HDTV hardware decoding on X850XT

[lasselakan]

Hey!
Is there any possibility to make an X850XT decode HDTV (x.264)?
Any driver, fix, BIOS-mod, hardware-mod, whatever?
I suppose there could be some way to use the power of the card to help of the CPU...
/Lars

[caveman-jim]

2x00 series and newer can do it, afaik

[lasselakan]

I know... everything from 1x00 can, even the X1300...
But shouldn't the older ones like mine also be able to do decoding through some mod?

[caveman-jim]

nah. what cpu you got? are you talking about playback of h264 media or recoding?

[mikiem]

AFAIK the avivo stuff started with the 1xxx series... the 1 or 2 lower grade cards have an additional chip, while it's built-into the drivers on the top end where you've got a bit more GPU to spare. A lot of HTPC folks stick to the middle model (26xx - 36xx) because of that. OTOH if you're running AGP (don't know), I've read reports that hardware accel is hit & miss, regardless the card.