nVidia 9500gt hardware decoding in Windows 7 MC

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › nVidia 9500gt hardware decoding in Windows 7 MC

doolz

35 posts

Geek

#31873 2-Apr-2009 14:24

Hi Ya'll
Sorry if this has been asked before, I have searched and couldn't find anything similar...

I need some help
I recently upgraded my ATI 3450 card to an nVidia 9500GT because the ati wouldn't display TVNZ 6,7,Sports Extra or C4. I waited for a new driver, but it never solved the problem.
So now I ahve the nVidia 9500GT and using an Nova-T-500 it displays all the freeview HD channels great, except that it doesn't do hardware decoding.
I have searched high and low and upgraded drivers and everything, but to no avail.
Anyone have any useful suggestions?

I have a HP Media Center m7088a that used to run XP MCE:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/product?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&product=466259

I have chucked in some more ram (4GB) and bigger HDDs and am trialing Windows 7 (build 7000).
I had to use the MS fix to correct the trial h.264 codecs (KB 963660)
It's 32bit

Anyone able to help me get hardware decoding working?

Thanks in advance...

Doolz
www.doolz.net
Media Center:
Windows 7
HP Media Center m7088a (P4 3.4GHz, 4GB Ram)
nVidia 9500GT 512MB
160GB, 500GB and 1TB HDDs

doolz

35 posts

Geek

#209048 24-Apr-2009 15:01

Ah, so no one else knows anything... seems I'm the only one in the world with my little situation!

ANY OTHER NVIDIA 9500GT OWNERS OUT THERE RUNNING WINDOWS 7?
Does your hardware decoding work?

Doolz
www.doolz.net
Media Center:
Windows 7
HP Media Center m7088a (P4 3.4GHz, 4GB Ram)
nVidia 9500GT 512MB
160GB, 500GB and 1TB HDDs

rhysb

435 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 7

Trusted

#209057 24-Apr-2009 16:28

Doolz, how are you determining that HW decoding is not working? Are you using the latest Nvidia W7 drivers, 181.71? HW decoding should just work and you shouldn't have to tweak anything with W7.

doolz

35 posts

Geek

#209058 24-Apr-2009 16:33

Easy, the CPU runs at 100% and channel 3 is barely watchable as the video skips and gets out of sync with the audio
And yes, I have the latest drivers, I even tried the trial driver v 185 or something

Doolz
www.doolz.net
Media Center:
Windows 7
HP Media Center m7088a (P4 3.4GHz, 4GB Ram)
nVidia 9500GT 512MB
160GB, 500GB and 1TB HDDs

hashbrown

463 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 131

#209075 24-Apr-2009 19:22

doolz:

Ah, so no one else knows anything... seems I'm the only one in the world with my little situation!

ANY OTHER NVIDIA 9500GT OWNERS OUT THERE RUNNING WINDOWS 7?
Does your hardware decoding work?

Running Windows 7 64bit (build 7000) with XFX 9500GT and hardware acceleration works fine. Didn't need to tweak anything. I'll try to grab driver version and some typical CPU figures for you.

hashbrown

463 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 131

#209224 25-Apr-2009 13:33

As above Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (build 7000)
NVidia driver: 179.43
CPU: Athlon BE-2350 (2.1GHz)

Average CPU for 1080i material 20-30%

A driver update has just been published for the card via Windows update. Downloading it now as I still have the odd issue with video after coming out of standby.

Update: New driver version is 181.72. Performance exactly the same.

doolz

35 posts

Geek

#209672 27-Apr-2009 10:32

Thanks for the replies ;)
I already had 181.72 - it can out in March.
I figure I'm going to send the card back as faulty. There's no where in Nvidia control panel that turns PureVideo HD off or on, is there?

Doolz
www.doolz.net
Media Center:
Windows 7
HP Media Center m7088a (P4 3.4GHz, 4GB Ram)
nVidia 9500GT 512MB
160GB, 500GB and 1TB HDDs

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

Nety

2584 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 5

Retired Mod

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#209681 27-Apr-2009 10:53

Not sure if you have noticed but there is a new driver update on Windows update for Nvidia. Maybe give that a try.

As for there being an option to turn off hardware acceleration no there it not. Normally the software you are using is the place to look for a option to turn it off but media centre does not have that option as far as I know.

Media centre PC - Case Silverstone LC16M with 2 X 80mm AcoustiFan DustPROOF, MOBO Gigabyte MA785GT-UD3H, CPU AMD X2 240 under volted, RAM 4 Gig DDR3 1033, HDD 120Gig System/512Gig data, Tuners 2 X Hauppauge HVR-3000, 1 X HVR-2200, Video Palit GT 220, Sound Realtek 886A HD (onboard), Optical LiteOn DH-401S Blue-ray using TotalMedia Theatre Power Corsair VX Series, 450W ATX PSU OS Windows 7 x64

rhysb

435 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 7

Trusted

#209986 27-Apr-2009 21:53

If you are confident with editing the registry you can turn off HW accel in WMC by adding these reg keys

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SCrunch\CodecPack\MSDVD]
"DXVA2"=dword:00000000
"DXVA"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\SCrunch\CodecPack\MSDVD]
"DXVA2"=dword:00000000
"DXVA"=dword:00000000