How to turn on WMV hardware acceleration


Recommended Posts

My comment on the news page keeps getting truncated so I figured I'd post this on Neowin's message board and link to it.

I now have WMV Hardware Accleration enabled on my ATI AIW 9700 Pro. :D

Here is what I did. I installed hotfix 891122:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...&displaylang=en

Then I installed:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/9...-global-enu.exe

Then I changed the following registry keys to 1:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\{*}\0000\DXVA_WMV

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\{*}\0000\DXVA_WMV_DEF

{*} signifies a class id that varies from installation to installation. If you have installed ATI's drivers a few times, you'll have fun finding the correct value. I recommend uninstalling your drivers, running Driver Cleaner Pro and then reinstalling them. You can find driver cleaner pro at DriverCleaner.net:

http://www.drivercleaner.net/

After I did this, I opened WMP 10 and played the 1080p Dive Into Liquid video. My CPU utilization was previously 50-65% with frame drops without hardware acceleration. With hardware acceleration, it dropped to 25-35% without frame drops. This is with an Intel 2.4GHz P4 Revision C processor and an Intel D875PBZLK motherboard.

The Dive Into Liquid video is an extremely resource intensive WMV HD. You can get it from wmvhd.com:

http://www.wmvhd.com/

Now if you would excuse me, I think I'll go have fun with hardware accelerated WMV.

Edited by Shining Arcanine
I searched my whole registry and found nothing called DXVA_WMV :( I have installed both fixes.. and nothing not a sausage.....

585991889[/snapback]

What version of the Catalyst drivers are you running? I'm running Catalyst 5.4.

Can't you just install the two patches, and check WMV Acceleration under Display Properties>Advanced>Options of the Catalyst Control Panel?

585991904[/snapback]

That would probably work too but I can't find that checkbox in the CCC. I'm running Catalyst 5.4 right now since I haven't had time to update to Catalyst 5.5 so things might have changed.

What version of the Catalyst drivers are you running? I'm running Catalyst 5.4.

That would probably work too but I can't find that checkbox in the CCC. I'm running Catalyst 5.4 right now since I haven't had time to update to Catalyst 5.5 so things might have changed.

585992038[/snapback]

Well I'm running an nVidia card a 6800GT but I thought maybe this would work for everyone I used the search within the regedit to look for DXVA_WMV but only found one string which was called EnabledDXVA_WMV which was set to 1.

Very annoying I must admit.

Well I'm running an nVidia card a 6800GT but I thought maybe this would work for everyone I used the search within the regedit to look for DXVA_WMV but only found one string which was called EnabledDXVA_WMV which was set to 1.

Very annoying I must admit.

585993784[/snapback]

If you read the topic description, you would know that this is for ATI cards only. Nvidia cards have had software to turn on WMV hardware acceleration for months. It is called PureVideo. Go to Nvidia.com for it:

http://www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo.html

You'll probably want to install the patches.

By the way, if that is a Geforce 6800GT AGP card, you can't get WMV acceleration. Its video processor is defective.

I should point out that 6800 class cards will not get any acceleration as the function is broken within the core of that card. Everyone should be well aware of this by now.

585994681[/snapback]

It will get MPEG acceleration but that is all that it will get.

how much of a performance boost should we got on a 9700 pro?

585994809[/snapback]

It depends on the video and your CPU. You should get some kind of a noticeable CPU utilization decrease through.

Does anyone know if this works on geforce fx5900xt?

585994990[/snapback]

Probably not. The video processor was introduced in the GeForce 6 series and I doubt Nvidia designed the GeForce FX with video acceleration in mind (I read that ATI did with the R300; hence why I have video acceleration).

