New
#1
Great, hardware HD acceleration works out of the box.
I have onbored Intel GMA X4500HD which intel claims has hardware acceleration for HD movie playback.
I could never get this to work properly with vista even with the power dvd HD codec installed?
I also tried all the dodgy codec packs available (which in my experience courses more harm than good) in my quest for low cpu usage during 1080p or just any HD playback in general really. And although my monitor isn't even a HD monitor it's still above standard definition & I just like to know things are working as there advertised I guess? Plus I plan to get a HD monitor when my finances permit me to?
I also had this problem with my old pc with an ati card installed aswell.
Anyways I installed windows 7 & hardware acceleration works right out of the box, literally. No codecs & no messing about it just works as advertised. The codecs are there already & work as they should do for once. My cpu usage is down from 30/70% to 0/20% max now. It was 70/100% without any codecs & 30/70 was the best I could get with vista.
With Windows 7 Microsoft has really hit the nail on the head for me, so to speak. Bootup times are so fast & so far I haven't had to install a single codec for once.
It's like a refined vista with all the same features plus a few more just for good measure.