Does anyone really care? Who watches video that would make good use of UVD and game on the same machine at once?

Anyone?

Yeah, you, just you. The lowly 0.01% of the population.

The 2400/2600 have UVD because they are in the 65nm process. The 2900 is 80nm and there was no room or power budget left.

When the 2900 goes to 65nm it will get UVD.

That said, since when is this sleazy marketing anything new.

I bought an x1900 based on the lies about AA and have yet to play a game with AA because the drivers don't support it in a way that any developers can use.

The only reason I use ATI/AMD is for Theater Mode dual video display... in the player window on the monitor and fullscreen on a second device. That is cool and does work.

Fortunately I'm still a DVD user so this is a non-issue for me, but kudos for pointing this out, this whole thing smelled fishy, and strikes me as deceptive marketing... I don't understand why they'd do this though, I mean if their lower-end products can handle this then this is just stupid imho.

[DNA-ATi_HD_Video_Tweak]
HKR,, DXVA_Only24FPS1080MPEG2, %REG_SZ%, "1"
HKR,, DXVA_Only24FPS1080H264, %REG_SZ%, "1"
HKR,, DXVA_Only24FPS1080VC1, %REG_SZ%, "1"
HKR,, HWUVD_DisableH264, %REG_SZ%, "0"
HKR,, HWUVD_DisableVC1, %REG_SZ%, "0"
HKR,, DXVA_NOHDDECODE, %REG_SZ%, "0"
HKR,, SORTOverrideFPSCaps, %REG_SZ%, "30"
HKR,, SORTOverrideVidSizeCaps, %REG_SZ%, "512000"

Anybody tried these tweaks ?

PS: sorry for double post, didn't know the post was at the top. BTW Hi all

Personally, I think the big thing that no one else has consistently harped on *nvidia* about is the lack of HDCP support over dual-dvi. Obviously, it's possible since ATI does it. But for the nvidia users (me included, I have 2 8800 GTXs), we have to use freaking hacks and weird tricks just to play owned BluRay/ HD-DVD content on a 30" monitor (My favorite involves having to drop down to 1280x800 on a 30" monitor - at that res, the pixels are the size of bananas)

Where's the outrage over this?

Time to remove the "HD" from the 2900XT.

Actually, this is great news for consumers, because the fallout of this PR disaster will force AMD to lower prices for the 2900 - thus forcing Nvidia to do the same. Truth to be told, this was simply a clever move on AMDs part to enter the price war on another front without unnecessarily alienating share holders.

</cynism>

looks like this mess spilled all over to retail units too.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39884

You still dont get it;/

Everywhere gov minions and hords of lawyers are twitching to life and thier eye is centered on amd and the card makers who had the wrong info on the box.

They all smell MONEY.

It may seem like a minor thing but its the sort of yjing yjat reults in you comming ro work on monday to find security guards firmly escorting you around.. and out.

This is absolutely insane. While I do completely agree that AMD screwed up I firmly believe that most online tech magazines are taking this a little bit too far.

To some degree they are being a little bit biased. While you could say I am a AMD fan I am able to step back and take a objective view on this. Did AMD's slides and even some of their marketing lead people to believe that the 2900 should be capable of decoding H.264 ...yes. Is it a little bit disingenuous to say that the card can decode H.264 yes, Have things like this happened before....... YES!!

For some reason people have a really short memory. Because I could swear that the 6800 Geforce card went through this same thing. However, the difference is that everyone is treating this like AMD should be carried out back and shot.

The fact that the inability to decode H.264 has warranted it's own article on every site I can think of is bordering on being biased because when the 6800 couldn't decode MPEG 2/4 it got maybe a paragraph or two in the conclusion section of articles and at best it's own article on the Inquirer.

Everyone just sat back and said I'll get the refresh in order to pick up that capability. Instead everyone is acting like the sky is falling in regards to this. Why?

For me I like AMD's CPUs and have never really been a fan of ATI video cards and I have always bought Nvidia video cards and when I found out that the 6800 purevideo functionality was missing, while I was mad, was it a deal breaker ???.... no. Why is that?? Well because my CPU was more than capable of handling the stress of decoding Mpeg2/4.

In regards to H.264 the same is true here.

Does enabling UVD somehow degrade the gaming performance of the card? They want their top-end product to have the most fps as possible right? Why else leave it off the card?

[DNA-ATi_HD_Video_Tweak]
HKR,, DXVA_Only24FPS1080MPEG2, %REG_SZ%, "1"
HKR,, DXVA_Only24FPS1080H264, %REG_SZ%, "1"
HKR,, DXVA_Only24FPS1080VC1, %REG_SZ%, "1"
HKR,, HWUVD_DisableH264, %REG_SZ%, "0"
HKR,, HWUVD_DisableVC1, %REG_SZ%, "0"
HKR,, DXVA_NOHDDECODE, %REG_SZ%, "0"
HKR,, SORTOverrideFPSCaps, %REG_SZ%, "30"
HKR,, SORTOverrideVidSizeCaps, %REG_SZ%, "512000"

Anybody tried playing with these tweaks ?

I'm going to be waiting a good long time before buying any new AMD CPUs that are offered up.

