Login at Kodi Home

321erik123 · 2009-01-11, 12:14

Hello

It has been stated pretty clearly that xbmc doesn't support GPU Offloading but I don't really understand.

Let say I buy a asus eee b204, which supports GPU Offloading. If I run vlc on that machine will vlc use GPU Offloading? and if I use the external player function with vlc in xbmc does that mean that I'm more or less using GPU Offloading?

Thanks in advance

Erik

marlboroman1 · 2009-01-11, 12:32

if the external player you use supports gpu offloading for that chipset then yes. As far as VLC i dont know that it dose support gpu acceleration. Media Player Classic Home Cinema (free option) or Power DVD (not free) use DVXA

**ashlar** · 2009-01-11, 12:56

vlc doesn't support DXVA. MPC HC does (not with all files, but with a large number, it depends on the encoding settings).
And yes, if you used MPC-HC as external player, you could have GPU offloading while using XBMC as your front end.

321erik123 · 2009-01-11, 13:57

Well that is pretty sweet,

but that means missing out on a lot of the cool xbmc options that I now love right, for example the extensive subtitle options while playing via the external player?

**ashlar** · 2009-01-11, 16:31

321erik123 Wrote:Well that is pretty sweet,

but that means missing out on a lot of the cool xbmc options that I now love right, for example the extensive subtitle options while playing via the external player?

Well, it depends on the external player you choose. For instance, KMplayer has probably the most extensive subtitle options of all media players available.

Edit: the reasoning is that this way, at least, you can use the cool user interface and, if you want, use the external player only when watching hi-res stuff.

LaTropa64 · 2009-01-11, 19:40

I've decided you just need a powerful CPU because nothing I've tried offloads my mkv's, which is the container all of my HD movies are in.

I had heard MPC-HC could do it but CPU usage is still very high on 1080p mkv's so it has no benefit in my experience.

The only thing that actually lowers CPU usage on mkv's for me is coreavc and, from what I understand, that's just a really optimized codec and not dependent on your GPU at all.

**ashlar** · 2009-01-11, 19:50

Yeah, CoreAVC is just an optimized software decoder (even if a CUDA version is in the works).
But MPC-HC is capabe of offloading A LOT with correctly encoded files.
Mind, I came to the same conclusion: a powerful enough CPU and you stop worrying.

digitalhigh · 2009-01-11, 20:36

http://forums.boxtorrents.com/index.php?...ic=10948.0

Found this guide guys, looks pretty solid.

LaTropa64 · 2009-01-12, 00:53

digitalhigh Wrote:http://forums.boxtorrents.com/index.php?...ic=10948.0

Found this guide guys, looks pretty solid.

Very nice. That definitely worked on some files. The only setting that I really had to change in MPC-HC was the output from system default to EVR. On 1080p mkv's that it offloads, CPU usage is now less than 5%. Amazing! Unfortunately, it doesn't work right on many of them.

Of the four samples I've always tested with, it only offloaded this one correctly: Jittery.Sample1.1080p.BluRay.DTS.mkv (WALL-E opening scene)

Jittery.Sample2.1080p.BluRay.DTS.mkv and Jittery.Sample3.1080p.BluRay.DTS.mkv (Transporter scenes) offloaded to the GPU but looked horrid during all the panning:

The killa.sampla.x264.mkv (Planet Earth bird scene) didn't offload at all... still 50% or so CPU usage on my Q6600.

321erik123 · 2009-01-12, 01:03

digitalhigh Wrote:http://forums.boxtorrents.com/index.php?...ic=10948.0

Found this guide guys, looks pretty solid.

That was an interesting read, from what I understood hardware acceleration only works on certain files, might be the majority of files out there, but still not all. (I guess the most interesting format would be x264 in a .mkv container since it appears to be the most common format out there.) And is far from perfect depending on what video card you are using.

Anyway, the eee b204 doesn't seem to be such a solid purchase after all, depending on how well the hardware acceleration works. A real shame though, I really liked the sleek design and the fact that it was supposed to be real quite...

digitalhigh · 2009-01-12, 01:04

LaTropa64 Wrote:The only setting that I really had to change in MPC-HC was the output from system default to EVR.

Where is this setting?

I've only really got one 720p file to try it on, and that's a copy of "The Dark Knight". I can get solid video playback, but the sound is always a second or so off, and I'm not sure if it's the computer or the file.

Obviously, I've gotta try another file, but it should work. I've got a 1.9ghz processor, radeon 9000 series GFX card, and 512mb ram. I tried upgrading to 2gb, but the RAM I ordered was the wrong density. I still think I should be able to get good playback tho...

**Hitcher** · 2009-01-12, 02:29

321erik123 Wrote:That was an interesting read, from what I understood hardware acceleration only works on certain files, might be the majority of files out there, but still not all. (I guess the most interesting format would be x264 in a .mkv container since it appears to be the most common format out there.) And is far from perfect depending on what video card you are using.

Better link as it shows the images -

http://forums.boxtorrents.com/index.php?;topic=10948.0

LaTropa64 · 2009-01-13, 22:28

digitalhigh Wrote:Where is this setting?

I've only really got one 720p file to try it on, and that's a copy of "The Dark Knight". I can get solid video playback, but the sound is always a second or so off, and I'm not sure if it's the computer or the file.

Obviously, I've gotta try another file, but it should work. I've got a 1.9ghz processor, radeon 9000 series GFX card, and 512mb ram. I tried upgrading to 2gb, but the RAM I ordered was the wrong density. I still think I should be able to get good playback tho...

View > Options > Playback > Output