HD Video Playback: H.264 Blu-ray on the PC
by Derek Wilson on December 11, 2006 9:50 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Test
As we previously indicated, we need to use at least a Core 2 Duo E6400 in order to avoid dropping frames while testing graphics card decode acceleration under X-Men: The Last Stand. As we also wanted an accurate picture of how much GPU decode acceleration really helps, we needed to use a CPU powerful enough to avoid dropping frames even under the most stressful load without GPU assistance. Thus we chose the Core 2 Duo X6800 for our tests. Using this processor, we can more accurately see how each graphics card compares to the others and how much each graphics card is able to assist the CPU.
We tested CPU utilization by using perfmon to record data while we viewed a section of X-Men: The Last Stand. The bookmark feature really helped out, allowing us to easily jump to the specific scene we wanted to test in Chapter 18. In this scene, the Golden Gate is being torn apart and people are running everywhere. This is one of the most stressful scenes in the movie, reaching a bitrate of over 41 Mbps at one point.
Unfortunately, we haven't found a feature in PowerDVD or another utility that will allow us to count dropped frames. This means we can't really compare what happens to the video quality when the CPU is running at 100%. In lieu of dropped frames, we will need to stick with CPU overhead as our performance metric.
For reference we recorded average and maximum CPU overhead while playing back our benchmark clip with no GPU acceleration enabled.
Here is the rest of our test system:
As we previously indicated, we need to use at least a Core 2 Duo E6400 in order to avoid dropping frames while testing graphics card decode acceleration under X-Men: The Last Stand. As we also wanted an accurate picture of how much GPU decode acceleration really helps, we needed to use a CPU powerful enough to avoid dropping frames even under the most stressful load without GPU assistance. Thus we chose the Core 2 Duo X6800 for our tests. Using this processor, we can more accurately see how each graphics card compares to the others and how much each graphics card is able to assist the CPU.
We tested CPU utilization by using perfmon to record data while we viewed a section of X-Men: The Last Stand. The bookmark feature really helped out, allowing us to easily jump to the specific scene we wanted to test in Chapter 18. In this scene, the Golden Gate is being torn apart and people are running everywhere. This is one of the most stressful scenes in the movie, reaching a bitrate of over 41 Mbps at one point.
Unfortunately, we haven't found a feature in PowerDVD or another utility that will allow us to count dropped frames. This means we can't really compare what happens to the video quality when the CPU is running at 100%. In lieu of dropped frames, we will need to stick with CPU overhead as our performance metric.
For reference we recorded average and maximum CPU overhead while playing back our benchmark clip with no GPU acceleration enabled.
Here is the rest of our test system:
| Performance Test Configuration | |
| CPU: | Intel Core 2 Duo X6800 |
| Motherboard(s): | ASUS P5B Deluxe |
| Chipset(s): | Intel P965 |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 7.2.2.1007 (Intel) |
| Hard Disk: | Seagate 7200.7 160GB SATA |
| Memory: | Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 (1GB x 2) |
| Video Cards: | Various |
| Video Drivers: | ATI Catalyst 6.11 NVIDIA ForceWare 93.71 NVIDIA ForceWare 97.02 |
| Desktop Resolution: | 1920x1080 - 32-bit @ 60Hz |
| OS: | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
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Xajel - Monday, December 11, 2006 - link
I don't know why Anand these days does not care about AMD, I just hope they don't think that every body in the world has Core 2...I'm not fan of AMD, but the benefit of this kind of articles is to see how much power do you need to handle these scenarios, and I guess the magority of peoples today still have older CPU's
these test must in my opinion cover wider range of CPU's Pentium 4 (with HT and without ), Pentium D, Athlon 64, Athlon 64 X2 even the Quad FX platform this will help reader very well knows if there system can handle these thing or not
michael2k - Monday, December 11, 2006 - link
I would hazard most AMDs won't be fine; if most Intel CPUs won't be fine and if the E6600 outclasses all AMD CPUs...But I was just looking at the AMD/C2D comparison from July, the newest AMD CPUs may do fine.
mino - Monday, December 11, 2006 - link
The same here?What about QuadFX ? (under Vista)
FX-70 at $500 it is at level with E6700...
AlexWade - Monday, December 11, 2006 - link
The HD DVD 360 add-on works on a PC, why wasn't that tested too?DerekWilson - Monday, December 11, 2006 - link
We are going to do a followup using the 360 HDDVD drive (actually, I'm working on it right now).ShizNet - Tuesday, December 12, 2006 - link
great! what file foot-print advantage's in h.264? 1/4? 1/6? 1/10 compare to MPEG2? and if so can't you store h.264 on 'ol DVD? i've read HD/BD has way more space to offer than movie along needs. for that reason HD/BD will include: games, extra 'endings', rating-film options, trails....great write-up as usual
artifex - Tuesday, December 12, 2006 - link
I would love to see that article include visual comparisons with a 360 running the HD-DVD adapter. If I buy the adapter, I may be using it on both.therealnickdanger - Monday, December 11, 2006 - link
Yeah, that it curious. Besides, if you're serious about HD-movies, all the highest picture-quality films currently are encoded using VC-1. Sure, H.264 has the potential to be the best, but it hasn't been demonstrated yet. VC-1 also takes less grunt to decode, so the article could pander to many more users than just X6800 owners......just a thought.
Orbs - Monday, December 11, 2006 - link
I'd love to see that tested and compared.Eug - Monday, December 11, 2006 - link
If an E6400 2.13 GHz is OK, is a T7400 2.16 also OK? The T7400 is faster, but it has a slower memory bus.