NV40 broken video processor

I think you are all missing the real point and getting embroiled in a pointless conflict. The fact is that WMV9 hardware decoding is next to useless, and I'll tell you why. WMV9 is not a very popular or useful codec, and most applications where it is used do not require very much processing capability, relative to the amount of CPU power modern PCs have. I can see where hardware acceleration would be beneficial if you are planning to watch a few dozen lame videos of peoples cars or dogs or whatever AT THE SAME TIME, but otherwise it's not a crucial feature. Generic hardware acceleration in the form of SIMD instructions at the CPU level, that can be used by a wide variety of apps, are far more useful than a single GPU that can accelerate decoding for a single backwater video codec. I don't see why nVidia would waste their time implementing it.

Edit: :synpa:
 
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th3 godfather said:
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Why the hell would you post an image macro with that ebaums tag on it? If you want it to have any meaning whatsoever, you at least need to find the original version before he stole it and put the tag for his shitty site on it. You even hotlinked it from there jesus christ. :rolleyes:
 
No ones forcing the gheyfather to read this anyway ... why would you post a pointless stupid pic ?
 
Well, I sold my 6800GT. Not due to this problem, but because i've moved over to a PCI-E system.

It's sad how the kiddies have flamed this thread into stupidity. :mad:
 
pxc said:
Well, I sold my 6800GT. Not due to this problem, but because i've moved over to a PCI-E system.

It's sad how the kiddies have flamed this thread into stupidity. :mad:
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I could not agree more.
 
alright everyone arguing STFU...we are trying to get to the bottom of a problem here and both of you are actling like double sided spiked dildos.

i have been researching the living **** out of this, trying ever driver known to man, and been to every forum 100 times today trying to figure this out. basically what is going on is the OVP on the 6800 series is working, but blows some huge asshole (and by blowing asshole i mean not working at all) for WMP encoded HD videos. for instance the 1080i step into liquid video. the CPU is doing ALL the work when playing these files, and the "onboard video processing" that nvidia touted as a feature is taking a nap.

will the dvd decoder that nvidia wants to pay 20 dollars for fix this problem? i have no clue, i have't gotten my hands on a "free" version, and i sure as **** wont pay for one. they claim that a driver will enable this, which just isn't true unless they plan on including the dvd decoder in the driver, which then it may work (however, the new nv45 (6600 series) has a nonworking OVP for wmpHD, but they have a "improved from 6800 series" OVP which will be enabled with a new (or probably already leaked) driver release from nvidia).

so as we stand right now we are waiting for nvidia to tell is something, give us something, or tell us to piss off and quit complaining. i am hoping its not the last of those options.

anyone have something to add that isn't a arguing faggot bitch?
 
bonkrowave said:
yeah doodman true ... the thing that I still cant get is why does nvidia say the 6600 have it when the 6800 does. I have been looking at the nvidia website ... there compariosn of features, individual features, ... nothing says the 6600 has this different feature.

sorry doodman just re-read your post .... nvidias site does say that the 6800 has decode acceleration the same as the 6600
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Problem is simply because the first generation wmv program didnt accelerate like they had hoped. Second Generation products (6200,6600) accelerate wmv fine. One thing I have noticed is that even without the DVD decoder software,

DVD playback has been improved on the 6800 series with newer drivers (whether this is a result of better acceleration I cant be certain), Also if you notice the heat output when playing anything mpeg based (DVD, Divx, Mpeg2 files ect) the GPU warms up by about 5-6C give or take. Makes sense considering voltage requirements for 2d are 1.1V. Older drivers this does not occur.
 
y0bailey said:
i have been researching the living **** out of this, trying ever driver known to man, and been to every forum 100 times today trying to figure this out. basically what is going on is the OVP on the 6800 series is working, but blows some huge asshole (and by blowing asshole i mean not working at all) for WMP encoded HD videos. for instance the 1080i step into liquid video. the CPU is doing ALL the work when playing these files, and the "onboard video processing" that nvidia touted as a feature is taking a nap.
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However vulgar this responce is ... it is correct. I have been going from fourm to fourm as well and I have been trying every driver I can get my hands on. And I have determnied ... the on-chip video processing is not working. People with 3.4ghz processors will not notice this as much because there CPU is able to handle the decoding. I have a 2500+ and I notice the load.
I dont understand why people are not grasping this concept. I have a 1.8ghz processor and Im getting 80% usage .... its only common sence someone with a 3.4 ghz is getting half of that !! common people simple ratio ... A twice as fast processor will have half as much load.

