Can nVidia 7800GT assist HD preview in Vegas?

JohnnyRoy wrote on 11/8/2005, 1:12 PM
I know Vegas doesn’t take advantage of any hardware assist but the nVidia 7800GT series of video cards claims the following:

NVIDIA PureVideo™ Technology
• H.264 hardware assist
• DVD and HDTV-ready MPEG-2 decoding up to 1920x1080p resolution

This leads me to believe that I will be ably to view HDV in real-time with this card. The question is: does that include the Vegas timeline? Or do you need a viewer that uses the hardware assist? I’m not talking rendering speed, just preview on the Windows Secondary Monitor from Vegas. Does anyone own one of these cards that is also doing HDV? Does it help with preview?

I was planning to use a 6800GT for my new PC but the 7800GT is only $50 more and if it will give me smooth framerates for my HDV it will be well worth the money. Otherwise I’ll just get the 6800GT.

~jr

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 11/8/2005, 1:18 PM
Vegas wouldn't know anything about that card's capabilities unless explicitly programmed to do so. I doubt it would make any difference with the current version of Vegas. It's also unlikely that future versions will tie into hardware specific features of any specific video cards.

I could however imagine a system whereby Vegas knows about general hardware features and could make use of them if a "plugin" were made for each specific card.
Spot|DSE wrote on 11/8/2005, 1:31 PM
Vegas can't access the decoder on that card, no. Would be nice, same if it could access the Matrox decoder...but no dice.
JJKizak wrote on 11/8/2005, 2:19 PM
Been there, done that, DSE is correct. It does nothing at all for the preview.
P>S>--I had the XFX 7800 card installed and that baby really throws some heat.
JJK
JohnnyRoy wrote on 11/8/2005, 7:15 PM
> I had the XFX 7800 card installed and that baby really throws some heat.

Yea I was afraid of that which is why I wanted to stop at the 6800GT. The MSI card that I selected has a variable speed fan so it can run very quiet. Heat is the last thing I need when doing long overnight renders. Also the 7800 says it requires a 400Watt PSU and I have a 450W but I also have 4 hard drives so I don’t want to push it. The 6800GT only requires a 350W PSU.

Thanks for all the replies. I think I’m gonna stick with the 6800GT then. I do love to play Half Life 2, Doom III and Unreal Tournament 2004 so I can’t go much lower then that. ;-)

~jr
Stonefield wrote on 11/8/2005, 8:02 PM
Those are some sweet games man.....

Still numb at goin thru City 17. What an amazing experience. Can't wait for the expansion.

Oh, yes, Vegas is a great NLE too. ( forgot what forum I was on, heh )
Coursedesign wrote on 11/8/2005, 8:20 PM
6800GS was released this week. Similar performance compared to the 6800GT, but a lot less expensive.

See GeForce 6800 GS: The New Price/Performance King?
JohnnyRoy wrote on 11/9/2005, 4:56 AM
Thanks I'll check it out.

~jr