H.264 + NVidia 8800GT + Vista

[AndrueC]

I've researched this on the web but not really come up with any useful answers. I'm playing back HD content on a Vista desktop PC. It has an NVidia 8800GT, 4GB RAM, Dual core x64 AMD (not sure which one but it was a special edition that came in a black box, lol).

 

It does a pretty good job of rendering to my TV but it isn't perfect panning and scrolling shows noticeable jitter. Task Manager shows CPU usage between 40% and 50% (ie;most of one core).

 

I've tried playing the TS through VLC, DVBViewer and WMP using the K-Lite codecs but they all behave the same. ISTM that my system is not using the acceleration build into the card..but there's where things get tricky.

 

From the web I've so far learnt that (well I've read it. Doesn't mean I believe all of it ):

 

* The 8800GT doesn't have H.264 acceleration.

* You need the Pure Video driver from NVidia but they don't produce one for Vista because it supports it out of the box.

* According to NVidia (http://www.nvidia.com/object/purevideo_hd_faq.html#1Q4) "No. The GeForce 8800 uses the previous generation of PureVideo HD. This is because the GeForce 8800 is usually paired with more powerful dual-core CPUs and our goal is to achieve balanced use of all the processing power in your machine. With the GeForce 8800, it makes sense to let these powerful CPU cores handle functions they do well. "

 

From my brief tests (I only got DVBViewer and my card this week) my server (Athlon 3500 using onboard NVidia 6150) does a better job of rendering H.264.

 

So my question is the pretty obvious one:How do I get my Vista desktop machine to render H.264 better and/or without tying up an entire core?

 

I should put my hand up and admit that the desktop is pulling the TS across my network..but that's a Gigabit network and the usage was pretty low so I'm inclined to be technically arrogant and 'assume' that's not the issue

Edited December 11, 2008 by AndrueC