My CPU is screaming ! I am getting 75-80 % load all the time with spikes into the 90s dropped frames stuttering everything. The on-chip video processing is something nvidia has posted on there site that the 6800 supports (if you check out the on-chip video processing page they have just added a note saying ... will be implemented in future driver revisions). This was not there when I bought the card ... as well the decoding was featured in many press releases prior to launch.

There is no way any driver out there right now fixes this problem. People please understand this ... Nvidia has said themselves the driver fix (if there is one, it has been reported this is hardware related) will not be available untill mid to late november.

And People please understand this will not effect you 3d gaming. Everyone claiming that there games still run fine ... is correct. People really need to educate themselves that this is a specfic problem relating to DMV9 hdtv video. Other playback formats will work fine. There are people saying DMV9 is not a widely used format right now so just wait until a driver update comes down the tubes. If the situation were reversed and you were told you could not run doom 3 or farcry for another month, you would feel the exact same way.

I can see why some people dont care because it doesn't effect their games or they dont use DMV9, or their mommy bought them the card. These people need to realize there are people who do use DMV9 so this effects them. If this doesn;t effect you .. then dont flame thee thread and tell us your games run fine. There is no way people should be telling others to stop whining, just because the problem does not effect them. Some people bought these cards for more then just pretty 3d games. I Know I payed 700$ CDN of money I worked for, and a feature I was looking forward too is not working. That is why I am not happy. If you buy something for a feature or feature set then find out its not working and may never .. or you will have to wait a month ... you have every right to feel cheated and upset.
 
Regardless of what your saying but i or most of us in here think this is a serious problem and we did not pay 400-500 dollars on a video card to have its video crap taking a nap while our poor cpu's are being raped. Thank you.
 
teckgood said:
Go outside, virgin! :p
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what?


anywho...i "purchased' nvdvd decoder....no improvement as expected when playing the HD1080i step into liquid file.

broken! poo!
 
I don't quite understand why you people with killer machines are having issues with the WMV-HD playback.

I have smooth playback of the 720p files on an AthlonXP 2000+, GeForce4 Ti4200 64Mb and a Soundblaster Live! 5.1 - with IRC scolling crap down the screen on the other monitor I might add.
1080p i get about 5 seconds smooth playback, 5 seconds of jammed video but functioning audio, 5 seconds smooth playback, 5 seconds of jammed video but functioning audio...

So if I can play 720p ok on such an outdated machine how come 1080p is causing such a problem to you guys with XP 3000+ and Radeon 9800s?
Just a little confused...

[edit]
Just tried disabling the other monitor.
It helps out 1080p a little but not a lot. Maybe shifted to 5.5 seconds of smooth playback and 4.5 of video dropout.
 
do you even read the posts?


we are complaining because we purchased a top of the line videocard that touted an OVP to alleviate the load from the CPU. it fails to do that. i can play all the videos perfectly fine as well with no skipping, but its using ONLY my cpu, and none of the claimed OVP...

i shouldnt even have to be talking about this because its been stated 100 times.
 
I'm well aware of what you're complaing about (and i'd be pretty pissed too in your situation), and yes I've read the thread.
Other people had mentioned this in the thread, I was just going slightly OT as they did.
I would say though that unless you're in the situation I'm in, of needing a card with that capability because my machine can't decode it fast enough in software, you're not missing out on a whole lot really.

Yeah yeah, it's the principal, I know.
 
tbh i think what happened was an engineering <> PR miscommunication

It looks like the NV40 only had an MPEG2 encode/decode solution, while future chips (NV41/NV43, etc), were planning to have both MPEG2 & WMV.

The video processor on the NV40/6800 works fine with 65.73+, it just isnt as robust as originally marketed (only accelerates MPEG2 encode/decode, not WMV)
 
Which, fair enough, does give a case for false advertising.
Seeing as I can get smooth 720p playback on a 2Ghz equivilant machine and Microsoft reckon you need 2.4Ghz, smooth 1080p playback should be possible around the 2.6-2.8Ghz mark (Microsoft reckon 3Ghz) which I'd guess covers most of the people who are actually complaining seeing as they had the money to buy a bleeding edge card in the first place, so I doubt they're pottering along at 2Ghz like me.

