T61 and 1080p movies

[ziloo]

Hello Thinpals,

Straight question....can a T61 show 1080p movies without
stutter/pause and jump

Thank You

ziloo

[dimamyth]

Straight question....can a T61 show 1080p movies without
stutter/pause and jump

Not 100% sure, but I think it depends on the codec and bitrate used.

For example, my T61 with T7500 and i965 plays youtube Full HDs choppy, but under Ubuntu (with custom optimized kernel) performs well enough to be watched without annoyance.

And Quattro 140 one (with the same CPU) works well even under Windows.

[kfzhu1229]

For example, my T61 with T7500 and i965 plays youtube Full HDs choppy, but under Ubuntu (with custom optimized kernel) performs well enough to be watched without annoyance.

And Quattro 140 one (with the same CPU) works well even under Windows.

For 965GM graphics you'd need a more powerful and more efficient CPU for FHD performance to be smooth. I'd say minimum a Core 2 duo T8300 and then use chromium browser with h264 extension and disable 60fps support.
For Quadro NVS 140M, it'd do 720p very well if you use h264 hardware decoding but 1080p you are going to run out of VRAM, unless you have the 15.4" board with 256MB of VRAM.

[dimamyth]

For 965GM graphics you'd need a more powerful and more efficient CPU for FHD performance to be smooth. I'd say minimum a Core 2 duo T8300 and then use chromium browser with h264 extension and disable 60fps support.
For Quadro NVS 140M, it'd do 720p very well if you use h264 hardware decoding but 1080p you are going to run out of VRAM, unless you have the 15.4" board with 256MB of VRAM.

I made a small video comparison, on the T400 with P9600|ATI|Win7|Chrome and the T61|T7500|Intel|Ubuntu|Chrome (sorry for my bad english and pronuncation))

As you can see, the T61 with custom kernel Ubuntu is even faster&smoother, than the T400 under Windows. But I'm not sure, that under the stock kernel it will be just as smooth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehpCrZfBr6Y

[Shredder11]

Just for comparison, if you want to know how the older generation T60p or Z61p can play 1080p even at higher framerates, check out this video "Broadcom BCM970015 vs No GPU Assistance On Two Identical Thinkpad Z61p Laptops"

https://youtu.be/Fr8SfUB2UaA

[theterminator93]

As others have said, it depends.

I had no issues playing 1080p videos in QuickTime format on my T61p back in 2007. Modern high-efficiency web codecs rely a lot on faster decoding engines in modern CPU/GPU architecture to minimize bitrate at a given quality; the old Core 2 and nVidia/Intel GPUs of the era have a hard time coping with them.

In general I'd say local videos will have a better chance of playing well than something streamed over the web.

[ziloo]

Now that we are on this subject....

I hear contradictory information (or misinformation?)
about the use of "hardware acceleration" on win setting.

Does it make CPU too busy for other tasks?
Is it detrimental for streaming video quality???
What are the pros/cons for using it?

ziloo

[theterminator93]

Hardware acceleration uses the GPU to decode video, freeing up the CPU for other tasks. Usually it's a good thing, unless the GPU can't handle the job and ends up being slower than the CPU at it.

[axur-delmeria]

You need 3 things for hardware video decoding to work:

1. The decoder hardware itself, which may come in different forms, such as:
a. component of the processor/APU e.g. Intel Clear Video (older CPUs) and Quick Sync (Sandy Bridge and newer); AMD APUs use the same decoders found in their GPUs
b. component of discrete GPUs e.g. nVidia Purevideo, AMD Unified Video Decoder (UVD) and Video Coding Engine (VCE)
c. dedicated video decoding chip e.g. Broadcom Crystal HD and Quartics Q1721
d. component of northbridge integrated graphics: Intel G45 chipsets have Clear Video as part of GMA X4500, while AMD 780G/785G/880G chipsets have UVD as part of Radeon HD 3200.

2. driver support -- a friend of mine has a Broadcom Crystal HD card on his X61 and reports that it works on Windows 7, but not on Windows 10.

3. application support (web browsers, media player applications, etc.) -- on some Linux distributions, web browsers are compiled without hardware video decoding support.

Note that there are lots of video codecs used on the internet: H.264 (AVC), VP8, VP9, VC-1, H.265 (HEVC), AV1, etc. and not all of these codecs are supported by the decoding hardware. The older the hardware, the fewer codecs it supports, and even when a codec is supported, there are limits to what can be handled in hardware-- for example, on Sandy Bridge CPUs, H.264 is supported, but only up to 1920x1080; for 1440p or 4K, software decoding is used, which cannot be done in real time on dual-core processors.

*Added northbridge graphics

[ziloo]

Brilliant answers...
Thank you very much!!!

ziloo

[WEissbr0t]

With my T61 with the Nvidia Quadro NVS140 I did not have a smooth experience. With the T61p and an Quadro FX 570m its okay... but not perfect

[kfzhu1229]

With my T61 with the Nvidia Quadro NVS140 I did not have a smooth experience. With the T61p and an Quadro FX 570m its okay... but not perfect

If you are running a screen any higher than 1440x900, with the standard NVS140M option you will quickly run out of the 128MB of VRAM and then you get a stuttery mess as the hardware decoder wants to decode the 1080p content but you have no VRAM to do so.
Your FX570M is most probably the one with 256MB of VRAM and hence it works fine. In fact my NVS140M and FX360M that both came with 256MB of VRAM on Dell laptops also did perfectly fine.

[WEissbr0t]

With my T61 with the Nvidia Quadro NVS140 I did not have a smooth experience. With the T61p and an Quadro FX 570m its okay... but not perfect

If you are running a screen any higher than 1440x900, with the standard NVS140M option you will quickly run out of the 128MB of VRAM and then you get a stuttery mess as the hardware decoder wants to decode the 1080p content but you have no VRAM to do so.
Your FX570M is most probably the one with 256MB of VRAM and hence it works fine. In fact my NVS140M and FX360M that both came with 256MB of VRAM on Dell laptops also did perfectly fine.

Oh cool, thank you for this info. I didn’t know that

Maybe I give it a try with Linux AntiX on my T61p.