PowerDVD8 and Aero [working or not]

[Shadow Lord]

Does DualStream acceleration work for anybody with this patch and the latest non-beta nvidia drivers? I still loose aero effects when I play back HD content!

[Shadow Lord]

Does DualStream acceleration work for anybody with this patch and the latest non-beta nvidia drivers? I still loose aero effects when I play back HD content!

[Bigrick]

Does DualStream acceleration work for anybody with this patch and the latest non-beta nvidia drivers? I still loose aero effects when I play back HD content!

my Nvidia drivers work just fine with the patch as far as aero goes i think if you have a week system aero will get disabled or it might say its runing as windows basic on the bottom right. this happens on one of my computers because the sytem is to weak to handle powerdvd during HD playback

[Bigrick]

Does DualStream acceleration work for anybody with this patch and the latest non-beta nvidia drivers? I still loose aero effects when I play back HD content!


you shouldnt ask the same question in different threads i answered this question in the last thread you posted in

[Tanquen]

you shouldnt ask the same question in different threads i answered this question in the last thread you posted in

Man, now I have to go find that other thread. :)

[Tanquen]

my Nvidia drivers work just fine with the patch as far as aero goes i think if you have a week system aero will get disabled or it might say its runing as windows basic on the bottom right. this happens on one of my computers because the sytem is to weak to handle powerdvd during HD playback

I’ve just built a new system and I’d say that it’s not at all weak but running PowerDVD still turns some/all the Aero effects off. I just thought it was some kind of incompatibility with the way PowerDVD draws to the desktop and the vector draw type stuff that Aero is supposed to use.

DFI X48-T2R w/ Zalman RESERATOR 1 and 2 in series Water Cooling
Intel Quad Q9450 2.66GHz - OCZ Platinum 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 1066
2 Sapphire HD4870 Video Cards - SoundBlaster X-Fi
2 VelociRaptor 300GB - 2 1TB SAMSUNG HD103UJ 1TB 7200 RPM (RAID 0)
Power Supply Silverstone SST-ST75F 750W & ST70F 700W
DVD-RW Sony DRU-820A & LG Blu-ray/HD DVD-ROM GGC-H20L
2 Dell 27" 2707s on Ergotron HD Dual-Monitor Arm
Some pics. (http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1030571591&postcount=67)

[shadow07]

I’ve just built a new system and I’d say that it’s not at all weak but running PowerDVD still turns some/all the Aero effects off. I just thought it was some kind of incompatibility with the way PowerDVD draws to the desktop and the vector draw type stuff that Aero is supposed to use.

DFI X48-T2R w/ Zalman RESERATOR 1 and 2 in series Water Cooling
Intel Quad Q9450 2.66GHz - OCZ Platinum 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 1066
2 Sapphire HD4870 Video Cards - SoundBlaster X-Fi
2 VelociRaptor 300GB - 2 1TB SAMSUNG HD103UJ 1TB 7200 RPM (RAID 0)
Power Supply Silverstone SST-ST75F 750W & ST70F 700W
DVD-RW Sony DRU-820A & LG Blu-ray/HD DVD-ROM GGC-H20L
2 Dell 27" 2707s on Ergotron HD Dual-Monitor Arm
Some pics. (http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1030571591&postcount=67)
The next release of PDVD (either 8.5 or 9) should have Aero support. Right now, none of the HD playback software (WinDVD 9, TMT, or PDVD) support the Windows Vista Aero feature.

[Shadow Lord]

my Nvidia drivers work just fine with the patch as far as aero goes i think if you have a week system aero will get disabled or it might say its runing as windows basic on the bottom right. this happens on one of my computers because the sytem is to weak to handle powerdvd during HD playback

Man you must have a hell of a system if my Q9450 w/ 4GB of RAM and a 9600GT does nto cut it for soemthing as simple as aero playback. So you continue to have transparent menu bar/task bar when playing back HD content (i.e. a BD or HD-DVD disc not AVI, MKV, divx, etc....)

