Taken from DailyTech.
Original article at: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=7447
[quote]Regardless of what you may have heard, ATI's newest Radeon does not have hardware or software HD acceleration
AMD has hit another obstacle with its ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT. After constant delays, weak performance improvements and questionable benchmark tactics, AMD’s Universal Video Decoder is the source of controversy.
The ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT lacks AMD’s highly touted UVD hardware video processing engine, a feature highlighted in reviewer guides and roadmaps. Not only that, AMD continues to tout its entire ATI Radeon HD 2000-series as having UVD, when in fact it is only the 65nm HD 2600 and HD 2400 series that possess the hardware decoding capabilities.
Scott Wasson from TechReport came across the issue while testing the UVD features, stating, "True to my word, I set out yesterday to test HD video decode acceleration on a Radeon HD 2900 XT using an HD DVD drive and a version of PowerDVD supplied by AMD for such purposes." He continues, "To my surprise, CPU utilization during playback on our Core 2 Extreme X6800 test system ran between 40 and 50%, well above what one would expect from a solution with full HD video decode acceleration."
Wasson proceeded to contact AMD with his results. AMD confirmed the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT does indeed lack UVD hardware processing capabilities on the GPU and offers video decoding performance on par with the last generation ATI Radeon X1000-series, according to Dave Bauman, technical marketing manager, ATI.
AMD advertises the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT features Avivo HD support, despite the lack of UVD. AMD’s Avivo HD page lists UVD as part of the Avivo HD feature set.
Smooth HD Video Playback with UVD
ATI Avivo HD technology is designed for high-end, high definition video playback in home theater systems. Free your CPU to power other applications with new UVD (Unified Video Decoder) hardware processing of HD video formats.
UVD is a dedicated video decode processing unit on ATI Radeon HD 2000 series graphics processors that offloads both CPU and GPU rendering pipelines. UVD technology reduces power use, decreases system noise and increases notebook battery life during HD video playback.
Wasson was not the only journalist fooled by AMD’s presentations and guides, Marco Chiapetta of HotHardware and Ryan Shrout of PC Perspective have become victims as well.
AMD public relations, speaking off the record, tells DailyTech that all trade publications should have known UVD was not present on the 2900 XT. One representative cites the Radeon 2900 family introduction (PDF), claiming, "ATI Avivo HD is a technology platform that includes a broad set of capabilities offered by certain ATI Radeon HD 2000 GPUs. Not all products have all features and full enablement of some ATI AvivoHD capabilities may require complementary products."
When asked why AMD never contacted any trade publications to correct the misconception that UVD was included in Radeon 2900, our contact declined to comment. He did add that full HD acceleration is present on the R600 ASIC, and it will eventually be enabled via driver updates.
“Unfortunately, try as we might, we could not get UVD to work with the current drivers provided by AMD and the PowerDVD release that is supposed to enable the hardware acceleration on HD 2000 series parts,â€
"Whoops, ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT Lacks UVD"
such a big history about the lack of UVD... when I'm going to buy a Graphics card I'm not thinking if it has UVD enabled or not... I'm thinking in performances numbers like price vs frames, like benchmarks...
The lack of UVD gives a lit more burden to CPU... well bad luck to the CPU
after all the CPU has to do something
The conduct of ATI... not nice... but for me that isn't a reason not to buy a ATI if the performance vs price is better than others
The lack of UVD gives a lit more burden to CPU... well bad luck to the CPU
after all the CPU has to do something The conduct of ATI... not nice... but for me that isn't a reason not to buy a ATI if the performance vs price is better than others