# h264/x264 gpu accelerated playback



## heretic

See here: http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/DXVASupport.html

Note that videos have to be encoded with certain settings for DXVA to work. Here's a thread with more info on that: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=972503

If you encode your own, MeGUI has its own profiles that ensure compatibility: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=101813


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## D9Vx

Yer, i struggled with this for a LONG Time, seems to be no information on it anyware!

The solution is mate,

DNA 8.6B Drivers (I found these to have less issues with it, normal ATI Ones will be fine tho)

And Media-Player-Classic Home Theator as heretic said. Thats the ONLY one i got working.. I tried EVERYTHING!

WMP Etc will offload it to AVIVO on the GPU, but your CPU will still take care of decoding.

Use MPC-HT, and you can specifiy the x264 codec, which is inbuilt and uses DXVA. Then set your output settings to EVR, and fire up your x264...

BAM!! Your now offloading the x264 decoding to the GPU!

Enjoy watching x264's @ 2% CPU load!!






























Good Luck!


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## OpTicaL

Quote:


Originally Posted by *D9Vx* 
Yer, i struggled with this for a LONG Time, seems to be no information on it anyware!

The solution is mate,

DNA 8.6B Drivers (I found these to have less issues with it, normal ATI Ones will be fine tho)

And Media-Player-Classic Home Theator as heretic said. Thats the ONLY one i got working.. I tried EVERYTHING!

WMP Etc will offload it to AVIVO on the GPU, but your CPU will still take care of decoding.

Use MPC-HT, and you can specifiy the x264 codec, which is inbuilt and uses DXVA. Then set your output settings to EVR, and fire up your x264...

BAM!! Your now offloading the x264 decoding to the GPU!

Enjoy watching x264's @ 2% CPU load!!






























Good Luck!

Can you explain in more detail on how to get MPC to offload h264/x264 to GPU?


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## Nacelle

The mpc worked. I have the first three Star Wars that are 1080p, that I picked up from a guy at a lan party. They wouldn't play correctly on my htpc. It's an old Athlon 64 3200 with an HD 2600 xt. With mpc, the cpu usage dropped from 99percent to the 80s. Not a huge drop. But, at least it's playable.


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## Coma

Quote:



Originally Posted by *OpTicaL*


Can you explain in more detail on how to get MPC to offload h264/x264 to GPU?


1. Open MPC-HC
2. Go to View -> Options -> Internal Filters
3. under Transform Filters, tick all the filters that say "(DXVA)"
4. Restart MPC-HC
5. Play a video with one of those codecs, right click on the video area -> Filters -> MPC Video Decoder and it should tell you whether DXVA is being used.

Also, this is not a must, but you should go View -> Output and under DirectShow Video use Haali's Video Renderer or EVR. Haali's is better









You can test whether it works with this file: http://www.sendspace.com/file/qvwt5y


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## OpTicaL

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Coma* 
1. Open MPC-HC
2. Go to View -> Options -> Internal Filters
3. under Transform Filters, tick all the filters that say "(DXVA)"
4. Restart MPC-HC
5. Play a video with one of those codecs, right click on the video area -> Filters -> MPC Video Decoder and it should tell you whether DXVA is being used.

Also, this is not a must, but you should go View -> Output and under DirectShow Video use Haali's Video Renderer or EVR. Haali's is better









You can test whether it works with this file: http://www.sendspace.com/file/qvwt5y

Thanks for the pointer. I downloaded MPC-HC last night and was messing with it for awhile. I noticed under Playback->Output I have to choose either VMR7 or VMR9 in order for DXVA to be utilized, choosing Haali does not work. What's weird is some 1080p files that will not offload to GPU eventhough both .mkv files are using the exact same codecs.


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## Coma

Well, yeah, I don't use DXVA myself so I forgot Haali doesn't work with it.

Anyway, it will only work with some files as there are some limitations. There are difference in the way files are encoded, even if they're all H.264.
Some rippers and anime encoders don't keep DXVA in mind when encoding, and some even do it on purpose. This is the result


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## OpTicaL

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Coma*


Well, yeah, I don't use DXVA myself so I forgot Haali doesn't work with it.

Anyway, it will only work with some files as there are some limitations. There are difference in the way files are encoded, even if they're all H.264.
Some rippers and anime encoders don't keep DXVA in mind when encoding, and some even do it on purpose. This is the result










Yeah, that sucks, but I was still happy to see 2% CPU utilization on some of the files that worked. MPC-HC still needs work on subtitles as I can't change the placement of the subs onscreen.

I guess I'll have to wait for CoreAVC to come out with GPU support, because the computer I'm using now for the past 4 years still works great, it just cannot smoothly playback 1080p encoded media.


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