h.264 broken in Cat 6.4?

[sharangad]

H264 acceleration is broken on ATi cards with Catalyst 6.4.

This article http://www.behardware.com/html/news/cat4/page1.html
indicates that ATi have improved their H264 decoding:

"ATI indicated us that the decompression engine used by Cyberlink's codec is still the one that was released in December and that in the meantime (4 months), a more efficient version has been integrated in the drivers. As it has a different interface, it can't be exploited by Cyberlink's codec. The older acceleration engine disappeared from the recently released Catalyst 6.4 version (we used the 6.3 for this test), so it means that they will no longer accelerate H.264 decoding. We will have to wait for the Catalyst 6.5 or 6.6 for the new engine to be exploited and/or exploitable. Cyberlink apparently don't want to change their codec, so ATI will have to find a way to use the new engine when the codec calls the previous one. "

There're benchmarks on this page as well.

 

[Geo]

Well. One hardly knows what to say about that. What in the world would be the point of updating the drivers with an engine that the codec you reccomend (and people have paid for --including me, I might add) can't use?

Wouldn't you want cooridinate that with Cyberlink so you don't put out those drivers until their new version is ready to go too? Am I missing something obvious here?

Prolly deserves its own thread tho.

 

[sharangad]

Well. One hardly knows what to say about that. What in the world would be the point of updating the drivers with an engine that the codec you reccomend (and people have paid for --including me, I might add) can't use?

Wouldn't you want cooridinate that with Cyberlink so you don't put out those drivers until their new version is ready to go too? Am I missing something obvious here?

Prolly deserves its own thread tho.

I think ATi rushed some form of H264 support without thinking ahead. nVidia bested their CPU utilisation and now ATi's redone their H264 decoding. However, Cyberlink doesn't want to re-write their ATi H264 codec again, using different ( and improved ) forms of H264 acceleration.

 

[Geo]

I should have read more of the link:

Cyberlink apparently don't want to change their codec, so ATI will have to find a way to use the new engine when the codec calls the previous one.

That sounds kind of dicey to me. Why did they need to change the api interface anyway? But even assuming they can do it, in the meantime no h.264 accel for 6.4.

Wandering mod make this side-convo its own thread? Unlikely a Terry or someone of that nature will see it here and offer additional info in a "NV" thread.