AMD vs Intel (and Windows vs Linux)
#61
(2012-06-24, 01:29)Zenith Wrote: I think that macroblocking using DVXA2 and the infamous 24p issue made this forum a "bit" AMD oriented.
Now we know that nobody is perfect on 24p...what about macroblocking is DVXA2 support still broken on intel HD?

Yes, XBMC forum's love of AMD products is well known. There have also been some inaccuracies that should be corrected. DXVA is not needed with the Intel iGPU as they are more than enough CPU power for HD 1080p playback. There is not increased PQ or performance gain with DXVA when using a Intel CPU and Intel iGPU (btw the DXVA issue is is a limitation of XBMC and not Intel. But whose fault it is is a moot point as I just listed as its not even needed or wanted).

Here are some tests showing CPU usage with 1080p material using my i3 2100 HD2000 CPU (my G620T HD1000 is shown above):

Wall.E 1080p Bluray Rip (15-20% CPU usage)
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Super 8 1080p (10-15% CPU usage)
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About 30-35 watts during 1080p playback, fyi.
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#62
Very Nice!
Do you think that g530 has enough cpu power too for hd playback or is better to stay on the safe side of G620?
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#63
G530 has enough. I use one in my WHS+FlexRaid server which also runs Plex server.

The G530 and G620 are incredible CPUs for the money ($35 and $50 respectively at Microcenter B&M and others online).

Passmarks:

G530: 2274
G620: 2486
A4 3300: 1753
A6 3500: 2233

Here is my G620 playing Thor in 1080p:

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#64
(2012-06-24, 01:29)Zenith Wrote: I think that macroblocking using DVXA2 and the infamous 24p issue made this forum a "bit" AMD oriented http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=98037&page=19
Now we know that nobody is perfect on 24p...what about macroblocking is DVXA2 support still broken on intel HD?
It's all in the setting. With proper configurations, Intel CPU/iGPU work fine. Since Intel CPU powerful enough to handle 1080P playback by itself, you don't need to enable DXVA in XBMC. My G530, i3 and i5 can playback blu-ray in 1080P without DXVA.........

I listed Intel configurations in post #6......
>Alienware X51- do it all HTPC
>Simplify XBMC configurations
>HOW-TO Bitstreaming using XBMC
I refused to watch movie without bitstreaming HD audio!
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#65
You all talk about this as if decoding High Profile 1080p h.264 content on a CPU is actually some sort f computational feat in the year 2012. It's not guys. Frankly, even dual core Netbook/Nettop hardware could do the job in XBMC if they were to actually get multi-core support in their ffmpeg implimentation working. So right now, any of those machines can only use ONE physical core to do the job and that's why they come up short.

And since you're limited to a single core for the ffmpeg thread, it cuts the difference between the CPUs pretty sharply since the fact that they have multiple cores is kinda moot, so long as there's at least ONE other core to handle audio and subitles and the like, while the first core is free to simply decode video.

For the sake of arguement, I'm running Beta 2 of Frodo on my laptop right now, it's an i7-2630QM and it's dropped 8 frames in Beauty And The Beast just trying to play back the opening bumpers. It's dropping very, very, very few frames, as I type this it's only at 10 frames dropped going through the first scene but it's happening. Why is a powerful, high end i7 Sandy Bridge CPU dropping frames? Beause while it's a quad core, it only has 2.0ghz available for a single core and that's not a whooooole lot. I upgraded this laptop, it used to have an i5 2410m (dual core, 2.3ghz) before I swapped out the CPU to give it more power. (I use it as a video editing laptop mainly). That 'inferior' dualcore CPU is superior in this task because 2.3ghz wins out against 2.0ghz since 2 or 4 cores is irrelevent to XBMC.

But the issue of h.264 decoding on the CPU isn't much about the CPU unless you're way at the bottom line of CPUs. It's that XBMC's lack of multicore video decoding makes XBMC very inefficent at it's primary task.
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#66
(2012-06-24, 04:19)DJ_Izumi Wrote: You all talk about this as if decoding High Profile 1080p h.264 content on a CPU is actually some sort f computational feat in the year 2012. It's not guys. Frankly, even dual core Netbook/Nettop hardware could do the job in XBMC if they were to actually get multi-core support in their ffmpeg implimentation working. So right now, any of those machines can only use ONE physical core to do the job and that's why they come up short.

