Video Playback

[H.A.L. 9000]

Hmm... I'm going to try some of the stuff you guys listed as well. I seem to have cured tearing with 720p videos. If I go full screen it's like vsync is enabled... no tearing. But playing back 1080p videos still tears, full screen or not.

It's funny though, because my old Acer with an i945/GMA950 is buttery smooth on anything but 1080p.

I'm running an HD 4850 BTW.

[TuxDude]

Hmm... I'm going to try some of the stuff you guys listed as well. I seem to have cured tearing with 720p videos. If I go full screen it's like vsync is enabled... no tearing. But playing back 1080p videos still tears, full screen or not.

It's funny though, because my old Acer with an i945/GMA950 is buttery smooth on anything but 1080p.

I'm running an HD 4850 BTW.

Yes even my 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo laptop with an nvidia 8600M GT 256MB faces the same problem - 720p videos work fine but not 1080p - I felt it was because the CPU was not powerful enough to do the decoding. I dont know how comparable the 8600M GT's hardware decoder is compared to todays nvidia cards - so I just had to avoid 1080p videos altogether on the laptop.

Also MPEG2 encoded 1080p videos and H.264 encoded 1080p videos make a lot of difference especially when the CPU is doing the decoding. See if you experience screen tear with MPEG2 encoded videos - for example Blurays, HDDVDs native format usually is MPEG2 and greater than 4 or 8GB in size, but the H.264 encoded ones are the ones usually like 1 - 2 GB for the same 1080p movie.

[ZaZ]

My R60 had a Core 2 Duo and it played 1080p videos just fine in Windows. I think it was hitting the CPU at 30-40% as I recall, though to some degree it will depend on the video. Blu-rays played at 95-100% depending on the disc.

[TuxDude]

VDPAU API was introduced for nvidia cards since the Geforce 8 series, but support for MPEG-4 and H.264 codecs came pretty late only with the Geforce 200 series I think.

VDPAU is more or less equivalent to DXVA in Windows.

ZaZ - which specific GPU was that on your R60 ?

[ZaZ]

X1400, which I believe does not support decoding.