DXVA in Windows 98

[Sfor]

The GOM player is my favourite player. But, it seems some of it's internal video filter functions are not particulary efficient. When it comes to high video resolutions the playback is getting choppy. The BS Player Free is much more effective in such a situation, but it has it's issues and the newest version does not work on Windows 98.

The GOM player does support DXVA. In theory DXVA should replace the GOM Player internal video filter and transfer some of the video related operations from CPU to GPU. However, that's where my knowledge ends.

[Sfor]

It looks like, the first problem to solve is to get a proper hardware.

The Ati support for DXVA starts with the Radeon HD and Mobility Radeon HD devices. The software driver layer is called UVD (Unified Video Decoder).

The NVidia support vor DXVA starts with GForce 6 series. The software driver layer is called Nvidia PureVideo.

I do not know which graphic cards supporting the DXVA can be used with Windows 98. I do not know if the UVD or PureVideo can be installed in Windows 98 as well.

I lost a lot of my interest in this field, because I was able to gain some performance through switching the GOM player from the built in to ffdshow H264 codec. Apparently, the built in the GOM player H264 codec implementation is significantly slower than the one from the ffdshow. Still, the CPU usage is 100% when playing 1080x720 video on single core 2.4Ghz P4. So, I'll be back to this problem, when I'll gather enough of frustration caused by choppy playback, again.

[rainyd]

As you said, the major problem is hardware (and of course drivers for it).

Here you have interesting article: http://www.guru3d.com/article/accelerate-x...-the-gpu-guide/

[Offler]

I was able to use DXVA on radeon x850 with Vista... which graphics do you have?

by the way... article on guru3d is wrong when it comes to ati cards. UVD is not a part of GPU. As long i know it is a standalone chip placed on a card. Also GPU accelerated decoding depends on decoder you use.

for example i use decoder for Mpeg2 which is HW accelerated. Other decoders are not supporting Win9x... You do not need proper drivers, you just need coded with ability of hardware acceleration, and that is GPU of course.

When i also read some articles about DXVA i was quite surpised because author was talking about renderer, but when i downloaded the package i found codec. Thats a bit different.

If you want to watch fully accelerated movies on win9x you can use Media Player classic and its internal Haali renderer alongside with any hardware accelerated decoder.

Edited November 20, 2009 by Offler

[Sfor]

Well. I do have Ati All in Wonder 9000 (ATI RADEON 9000 AGP Pro). It does not support the DXVA as far as I know.

On the other hand the Media Player Classic does seem to have an independant GPU support, unrelated to the manufacturer driver software. Still, I did not pay much attention to the MPC so far. So, I can be wrong here.

Edited November 20, 2009 by Sfor

[Offler]

Haali renderer is completely hardware based as i know, and it works at least for me, but i rather prefer VMR9 or old Overlay mixer.

X850 is relatively new card so it is possible that it will be fully supported for DXVA, but previous generation of 9x00 seems to be less supported (at all they are 9 years old...)

[Sfor]

In my case the GPU was identified as "RADEON 9000 AGP Pro (0x4966) Rev 1". There will be hardly any hardware acceleration possible, probably.

Also, when I have encountered a 1280x960 video clip, it appeared the BS Player is more efficient than GOM Player (with ffdshow installed and internal filters disabled). Still I'm not fond of the BS Player, as the bacward rewind function does not work wery well, and the newest wersion refuses to work in Windows 98. In other words the BSPlayer will remain quite buggy for the Windows 98 users.

It is the right time to check the Media Player Classic, apparently.

[Sfor]

I've played a bit with the Media Player Classic. It seems there is no OSD here. I was unable to use softsubs from mkv file, as well (the MPC crashes in such a case).

The Haali Video renderer function crashes the player, in my case. My GPU is too old, probably.

If the MPC with Haali renderer is able to use only the full hardware decoding, it would mean a DXVA 2 graphics card is necesary. The DXVA 1 was ment for just partial stream decoding hardware acceleration, as far as I know.

-----------------------------------------

I've downloaded the newest version of the Haali splitter. The setup by default disables the built in MPC Haali splitter. It fixed the problem with MPC crashing when the Haali Video renderer is selected.

Since the Haali renderer works with as old graphic card as mine is, it could be possible to get the hardware acceleration with just DXVA 1 graphic card, I suppose.

------------------------------------------

And yet another side effect of the newest Haali splitter installation. The GOM player can not use the newest version. I had to enable the built in GOM MP4 filter.

The BS player is in the same situation. But, I can not enable the built in codec, here.

Edited November 23, 2009 by Sfor

[Sfor]

While playing with different players I've noticed a file is played much better the second time. Apparently, the RAM disk cache speeds things up significantly. It seems to be quite logical, since the CPU works 100% the whole time.

So, to speed up just any player it is enough to start the playback with a little script:

COPY /B "%1" NUL

Player.exe "%1"

Even the slowest GOM player received a significant boost in speed, that way. Since the computer does have 768MB of RAM, it should be enough to buffer a few hundreds megabytes of data in the disk cache.

For the time beeing I made a script for every player in the "Send to" menu. It seems to be working better than I have expected. So, I'm somewhat satisfied with the result. But, I will get back to the topic, when I'll find a file my computer will not be able to handle in a proper way.

[Offler]

newest haali renderer does not work for me. hard to say why.

[Sfor]

In my case the Haali's Media Splitter (03-06-2007) works, with exception of the MPC with Haali Video renderer setting.

The Haali Media Splitter 11/01/2009 does work only with the MPC (the Haali Video renderer setting works as well). Other players are unable to use it. Also some of the Haali componets started to complain about some system function missing. It could mean the end of the Windows 98 support from the Haali.

By the way. The hack with the RAM disk cache file buffering gave me a better opportunity to compare the efficiency of the players. At first the BS Player free seemed to be the best one. But, when I've switched the otput from VRM 9 renderless to the system default setting, the GOM player and MPC both started to work with the same speed as the BS Player.

So, it appears the system default video output setting seems to be the fastest in my case.