asfdati = super reatrd driver retard crap retard retard retard

[Zhick]

Srsly, I don't understand why you guy's get so worked up about video-decode-acceleration. I just played 8 720p videos at the same time just for fun, and things were still smooth and cpu-usage wasn't even 90% for most of the time. Now I'll admit my system is probably not the slowest one out there, but it's also faaar from top-notch/up-to-date (C2D E6600).

[Melcar]

Srsly, I don't understand why you guy's get so worked up about video-decode-acceleration. I just played 8 720p videos at the same time just for fun, and things were still smooth and cpu-usage wasn't even 90% for most of the time. Now I'll admit my system is probably not the slowest one out there, but it's also faaar from top-notch/up-to-date (C2D E6600).

Not everyone has C2Ds (or a fast CPU for that matter).

[Zhick]

Not everyone has C2Ds (or a fast CPU for that matter).

Yes, but if you've got an old/slow CPU, it also seems unlikely to me that you have a new and modern GPU that could do all that decoding for you.
Edit: I don't think decode-acceleration has no point at all, but imho there are far more important things at hand (like vsync, OpenGl-2.1 support, ...).
And more important: Afaik there's already a functioning decode-acceleration for Gallium3d, so implementing mc and stuff now would probably be duplication of efforts.

[Melcar]

Yes, but if you've got an old/slow CPU, it also seems unlikely to me that you have a new and modern GPU that could do all that decoding for you.
Edit: I don't think decode-acceleration has no point at all, but imho there are far more important things at hand (like vsync, OpenGl-2.1 support, ...).
And more important: Afaik there's already a functioning decode-acceleration for Gallium3d, so implementing mc and stuff now would probably be duplication of efforts.

You never know. Vendors are always coming up with weird cut down versions of current gen GPUs for "ancient" interfaces (PCI cards are still showing up). These particular GPUs, while definitely not "powerful", are still capable of good HD content playback on their own. Similarly, some of the higher end AGP cards are more than capable of such playback, but since those particular platforms are stuck with rather slow CPUs, not being able to use the GPU for HD can be a real problem. And if anything, having the feature is important if at least for the principal of the thing.

[Melcar]

Sorry, I'm apparently ignorant of some of the developments here - just how is lack of people working on an open source driver the fault of Novell or ATI? I would imagine that the lack of people is more the responsibility of the community (which demanded documentation) as a whole.

I'm guessing he's referring to financial backing.

[bridgman]

I'm a bit confused by this discussion. There *is* a lot of work and progress going on -- it's just that much of the focus has shifted from radeon and radeonhd to drm and mesa. There is a lot of work going on with memory management and kernel modesetting (KMS requires memory management) -- and memory management is also the pre-requisite for full OpenGL, DRI2, and a host of other improvements (even Gallium has a sorta-kinda dependency on memory management and DRI2).

[Melcar]

I'm a bit confused by this discussion. There *is* a lot of work and progress going on -- it's just that much of the focus has shifted from radeon and radeonhd to drm and mesa. There is a lot of work going on with memory management and kernel modesetting (KMS requires memory management) -- and memory management is also the pre-requisite for full OpenGL, DRI2, and a host of other improvements (even Gallium has a sorta-kinda dependency on memory management and DRI2).

It's just people being impatient, that's all.

[bridgman]

Yeah, it's easy to forget that X11 has been evolving for 21 years already

[_txf_]

You never know. Vendors are always coming up with weird cut down versions of current gen GPUs for "ancient" interfaces (PCI cards are still showing up). These particular GPUs, while definitely not "powerful", are still capable of good HD content playback on their own. Similarly, some of the higher end AGP cards are more than capable of such playback, but since those particular platforms are stuck with rather slow CPUs, not being able to use the GPU for HD can be a real problem. And if anything, having the feature is important if at least for the principal of the thing.

I was under the impression that the pci bus bandwidth is insufficient for hd video decoding (and certainly not at bitrates from things like bluray).

Now consider windows... Nobody can argue that graphics drivers are far more complete under windows, but do those agp cards advertise hd video video playback? do the drivers support it on those cards?

I know We don't have to accept the limitations that windows users have but will users of those older cards be able to take advantage of them on windows?

[Melcar]

I was under the impression that the pci bus bandwidth is insufficient for hd video decoding (and certainly not at bitrates from things like bluray).

Now consider windows... Nobody can argue that graphics drivers are far more complete under windows, but do those agp cards advertise hd video video playback? do the drivers support it on those cards?

I know We don't have to accept the limitations that windows users have but will users of those older cards be able to take advantage of them on windows?

There are people with such hardware combinations out there. Doesn't make that much sense, but what can you do.
Another example would be small HTPC boxes. People usually go for smaller budget cards and cheap CPUs. Being able to handle HD content comfortably on that <$40 GPU would be nice, but currently you need a "beefy" CPU for it (and you may not want such a "beefy" CPU for your HTPC).
Proper HD content playback has become rather important in today's home computing environment, so not having it ticks off a lot of people.