AMD Radeon HD 5750/5770

[Kano]

I really would like to know why ATI cards are soft limited to H264 L4.x decode and you have to google to finds hacks around that to use L5.1 (for DvXA). BD only needs L4.1 thats fine, but there are lots of L5.1 files out there which can play Nvidia cards - even using vdpau on Linux. That's a major drawback for video playback - even using the "mainstream" os.

[BlackStar]

If by "major drawback" you mean "99.9% of the customers simply won't care", then you are right. (You and I may be downloading H264 L5.1 videos, but the vast majority will never watch anything other than BD and Youtube "HD").

That said, I'd like to know the reason as well.

Edit (disclaimer): I just bought a fanless 9500 for my XBMC HTPC. VDPAU works, but I'm rather underwhelmed on the whole (sync issues, mainly, as well as not-very-good 2D performance. My previous 7600GS was much, *much* better in 2D).

[Kano]

For youtube you should enable vsync in nvidia settings and load

nvidia-settings -l

on startup. vdpau should be using vsync - and be sure you really use the latest BETA drivers!

[BlackStar]

For youtube you should enable vsync in nvidia settings and load

nvidia-settings -l

on startup. vdpau should be using vsync - and be sure you really use the latest BETA drivers!

Sync issues, not vsync issues! As in audio out falling out of sync with video or video speeding up / down. I don't know whether this is an XBMC or a Nvidia issue, but I've disabled VDPAU until this can be resolved (my single-core Athlon 64 can handle 720p just fine and I don't have any 1080p content right now).

That said, I also have vsync issues - this card refuses to sync to the HDMI monitor as long as a VGA monitor is connected (using separate X screens). This causes pretty bad tearing on my TV, unless I disconnect the VGA monitor first - not very fun.

I'm using the 190.36 drivers from the VDPAU team, but I've tried everything several other versions from 180.xx, 185.xx and 190.xx with no change. If I actually knew that I'd encounter these kinds of problems, I'd probably have gone with an Ati card and the open drivers instead...

[Kano]

You know that you can control the VDPAU vsync via an environment var? VDPAU_NVIDIA_SYNC_DISPLAY_DEVICE should be set to the devicename nvidia-settings reports for it.

[BlackStar]

You know that you can control the VDPAU vsync via an environment var? VDPAU_NVIDIA_SYNC_DISPLAY_DEVICE should be set to the devicename nvidia-settings reports for it.

No. Is this different than the 'sync to monitor' option in nvidia-settings? (This option works correctly if I connect two VGA monitors, but not if I connect one VGA and one HDMI monitor).

I'll have to try that and see if it fixes the vsync issue, even if it's only for VDPAU (I guess I can live with normal tearing if video displays correctly). That would be a huge step forward.

Any ideas about the video-audio desync and speed up/down issues?

[Kano]

The a/v sync is mainly a player problem. With good input mplayer + vdpau has got the least problems with it - as long as you don't use -demuxer lavf.

[evanjfraser]

Well I did it.

I bought my first ever ATI card last week (XFX 5750), and I've been buying video cards since 1993. I've upgraded my desktop to karmic and I'm using the bundled catalyst restricted driver.

I bought the 5750 because it seemed the first worthwhile video card upgrade (to me) to my 7900GS that would be short enough to fit in my HTPC case.

I'm hanging out for AMD to sort out the GPU playback offloading (ala VDPAU) and If they don't get that released soon I will be quite a disappointed radeon owner... It was a bit of an impulse purchase based on phoronix's review so here's hoping they're not misleading us!

Everything is going well after the upgrade so far, halflife2 runs nicely at 1080p now.

Is there anyway to get rid of the AMD unsupported hardware overlay? I don't think there are any newer drivers out as catalyst 9.9 (latest available from amd.com) didn't work with this card at all.

Cheers, Evan.

[GreekGeek]

Hi Yall & Evan,

this will kill the watermark thang:

echo -n 1a12e6c2f7e613b887d92e943a40799e:223cd5fbc4c82295b 7ee1ea30b7818b32a27d6f5cfd75095c68d67b409754faa292 7:2820d5a193d375dae4ed4dac087240ab782583a7c683728b b7bb19ac0b781bad2873d4f593d0758de4bf4aa30f7040ab79 24dea6c1d1718cb7e019a10e2618ff282bd4f5 > /etc/ati/signature

<edit>
Issue that cmd @ the cmd line.
Log our of X & then back in & whamo, no watermark thang...
<edit>

Kudos to Kano.

Oh and of course the ATI guruz, what writes the FGLRX code in the first place! :-)

*BFN*

GreekGeek :-)

[evanjfraser]

Hi GreekGeek, thanks for helping!

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have worked.

I'm new to ATI drivers except for a short unsuccessful stint trying to use ATI cards for Maya in linux back in 2001&2.

Cheers, Evan.

Hi Yall & Evan,

this will kill the watermark thang:

echo -n 1a12e6c2f7e613b887d92e943a40799e:223cd5fbc4c82295b 7ee1ea30b7818b32a27d6f5cfd75095c68d67b409754faa292 7:2820d5a193d375dae4ed4dac087240ab782583a7c683728b b7bb19ac0b781bad2873d4f593d0758de4bf4aa30f7040ab79 24dea6c1d1718cb7e019a10e2618ff282bd4f5 > /etc/ati/signature

<edit>
Issue that cmd @ the cmd line.
Log our of X & then back in & whamo, no watermark thang...
<edit>

Kudos to Kano.

Oh and of course the ATI guruz, what writes the FGLRX code in the first place! :-)

*BFN*

GreekGeek :-)