What evil came upon ATI? I am very disappointed! HD2900 is begining to go down in history as the most overhyped piece of crap. I was looking forward to replacing my 1900XT with R600 but guess what? ATI messed it up. I do not rejoice at ATI's woes, in fact i pray that their R650 stomp whatever Nvidia has to offer, this way competition will have a chance. If Nvidia becomes a monopoly in video card industry, then we are all screwed. I know intel is planning on jumping into the picture, i hope they come in a very big way. I will love to have 3 options whenever i buy a video card.

I have a lot of respect for TR and for you personally, Scott - but I don't agree at all with your implication that AMD misled users. Were they vague - yes, but you, along with most of the hardware press - took what they told you and "ran with it" - without getting confirmation from AMD. The fact that AMD was willing to come forward and answer your question directly "2900 XT does not have Avivo HD" indicates that they weren't trying to mislead anyone. Were they perhaps deliberately vague - yes, but at the same time - they did not try to lie to anyone. I do not say this to take anything away from your integrity or talent - but you made a mistake, you didn't completely check your facts on everyone. It happens. You admit you did - and that's the first step. But trying to blame AMD for your error is slightly disingenuous, and takes a lot of honesty and all of the honour out of this apology.

The product marketing is certainly misleading. There's really no excuse for that. What was previously a so-so product with only one redeeming quality is now simply not worth considering for any reason what so ever. Pretty sad.

If anyone knows any big-wigs at DAAMIT please send them a link to this comment section and tell them to read it and tell them that confidence in the company is a an absolute all-time low. The company just can't be trusted.

Buyer beware, and early adopter beware, more so than ever. I still hope Phenom crushes and if it does I'll buy one, but damn I hope this company takes a good hard look in the mirror and does something about its image.

You know lots of this kinda reminds me back when NVidia made driver optimizations for 3D mark so they would get a better score, even though their cards were sucking it up in games at the time. Guess idk if anyone else remembers that whole debockel, but i know lots of people were pretty pissed at NVidia about it all the same.

Let me just say that I think it's funny that everyone mocked the 8600GTS when it came out even though it's the best card on the market for HD playback - not to mention that there are several different passively cooled versions floating around...

People should have really given that card more credit.

well, first of all, your hardware is old and dated. You need at least a dual quad core cpu setup, at least 8 gigs of ddr-3 ram, at least 4 SLI GF 8800 ultras, and a couple of kilowatt psu's to playback your movie. I hope I'm not being too unreasonable.

In general I try to stay away fromthe first gen cards of any dx version because.. well life happens...

I also view any card based on a console gpu design.. even modded.. about as nicely as I view getting my testicles trampled by rampaging hippos.

That amd managed to fall below even that expectation from me is.. freaky.

my main complaint here is that ati/amd have had time to:
- hear people complain about 8800 video playback
- hear how the 8800 drivers for vista were awful
- find out what 'more' people wanted out of 'next-gen' tech
- get it working with 'released' vista
- fix up their design to beat the 8800

so what did they do with the time?
with their competitor having a product out for around 6 months ahead of them they decide to offer an 'equivalent' product

future driver releases better unleash a hell of a lot of potential from this card

Anybody who will spend $400 on a graphics card already has a CPU that can playback HD video. So it makes sense not to include it on the high end cards. It doesn't make sense that they would send mixed signals about it being there though.

As a long-time ATI fanboy, I find this to be nearly unforgivable. I've long said that what gives ATI the upper hand is video quality and multimedia capability, and now we're being told that on the high end, there's nothing to differentiate the 2900 XT from the 8800 GTS it's pitted against. Not only that, but having been keeping up with the rumors and leaks for the 2000-series for a long time as well as the launch, and I was sure that the 2900 XT would have the UVD features described. Truly it disappoints me to learn now, AFTER this card has been benched and reviewed and the first wave of initial press has been offered, that it definitively does not.

I was likely going to invest in a 2600-series card anyway, and probably still will if it benches decently against the Nvidia equivalent... but I'm going to be a lot more likely to give Nvidia a chance at my money now and in the future, if this is the direction ATI is going.

Hmm, the 2.4ghz Pentium IV in my HD-A1 seems to decode VC-1 and MPEG-2 just fine. It doesn't take that much horsepower, really.

Interesting. The same pattern as Nvidia. Does it also fail to deliver dual channel HDCP like the the 8800, that is a more important deficiency if you want to watch blu ray on your 30" super monitor.

AFAIK only the 8600 (maybe 8500) actually deliver dual channel HDCP.

Personally, none of this really bothers me at all (possibly due to my total lack of knowledge on the topic), but I am sorry to see the additional damage that something like this has done to AMD/ATI. At a time when competition in the marketplace is very important for all of us, I hate to see it when one competitor or another comes out with a product that underwhelms the overall PC community. Although I still think the FX5800 was a worse fiasco.

ATI RadeOWNED!

Just my two cents, but....

I believe that the X2900 does support Avivo HD.
correct me if I am wrong but, UVD is not always a requirement for Avivo HD.
Once the drivers are optimised, I think that the GPU offloading will be near 1.5 times the performance of the Radeon X1950.
So yes, H.264 at 1080P should be possible without extreme cpu usage once the drivers are finished.
I am guesssing that without UVD the power usage WILL be higher, but the GPU should be able to do the job. TR might be getting all hot and bothered for nothing. I guess we will have to wait and see.

Look people the BIG STORY is that it looks like many in amd didnt know it didnt have it. Qw have to wonder how many high up were told it did have it oked the presentation.. and woke up to this...

Heads will roll most likely.