Windows 7

[Silent_Buddha]

Does this happen if you revert to previous drivers?

I had something similar on a laptop with ATI video chip. After many days of trouble shooting including a wipe and clean install of the OS, I found out that of all things it was bad memory causing Vista to give graphics related kernel errors. It was probably erroring out for other things also but the graphics crashing and flashing was the most obvious clue that something was wrong.

Regards,
SB

 

[Bludd]

Is Haali renderer really tangibly better than EVR? The description of supposedly superior bicubic scaling (vs. MPC's bicubic VMR9 option) is interesting, but I always suspect such trivial advantages as being placebo. I have a hard time seeing the difference between linear filtering, bicubic, and even complex resizers such as lanczos and spline. Screenshot comparisons are kinda ridiculous IMO because that's not how your eyeballs see video in motion.

My favorite aspect to Vista/7 is how Aero prevents tearing issues with video. Helps everything from video files to Flash and Netflix/Silverlight.

In my experience, Haali is better for black levels and resizing without a super-high CPU penalty. I don't want my GPU fan spinning up just to watch a video so I stay away from renderers that use my GPU too much.

 

[Kaotik]

In my experience, Haali is better for black levels and resizing without a super-high CPU penalty. I don't want my GPU fan spinning up just to watch a video so I stay away from renderers that use my GPU too much.

EVR with DXVA enabled doesn't use much of your GPU really, in case of Radeons UVD handles pretty much everything as far as I know, perhaps some of the IQ improving things (noise reduction etc) going through shader core, but I can't remember my GPU use changing at all according to CCC (Though it's been a while since I checked that)

 

[Bludd]

EVR with DXVA enabled doesn't use much of your GPU really, in case of Radeons UVD handles pretty much everything as far as I know, perhaps some of the IQ improving things (noise reduction etc) going through shader core, but I can't remember my GPU use changing at all according to CCC (Though it's been a while since I checked that)

Ok. I have an i7 920 so I can certainly handle the CPU load.

 

[Kaotik]

Ok. I have an i7 920 so I can certainly handle the CPU load.

But if you care for your electric bill, using the card for it is much more economical

 

[Bludd]

But if you care for your electric bill, using the card for it is much more economical

Really? My CPU throttles itself well and the GPU (GTX285) has really good throttling too and I think having the GPU in idle mode is better than using it all the time for videos.

 

[Kaotik]

Really? My CPU throttles itself well and the GPU (GTX285) has really good throttling too and I think having the GPU in idle mode is better than using it all the time for videos.

I have to admit I'm not familiar with how GF's handle DXVA videos, but I'd expect it to stay at 2D clocks or have slightly higher clockdomain for DXVA, but it definately shouldn't kick in 3D clocks.
Also as said, the small tasks shaders might be doing aren't taxing at all, as even the lowest end of integrated chips of nowadays (HD3x00, GF9400 at least) handle them well.

I couldn't find any powerconsumption compares, but as far as I can remember, they're not much higher than basic 2D figures

 

[Bludd]

I have to admit I'm not familiar with how GF's handle DXVA videos, but I'd expect it to stay at 2D clocks or have slightly higher clockdomain for DXVA, but it definately shouldn't kick in 3D clocks.
Also as said, the small tasks shaders might be doing aren't taxing at all, as even the lowest end of integrated chips of nowadays (HD3x00, GF9400 at least) handle them well.

I couldn't find any powerconsumption compares, but as far as I can remember, they're not much higher than basic 2D figures

Fine, but the CPU still has to do work. DXVA is not for me, it is for people with low-performance CPUs to watch HD content. I don't need it, I don't want to be limited by the quirks of a MS renderer. I'll rather be limited by the quirks of a renderer made by a crazy Russian.

Though he works for CoreCodec now so I guess he's not so crazy.

 

[Kaotik]

The CPU stays at it's throttled down clocks when running DXVA material on GPU (on Radeons at least) and the CPU usage depending on click floats between 0-15% usually on those idle clocks
edit: Or does on my Q6600 G0 anyway, I doubt i7 is any different from that

 

[suryad]

Does this happen if you revert to previous drivers?

