Upgrading A2D graphics drivers (DVD playback)

Asus provided display drivers are fairly outdated.

DVD playback is a bit jerky using WinDVD 6 on this notebook. Did anybody notice that?
Enabling or disabling hardware iDCT doesn't make a lot of difference so I keep hardware acceleration enabled so that I can keep the CPU at 400Mhz.
I didn't have any problem with my old desktop computer with a Matrox G400 card, the playback was 100% smooth without a single glitch, with software iDCT.

Just wondered if you guys attempted to upgrade the display drivers as I know there is a special procedure for notebook computers.

 

http://www.driverheaven.net/patje/


Mobility Modding for Ati Mobillity cards...work with latest official
Catalist drivers.

 

I updated my original drivers to omega drivers a while ago, as Doom 3 was crashing with the drivers provided by Asus. So far, everything is working ok, I even installed the omega set on several friends' notebooks. They are very good.

But I don't know if this will solve your problem. It's strange, because I can't say DVD playback is jerky for me. It's not very smooth, but only when it's not in fullscreen, and I'm doing other things on the computer. As long as the fullscreen is on, it's ok.

 

Well if this is not completely smooth, then it obviously is a little bit jerky isn't it...

You need to hook up a TV to the notebook to really experience the problem. I never watch movies or even live video on the LCD, always on the TV. The problem is different on the TV because the refresh rate is exactly 50Hz, matching the PAL refresh rate.

With DVD movies, the jerkiness is annoying when the screen is panning, even with movies encoded at 25 fps eg. where motion compensation is not needed at all.

With DVD documentaries (interlaced) or when I want to watch captured PAL camcorder footage, this becomes significantly annoying.

WinDVD 6 also comes with DNM (Digital Natural Motion), allowing 50Hz camcorder-style playback with any kind of DVD. Having the software or hardware unable to display 50Hz material in the first place defeats the purpose of DNM...

 

I just found out why playback wasn't smooth (thus jerky ) in wmp10 when the video was not running fullscreen. It was because the overlay option was not checked (in the performance tab of the preferences window). I think if you're playing the video on a second monitor (or a TV), you have to activate the overlay, and tell windows the second monitor is your primary screen.

From what I understood of what the *overlay* is, it's when the video stream is sent directly to the video card, thus allowing complete (almost) hardware acceleration. But the overlay can be used only on one monitor, so if you activate it, the video stream will be sent to the principal monitor.

Hope it helps. Have you tried the omega drivers?

 

This may sound stupid but have you tried another program?
I had some problems playing dvd and video using wmp10, and I now use powerDVD. I realise that wmp10 is crap but it could be a software issue with windvd, i've tried windvd and I must say that powerdvd just seemed to work lot nicer on my lappie, thus I've switched back.
a


ASUS M6Ne 15.4" WSXGA 1.7 PM ATI9700 80Gb HDD 1Gb RAM

 

cyberlink's powerDVD is what Asus bundles with their systems... but they rename it AsusDVD...... thats great.

Personally I like Nvidia' DVD player... I forget the name,but I think it's NVDVD.. but it's the only only player I could get my 5.1 channel klipsch speakers to run with........ and it also provided the best video quality.... slightly better then powerdvd..... but a heck of a lot better than windows media player.

Thanks,
Justin
PROPortable
www.proportable.com
[email protected]

 

Well I have Theatre mode enabled, which means that the overlay surface is mirrored onto the secondary monitor - that is, my TV - in fullscreen. It is exactly the same as Matrox DVDMax mode.

I haven't tried Omega drivers yet. What's the advantage these ones over traditional Catalyst drivers? I would prefer staying away from unofficial driver sets.

NB: funnily enough there's been a post about video editing today - please note this is precisely a bad idea with ATI cards as 50Hz playback cannot be guaranteed...