Previous "2900 XT Lacks UVD" Posts

[ECH]

Decode acceleration is enabled under the next release of Catalyst for HD 2900 XT, it wasn't in the drivers that were sent out to press.

What decoding acceleration hardware are you referring to? What component built with the HD2900XT is being enabled (in the next cat release) that will help decode acceleration? Or is this software driven (which depends on cpu power). The reason why I ask is that you clearly stated

HD 2900 does not have UVD; it'll be paried with HD video capable CPU's. The drivers used in that test don't yet have decode acceleration enabled either, first revision of that comes with 8.38.

If this is true then what decoding acceleration are you talking about? You clearly state that HD 2900Xt needs to be paried with a HD video capable CPU BTW, what are video capable cpus? Are you refering to what's currently in the market or something AMD has plans to release?

 

[satein]

What decoding acceleration hardware are you referring to? What component built with the HD2900XT is being enabled (in the next cat release) that will help decode acceleration? Or is this software driven (which depends on cpu power). The reason why I ask is that you clearly stated If this is true then what decoding acceleration are you talking about? You clearly state that HD 2900Xt needs to be paried with a HD video capable CPU BTW, what are video capable cpus? Are you refering to what's currently in the market or something AMD has plans to release?

I think the accelerator Dave mentioned would be the same as the one in the R5xx series (X1xxx) that uses the shader processor to do video acceleration tasks. However, since the shader core of R5xx are different to that of the R6xx core, the software that was programmed to work with R5xx on the old CAT CCC will not work with the R600 core. That means a new driver is needed for the R600 to enable the video acceleration on its shader processor.

It is just my point of view on this, I am also not a person experted in the field too, just a noob here Hope it might help...

Edit: typo as usual...

 

[Silent_Buddha]

What decoding acceleration hardware are you referring to? What component built with the HD2900XT is being enabled (in the next cat release) that will help decode acceleration? Or is this software driven (which depends on cpu power). The reason why I ask is that you clearly stated If this is true then what decoding acceleration are you talking about? You clearly state that HD 2900Xt needs to be paried with a HD video capable CPU BTW, what are video capable cpus? Are you refering to what's currently in the market or something AMD has plans to release?

I would assume he means the current things AVIVO offloads from the CPU. UVD just offloads MORE things.

IE - this is a major reason the R580 is doing better than the R600 in offloading from the CPU when playing HD content. AVIVO hardware acceleration is enabled for the R580 in current drivers but it is not enabled for the R600 in current drivers.

Regards,
SB

 

[santiagodraco]

Waaaaah. OMG, would you like some cheese with all your whine?

And a HD 2900 XT for your HTPC? You have got to be kidding me. Me, and any other HTPC owner/builder would never in a million years use a HD 2900 XT or any other high end card for a dedicated HTPC. It's too loud, too power hungry, too powerful for the use we'd put it to.

Those of us building HTPC's based on DX10 cards are all going to be using either HD 2400's, HD 2600's (for those that game) or Nvidia 8600's, 8500's.

And you paired up a HD 2900 XT with a celeron? Are you serious? I'm completely amazed at this whole series of posts.

I'm with Triniboy on this one. Almost everyone that got an HD 2900 XT won't really care that it doesn't have UVD. Sure I'd like it, but any machine I'd put a HD 2900 XT into (or a 8800 GTX/GTS) will have more than sufficient CPU power to handle the functions that the UVD offloads from the CPU.

Granted, I hope you get your money back from making an ill informed purchase, but it's hardly ATI's fault. Unless you find marketing documents from ATI specifying that UVD is in fact part of R600, you won't get anywhere legally either. Or unless you find documentation where ATI specifically ordered or encouraged AIB partners to put UVD on their packaging.

Apparently that last one will be a bit difficult, as it appears that as soon as ATI saw vendors putting UVD on packaging, they sent out notification that it was incorrect and should be removed from said packaging.

In other words, ATI has done everything it can to protect the customer by insuring that product packaging contains the correct information. However, if an AIB continues to market UVD as part of it, then they are open to lawsuits from both customer AND from ATI.

I'd imagine that if this somehow did make it to court, it'll be a very short trial.

Regards,
SB

PS - My Sapphire box has no mention of UVD anywhere on the packaging. It does mention, "HD DVD decoding via Universal Video Decoding technology..." Which is completely true, as it's using the same technology that is used in the onchip Universal Video Decoder (UVD), only it's done through shaders and CPU rather than through dedicated logic on chip.

I guess that justs proves that your expertise < mine since I have a fully silent HTPC with an 2900xt and a 1200w powersupply. And considering I can game at full 1080p with high end performance, while YOU have to run to the other room to play on your "dedicated" gaming machine on your smaller lcd... well enough said.

Celeron? I wonder if you can even read. I'm certainly not running a celeron, I'm running a 6600 duo overclocked to 3ghz, oh yeah, in my silent HTPC.

If you need any tips on achieving higher end pc integrations give me a call sometime.

 

[santiagodraco]

Btw, SB. Your PS about UVD on the Sapphire box... it's called spindoctoring and no, it's not the same thing as having actual UVD.

