Suhit Gupta
02-03-2006, 07:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://blog.seanalexander.com/PermaLink,guid,d96b5817-68d1-4f46-8b6b-f59f2143e527.aspx' target='_blank'>http://blog.seanalexander.com/PermaLink,guid,d96b5817-68d1-4f46-8b6b-f59f2143e527.aspx</a><br /><br /></div><i>"<a href="http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1916972,00.asp">ExtremeTech just posted</a> results of their tests comparing CPU utilization across recent ATI (Radeon X1800 XT) and nVidia (GeForce 7800 GTX) cards for three codecs: DivX, H.264, and WMV9. The results? For 720p content WMV 9 plays back at typically 25-40% CPU utilization for the clips tested. H.264 on the other hand takes 80% (using ATI's acceleration) and on other systems even spike to 100%. Note however these are different clips than those used for WMV 9 testing. Playing back 720p DivX clips results in 50% or so CPU utilization"</i><br /><br />If you read more details in the article, it turns out that "the video landscape on the PC is still far too big a mess as there are too many codecs, and sometimes too many software providers making decoders where some are accelerated, some are not." Plus, I am surprised by the some of these codec's CPU utilization as it seems to be so wildly high. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft among others, as well as the graphics card companies will change their software/hardware over the coming months to handle this.