Low Bitrate 4K maxing CPU

snadge · 28 Feb 2019 at 19:55

Hi

Im trying to play 4K content (11Mbps) off my PC but the CPU is maxing out and I cant get it too play on MPC or VLC, the CPU is an Ivy Bridge i5 @ 3.6Ghz, I have 12Gb 1600Mhz DDR3 RAM and a 1Gb nvidia GTX 650 @ 1.2Ghz, when I play 1080p content it uses around 15% so originally thought 4K should be about 60% (4x15=60%) - but I guess if the nvidia doesn't support transcoding of HEVC/HDR then more tasks are handed of to the CPU, is this correct? ..or can I get to play 4K (without HDR) from my PC?

thanks

EsaT · 28 Feb 2019 at 20:10

Yep, if graphics card doesn't support x265/HEVC decoding then that's going to increase CPU load lot.
HDR has nothing to do with it.

snadge · 28 Feb 2019 at 21:58

thanks

also, do ARM chips (in media players / android boxes) have support for x265 transcoding 'on chip', and that being the reason they can best an Intel i5 from 5 years ago?

LuckyBenski · 1 Mar 2019 at 00:42

Transcoding isn't the same as decoding - but generally h.26x decoding can be built into hardware decoders. The Raspberry Pi is a good example - struggled to render basic menus in 720p but can playback 1080p60 perfectly.

snadge · 1 Mar 2019 at 02:24

I see,

I use the reference 'transcoding' as GPU support both de-coding and en-coding.

EsaT · 1 Mar 2019 at 08:38

snadge said:
also, do ARM chips (in media players / android boxes) have support for x265 transcoding 'on chip', and that being the reason they can best an Intel i5 from 5 years ago?

Ivy Bridge is almost seven years old.
Well, design must have been finished almost eight years ago making it multiple years older than HEVC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quick_Sync_Video#Hardware_decoding_and_encoding

snadge · 1 Mar 2019 at 12:31

EsaT said:
Ivy Bridge is almost seven years old.
Well, design must have been finished almost eight years ago making it multiple years older than HEVC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quick_Sync_Video#Hardware_decoding_and_encoding

as Iam using a dedicated GPU I can not use Intel Quick Sync if I wanted to even if it did support it, to use the video 'encoding' chip you need to be using Intel 'on-chip' GPU

snadge · 1 Mar 2019 at 18:16

what would be the cheapest GPU I could get that would play this fine? (but not be less powerful than my 650..not very good i know)

t31os · 1 Mar 2019 at 22:56

GPU should be capable enough(on the lower end but capable) already.

https://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/technology/4k/supported-gpus?field_gpu_type_value=All

LuckyBenski · 1 Mar 2019 at 23:09

t31os said:
GPU should be capable enough(on the lower end but capable) already.

https://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/technology/4k/supported-gpus?field_gpu_type_value=All

Indeed - though I'm guessing you know that you can only output up to 30FPS at 4k, unless you get something HDMI 2.0 capable?

snadge · 2 Mar 2019 at 13:47

the card is not H265/HEVC capable and thus the tasks handed off to the ivy bridge i5 which borks