GPUs and Blu-ray playback. How much is really needed?

Please say is the following statements are true or not.

1. Even the fastest C2D isn't fast enough to play a Blu-ray disc without GPU assistance.

2. The HD 3470 is adequate only if it has 256 MB VRAM or higher.

3. X4500 is insufficient for smooth Blu-ray playback.

 

All false.

My Laptop has 2 graphics cards, an Nvidia onboard, and a nvidia dedicated. The onboard graphics can quite happily run a blu-ray, but the dedicated seem to give better quality output thats the only real difference.

 

Thanks.

What exactly do you notice?
You mean you notice it on the internal screen or external through VGA or HDMI?

 

http://www.cyberlink.com/stat/bd-support/enu/system-requirement.jsp
http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Product/1189528459257#versionTabview=tab0&tabview=tab5

Note: I am not saying that the 4500 is insufficent for playing all Blu-ray, some do, some don't. Try the movie I mentioned. The movie is choppy with the 4500, CPU utilization is close to 100%. It is 25% or less with dedicated card.

 

That's what I though Hendra. It sounded like manufacturer's claims.

One thing I've come to learn is that I should never rely on manufacturer's claims. They are very often inaccurate.

Are you sure you are running the right drivers, software with the right settings?

I don't have a Blu-ray player at hand but X4500 has some hardware HD playback that should off load the CPU, which does not seem to happen in your case.

 

If their software can play on slower machine, why would they want to say that their software need such a stiff system requirement? Claiming higher system requirement means less sale.

I am pretty sure it's the movie because I tried it with 3 machines. My old one, the one with 4500 and the one with ATI card. Only the ATI can play it smoothly. There must be something in that particular movie codec that needs more juice.

 

Possible reasons:
-Because they don't know enough about GPUs
-Because they want to be safe.
-Because at the time of writing those specs they were true, but now with newer GPUs, software/drivers it's no longer true.

For example: The claim that only 256 would be enough is clearly wrong, I believe. Why manufacturer's claim it is probably ignorance.

For other software there are many manufacturers that claim that their software needs a "dedicated GPU", while in fact Intel X4500 would be more than enough. With Nvidia 9400 it becomes even clearer.

Maybe it's the codec or maybe it's the particuliar disc. A lot of reading errors would also spike the CPU usage.

 

I doubt that Cyberlink and Corel don't know enough about the GPU since Nvidia and ATI have to rely on them to utilize their HD Technology.

May be.

They frequently update their system requirement and BD Advisor. The last release is September 08, so it's not that old. The Intel GPU is listed but based on my experience, one should exercise caution when purchasing notebook for playing BD. I would say, rent or buy that particular disc, if it plays smoothly with lower CPU utilization, then your notebook passes the litmus test.

Again, I doubt the manufacturer of the software would be ignorant of their own products. They are the 2 major players. And here's the other system requirement posted by another company
http://www.arcsoft.com/products/totalmediatheatre/index.asp
All of them said 256MB VRAM is required or at least recommended. 128MB may do the job but you may encounter some problem like I mentioned.

Both notebooks use identical version of player. If it is reading errors, it would have problems in all 3 notebooks.

 

I am fairly confident Nvidia 9400m will have no problem playing back Blu-ray. And yet it's not a dedicated GPU.

I am fairly confident a C2D 2.0 GHz 9300M with 128MB will have no problem playing back a Blu-ray disc. And yet it doesn't have 256MB.

But instead of commenting from our own beliefs, let's let other people comment

It is possible if a disc has areas that are hard to read, it will spike CPU usage. If it spikes CPU usage it can happen that HD3470 is unaffected by it, while X4500 runs in to trouble. Simply because X4500 needs more CPU power.

 

listen, if you want to watch hd movies, do yourself a favor.

get an nvidia or ati card.

even if its integrated. fine. 9400m. no one cares if its "integrated" or not. but you need to get a real gpu to play back hd video. its that simple. your gpu is more efficient than your cpu at doing the HD thing. you'll end up with better battery life and less heat offloading the task onto your gpu vs. making your cpu do all the work. also, if you are plugged in, you can have your gpu do some cool postprocessing stuff to improve image quality even further (using cyberdvd or powerdvd).

get a real gpu, from nvidia or ati. pass on intel. they push a bad product. it will work to some degree, but you'll get better results with the gpu companies.