I had something similar on a laptop with ATI video chip. After many days of trouble shooting including a wipe and clean install of the OS, I found out that of all things it was bad memory causing Vista to give graphics related kernel errors. It was probably erroring out for other things also but the graphics crashing and flashing was the most obvious clue that something was wrong.

Regards,
SB

Thanks for the reply SB. Yes I did change drivers to older versions and same thing. Also it looks like when I fire up a game it does the same exact thing. So you think it is the RAM or you think it is the video memory? This could be an opportune moment to go get some more RAM for my system. I was looking to get 8 gigs.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Well it's worth a shot to check the memory. I only mention it because it was not what I expected considering I was getting odd video errors while everything else appeared to be OK. Otherwise, I probably would have tracked it down sooner. I was just about to toss the laptop but decided to check the memory for the hell of it to see if I could salvage it for another machine.

Memory got error's, replaced it. And no more video related errors on the laptop. I'd still test all the usual suspects though. Like swap in another video card, PSU, etc. if you can. If it's not blue-screening or spontaneously rebooting there's always the chance some critical software component got corrupted, but that's not all that likely in Vista/Win7 since it keeps good copies of key components for backup.

Regards,
SB

 

[suryad]

yeah its not bsoding or rebooting. Its just after a certain amount of time...and its random...the graphics driver crashes and then reloads back up. I am hesitant to say that its the video cards that is the problem because well if it was the problem then it would render stuff at all considering my Aero 3d glass UI is running. THat would blow up on me with all sorts of artifacts. I think you could be on to something with the ram thing. It is running at a high voltage so it could be that now it has decided to give up.

 

[Bludd]

The CPU stays at it's throttled down clocks when running DXVA material on GPU (on Radeons at least) and the CPU usage depending on click floats between 0-15% usually on those idle clocks
edit: Or does on my Q6600 G0 anyway, I doubt i7 is any different from that

Well, I tried some 1080p AVC stuff I have and it went to max 15% and the clocks were throttled, but albeit not at the lowest level, but still.

 

[Kaotik]

Well, I tried some 1080p AVC stuff I have and it went to max 15% and the clocks were throttled, but albeit not at the lowest level, but still.

Was this with or without DXVA enabled? And if with DXVA, did your gfx card stay at idle clocks aswell?

 

[Bludd]

Was this with or without DXVA enabled? And if with DXVA, did your gfx card stay at idle clocks aswell?

Without DXVA, Haali renderer FFdshow decoding the AVC. Sorry if I am dismissive, but I can't be bothered trying something else when this works awesomely well.

 

[Kaotik]

Well of course there's no need to change things when they work, I just think that with DXVA you'd use even less energy which is why I suggested it

 

[suryad]

Well of course there's no need to change things when they work, I just think that with DXVA you'd use even less energy which is why I suggested it

Wouldnt it depend on the video card though? I thought DXVA uses the video card a lot more than the cpu...and depending on what you have you would probably burn through a lot more power on a video card than you would a cpu?

 

[Bludd]

Well of course there's no need to change things when they work, I just think that with DXVA you'd use even less energy which is why I suggested it

I use my computer as a heat source so I need to use a bit of power.

 

[Kaotik]

Wouldnt it depend on the video card though? I thought DXVA uses the video card a lot more than the cpu...and depending on what you have you would probably burn through a lot more power on a video card than you would a cpu?

Well, I don't know how it works on GeForces, but on Radeons even on the lowest end HD3200's it doesn't stress the GPU practicly at all, UVD is doing almost everything and only some de-noise and such IQ improvement filters are run through shaders, if even those

There has been a power consumption comparison somewhere on a bit more modern hardware, but I can't find it, the only I found was from May 2007 using 8600GTS, with C2D E4300 (1,8 GHz), without DXVA acceleration it the machine used 109-119W of power, while with DXVA acceleration it used 95-101W. The video was HD-DVD with h.264 encoding.
And considering that was on first gen NV video processor, things have only gone better since no doubt

 

[almighty]

My retail copy was installed last night

Installed a few updates and has not given me any problems

It's the 64bit Ultimate edition