Steam streaming, Hardware decoding, ATI Radeon 3100 (Help!)

Hey everyone.

Okay, so I know this card is ancient now, but it doesn't work TOO bad for Steam streaming (The ATI Radeon 3100, that is). Still, there is a bit of choppiness at times I'd like to get rid of. I *can* get rid of it, or I think I can, by enabling hardware decoding. However, even when I enable that on Steam, the games still use software decoding! I'm not sure why. The Radeon 3100 does support UVD/DXVA, and Steam does support DXVA rendering, so it should work, right?

Any ideas of how to get the hardware acceleration on this laptop working correctly?

 

It's also saying this in the Steam streaming log

Sat Aug 30 20:57:04 2014 UTC - DXVA init resetting SDL renderer
Sat Aug 30 20:57:04 2014 UTC - DXVA: Using device ATI Radeon 3100 Graphics
Sat Aug 30 20:57:04 2014 UTC - DXVA init failed: Couldn't find H264 hardware decoder

 

No clues at all?

 

Now, I'm going to make guesswork here. Your card likely is not capable of H.264 encoding/decoding. Just because it can use DXVA doesn't mean it's capable of such a format. Most new (although weak) cards would be capable of this, but otherwise your CPU will just need to power through it.

I could very well be wrong, but usually if a kind of decode ability is not there, it means the hardware lacks the feature set required. It's like trying to use OBS on old intel DX10 GPUs. They do not contain the necessary DX10 feature sets to properly facilitate the x264 encoding (as x264 encoding in OBS requires a bit of GPU juice, though not a lot), and thus even if the CPU has some strength OBS will just not work well at all. You may simply be running into a similar issue here. Alternately you could try sending a support ticket to valve about the issue and see what they say, though it may take a while for them to get back to you. It *IS* a direct Steam feature you are using though, so it should be okay.

 

Hardware H.264 encoding requires a Sandy Bridge or later CPU or one of the recent AMD or Nvidia GPU's, but decoding should be supported on hardware dating much further back.

 

Thanks for the responses guys.

I think I've figured it out. I don't think the ATI Radeon 3100 supports H.264 decoding. VLC player seems to confirm that it can't use DXVA and Steam streaming comes up with the same result.

So, I am going to upgrade my client. However, the old Toshiba laptop I'm using is definitely doing a serviceable job, I just need that full HD display with no lag..

Thanks again for the responses!