[Shadow Lord]

you shouldnt ask the same question in different threads i answered this question in the last thread you posted in

I thought I deleted it from that thread since it was abotu the 1730 patch and not the 1830 one!

[scmeis1]

Man you must have a hell of a system if my Q9450 w/ 4GB of RAM and a 9600GT does nto cut it for soemthing as simple as aero playback. So you continue to have transparent menu bar/task bar when playing back HD content (i.e. a BD or HD-DVD disc not AVI, MKV, divx, etc....)

Well I could have a better one with qx9650, 8 Gig Ram, 10 Terabytes w/ Raid 6, water cooled, an 8800gt thats overclocked to hell. Aero has everything to do with the software interaction, not so much the hardware.

[Bigrick]

I thought I deleted it from that thread since it was abotu the 1730 patch and not the 1830 one!

your system is much stronger then mine. im using a q6700 with 4GB RAM and an nvidia 8600gts but i just checked to make sure and aero runs during HD playback with powerdvd 8

[Shadow Lord]

your system is much stronger then mine. im using a q6700 with 4GB RAM and an nvidia 8600gts but i just checked to make sure and aero runs during HD playback with powerdvd 8

And aero effect remianed enabled in windowed mode while playing back the content? What disc did you use? Also what version nVidia drivers are you running? TIA!

[Bigrick]

i believe the driver is 176.25 im not 100% because im not home right now. i tried it out with batman begins and then again with lost boys the tribe both worked fine with aero still running

[Shadow Lord]

i believe the driver is 176.25 im not 100% because im not home right now. i tried it out with batman begins and then again with lost boys the tribe both worked fine with aero still running

And this is straight off of the disk and NOT ripped to the HDD, correct?

[Bigrick]

no these are all from ISO format. ill check in a minute to see how it works from the disc

[Bigrick]

I just tried it and i get the same results when i play from disc or from an image file, aero is stil enabled. i tested it with 300 (bluray )

edit: my mistake, when i play it from a disc aero does get disabled but not my ISO

[DrinkLyeAndDie]

If I play a mounted ISO image of an SD DVD then Aero is enabled as usual. If I play a mounted BD or HD-DVD image then Aero is disabled.

System specs:

Windows Vista Ultimate x64 SP1
Intel C2Q Q6600
8 GB Corsair Dominator PC8500 DD2 1066 RAM
Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 4870

[Bigrick]

maybe its something with windows vista im using 32 and i see DrinkLyeAndDie is using 64bit, Shadow Lord, what are you using ?

[DrinkLyeAndDie]

I cannot find any evidence to back up what I am about to say but I could swear that at one point I remember reading that Aero would be disabled when watching HD content and that it was intentional regardless of the system specs. If I could find an article to back up what I'm saying I would. I definitely didn't dream up reading it because at the time I didn't even have a system that could play HD content.

At one point PowerDVD used to throw an error about not being able to use Aero when playing discs but now it doesn't. I don't know if they changed PowerDVD in any way other than removing the warning message.

[SamuriHL]

No, it's a bug in the drivers which is why PowerDVD disables it. They've said once the drivers get fixed they'll allow it. I think some cards are allowing it now and others aren't. The situation hasn't much improved over the months...

[scmeis1]

i believe the driver is 176.25 im not 100% because im not home right now. i tried it out with batman begins and then again with lost boys the tribe both worked fine with aero still running

177.16 beta has been out for a few weeks, I do not think it fixes the aero interface though.

[Bigrick]

whats the big deal anyways. when im watching a movie im not even using the aero stuff nor am i looking through web pages. must be a pritty bad movie to not be watching it ;)

[DrinkLyeAndDie]

whats the big deal anyways. when im watching a movie im not even using the aero stuff nor am i looking through web pages. must be a pritty bad movie to not be watching it ;)

Personally, I don't consider it a major issue but there are times that I think of something and pause a movie and do something else. Nonetheless, it's not like the functionality of Vista is crippled. There are times I wish I had the option of selecting Vista Basic.

