[mattchapman]

I recently built a second HTPC and opted for Intel based on the high praise of the Sandy Bridge chips.
I was a little apprehensive at first as I had heard about Intel not working properly with 24p but based on several threads defending Intel and the good word of some respected forum members I understood it would not be an issue in XBMC.

See my specs below.
My AMD machine is pretty responsive navigating Aeon NOX.
-With render set to Auto Detect and hardware acceleration on the 1080p stuff is super smooth including the infamous "Birds" sample.
Hence with AMD I stick to AutoDetect and use Hardware Acceleration without issue.

My Intel machine is a little more snappy than the AMD at navigating Aeon NOX.
-With render set to Auto Detect and hardware acceleration on the1080p stuff is also super smooth including the "Birds" sample. However, there are a couple of movies which show severe macroblocking (not sure why those specific movies) so that is a dealbreaker.
-With render set to Software and hardware acceleration turned off there is also stuttering and dropped frames on high bitrate material (about 70 dropped frames in the Birds sample).

Can anyone help me out? With many people defending Intel I'm sure there must be a way to get everything running as nicely as the AMD.

Thanks

HTPC#1
Athlon II X2 240e 2.8GHz
Gigabyte 880GMA-UD2H (Radeon HD 4250)
4Gb GSkill DDR3
Running OpenELEC (XBMC Eden)

HTPC#2
Intel Pentium G860 3.0GHz
ASRock B75M-ITX
4Gb G.SKILL DDR3
Running Windows 7 x64 (XBMC Eden)
[all latest drivers are installed]

[bluray]

My Intel machine is a little more snappy than the AMD at navigating Aeon NOX.
-With render set to Auto Detect and hardware acceleration on the1080p stuff is also super smooth including the "Birds" sample. However, there are a couple of movies which show severe macroblocking (not sure why those specific movies) so that is a dealbreaker.
-With render set to Software and hardware acceleration turned off there is also stuttering and dropped frames on high bitrate material (about 70 dropped frames in the Birds sample).

Can anyone help me out? With many people defending Intel I'm sure there must be a way to get everything running as nicely as the AMD.

Thanks

Intel iGPU is a little tricky, and the configurations in XBMC have to be precise for it to work properly. You can do as what I suggested to another poster in "post #2"......

[nss/]

I had / have exactly the same issue with my htpc's.

My first one was core 2 duo chip and a ati discrete gpu. A 5450 or similar. This runs everything great under windows 7.

Like yourself I went down the intel igpu route in the form of a celeron 530 for my second htpc and have exactly the same issues trying numerous different settings. In the end I've ditched windows and gone for openelec which touch wood so far runs 1080p really well using the intel igpu. CPU use sits around 15% on playback

If I was to build another htpc, I'd go amd/ati all the way. Openelec is great but sometimes the familiarity and flexibility of windows is pretty useful.

[bluray]

Like yourself I went down the intel igpu route in the form of a celeron 530 for my second htpc and have exactly the same issues trying numerous different settings. In the end I've ditched windows and gone for openelec which touch wood so far runs 1080p really well using the intel igpu.

I'm not sure why.....my G530 PC works the same way as my AMD PC's using Windows 7 and XBMC.....

[nss/]

It's an odd one. Yourself and many others have had success with the intel igpu, so it does work.

I found that some settings would work great with some films, yet would cause artifacts and frame drop outs in others. I'd then try another setting and the films that were playing back ok previously now had issues and the films that had frame drops would play ok. They were all ripped in the same way........

I have windows on the hard drive still, I'm running openelec on another drive, so I can always swap it back out to try and get it working.....

[Dougie Fresh]

My first question would be: do you really plan to watch material that is as high-bitrate as your test sample? What about a real movie 40Mbps or less with DXVA turned off? The G860 should handle that in software rendering very easily.

There's also an alternative I used for a long time which is to launch an external player like MPC-HC which can use HW acceleration (or in my case supported bitstreaming).

[mattchapman]

Like yourself I went down the intel igpu route in the form of a celeron 530 for my second htpc and have exactly the same issues trying numerous different settings. In the end I've ditched windows and gone for openelec which touch wood so far runs 1080p really well using the intel igpu. CPU use sits around 15% on playback

Are you saying the Intel iGPU issues in XBMC are specific to Windows and Openelec runs fine? May try that out.

Yes Dougie I suppose I'm getting hung up on the issues present in the high bitrate sample rather than "real life" movie material. Probably 70% of my material is 720p and the 1080p stuff generally seems to play OK with the Software doing the rendering. CPU does climb as high as 40% on some of the 1080p stuff whereas it would be more like 5-10% with DXVA. A bit more power and heat as a result but likely nothing to worry about.

[artrafael]

Well, you aren't doing an apples-to-apple comparison of the two hardware platforms since you're running XBMC under different operating systems on each of the boxes.

