HTPC hardware decoding via GPU

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1101

3122 posts

Uber Geek

#249407 9-May-2019 14:31

Im running Mediaportal (v1.x ) on Win7.

I want to use the GPU for hardware decoding of vid codecs .

What min spec of Vid card should I be looking at. ATI or NV chip ?

I prefer to buy the vid card , so previous generation sort of thing.

Or am I wasting my time & money doing this.

At the moment Im using a very old NV 8800GT , I had issues after enabling GPU/hardware decoding on that . Too old ?

I upgraded Mediaportal from a very very old v1.1 (I think) to the latest version. Not that impressed , the old version seemed to run

alot better & and much better interface .

SirHumphreyAppleby

2849 posts

Uber Geek

#2233768 9-May-2019 15:03

IMO you're wasting your money buying a new GPU. Getting to 1080P probably isn't too expensive, but UHD and h.265 support will set you back a fair bit.

I'm using cheap ($<50) Amlogic boxes which are capable of offloading all video used on DVD/Blu-ray/UHD. I run CoreELEC which has some limitations compared to a HTPC, but without specifics of how you use MediaPortal and the HTPC, it's difficult to say if a similar approach could work for you.

surfisup1000

5288 posts

Uber Geek

#2233776 9-May-2019 15:23

What is your CPU? Intel have very effective hardware decoding in their CPU's.

If you don't have intel quicksync, then this chart helps find nvenc cards...

https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-decode-gpu-support-matrix

looks like you are looking at the gtx1050 or higher.

I don't know about AMD cpu/ gfx card options.

dolsen

1476 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2233865 9-May-2019 17:07

surfisup1000:

https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-decode-gpu-support-matrix

looks like you are looking at the gtx1050 or higher.

For simply decoding (NVDEC Support Matrix), the 1030 should be enough. If you also want to encode, 1050 or better.

cruxis

482 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2233888 9-May-2019 17:41

My amd RX550 decodes the Jellyfish Bitrate Test files fine paired just with G3320 Celeron cpu. Anything higher than 160Mbit required the vid on a SSD to avoid stutter though.

http://jell.yfish.us/

Azzura

603 posts

Ultimate Geek

ID Verified

#2233893 9-May-2019 17:59

Pretty sure an old GTX 960 can do it.

"H.265 (HEVC) Video Decoding Engine
One advantage the GM206 GPU holds over GM204 is its new video engine. While the GeForce GTX 970 and 980 support H.265 (HEVC) video encoding, only the GeForce GTX 960 decodes this forward-looking format. The GeForce GTX 960 promises to be an excellent choice for home theater PCs with the ability to play back 4K video at low power, and natively supporting HDCP 2.2 content over HDMI 2.0. "

dolsen

1476 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2233918 9-May-2019 18:44

cruxis:

My amd RX550 decodes the Jellyfish Bitrate Test files fine paired just with G3320 Celeron cpu. Anything higher than 160Mbit required the vid on a SSD to avoid stutter though.

http://jell.yfish.us/

Cool site.

OP - I've downloaded the jellyfish-200-mbps-4k-uhd-hevc-10bit.mkv file and it plays smoothly on my Intel i7 870 quad core CPU htpc with a 1030 gpu using mediaportal on windows 10.

Video card is a Asus Gt 1030 passively cooled GPU I brought off trademe for $105.

GPU was at 70%, cpu at 20% as measured through task manager. Using ! to show decode performance did not work (maybe that feature was removed or overlay doesn't support it in this mode).

Seeking forward and backwards doesn't work (picture is frozen on point I was at before seeking), but, if I stop the video and then restart, the picture starts from that point without issue. If the video was longer, perhaps it would resync.

allio

885 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2238331 15-May-2019 13:04

SirHumphreyAppleby:

IMO you're wasting your money buying a new GPU. Getting to 1080P probably isn't too expensive, but UHD and h.265 support will set you back a fair bit.

I'm using cheap ($<50) Amlogic boxes which are capable of offloading all video used on DVD/Blu-ray/UHD. I run CoreELEC which has some limitations compared to a HTPC, but without specifics of how you use MediaPortal and the HTPC, it's difficult to say if a similar approach could work for you.

Agreed. "Best GPU for Mediaportal on Windows 7" is a very 2009-era question. In 2019, it's all about Open/CoreELEC on Amlogic, or Kodi on a Shield.