 

[santiagodraco]

I must say that the logic of using a high-end gaming PC as a HTPC at present eludes me. The main thing a HTPC needs to be is silent or, at the very least, very quiet. With current specifications, a high-end gaming PC can't really be silent or even quiet due to the huge amounts of heat pumped out by the GPU and high-end CPUs.

Obviously, it would be ideal if a one-size-fits-all computer could be built with both silence and gaming power but current technology just doesn't allow this IMO.

Current technology DOES allow this, my setup is an example.

I have a completely silent (for all intents and purposes) setup. Granted I'm using Watercooling, but that is "current" technology and is readily available to consumers today.

I'm extremely pleased with my HTPC setup, so much so that I don't use any other computers for gaming or anything else. This one PC is about as high end as you can get without going to an Extreme processor. And Crossfire is coming IF I decide to stick with the 2900.

The UVD issue is the only thing holding me back from going further. As an HTPC (which was the primary purpose of this build, along with gaming) having the UVD promised on the product packaging is a major feature and very important to overall system performance during HD playback.

 

[Sampsa]

Decode acceleration is enabled under the next release of Catalyst for HD 2900 XT, it wasn't in the drivers that were sent out to press.

Thanks for the information. With 8.38 RC7 drivers Hardware acceleration enabled from PowerDVD Ultra caused this with Wolf Creek HD-DVD movie (H.264):

Looking forward to test with Catalyst 7.5 drivers.

Now we just need to get some of the big hardware sites to get their facts correct regarding R600 and UVD. Here is a direct quote from AMD:

"UVD is available for RV630 and RV610. UVD is meant to enable HD playback for entry level and mainstream PCs, which often do not have the system power to decode HD content from blu-ray or HD-DVD. The HD2900 XT is meant for high end gaming and for that target, it is common to have an average system performance. The ATI Radeon HD 2900 is bursting with shader power and will assist decode in the same way our previous generation did - the advantages of the UVD block in video performance are not required here."

"HD decode acceleration will be enabled in the upcoming Catalyst release (7.5), which should become available in the next few days."

 

[santiagodraco]

That might say more about you than it says about the logic. :sly:

Seriously, though: there are always other options for those willing to explore them. Simply using a sound-proofed case combined with low-noise water-cooling components can produce a system that is surprisingly quiet but very powerful. (And that's just one possibility).

Right on the money, but you don't even have to use a sound proofed case if you make the right case choice. I'm using the Zalman 160xt (the LCD is superflous, the 160 case would work as well).

 

[BRiT]

Who puts a high-end GPU with a 3 year old CPU (which was a value CPU when released, so far as that goes) and expects to get the highest performance?

You should also ask this question to those still using AGP!

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I guess that justs proves that your expertise < mine since I have a fully silent HTPC with an 2900xt and a 1200w powersupply. And considering I can game at full 1080p with high end performance, while YOU have to run to the other room to play on your "dedicated" gaming machine on your smaller lcd... well enough said.

Celeron? I wonder if you can even read. I'm certainly not running a celeron, I'm running a 6600 duo overclocked to 3ghz, oh yeah, in my silent HTPC.

If you need any tips on achieving higher end pc integrations give me a call sometime.

Interesting considering I have a virtually silent PC that is capable of gaming in the home theater room. With a fanless PSU, and Core 2 Duo also cooled with no fan. In a case with sound deadening panels and suspended HD's so that I don't hear them. There is a single 120 mm fan cooling the entire case and components.

My friend tried out his 8800 GTX in said case. And you know what? While the case made virtually no noise in that room previously, with that 8800 GTX it was freaking loud.

I have yet to find a single 1200 watt powersupply that doesn't sound like a jet engine in the home theater room. Hell, I've yet to find a 600 watt powersupply that doesn't sound noisy in that room. Enough so that you can hear it over the quiet parts of some movies.

I'm going to assume that you use your case in a room with high ambient noise, rather than assuming you can't hear anything. Then again maybe, I just have really good hearing.

My apologies on the celeron comment in regards to you, it was cadavega that was pairing a HD 2900 XT with a celeron.

Regards,
SB

 

[cadaveca]

My apologies on the celeron comment in regards to you, it was cadavega that was pairing a HD 2900 XT with a celeron.

Regards,
SB

First, you assume that everyone has thier pc directly in thier theatre...I do not. I have an "electrical room" for that sort of stuff, soundproofed, so any noise disappears when I close the door. Pretty basic, if you ask me. Think about it...I just dropped 3g's on videocards...you can bet I don't cut corners because of financial constraints.

And yes, a celeron...and quite obviously you have no idea what AMD's Xilleon is, nor have you got much experience with HD content, nor have you ever published any either. A good UVD has it's own processor, as the Xilleon does, and this means that inclusion of a seperate cpu is not nessecary...

And please note that the Xilleon set top boxes utilize a 300mhz MIPS cpu to push 1080p, and I bet this here celery has more gusto than that.

