nvidia 8500 8600 for decoding x264 h264

[bedahr]

> Until we make a big fuss companies don't give us what we need/want.
< well then why did they make linux drivers in the first place
> we made a big fuss.

This made me smile

Sadly I don't think you can count on PureVideo _ever_ being available in the Linux drivers. Just look at the KDE4/firefox 3 nvidia debacle; Nvidias Linux drivers are the worst right now: even AMDs linux drivers are more usable / less buggy / incomplete (however, for video playback they are even worse than nVidias).

Software decoding is a safe bet, however. Once we get multithreaded decoding 1080 playback using a fairly cheap processor should not be a problem (just look at Q6600 prices for example; 2,6 GHz quadcore for 160€ / 200$; if we could employ all four cores this should play even high bitrate scenes without _any_ problems).
But as CABAC decoding seems to be very complicated when using multiple threads (and I suspect dull to program) we will have to wait...

-- bedahr

[aeiah]

for the record i have graet 720p x264 playback with my hardware (its software, obviously, as has been stated). my system specs are just: AMD x2 3800 1gb ram nvidia 7800GT. i dont know what specs you'll need for 1080p but mine just about manages it until you hit high action scenes so you should be pretty safe with new hardware.