I guess what I'm driving at here is yes, it's annoying that you've not got part of the package you were promised, but it's hardly a vital part now is it?
Beleive you me, I'd much rather have a 6800GT with a "broken" video decoder that a 4200Ti without.
So sure ask for a working replacement, or a swap for an X800 Pro, or whatever but is it really worth losing sleep over? Seems a few here are getting unnecessarily worked up about it.
 
Look this part may not be vital to you ... but that doesn't mean it is not vital to everyone who purchased a 6800 GT. If you read the thread at all that most people get extreme CPU loads when running DMV9 format videos.

If I pay 700 CDN for a card it better damn well work as advertised. I did not just go to the store and say ohh ill buy that one. I followed the development .. read the pre release press release. I seleceted this card over others because of the features it had. Now im being told ... "oh yeah that feature doeesn't work but why not buy a decoder for another 20$ which still doesn;t fix the problem. If the situation was reversed and you were told after you bought it, you cant play doom3 or Farcry for another month you would be just as pissed as everyone else. Everything indicated a working WMV9 decoder. Just because you only play games on this doesnt mean everyone does. Have you ever head of home theatre PCs ???

If you do not speak up about misleading advertising or false statements you are a sheep. And you should be content to just move along and not speak up like the rest. Next time you need an updated driver for a game ... try waiting a month (or it may not even be a software problem but a hardware, which would mean unfixable) or try not using the driver at all .... and tell me how you feel.
 
meglamaniac said:
I guess what I'm driving at here is yes, it's annoying that you've not got part of the package you were promised, but it's hardly a vital part now is it?
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TBH not really. The decoding part is of no concern to me. How often do I watch a DVD and play FarCry at the same time (even though DVD decoding is supported by the NV40 video chip)? Never. How many movies are encoded in WMV-HD (read: not a tech demo)? 1 at best I can think of, and WMVHD might end up being just a tech demo.

Hardware encoding of MPEG2 is the most important feature IMO, as if you try to encode a feature length movie at DVD resolution you'd know it often takes 1-2 hours. If they can get encoding MPEG2 accelerated I'd be a happy camper, because then I'd be able to do more stuff when doing long MPEG2 video encodes - and from what it sounds like we are just waiting on a software dev to implement Nvidia's video processor driver in their encode software at this point. WMV would be a nice bonus too, but not as critical as most WMV encodes I do take less than 10 minutes... I'm skeptical WMV encode would work if WMV decode doesn't - although it might be something like WMV-HD doesn't work but WMV standard does. Guess we'll have to wait and see.



Beleive you me, I'd much rather have a 6800GT with a "broken" video decoder that a 4200Ti without.
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Again its not broken, it just doesn't support as many formats as originally thought. If it was broken it wouldn't work at all.
 
Hello everyone,

I have read every single post on this thread, as well as a mind numbing 25+page thread on another forum about this, read the reviews, the techreports, looked at Nvidia's website as well as some of their partners' websites and thought I would give me opinion.

Everyone purchases their video cards for different reasons. A gamer will buy a gaming card, an encoder will buy a professional card (Fire GL and Quadro), and either one on a budget will buy a mainstream card. Then there are those that are mixed, that are gaming enthusiasts, but also want or need something that will encode and decode in real time, and the NV40 was the perfect solution for these people. They are mad (rightfully) because they thought they had everything they needed in one package, and are now being told they have to wait quite a while for a feature advertised originally as functioning but is actually not. This thread is about that, and if they are upset and mad, let them be. Hell the main reason I found this thread is I've been doing research trying to find out which card to buy, and I only buy Nvidia, so the 6800GT was going to be my purchase. The broken, or at least currently non-working OVP wouldn't affect me, because I'm a hardcore gamer, and I use my TV and DVD player for all my videos. Yet still I hesitate to purchase the product just yet because if the OVP is "disabled", how do I know my card will last me 2-3 years before burning out. To me, $440US is an insane amount of money to spend on a card known to currently be "broken". I sympathize with those that bought the card for it's OVP, and ask that those touting that theirs is working or that they should not complain, I ask that you either leave that out of your posts or don't read this thread. It's their right to be upset, let them be. Those of you with P4's would be really upset if you found out all this time you've had a great CPU the HT technology on your chip was actually not working right now and your 3.0Ghz CPU was only as fast as someone elses AMD XP 1700+ (1.5Ghz) because of the missing HT, and that you'd have to wait for it to get fixed "sometime in the future".