[SamuriHL]

I turn off aero anyway. It's a performance nightmare unless you have some pretty decent hardware. And what does it really give you? A glassy view? Big deal. I'd rather have the performance than the pretty glass. Now if I had hardware that didn't care....well, then I'd probably complain. :D

[DrinkLyeAndDie]

I turn off aero anyway. It's a performance nightmare unless you have some pretty decent hardware. And what does it really give you? A glassy view? Big deal. I'd rather have the performance than the pretty glass. Now if I had hardware that didn't care....well, then I'd probably complain. :D

We've had this discussion before. :p

When I had my NVIDIA 8800 GT and used the Windows Classic theme which was just fine by me I couldn't see the PowerDVD8 menus correctly. There was no text. I don't know why. Maybe it was a driver issue? I suppose I should experiment again now that I have my ATI 4870.

Actually, I'll test now, I guess.

[SamuriHL]

Yes we have. :) Anyway, that's odd. I've not tried windows classic theme, but, I have no problems with the Vista Basic theme. Try it again with the 4870 and see what happens.

[DrinkLyeAndDie]

Yes we have. :) Anyway, that's odd. I've not tried windows classic theme, but, I have no problems with the Vista Basic theme. Try it again with the 4870 and see what happens.

I can't seem to get a screenshot playing a BD but here's from my Appleseed BD down-converted to DVD.

http://www.postimage.org/gx1ABoGi.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=gx1ABoGi)

And here's from restarting a BD:

http://www.postimage.org/aV1qjAJJ.jpg (http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=aV1qjAJJ)

[SamuriHL]

Weird. I'm catching up on shows right now that I missed last week but I'll look later.

[Shadow Lord]

If I play a mounted ISO image of an SD DVD then Aero is enabled as usual. If I play a mounted BD or HD-DVD image then Aero is disabled.

System specs:

Windows Vista Ultimate x64 SP1
Intel C2Q Q6600
8 GB Corsair Dominator PC8500 DD2 1066 RAM
Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 4870

My results exactly as well as. I also get the same result playing content off of the disc (DVD=OK HD=NO AERO).

[Shadow Lord]

maybe its something with windows vista im using 32 and i see DrinkLyeAndDie is using 64bit, Shadow Lord, what are you using ?

I am using Vista Ultimate SP1 x32

[Shadow Lord]

Well according to what I have read aero is to be turned off in HD mode if you use "regular" HW acceleration BUT if DualStrem is implemented correctly then both streams (HD content and Aero) should remain accelerated and working!

Now, as to why - yes it isn't that important as most of the time I am in FS mode. However, damn it I paid for it and I want it! ;)

[andy o]

It might be something to do with HW acceleration, and since we can't disable it anymore with newer ATI and nVidia cards, it doesn't work. Anyone with the older ATI or nVidia cards try it?

With G35 Aero is enabled. But when I put my HD3450 it behaves as usual (but I get HW accel.). At this point I'd rather have HW accel. I also realized that G35 was eating too much of my RAM and the HD3450 was a quick and easy fix. It sucks as deinterlacing though, so I'm waiting for the 4650.

[Tanquen]

Never mind...

[P.J]

It might be something to do with HW acceleration, and since we can't disable it anymore with newer ATI and nVidia cards, it doesn't work. Anyone with the older ATI or nVidia cards try it?

With G35 Aero is enabled. But when I put my HD3450 it behaves as usual (but I get HW accel.). At this point I'd rather have HW accel. I also realized that G35 was eating too much of my RAM and the HD3450 was a quick and easy fix. It sucks as deinterlacing though, so I'm waiting for the 4650.

May you explain more?

[andy o]

The lower power cards can't do the more advanced deinterlacing. Do you have the 3450? I don't think I've used it in over a year (did you check my post's date?).

Why are you asking though? If you already have the 3450, either you should know, or it doesn't bother you. If you're planning on getting it, why in the world? The 4000 series are super cheap and vastly superior in all fronts, including 7.1 LPCM, and the cheap 5000 series, even better, are just around the corner.