HW acceleration on GMA500 (US15W) with Windows7

[FLeu]

Hi

I am trying to figure out what Standards are supported with which driver in Win7.

I found the Intel doc 322503 which describes the Supported Standards for different OS with IEGD, but Win7 is not listed.

I also can not find a doc which specifies the features for the GMA500 Media Accelerator driver. Does it support MPEG2 HW decoding, or do I really have to use the IEGD for that?

Could somebody please help in that? I am specifically looking for MPEG2 DXVA2 support and for Adobe Flash - I know this should work but I dont think it does - with Windows 7.

Another question: Does somebody happen to know if the MS shipped MPEG2 decoder supports DXVA(2) on this platform?

Thanks

Franz

[Kirk_B_Intel]

IEGD does not currently work on Windows 7. We do support Vista in an XPDM mode (no advanced features) but there is a limitation with Windows 7.

The new EMGD embedded driver will officially support Win7 with the 1.5 release but again that will be XPDM mode until we do a version mid-year 2011 (plans can change). XPDM means no DXVA2 but it DOES support DXVA.

The GMA500 driver for Windows 7 is fully DXVA/DXVA2 enabled but you DO need to find a DXVA aware codec. On all the drivers, celeration can be used with the FULL decode process (starting at VLD) instead of just the MC entry that most solutions provide.

It is not clear if the MPEG2 codec in Win 7 will use DXVA2 VLD or DXVA2 MC- that might be best asked of Microsoft (they change things regularly and we cannot keep track).

I think you would find that codecs with WinDVD anf the like ARE fully DXVA enabled so you might try those.

Adobe flash is a different thing and you should be sure to use the absolute latest version (10.1) to get the best Atom experience possible. They are not yet fully optimized for Atom so HD content in Flash player is problematic. We are trying to work with Adobe on this but we need Adobe to want to help more than they are willing at this point.

Hope this helps

[FLeu]

Thanks a lot.

So, I defintily go with the GMA500 driver.

According to MS their MPEG2 Codec is fully accelerated - DXVA and DXVA2:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd390679\%28VS.85\%29.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd390679\%28VS.85\%29.aspx" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd390679\%28VS.85\%29.aspx

Another one that should support DXVA on Intel is:

http://elecard.com/products/products-pc/consumer/mpeg2-plugin-wmp/ http://elecard.com/products/products-pc/consumer/mpeg2-plugin-wmp/" rel="nofollow">http://elecard.com/products/products-pc/consumer/mpeg2-plugin-wmp/

http://www.elecard.com/technology/dxva.php http://www.elecard.com/technology/dxva.php" rel="nofollow">http://www.elecard.com/technology/dxva.php

I will do some tests with DXVAChecker ... and will return here if I dont find any acceleartion :manwink:

Franz

[FLeu]

I need to come back to this.

I made a lot of tests with various Mediaplayers. Some support HW acceleration and some don't, or I turned it on and off depending on the player. I tested with a MPEG-2 TS file that has an MPEG-2 encoded video (SDTV 720x576, 60 Hz, 13.08 MBit/s) and some audio.

I used DXVAChecker to log if DXVA(2) is used.

The problem is that I simply don't see any difference in CPU load whether DXVA is used or not. Actually, I would not really care if the playback would be perfect, which it unfortunately is not.

Did somebody else made similar experiences and has a solution to this.

I believe that this rather low resolution video should be played better - meaning perfect ;-) with low CPU load.

Thanks a lot

Franz

[Kirk_B_Intel]

I can assure you the driver(s) support acceleration and have DXVA2 and/or DXVA capability. Getting the player to recognize that and to utilize it it not always easy. Some player vendors think that all Atom platforms are like the 945 without any hardware acceleration and despite DXVA telling them there IS acceleration will automatically DISABLE DXVA(2) use. Sometimes you need to go to the player vendors and get thier US15w aware versions (WinDVD is one such).

Going here: http://edc.intel.com/Software/Downloads/IEGD/ http://edc.intel.com/Software/Downloads/IEGD/" rel="nofollow">http://edc.intel.com/Software/Downloads/IEGD/ and you will find some white papers that discuss video decode acceleration. Although these are IEGD related, the basic infrastructure for video decode is common between IEGD, EMGD and GMA500.

You could also check on the GMA500 sites (that I hope exist) to check for specific acceleration info. Windows should be very well supported.

Hope this helps.

[TDien1]

@Mclion: Do you have a solution for the MPEG2-TS hardware acceleration in Windows 7 (in my case: standard embedded)?

I am trying to get it running on an Z510 + US15W.

Thank you

Pascom

[Kirk_B_Intel]

Not anything we can recommend specifically. What you need to do is find a player that supports that particular container format, AND uses DXVA to do the decoding. IF something like WinDVD can handle TS then the data it gets out of the container should be MPEG2 after the error correction is applied and would then be accelerated on the decode.

Sorry I cannot be more specific. We provide the base decode capability per the Microsoft framework (DXVA) that the application has to use appropriately.

[FLeu]

The MPEG2 Codec that ships with W7 does support DXVA and DXVA2. So, depending on what your target is, you're all set. You can play files and DVD's files with HW acceleration.

If you are looking for displaying IPTV streams, you'll need some add-on to WMP or a another player. At least I could not figure how to get WMP to join a Multicast stream. There are some solutions out there ... I'm in the middle of finding the right solution for my app and also comparing their performance.

I will post if I have any more results which should be within the next 2 weeks.

hth

McL

[TDien1]

Thanks for your answers.

I also will try to find the best solution and let you know my results.

But this can take a few weeks.

Best Regards

Tobias Diendorfer

[DGrim]

On my US15W, with EMGD driver 2048 july 2011 with Windows 7, I have Flash video acceleration using the specific version 10.1 of the flash player (http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/embedded/hwsw/software/emgd# faqs as specified here, search for 'flash' on this page). You can download it on the http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/142/tn_14266.html flash archive page from Adobe, here. Take the http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/installers/archive/fp_10.1.102.64_and_9.0.289.0_archive.zip '(Released 11/04/2010) Flash Player 10.1.102.64 and 9.0.289.0 (126 MB)' archive, and extract the file named 'Flash Player 10.1.102.64\10_1r102_64\flashplayer10_1r102_64_win.exe' and install it (it is indeed a 32 bits version, the 64 in the name is part of the flash version number).

If the installer tells you that it is not the latest version, you'll have to uninstall your installed version before, using the http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/141/tn_14157.html flash uninstall utility from Adobe, found here. (for IE, the file to extract is 'Flash Player 10.1.102.64\10_1r102_64\flashplayer10_1r102_64_winax.exe')

I hope this helps. Perhaps it also works with flash 10.3, I have not tested.

TheProphet