 

With GPU offloading the way its going now, you wouldn't need any sort of decent CPU. Any new nVidia or AMD GPU (integrated or not) should be anough for 1080 content, even if it were paired with a Celeron M.

 

I hope this is true, since Sony gives the option of a Blu-Ray drive in their Vaio TT which has integrated X4500 graphics.

It would be very embarassing for instance when their highest end $4000 TT model with a Blu-Ray drive cannot have smooth Blu-Ray playback.

 

That's a very good point, I did not think of that.

PS. I think you meant to say not true.

 

if you play a 1080p file in mkv or avi container, the player only uses cpu power. ONLY CPU POWER.
EXCEPT in the case of DxVA.
SO we know both ATI HD and intel 4500mhd series support hardware acceleration.
Rahul made a very good point and that is end of discussion.

 

I have a few 1080p MKV files, some of them DxVA compliant, and some not. I find that even with my Z series 2.4Ghz C2D, 1080p mkv playback without DxVA is sluggish at best, with 100% CPU ultilization and dropped frames. However, for those mkv files that DxVA is enabled, i get smooth playback with CPU at around 5-20%.

 

my laptop before with my T5450 could play back 1080P smoothly, cause most of the load was on the GPU.

Nothing integrated has the power to do these things, as everyone has said.

 

Interesting remark in another thread:

 

With a 2.26GHz C2D I see less than 25% CPU utilization when not using DXVA and around 2% with DXVA enabled.

What player is everyone using to play these videos? It seems some people are getting pretty high CPU utilization.

 

1080p is a useless designation without video bitrate. Some 1080p scene encodes are 7,500 kbps, some are 15,000 kbps, and there's drastically different performance between the two.

 

And there are those that can go as high as 40 Mbps. These are real Blu-ray movies and not HD files that you can download from the net. Those HD files can be played easily on almost any laptop. But to play real Blu-ray Disc at 40 Mbps, like Lost Season 4 or Cast Away disc that I have mentioned, select ATI or Nvidia cards are highly recommended.

 

I do know for sure that I can't play 3840x2160 50Mbps video on my laptop with an acceptable framerate. :<

 

1.) False even my lower dual core AMD can do it.

2.) False any video card or IGP that can display the resolution is capable of perfect playback as long as the cpu is up for the task.

3.) True See #2

Decoding is a CPU task not a GPU task, some people seem to think naturally the video card has something to do with it due to video games. Also because there are some card that support hardware accel to help the cpu. However thats only if the right codec is used and the right players.

For insight. my 1.6ghz single core ATOM in my EEE 1000H can handle 720P fine with a GMA950!!!!

As for my HTPC that I designed for HD playback it has a 2.5ghz AMD CPU and a HD3200 IGP and it does not even have to try to play 1080P

Also keep in mind the question is very broad. It just says Blu-Ray but each movie can be coded at different bit-rates and things that means one move plays fine while another wont. Also for computer videos the codec its coded with makes a big difference. It takes more cpu power to playback x264 vs DIVX for instance.

 

Well unless you have a Blu-Ray drive in your laptop, which most don't, these are going to be HD .mkv's.

A good Blu-Ray encode can be source transparent at around 15mbps or lower.

 

there are some questions here:
1. can a very good cpu (like 2.53 C2D) play a 50mbps video without any problem no matter what the gpu is?
i think the answer is NO, you need a much better cpu, like 2.8 or higher.
2. can a very good cpu (like 2.53 C2D) play a 15mbps video without any problem, with 4500mhd?
i think the answer is quiet easily.
3. can a cpu like 1.8 C2D play a 15mbps video, with the best gpu?
i think the answer is no, except in the case of DxVA.

for summary:
playback a very high bit rate video relies on CPU, no matter what the gpu is.

now i wonder why ViciousXUSMC mark number 3 question true?
i think the answer for third question is: it depends on your cpu.