By the way, don't bother trying the registry modification I posted. It involves a key installed by ATI's catalyst drivers and wouldn't have any effect on an Nvidia card.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Latest Rufus update improves new Windows 11 install method by Taras Buria Pete Batard, the maker of Rufus, a very popular app for creating bootable Windows (and other OS) media, has released a new beta version of its app. Rufus 4.15 beta is now out, and while it offers no new features, there are all sorts of improvements and fixes, including for the new Windows 11 installation method that was introduced in version 4.14 in early May. The "Silent Windows 11 installation" is a new feature whose goal is to automate operating system installation. All you have to do is boot from the drive, and then Rufus takes over, doing all things for you, such as setting up a new account, skipping ads and prompts, and more. It is a very handy tool, but initially, it had some bugs and issues that required addressing. With version 4.15 beta, Rufus is fixing that, particularly a bug with installation failing at 75%, crashes on Snapdragon X-based PCs, and more. Here is the changelog: Rufus 4.15 beta is now available for download from its GitHub repository. If you have never used Rufus before, you can check out our guide here. It is a very useful utility to have, as it allows you to deal with plenty of Windows 11's annoyances, which are still there, despite Microsoft's ongoing efforts to fix them.
    • Microsoft fixes one of Excel Copilot's most frustrating limitations by Usama Jawad Microsoft began integrating Copilot into Excel a couple of years ago and has been upgrading it with new functionalities since then. While some changes have been controversial, Microsoft is hoping to win over users by allowing them to be more productive via Copilot. To that end, it has now announced a Copilot improvement that may actually be appreciated by people who use it regularly. Excel customers often use the Copilot prompt box to issue instructions to format and customize their data, but it can become quite tiring to keep repeating the same instructions again and again. Microsoft now allows you to define Copilot personalization rules for formatting, naming conventions, formulas, and report styles. These can be accessed via Settings > Personalization, where you can explain your rules in natural language like "Always format currency in USD with no decimals", and just let Copilot take care of the rest. Microsoft is going a step further in this direction by allowing you to set workbook rules too. These rules are stored as a .Rules sheet, and are preserved while the workbook is shared. This fosters collaboration while making sure that standard rules govern the Copilot editing experience across the organization. Other advantages of this capability include pointing it to specific examples, defining dynamic formulas, and referencing an entire sheet and asking Copilot to infer rules based on that. You can leverage this feature by opening Copilot in Excel, clicking on "+", and selecting Create workbook rules. If you have an existing .Rules sheet, you can simply start listing the rules in column A as well. Personalization features are available to all Copilot in Excel users across the web, Mac, and Windows. Meanwhile, workbook rules are currently being previewed for Windows and Mac customers on the Insiders channel. General availability is scheduled after a few weeks, but a concrete date is currently unknown. Overall, the Excel capability is quite similar to ChatGPT's memory features, which allow you to permanently store items in the AI model's context window.
    • Imagine you still haven't discovered Total Commander that is doing all those things for three decades already...
    • This sounds like underneath the nice marketing spin, either someone at Adobe got tired of their lazy devs and asked Microsoft to help them sort at least some of Adobe's ancestral spaghetti code to make it go faster, or Microsoft wanted Adobe's crap to run better on Windows to make it look better when compared to Apple, so they offered to intervene. Either way, GOOD.
    • My favorite file manager for Windows 11 finally gets a long-requested feature by Taras Buria Files is among the best File Explorer alternatives for Windows 10 and 11. This free app is packed with all sorts of features and conveniences, but there is one crucial feature that is still missing—Tree View. Fortunately, the latest update in the Preview channel finally delivers it. With version 4.1.4, which is now available for download in the Preview channel, developers implemented Tree View, a new mode that displays folders in an expandable hierarchy. Windows 11's stock File Explorer always had this feature, but it was nowhere to be found in Files until now. Starting with the latest preview update, you can expand each drive and its nested folders without leaving the current location and then open the folder you need in the main view. To try Tree View in Files, update the app to the latest preview version, then click the small arrow next to a drive to expand its content. The developers say they are rolling out Tree View in Preview first to gather feedback from users and improve the feature before bringing it to all in the stable channel. In addition to Tree View, Files 4.1.14 improves the Windows Fonts folder. You can now preview each font directly in Files with no need to open the built-in font viewer. For now, these two features are only available in the Preview channel. For those using the stable release, developers recently released version 4.1.3, with improvements for the built-in tag system, on-demand folder size calculation, and plenty of various fixes. You can check out the full release notes here. You can download Files from the Microsoft Store (paid version) or its official website (free).
  • Recent Achievements

    • One Month Later
      Vincian earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • First Post
      Jocimo earned a badge
      First Post
    • Week One Done
      suprememobiles48 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Windows Guy earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Month Later
      Prasann earned a badge
      One Month Later
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      517
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      172
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      90
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      79
    5. 5
      ATLien_0
      68
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!