[mythtv-users] My experience with HD video and the Nvidia 6200TC

Jonathan Rogers jonner at teegra.net
Mon May 15 14:41:05 EDT 2006


Steven Adeff wrote:
> On 5/15/06, Jonathan Rogers <jonner at teegra.net> wrote:
>> James C. Dastrup wrote:
>>>> I am able to happily view high-definition (1080i and 720p) video
>>>> through MythTV. Here are the ingredients:
>>>>
>>>> * A powerful-enough frontend. As I understand it, my Pentium 4 3.0GHz
>>>>  frontend/backend is just over the line in terms of having enough
>>>>  horsepower to display HD without XvMC. This is important, as I'll
>>>>  get to later.
>>>> * A supported video card. For HD, this generally means an Nvidia 5200
>>>>  (AGP) or 5300 (PCI Express; rare), or later; I have an Nvidia 6200
>>>>  TC with 128MB. ATI owners who want to display HD (as opposed to
>>>>  standard-definition) are, from what I understand, out of luck due to
>>>>  driver-support issues.
>>> ATI owners with a 9600 AGP or above and 128 MB video RAM will find
>>> HD works just fine using the fglrx drivers.  There is much documentation
>>> on the wiki and other places that no problem exists.
>> I am currently using a Radeon 8500 with the X.org 7.0 radeon driver and
>> an LCD TV connected via DVI. It works fine except that the Athlon64
>> 3700+ CPU is sometimes overloaded playing and deinterlacing 1080i. I
>> expect that to change when I switch the CPU to an Athlon 64 X2 3800+.
> 
> Jonathan, what percentage of the CPU does X use and what percentage is
> Myth using? My 3200+ handles deinterlacing 1080i fine, but I've got a
> FX5200, I'm trying to get a handle on how much CPU the ATI Xorg driver
> uses compared to the nvidia drivers.

Playing a 720p movie, the "X" process takes about 50% CPU time and
"mythfrontend" about 30%. Playing 1080i show with Bob, "X" takes about
53% and mythfrontend about 30% to 40%. Those percentages can vary quite
a bit with the program and even scene, which is why it usually keeps up,
but sometimes stutters.

I've also tried a Radeon 9000 with the "radeon" driver because it is
fanless, but it performed much worse and has a pink bar on the right
side of a 1080i video. I'm hoping to find a card that's slightly better
than the 8500 without a fan that will still work with the X.org driver
and will use somewhat less CPU time.

Jonathan Rogers


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