ATI Radeon HD 4770 Review
Video Playback
Free software such as Media Player Classic Home Cinema can use GPU acceleration. As this card could be used for a HTPC-gaming rig, we decided to check out its FullHD video playback capabilities.
I used Media Player Classic Home Cinema for the playback. The video used was the trailer of movie “The International” available from Divx 7 HD showcase Webpage. This is a 12.3 Mbps 1920×816 video. Here’s the image with video info
This screens show the CPU Usage when played in Windows Media Player using ffdshow decoders.
This screen shows the same CPU Usage in Rivatuner’s Hardware Monitor
Here is a video of CPU Playback, notice the CPU usage in the task manager
Now lets see the CPU usage when the GPU does the decoding. Same video, played in Media Player Classic Home Cinema using GPU decoding.
And this is the CPU usage in Rivatuner’s Hardware monitor.
Here is a video of CPU Playback while decoding is done on the GPU, notice the CPU usage in the task manager
The difference is amazing, isn’t it? This feature can allow you to spend less money on a CPU while making a HTPC, because now you know that your GPU would be able to do most of the decoding while keeping the CPU free.