And since you're limited to a single core for the ffmpeg thread, it cuts the difference between the CPUs pretty sharply since the fact that they have multiple cores is kinda moot, so long as there's at least ONE other core to handle audio and subitles and the like, while the first core is free to simply decode video.

Some valid points.

I would counter with the fact that most people do other things on their HTPCs than just run XBMC. So CPU power and usage is important. Also PC technology and software is constantly changing and what might be "just good enough" today may not be "just good enough" next quarter when some form of new online streaming, XBMC/WMC extender, XBMC+DVR, is released. So I think stating that "netbook hardware could do the job" is pretty short sighted (even with more than one core).

Platforms like Zacate and Atom are already underpowered for some non-XBMC HTPC tasks (Netflix HD streaming, Plex Streaming, etc) so I would personally never use them or recommend them. Couple that with the fact that they really aren't all that more inexpensive than some of the better dual core options and this is even more of a no-brainer, imo. The AMD E-450 which some on XBMC forums think makes a decent HTPC machine is way too underpowered for me personally (Passmark 740) because I expect more out of my HTPC than just barely able to use only XBMC --- especially if it doesn't cost more money to be able to accomplish this task.

But you are correct that for just xbmc in this part of 2012 the underpowered netbook hardware may just be enough for XBMC alone.

BTW all GPUs drop frames at the very beginning of playback and also when you fast forward or jump to a new part of the movie. You can't consider either of these scenarios as true "dropped frames". Also the CPU and amount of cores has absolutely nothing to do with dropped frames. Furthermore clock speed which you mention is almost meaningless nowadays as its all about architecture and passmark scores when trying to compare CPUs.
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#67
(2012-06-24, 04:43)assassin Wrote: I would counter with the fact that most people do other things on their HTPCs than just run XBMC. So CPU power and usage is important. Also PC technology and software is constantly changing and what might be "just good enough" today may not be "just good enough" next quarter when some form of new online streaming, XBMC/WMC extender, XBMC+DVR, is released. So I think stating that "netbook hardware could do the job" is pretty short sighted (even with more than one core).

This is a fair point and I also missed how High 10 Profile (10bit) h.264 is more demanding than High Profile h.264 (8bit). Similarly on my hardware, 10bit encodes burry the needle on one core more readily than 8bit encodes and 10bit is becoming VERY popular in the anime decoding scene. My point however is simply that a lot more CPUs would be suitable for CPU decoding in XBMC if XBMC could actually make efficent use of ALL available cores.

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#68
(2012-06-24, 01:12)bluray Wrote: I thought so too......with proper configurations, I don't notice 24p issue with i5 either......it can playback as good as my AMD and Nvidia GPU's.....

It seems that everytime I brought up Intel HTPC someone always mentioned 24p issue.....here a few threads-----

Mini-ITX] Intel Core I3-2120T, 2x 2.60GHz + HD2000 35W (crazy low power)

Intel HD Graphics 3000, 24p issues

Amd A6 3500 or Intel i3-2100 for full playback experience?

Intel fails to completely fix the 24fps issue

Macroblocking with new sandy bridge build, dxva2 enabled.

Sure, because until I started that thread over at AVS it was largely thought that ATI and NVidia had perfect 23.976 playback with all cards. I even remember people "prophylactically" dropping in discrete cards on new builds and considering the issue "fixed" even though they admitted to never checking before or after if it made any difference or was "corrected".

Let me just say that there are some amazing inaccuracies all over the internet in regards to HTPC.

I have also seen all kinds of things blamed on the "24p bug" that have absolutely nothing at all to do with it. My advice continues to be to try the integrated iGPU and if for any reason at all you aren't happy then (and only then) add a ATI5450/6450/6570, NVidia 430, etc to see if it is improved. There is very little downside to this approach.

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#69
How were you guys able to get the G530 to bitsream DTS-HD/TrueHD? I have one in my XBMC 12.2 build and when I turn on those audio outputs the video starts stuttering like crazy. I'm actually using a Radeon HD 6450 for all video processing directly to the TV and the G530 for audio directly to a receiver via HDMI (All works and plays fine until I turn on either of the HD audio settings in XBMC).
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#70
I got it working! I had old microsoft drivers installed instead of the intel ones for the audio. Once I installed that, DTS-HD and TrueHD showed up under supported modes. No more stuttering in XBMC. I can confirm the G530 does work for bitstreaming.
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#71
Congrats!
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