Have been reading around on the web about the 8600 cards being able to do hardware decoding of H264 (HD) content, and just wondered if this in-fact possible.
 
Would like to take the processing away from the CPU on onto the GPU.  I am running Windows XP.
 
What software do I need to do this, I did read somewhere on Toms Hardware on a review back in June 2007, that Nvidia drivers currently did not support this, but would in the future.
 
Please help
 
Cheers,
Albie

From NVidia's Product Web Page:
 

 
How up to date this is, I can't tell.
 
-Wolf sends

I did find that link somewhere, but then I also found this :
 
- NVIDIA® ForceWare® driver greater than or equal to version 158.18
 
and  
 
- 1GB of system memory is recommended under Windows XP; 2GB is recommended under Windows Vista.
 
But, what else do I need

Looks like you also need Intervideo's WinDVD8 or Cyberlink's PowerDVD Ultra (and the system specs required for those).

Yeah, it requires the software to support it.
 
Right now it is limited to WinDVD, PowerDVD, and M$ Media Player (with the proper Codecs).
 
Other apps have promised support, but it's still 'coming soon' and has been since the launch of the GF8600 and HD2K cards.