to decide if it's stable enough to keep in Dharma, so please report success/failures and your GPU type. Throw all kinds of samples at it, samples that caused issues with nVidia and ATI earlier, Bluray compliant, out-of-spec (L5.1, large amount of refs...), high bitrate,... . The goal is not perfection but to make sure that the Intel GPUs work as well as nVidia and ATI, and if they have limits, to find them and autodetect them for the best user experience.

The support is included in Dharma beta 4.

A few reminders:
- hardware acceleration works only with Vista and Windows 7
- hardware acceleration must be turned on in the settings: Video->Playback->Allow hardware acceleration.
- support was added only for H.264. VC-1 is still CPU only.
- you'll know that dxva is active when you can read 'dc:ff-h264-dxva2' instead of 'dc:ff-h264' in the codec info (opened with the key 'o' during playback)

And besides regular compliant material, here are a few samples to push the enveloppe, in order of "toughness"...
- Quantum of Solace sample - http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1907430/test_...h_l5.1.mp4
- Planet earth: From Pole to Pole - http://www.filesonic.com/file/11960723/P...sample.mkv
- killa sampla (no link handy, google it)
- Samsung Oceanic Life (no linky, google it). v.high Mb/s, 16 ref, 1080p - the works to stress a GPU. Already reported to break down with Intel Core...

Samples that used to give trouble with nVidia:
- Apple movie trailers

Not as extreme, but could be useful too:
- a pack of samples put together to test the ATI 3xxx line - http://www.multiupload.com/VEKPHNCY56 (thanks 0wing)

Enjoy!

edit: added Poulsbo to the list of GPUs that should work.
edit2: seems that the Poulsbo didn't need this change and already had dxva acceleration.
edit3: added links to samples
edit4: beta4 contains the support, no need to build or use unofficial builds.
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#2
I have a g41 chipset with GMA x4500 too... any chance it will work?
I know, try for yourself but atm takes me 2h to dissasemble the card :/
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#3
It's not likely to work. According to wikipedia, bitstream decoding was added in the X4500HD and is the main difference with the X4500.
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Do not e-mail Kodi Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules (wiki).
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#4
CrystalP Wrote:Hardware-accelerated playback of H.264 material was fixed today in ffmpeg for Intel GPUs (patch originally from VLC, many thanks!).

The fix is in xbmc, starting with r34924 (trunk) and r34927 (Dharma), and concerns the Intel Core i3-5-7, GMA 500 (Poulsbo) and X4500HD / G45.

We now need lots of testing to decide if it's stable enough to keep in Dharma, so please report success/failures and your GPU type. Throw all kinds of samples at it, samples that caused issues with nVidia and ATI earlier, Bluray compliant, out-of-spec (L5.1, large amount of refs...), high bitrate,... . The goal is not perfection but to make sure that the Intel GPUs work as well as nVidia and ATI, and if they have limits, to find them and autodetect them for the best user experience.

To try this, you need to build xbmc yourself or wait for the next Dharma beta (should be this weekend). Unless you find unofficial builds, but be aware that they're not supported and any problem other than the focus of this thread will be ignored.

A few reminders:
- hardware acceleration works only with Vista and Windows 7
- hardware acceleration must be turned on in the settings: Video->Playback->Allow hardware acceleration.
- support was added only for H.264. VC-1 is still CPU only.
- you'll know that dxva is active when you can read 'dc:ff-h264-dxva2' instead of 'dc:ff-h264' in the codec info (opened with the key 'o' during playback)

Enjoy!

edit: added Poulsbo to the list of GPUs that should work.

sorry for this question but where can I get r34927 (Dharma) from Smile

Thanks,
EG.
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#5
svn.
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#6
spiff Wrote:svn.

Cheers. Laugh
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#7
I specifically built a Core i3 system for XBMC. I'm currenty running the 33619 build and it workes perfectly for h264 mkv, but I can't seem to get it to work with mpeg2. I assume a lot of changed since the build I am running. I would love to test the new experimental build, but I don't know how to compile. I have been watching for a compiled version but I haven't seen anything yet. Should I just wait or is there a way I can get the new build?

My setup is a Core i3 with an ASUS P7H55-M Pro with 4 Gigs of ram, a Denon AVR 890 reciever, a Pioneer Kuro Elite 50" monitor and I am setup and running 7.1 on Paradine in-wall/celing speakers (professionally installed). I have about 200 Blu-Rays, both movie and TV series (which I purchased) and a large DVD collection.

Would I be a candidate for testing?

Thanks, I love this project!
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#8
Just to keep you right vmax, the build you refer to is for the DSPlayer branch, which is totally seperate from xbmc and relies on Direct Show filters, therefore has nothing to do with this thread.

Anyone can test providing you can either build your own, or can obtain an unofficial build from an outside rescource (the Dharma build from here should be sufficient to test http://sshcs.com/xbmc/), though re-read CrystalP's original post for caveats to that.
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#9
vmax Wrote:... Should I just wait or is there a way I can get the new build? ...

You can download precompiled versions here : http://sshcs.com/xbmc/
But remember, these are not stable versions !

Happy testing

P.s. Steelman was quicker Wink
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#10
Hi, just wanted to quikly chime in that I've tested it with a Core i3 laptop, that went from ~33% on cpu with SW, to 13% on cpu with this new HW-decoding patch (that was in the beginning scenes of The Dark Knight.) From the little testing I've done with my scene-library it seems to work flawlessly.
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#11
That's good news! Can I ask you for a debug log? I'd like to check a couple things.
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#12
sure, here
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#13
Looks great, thanks!

I'm curious to hear about the difficult samples (killa, gladiator, Samsung oceanic life, any L5.1, ...)
Always read the Kodi online-manual, the FAQ and search the forum before posting.
Do not e-mail Kodi Team members directly asking for support. Read/follow the forum rules (wiki).
For troubleshooting and bug reporting please make sure you read this first.
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#14
tried with several file from my collection, all goes great.
better than my ati radeon 3400HD Wink
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#15
CrystalP Wrote:Looks great, thanks!

I'm curious to hear about the difficult samples (killa, gladiator, Samsung oceanic life, any L5.1, ...)

CrystalP,
i just tested it with Samsung oceanic life, there are some blocks buidling.

My setup: Core i3 540, Gigabyte H55M USB3, Samsung 40" UE40B6000, Dharma r34958

Do you need a full debug log ?
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[WINDOWS] Experimental H.264 DXVA2 hardware acceleration support with Intel GPUs0