[PobjoySpecial]

...

[bluray]

Here is how I configured my HTPC's, and all HTPC's included Windows 7 and XBMC-

Intel-
-Disabled DXVA2 and selected Software as Render method

AMD-
-Enable DXVA2 and selected Auto detect as Render method

I'm also uses TMT5 "hardware acceleration is enabled inTMT5 for both Intel and AMD" as XBMC external player to enjoy original blu-ray disc menus and 7MCE to enjoy OTA HD. XBMC, 7MCE and TMT5 are all linked together as shown in my "post #751".....

With the above configurations, I can playback all my blu-ray disc movies "Avatar is nearly 50GB" in 1080P video and bitstreaming HD audio fluently......

[nss/]

The Intel iGPU issues are specific to XBMC. For some reason, XBMC's media player has macro blocking issues with hardware acceleration on Intel processors (dxva2). You can either use an third party media player (e.g. MPC-HC) or turn off hardware acceleration.

Interestingly I had an issue with VLC player using the IGPU in windows when playing back Monsters inc. When I set it to use hardware acceleration, I experienced similar issues to XBMC and windows, macro blocking etc. Turned off hardware acceleration and it played back ok, as it did in XBMC. Unfortunately I don't know enough about the various video formats and players to know if this is to be expected when using VLC and Hardware acceleration.

I started a thread a week or so ago and apologies to jump on your original thread but maybe it will shed some light on this. It just describes a few little tests that I did and saves duplicating it on the forum....

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=145496

A quick summary (my last post)

"It seems to be that animated things like monster inc and kung funpanda work fine with software rendering and dxva 2 off. But all "real" films, The kings speech, and one day for example only work well with software and dxva 2 on. Otherwise they simply stutter and I get 13fps. With dxva 2 on the animated films have coloured artifacts all over the place."

[mattchapman]

The Intel iGPU issues are specific to XBMC. For some reason, XBMC's media player has macro blocking issues with hardware acceleration on Intel processors (dxva2). You can either use an third party media player (e.g. MPC-HC) or turn off hardware acceleration.

Interestingly I had an issue with VLC player using the IGPU in windows when playing back Monsters inc. When I set it to use hardware acceleration, I experienced similar issues to XBMC and windows, macro blocking etc. Turned off hardware acceleration and it played back ok, as it did in XBMC. Unfortunately I don't know enough about the various video formats and players to know if this is to be expected when using VLC and Hardware acceleration.

I started a thread a week or so ago and apologies to jump on your original thread but maybe it will shed some light on this. It just describes a few little tests that I did and saves duplicating it on the forum....

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=145496

A quick summary (my last post)

"It seems to be that animated things like monster inc and kung funpanda work fine with software rendering and dxva 2 off. But all "real" films, The kings speech, and one day for example only work well with software and dxva 2 on. Otherwise they simply stutter and I get 13fps. With dxva 2 on the animated films have coloured artifacts all over the place."

Earlier in this thread you mentioned you're not having any issues with Openelec. Is this true and are the Intel iGPU issues therefore confined to Windows/XBMC only?

[PobjoySpecial]

...

[nss/]

Using Openelec on a couple of films I've just tried it's playing back great using hardware acceleration.

Render Method = Auto
Allow VAAPI acceleration = ON

All three de interlacing options set to Auto in the playback menu.

I've just tried Avatar, full Blu ray rip with MakeMKV, CPU usage is between 4 - 6 %
Monsters inc, Inception and One day all play correctly with similar CPU usage. Bit rate is around 38 max (just flicking through the chapters to try)

I haven't got the sound working yet but I know this is a case of just selecting the right setting and I just haven't had the time to set it up properly.

Just give Openelec a go, all you need is two USB sticks and that's it. It took me an about an hour in total, time I read the instructions, worked out which version, how to install etc. The actual install takes about 5 minutes. I used the dedicated Intel on board graphics version. I physically unplugged the SATA cable on my hard drive when installing it as it did mention about unplugging other important drives. The sound doesn't seem to work straight of the box, you have to discover the right audio device and make the correct selection in XBMC. There's plenty info about this on the Openelec forums/wiki and if your not a fan unplug the usb, plug the Hard drive back in and Voila!

Pobjoyspecial, I agree with you totally on your last point. I was always and still am a keen believer of use equipment that can can handle what you want it to and much more, because like you say when things go a bit belly up, it gives you a get out of jail card.

[HellDiverUK]

As I said in other posts, I run all three of my iGPU machines using DXVA2. One is a 2nd Gen i5 (HD3000), one is a Sandy Bridge Pentium G620 (HD1000), one is a Sandy Bridge Celeron G540 (HD1000). All running Windows 7 Pro x64. All machines have 4GB or more RAM (the i5 has 8GB).