http://www.avsforum.

com/t/1240499/faq-for-the-3d-htpc/900#post_21122837
0/25/11

renethx

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15,808 Posts. Joined 1/2006

Thumbs Up: 293

Quote:
Originally Posted by Doomas
Can anybody help with GPU for HTPC that will have full support of 3D Bluray. ?
Becose I find out that, Full 3D supporting GPUs only High End gaming cards ???
Only GTX 460/550 Ti and above support 3D Bluray. GT 430/440/520 only support 3D Photo/Regular Video.
With AMD, only HD5000 series and HD6850 and above support 3D.
That mean, example Nvidia 430 or AMD 6570 are not supporting .
The information is wrong. First BR 3D "support" is ambiguous. It's the software player (typically TMT or PowerDVD) that reads BR 3D, decodes MVC
(Multiview Video Coding, the BR 3D video codec) and converts to a 3D video format (there are many 3D formats, depending on your 3D display). The roles of
the graphics card are:
- Accelerate MVC decoding. If CPU is powerful enough (e.g. triple core or more), this may not be necessary.
- Send 3D video format to the display. Some formats are within HDMI 1.3 specs (e.g. Side by Side (Half), Top and Bottom, checkerboard, interleaved). In this
case almost any graphics card is fine. Frame packing is HDMI 1.4a and requires the latest graphics card.

HD
54505670

HD
HD
6310
5750- (E350)

HD 6xxx (EGT(X) 430450, A Series, GT 210- GTS/X

GTX
460/520dGPU), HD
240
250465/570560/all 6xx
7xxx

Intel HD Graphics
(Celeron/Pentium
SNB)

Intel HD Graphics
2k/2.5k/3k/4k (Core
i3/i5/i7 SNB/IVB)

MVC hardware
decode

No

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

HDMI 1.4a 3D
(Frame packing)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Frame packing to
3D display + HD
No
audio to HDMI 1.3
AVR

No

No

Yes
(LPCM
only)

No

Yes

Yes
(LPCM
only)

Yes

Frame packing +
HD audio to HDMI
Yes
1.4a AVR / 3D
display

Yes

Yes

Yes
(LPCM
only)

No

Yes

Yes
(LPCM
only)

Yes

Remarks on the two cable solution of HD audio to HDMI 1.3 AVR and 3D video to the display
1. This works if and only if HD audio controller of the GPU supports dual audio stream, and only NVIDA and Intel GPUs support it. One audio stream is
assigned to AVR, the "secondary" display, the other to the 3D display, "primary" display, in extended desktop mode. Select AVR as the sound playback device
in the player. BTW HDMI and DVI with a DVI-HDMI adapter are completely equivalent in NVIDIA and Intel (audio over DVI port is disabled in some LGA
1155 mb, however).
2. AMD HD 5xxx/6xxx/7xxx GPU behaves differently. Usually you will see an HDMI connector and a DVI connector and/or a DisplayPort connector in the
GPU and any of:

- HDMI connector
- DP connector with a passive DP-HDMI adapter

- DVI connector with AMD's proprietary DVI-HDMI adapter

works as a HDMI 1.4a connector that supports Frame Packing 3D video, HD audio and YCbCr color space as well as RGB. However if two displays are
connected to the GPU at the same time, then only one connector works as HDMI and the other connector always works as DVI (no Frame Packing 3D
video, no audio, only RGB color space). Precisely speaking, if you use HDMI and DP/DVI, then HDMI always works as HDMI and DP/DVI works as DVI;
If you use DP and DVI, then DP always works as HDMI and DVI as DVI. In other words, HDMI-likeness decreases in this order:

HDMI > DP > DVI

That means, unlike NVIDIA and Intel, you can't send Frame Pakcing 3D video over one of the connector and HD audio over another (you can still send
other 3D formats such as checkerboard, SBS, TAB, interleaved, however). Apparently this is because of a limitation of the HD audio controller of AMD GPU,
i.e. non-support for dual audio stream.

A workaround is use another GPU to send HD audio:

a) If it is a discrete AMD GPU and your CPU is Intel Clarkdale/SNB/IVY or AMD APU, then activate its GPU and use it to send audio.
b) If it is a discrete AMD GPU and your CPU does not have integrated GPU, then add another cheap GPU such as HD 5450 (~$20) for audio. The second
graphics card works even with a PCI Express x1 slot! (Just cut the closed end to make it an open end.)
c) If it is iGPU of AMD APU, then add a cheap discrete GPU such as HD 5450 (~$20) for audio.
Edited by renethx - 6/24/12 at 11:44am