Also, those that have asked people to prove or disprove the fact that Nvidia promised WMV9 decode acceleration and have not understood the qoutes from Nvidia's website, I'll try and clean the matter up a little since I myself was unsure until I went digging through Nvidia's website. If you go to www.nvidia.com and click on products, then click "enthusiast" at the top, you'll be taken to the 6800 series of cards. Then go to "Features and Benefits" linked at the top corner of the screen, a new page will come up and in the main body click "On-chip Video Processor" which will take you to the page people have been talking about. The 5th paragraph down specifically states WMV9 hardware acceleration. This information was attained by going through the 6800 series spec sheets, not the 6600 or 6200, and the brief states the "Geforce 6 series GPU's", not 6600 or 6200. It also states that it should unload "most" of the work from the CPU and leave it only the "easiest work", which currently is not the case. The added note saying that it will be implimented with future driver releases would suggest that the feature is there, that it's just disabled. If its a fully programmable GPU then the lack of code instructions at the software level would infact make it fixable by later drivers at the hardware level. So I beleive it will be fixed. Anyhow, that's my two cents and I hope it might help in some way. ;)
Here is the qoute directly from the aforementioned page on Nvidia's website...
"Another important factor is that the GeForce 6 Series GPUs are completely programmable and can handle formats such as WMV9 and MPEG-4. The NVIDIA motion compensation engine can provide decompression acceleration for a variety of video formats including WMV9, MPEG-4, H.264, and DiVX. As with motion compensation for MPEG-2, the NVIDIA video engine can perform most of the computation-intensive work, leaving the easiest work to the CPU."
 
bonkrowave said:
Look this part may not be vital to you ... but that doesn't mean it is not vital to everyone who purchased a 6800 GT. If you read the thread at all that most people get extreme CPU loads when running DMV9 format videos.
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I assume you missed the bits where I said I'd tried both 720p and 1080p myself then? And the other bit where I said I'd read the entire thread?


bonkrowave said:
If I pay 700 CDN for a card it better damn well work as advertised.
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That's fair enough. If you read my last and second to last posts again you'll see I even point this out.

bonkrowave said:
I did not just go to the store and say ohh ill buy that one. I followed the development .. read the pre release press release. I seleceted this card over others because of the features it had. Now im being told ... "oh yeah that feature doeesn't work but why not buy a decoder for another 20$ which still doesn;t fix the problem.
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Yes, again, I can fully understand that you're disappointed. Again, if you check back, you'll see I never suggested you shouldn't or wouldn't be.

bonkrowave said:
If the situation was reversed and you were told after you bought it, you cant play doom3 or Farcry for another month you would be just as pissed as everyone else. Everything indicated a working WMV9 decoder. Just because you only play games on this doesnt mean everyone does. Have you ever head of home theatre PCs ???
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Be fair. The MAIN purpose of a card like that is 3D acceleration. If all you want is codec acceleration you go buy a hardware codec card. nVidia's hardware video support is at best a nice extra to have.
Yes I have heard of a home theatre PC. It's called the 1Ghz Duron with a GeForce3 in it I have running fanless in my lounge. That will decode DVDs, DivX and XviD with no problems whatsoever.
IF wmv-hd ever catches on as a standard, and IF any movies I actually want to watch (read: not fancy tech demos of amazonian forrest flybys) are actually released in that format, and IF I ever actually have a TV that can benefit from the extra resolution, then I would consider upgrading.
Lets face it, wmv-hd is not a standard yet, it's not mainstream, and nor will it be for several years. wmv-hd acceleration is at best there to set the card apart from the competition - it serves almost no useful purpose to the VAST majority of people who would buy the card.
By the time wmv-hd becomes mainstream, if it ever does, there will be a better choice of hardware codec cards which are more suited to HTPCs anyway as they would be less likely to require active cooling.

bonkrowave said:
If you do not speak up about misleading advertising or false statements you are a sheep. And you should be content to just move along and not speak up like the rest. Next time you need an updated driver for a game ... try waiting a month (or it may not even be a software problem but a hardware, which would mean unfixable) or try not using the driver at all .... and tell me how you feel.
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Once again, please go back and tell me where I said you shouldn't speak up about misleading advertising. As I said, by all means you should ask for a refund, replacement, or some sort of compensation. Just don't get so overexcited over something that is relatively trivial.


