Onboard video for 1080p?

[chico1st]

Can on board video on new ATX motherboards handle 1080p video?

Should I be looking for something specific?

Will the rest of the computer be sluggish (like running vista) if i have no graphics card?

I was thinking i would use onboard video until something happened in the future to make me upgrade, thus staying up with video standards (not that those will change for a long time)

[sonic6k]

Maybe article can help you choose graphic card: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/812/1/

Of personal experience, external graphic card aiding video acceleration can do miracle, but onboard video alone can have problem! GEFORCE onboard video known of common problem with video. INTEL have only X4500HD specifically design for multimedia and HD.

With software decoding using only CPU everything possible, but put more stress on CPU and can come to heat complication. Depend actually on codec or source of video. Some video easy and some hard of decoding.

[halcyon]

9300M and 9400M based integrated boards can do 1080p without any problems.

See this thread at AVSforum for details and mb options:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthre ... p=14239742

[jessekopelman]

Can on board video on new ATX motherboards handle 1080p video?

Yes. Intel X4500HD, NVIDIA 8XXX and above, AMD 690 and above all can do it. Whether any of these solutions will be perfectly smooth depends on exact codecs used in video and what CPU you use. Dual-core CPU is generally still required, regardless of GPU.

Will the rest of the computer be sluggish (like running vista) if i have no graphics card?

No. Vista runs fine on any GPU less than 5 years old.

[Shamgar]

For HD video to run more smoothly you may need to allocate more system RAM to the onboard GPU. Although I used a 780G chipset system a while back, I used it for a home office PC rather than for HTPC use which is the common theme. Someone else may be able to tell you more precisely how much RAM to use. But I would think something in the vicinity of 256-512MB when playing back HD video or a BluRay disc. For 2D desktop use, something as low as 32MB will suffice, however, 64-128MB is a safer option and quite a reasonable compromise. If you are fortunate enough to get a motherboard with an onboard memory chip with 64/128MB RAM like the Gigabyte SidePort boards, then you will probably not need to let it "steal" some of your precious system RAM.

Most graphics cards on the market these days have ridiculous amounts of RAM like 512MB-1GB (and I wouldn't be surprised if they have 2GB soon) which is hardly ever, possibly never required by the majority of users. Only in specialist applications and games do you see a true benefit to the larger RAM size. Plus, bandwidth of the RAM also plays a large role. Many lower spec'd cards have only 64bit memory which is pretty much a cost cutting measure. In many situations, it is better to have a smaller RAM size and a larger bandwidth size.

[-TDO-]

The Nvida onboard GPUs are more than fast enough for 1080p - they can even decode two streams!

No need for increasing the memory setting or other weird recommandations.



-TDO-

[jessekopelman]

No need for increasing the memory setting or other weird recommandations.

I would tend to agree. The large memory on discrete video cards is for 3D acceleration, not HD acceleration. That said, given today's low RAM prices, I'd always just set the memory allocation to maximum on my IGP.

[jhhoffma]

No need for increasing the memory setting or other weird recommandations.

I would tend to agree. The large memory on discrete video cards is for 3D acceleration, not HD acceleration. That said, given today's low RAM prices, I'd always just set the memory allocation to maximum on my IGP.

+1, leave your GPU memory settings alone. Why waste the RAM when none of it is being used.

Of most importance is the codecs being used. Using a proper DXVA decoder will allow the system to do hardware accelerated playback. MPC-HC is free and so are it's decoders which can be configured to be used by default with VMC, WMP, or any other DirectShow player. ArcSoft TMT has DXVA-capable decoders, as does PowerDVD.

Most people get a HD-capable integrated GPU but don't know enough to configure it properly, so the CPU does all the work and they complain of dropped frames and such. Do the research.

[croddie]

Intel X4500HD, NVIDIA 8XXX and above, AMD 690 and above all can do it.

780 and above

[jhhoffma]

Intel X4500HD, NVIDIA 8XXX and above, AMD 690 and above all can do it.

780 and above

My laptop with GMA4500HD doesn't do DXVA either. Intel will not release their documentation, though the folks at Cyberlink probably have it working with their PowerDVD software.

You won't get it with MPC-HC, though.

[jessekopelman]

Intel X4500HD, NVIDIA 8XXX and above, AMD 690 and above all can do it.

780 and above

I'm pretty sure 690/740/760 do some video acceleration, just not H264. You could say H264 is all that matters, but it is possible to find 1080p in other formats.

[-TDO-]

For people who buy their movies H264 matters!

And they also need 1080 24p -> so Intel is no option.

-TDO-

[hans007]

you want a 780g or 8200 on amd, and a 9300/9400 on intel.

h264/vc-1 isnt supported on any of the lower stuff. the intel g45 might work too, but i am not sure about the drivers.

[croddie]

My laptop with GMA4500HD doesn't do DXVA either. Intel will not release their documentation, though the folks at Cyberlink probably have it working with their PowerDVD software.

You won't get it with MPC-HC, though.

I was aware this used to be a problem with G45 but I thought this was working now. At least there seems to be progress:
http://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2 ... nd-h264avc
Are you using the latest SVN of MPC-HC / G45 drivers?
( http://www.xvidvideo.ru/content/category/1/1/2/ )

It does appear to be a non-standard implementation... ideally G45 should conform to Microsoft's DX spec and so should MPC-HC and that should be it.

[Klyken]

The 760G only shows MPEG2 acceleration in DXVA checker I've yet to try it on a HDTV, but on my monitor 1920x1080 is full screen on VGA, DVI-D>HDMI has a 3/4" black border. This works fine on an 8800GTS and on the 760G at 1360x768 so I assume its a driver issue like the missing 1440x900 resolution.

EDIT: It seems the driver defaults to underscan without fail and needs adjustment in the CCC, but theres quite a bit of tearing on horizontal pans when playing xvid or mkv.

[jhhoffma]

My laptop with GMA4500HD doesn't do DXVA either. Intel will not release their documentation, though the folks at Cyberlink probably have it working with their PowerDVD software.

You won't get it with MPC-HC, though.

I was aware this used to be a problem with G45 but I thought this was working now. At least there seems to be progress:
http://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2 ... nd-h264avc
Are you using the latest SVN of MPC-HC / G45 drivers?
( http://www.xvidvideo.ru/content/category/1/1/2/ )

It does appear to be a non-standard implementation... ideally G45 should conform to Microsoft's DX spec and so should MPC-HC and that should be it.

Well, IMO, if I have to use an SVN release to get it to work, then it isn't really supported yet. I received my PC in May and have been using the newest versions of MPC-HC since then to no avail. The real issue for me is that I want to use ANY DirectShow player (WMP, VMC, etc), not just MPC-HC.

[croddie]

The SVN is the version to use. They release MPC-HC very rarely; last release was last year and there are lots of improvements and fixes since then.
In order to get WMP to work with DXVA in Vista you need to go through a complex process of installing the MPC-HC video decoder, and then some things don't work like subtitles. Win7 improves things but doesn't support mkv.