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HD Decoding on a macbook... ?

F

finnschi

macrumors 6502
Original poster
HEy guys here is something I Don't get 😱

I just saw the Demo Video for the new Nvidia ION, which is basically a ATOM with a 9400m ... they where running 1080p video on 30% cpu Usage 🙄 ...

Now If I start a 1080p movie on my macbook, i get about 80% cpu usage 😕

why is the macbook not able to decode HD movies using the GPU 😕

or is that a feature "comming soon", or does it work using windows/bootcamp?
🙄

one more thing... If I buy a good GPU for my old pentium 4 windows machine, will I be able to Rock HD videos? 😱 (its not working with a Nvidia 6200)
 
From what I've read it's pretty much what you said: the Ion is able to do this through GPU acceleration. It's performing alot of the operations for decoding the HD file across both the CPU and the GPU whereas currently, HD file decoding on a Mac would take place on the CPU only (no GPU accleration). I believe Quicktime has some basic GPU acceleration functionality but, the Ion platform was built to do this from the ground up so has a more "robust" implementation. This should change after Snow Leopard comes out (Open CL) but, probably not overnight 🙂
 
If you check with a Quicktime HD trailer, you should see the lower CPU usage, as Quicktime utilizes GPU assisted decoding as the previous poster said.
 
although cpu usage is high when watching hd video, are you really doing anything else while watching the movie?

I mean if your watching a video does it not kinda defeat the purpose to not have your attention on it lol?


EDIT: I realize the heat could also be an issue with a cpu running that high
 
JamesGorman said:
although cpu usage is high when watching hd video, are you really doing anything else while watching the movie?

I mean if your watching a video does it not kinda defeat the purpose to not have your attention on it lol?


EDIT: I realize the heat could also be an issue with a cpu running that high
Click to expand...

Not to mention battery life.
 
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