No doubt you now think i'm a leftie pinko working for nVidia, but there you go.
wmv acceleration is simply not useful to the market the card is aimed at because any machine that would benefit from a 6800 series should already have more than enough processor power to do it in software - and what exactly are you going to be doing at the same time as watching a wmv-hd movie that requires you have processor cycles free?


Personally, I will be buying a 6600GT with my new system, eventually, when I can afford it.
Not because of the wmv, but because I can't afford a 6800 (and the 6600 can be passively cooled). If I could afford the 6800 I'd get it, and screw wmv.
I imagine the main reason for complaint here is hurt pride amongst people with enough money to get bleeding edge equipment, because features they've boasted they'll have haven't materialised.
 
First of all, the chip isnt totally disabled, if you use the latest beta drivers it is enabled & works fine with DVDs.

Second, I don't think we know for sure if WMV9 will not be accelerated.

What might not be accelerated is WMVHD, which is different than standard WMV.
 
Another thing to consider is that if you try encoding a DivX or XVid at the same resolution and bitrate as 1080p you'll see similar processor usage - and when HDTV becomes mainstream I can see the freely available MPEG4 derrived codecs like those two being much more popular than wmv-hd.

I mean, if you're downloading a movie (one which you already own on disc of course, I obviously mean for backup purposes :rolleyes:) are you going to go with wmv-hd complete with DRM technology, or are you going to go with a codec that will let you play your nice HDTV spec content on any machine in the house?
As an addition to this, DivX (and therefore XVid) has the advantage of already being supported in certain specific resolutions and bitrates on some standalone DVD players. It's simply a matter of beefing up the processor power to add support for HDTV spec content, and best of all no-one has to pay Microsoft any extortionate license fees to encode content.
 
meglamaniac said:
and best of all no-one has to pay Microsoft any extortionate license fees to encode content.
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Interesting you mentioned that. From what I gather, Windows media player encoding is FREE and windows media streaming is bundled with the server OS, and no license fees to stream video. Can you specify what fees exactly are you talking about because I do have streaming media at work.
 
I was more refering to content providers.
There is always a fee somewhere. For example, for software you can get for home use that encodes wmv, part of the price of the software will be license fees paid by the software publisher to microsoft in return for microsoft providing them with the wmv encoding modules.
 
meglamaniac said:
I was more refering to content providers.
There is always a fee somewhere. For example, for software you can get for home use that encodes wmv, part of the price of the software will be license fees paid by the software publisher to microsoft in return for microsoft providing them with the wmv encoding modules.
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You spelled your fucking name wrong dude.
 
Well noticed, aren't you on the ball - give the lad a sticker.
Ever consider that it's an intentional misspelling?


Jesus, some people...
 
doodman said:
Interesting you mentioned that. From what I gather, Windows media player encoding is FREE and windows media streaming is bundled with the server OS, and no license fees to stream video. Can you specify what fees exactly are you talking about because I do have streaming media at work.
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It isn't free.
You have to have a Windows OS. You have to play for a Windows OS. You cannot encode these on Linux, I'm not even sure if the codec exists for playback on Linux.

It is bundled with Windows at no additional cost maybe, but it is far from free.
 
I like Nvidia and their products, but when they have a PR gaffe, they screw up big. This will probably be the worst blemish on their reputations since the Geforce4 MX debacle. I'm glad that I bought my 5900XT when I did; much as it has its ass handed to it by more modern alternatives, I at least know what to reasonably expect from it.
 
afaik wmv can be played back on linux, as there are media players for linux that read and understand windows codecs (ie. you can copy the codec file right out of the system32 folder, over to linux, give it to the media player and it will work).
I've no idea about the ins and outs of this though, I'm not really a linux person.
 
MS could probably take legal action against it as well.

Not saying I won't do it, but it isn't given by MS, its worked around by Linux people.
 
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