NVIDIA’s GeForce GT 220: 40nm and DX10.1 for the Low-End
by Ryan Smith on October 12, 2009 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
A Better HTPC Card: MPEG-4 ASP Decoding & LPCM Audio
Along with the addition of DirectX 10.1 functionality, the latest members of NVIDIA’s GPU lineup have picked up a couple of new tricks specifically geared towards HTPC use.
The first of these is a newer video decoding engine. Officially NVIDIA is moving away from the VP* moniker, but for the time being we’re sticking to it as we don’t have a better way of easily differentiating the feature sets of various video decoding engines. NVIDIA’s vendors are calling this VP4, and so are we.
Successive VPs have focused on adding support for additional video formats. VP2 had full H.264 decoding, and VP3 (which never made it into a GTX 200 series part) added VC-1 decoding. For VP4, NVIDIA has added support for full decoding of MPEG-4 (Advanced) Simple Profile, better known as DivX or XviD. With this addition, NVIDIA can now offload the decoding of most of the MPEG formats – the only thing not supported is MPEG-1, which as the oldest codec is trivial to decode on a CPU anyhow.
To be frank, we’re a bit puzzled by this latest addition. By no means are we unhappy (we’ll always take more acceleration!), but MPEG-4 ASP isn’t particularly hard to decode. Even an underclocked Nehalem with only a single core (and no HT) enabled can handle HD-resolution MPEG-4 ASP with ease; never mind what even a low-end dual-core Pentium or Celeron can do. This would be a good match for the Atom, but those almost always use integrated graphics (and Ion isn’t slated to get VP4 any time soon). So while this addition is nice to have, it’s not the kind of game changer that adding H.264 and VC-1 were.
The unfortunate news here is that while the hardware is ready, the software is not, and this is something that caught us off-guard since these parts have been going to OEMs since July. NVIDIA has yet to enable MPEG-4 ASP acceleration in their drivers, and won’t be doing so until the release 195 drivers. So at this point we can’t even tell you how well this feature works. We’re not pleased with this, but we’re also not particularly broken up about it since as we just mentioned the cost of CPU decoding isn’t very much in the first place.
On a final note with video decoding, one of NVIDIA’s marketing pushes with this launch is touting the fact that they have been working with Adobe to bring video decode acceleration to Adobe Flash 10.1, and that the GT 220/G 210 series are well suited for this. This is going to be absolutely fantastic to have since Flash Video is a CPU-hog, but Flash 10.1 is still 6 months (or more) away from being released. More to the point, as far as we know this is being implemented via DXVA, which means everyone else will get acceleration too. And notably, this is only for H.264, as VP6 (the older Flash Video codec) is not supported in hardware on any card.
Moving on, the other new HTPC feature is that NVIDIA has finally stepped up their game with respect to HDMI audio on cards with discrete GPUs. Gone is the S/PDIF cable to connect a card to an audio codec, which means NVIDIA is no longer limited to 2-channel LPCM or 5.1 channel DD/DTS for audio. Now they are passing audio over the PCIe bus, which gives them the ability to support additional formats. 8 channel LPCM is in, as are the lossy formats DD+ and 6 channel AAC. However Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio bitstreaming are not supported, so it’s not quite the perfect HTPC card. Lossless audio is possible through LPCM, but there won’t be any lossless audio bitstreaming.
Finally, we’re still waiting to see someone do a passive cooled design for the GT 220. The power usage is low enough that it should be possible with a dual-slot heatsink, but the only cards we’ve seen thus far are actively cooled single-slot solutions with the heatsink sticking out some.
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chizow - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
Of course, discerning consumers know better and demand new architectures! It wouldn't make any sense to accept old parts and rebadges that offer 2x the performance at a lower price!yacoub - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
er, 8800GT. fingers...poohbear - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
man i never thought i'd be saying this, but nvidia needs to get their shiat together!!! we need competition!!! they're getting trashed by AMD, what happened to em?Souleet - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
Everybody know NVIDIA is downplaying until they see how well Window 7 will be. Plus ATI releasing 5800 series with DX.11(software/games not going to be compatible with it until 2011).formulav8 - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
Huh? The new Radeons are compatible with every game the old radeons and geforce cards are and much better/faster.And there is a small list of games with DX11 features being released very soon that ONLY the new radeons can take advantage of.
And nVdia isn't downplaying anything. They simply DO NOT have a answer to ATI's new cards at this time. And apprently it won't be till the first part of next year that they will have their answer.
Why I keep seeing people trying to downplay nvidia's faults is beyond me?
Jason
Souleet - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
Well I guess we have to wait and see. You cannot assume they do not have the answer. It is not the right time to release something at the caliber yet. I'm not bias but it seem that people are saying that ATI have won but there is no facts/comparison. Sure you can compare ATI 5800 series to the GT295/275(old graphic) but I think everybody want to see GT300 series face off with 5800 series. Remember what happen to ATI when NVIDIA came out with SLI? ATI release crossfire(not innovated) just to try and match NVIDIA instead of creating something more innovated. ATI never had a solution to defeat SLI and that is the fact.JarredWalton - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
I wouldn't say ATI has "won", but they are currently leading. NVIDIA isn't releasing Fermi right now because they can't -- they don't have the hardware ready. The card shown was a mock-up part, and you don't use a fake card if you have real product ready. All signs are Jan/Feb 2010 for the GT300 release. That gives ATI a full four months of being the ONLY DX11 GPU supplier, right at a major buying time for consumers. NVIDIA isn't out by any stretch of the imagination -- just as ATI wasn't out with the 2000 and 3000 series, and NVIDIA weathered the FX 5000 times. Short-term, though, this has to be hurting.On the other hand, I can say that NVIDIA is the way to go on virtually any gaming laptop right now. ATI has some competitive parts, yes, but I wouldn't touch them until they get reference drivers for all major parts on their site. Depending on laptop manufacturers for driver updates is a really bad idea, and NVIDIA thankfully addressed that area a while back.
brybir - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
Your statement is only partially true.There are several games that have some DirectX 11 features out right now. Perhaps the more accurate thing to say is that DirectX 11 will not see feature set adoption en mass until sometime in 2011.
I think ATI somewhat admits this as they spent a good deal of time tweaking some of its driver and hardware features to boost the performance of directX 9 engine games. There was something about that on Anand a few weeks ago about that.
BenSkywalker - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
You show the 9600GSO winning the majority of the benches you decided to allow it to take part in, it is cheaper then the 4670, and the 4670 is the clear winner?Why do you bother quoting the price of the 9600GT when you refused to show benchmarks for it?
Right now on the Egg you can get a 9600GSO for $40 AR, $60 before rebate. The article may be right in terms of the parts that are launching being a bad value, but more then anything that is because of how soundly they are bested by nV's existing parts- which are already faster and cheaper then the 4670.
Ryan Smith - Monday, October 12, 2009 - link
It's one of those 96SP GSOs based on G92. We include for reference only; you can't buy them any more (and the 96SP model listed on Newegg is wrong, it's a 48SP model).