Please save your insults for when you know what it is that you talk about. Had the 2900XT had HARDWARE DECODING, pretty much any cpu would do...all it then does is push data to the vidcard, and all processing happens there. That's what a UVD does...

And, yes, my Sapphire boxes states it uses UVD technology to process HD content. pretty straight forward, and they've got some explaining to do.

I wonder if i got to the pc store today, will I find another box labelled jsut like this? Someone needs to make some phonecalls, becasue these cards WERE NOT READY FOR RELEASE.

 

[neliz]

I have yet to find a single 1200 watt powersupply that doesn't sound like a jet engine in the home theater room. Hell, I've yet to find a 600 watt powersupply that doesn't sound noisy in that room. Enough so that you can hear it over the quiet parts of some movies.

I find my Zalman 480 dead silent but then again. that's not 600Watt...

 

[Sinistar]

Wow, I thought this thread was about the RV630/RV610, I guess I was wrong.

 

[cadaveca]

It all applies...any of teh mentioned issues regarding UVd and HD decoding should not be an issue when using 630/610. This is an importnat feature that these cards have over the high-end HD2900XT...all in all making them a very well-rounded pc video devices.

:smile:

 

[Geeforcer]

My aptly named P&C 750 Silencer is inaudible in my case.

 

[santiagodraco]

It all applies...any of teh mentioned issues regarding UVd and HD decoding should not be an issue when using 630/610. This is an importnat feature that these cards have over the high-end HD2900XT...all in all making them a very well-rounded pc video devices.

:smile:

They already have a nice feature over the 2900, a lower price.

Let's face it. The reason why UVD is missing from the 2900 has nothing to do with marketing or "high end card users don't need it" logic.

As for the feature being a good addition for the lower end lines, of course! But name me one major product line that REMOVES high end features at the top and puts them on the bottom....

Well I guess this is a new trend huh!?

I want my CPU cycles back that UVD promised me with this card

 

[santiagodraco]

What decoding acceleration hardware are you referring to? What component built with the HD2900XT is being enabled (in the next cat release) that will help decode acceleration? Or is this software driven (which depends on cpu power). The reason why I ask is that you clearly stated If this is true then what decoding acceleration are you talking about? You clearly state that HD 2900Xt needs to be paried with a HD video capable CPU BTW, what are video capable cpus? Are you refering to what's currently in the market or something AMD has plans to release?

It's all double talk and spin doctoring.

 

[santiagodraco]

So we can positively expect support for that in the official Cat 7.5 release?

Well it's not in the 8.38 rc7 drivers so I find it doubtful. At least it sure isn't seen by Cyberlink PowerDVD.

 

[santiagodraco]

Interesting considering I have a virtually silent PC that is capable of gaming in the home theater room. With a fanless PSU, and Core 2 Duo also cooled with no fan. In a case with sound deadening panels and suspended HD's so that I don't hear them. There is a single 120 mm fan cooling the entire case and components.

My friend tried out his 8800 GTX in said case. And you know what? While the case made virtually no noise in that room previously, with that 8800 GTX it was freaking loud.

I have yet to find a single 1200 watt powersupply that doesn't sound like a jet engine in the home theater room. Hell, I've yet to find a 600 watt powersupply that doesn't sound noisy in that room. Enough so that you can hear it over the quiet parts of some movies.

I'm going to assume that you use your case in a room with high ambient noise, rather than assuming you can't hear anything. Then again maybe, I just have really good hearing.

My apologies on the celeron comment in regards to you, it was cadavega that was pairing a HD 2900 XT with a celeron.

Regards,
SB

Apology accepted.

My room has no ambient noise at all if I turn off the AC . And trust me this setup is completely silent. Well, completely silent unless you want to put your ear up to the fans on the case (which thanks to the Reserator 2 only need to run at 20% speed to cool the rest of the components).

As for the 1200 watt psu noise comment, I agree. Up until now there really were no PSU's that I knew of either that were quiet. The Thermaltake Toughpower 1200 has changed that. This PSU is really amazing. The fan is 140mm and runs virtually silently at full load.

Keep in mind haivng this kind of quiet HTPC case with high end hardware isn't cheap. It requires things like water cooling and more expensive PSU's. Although I'd bet that a more affordable one than I've built could be put together as well.

 

[Arun]

As for the feature being a good addition for the lower end lines, of course! But name me one major product line that REMOVES high end features at the top and puts them on the bottom....

Uhm.. You do realize that the EXACT SAME THING is true for G80? The reason is simply that the new video core R&Ds wasn't finished early enough to be in either G80 or R600. I fail to see what's so extraordinary there. Now, if the high-end refreshes didn't have the new video cores, that'd be another story - but they obviously will.

The information on certain product boxes and the data that was on AMD's website is clearly wrong, unacceptable even, and I'm not trying to defend that. I think some people are massively overreacting though. In practice, UNLESS you are on a super-low-end CPU (remember, this is the same hardware as on R5xx, it still accelerates part of the process), the ONLY effect this will have is higher power consumption when playing videos. Everything else will be equal, including image quality. While this might matter for some people, even those with 2900XTs, I would at least hope that it isn't the primary consideration of anyone buying those cards...