madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[tony359]

hi there

A little help please.
I'm using a Cherry-Trail based mini PC as a media player. I appreciate it's a slow machine but it's been working for a while.
To add to the pot I also have a Ethernet over power link which I know it's not the best solution.

My problem is that recently the buffer slowly drops to zero and then the movie starts stuttering.

I have tried several things including resetting everything and I have noted the following: when using MadVR the CPU almost immediately throttles down to minimum speed while CPU utilisation ramps up to 100%. When using the default renderer, the CPU stays mainly at maximum speed.

Something is triggering the CPU and I believe that the OS is then unable to feed the stream quickly enough because it does not have enough resources. I'd be tempted to exclude the network as Windows task manager tells me that when I PAUSE the playback, the network bandwidth increases quite a lot for a few seconds (while the buffer is replenished). This should prove that the network link is ok. If I transfer a file from my NAS the link is indeed running at 100% (100Mbit).

Can you guys think of anything that may help? I was working till a couple of weeks ago - cannot remember if I updated something, probably I have, I can try downgrading to a previous version.

Thank you!
Tony

[Asmodian]

Which buffer is slowly dropping? The decoder queue or the render queue?

It really sounds like you are overheating, maybe a fan is full of dust, the heatsink loosened, or something?

I have trouble imagining that the -almost- immediate throttling could mean anything but overheating.

[tony359]

Hi
Thanks for your reply

I'm not in front of my computer now but it's the first buffer on the left.
I can assure you this is not the case. I'm monitoring using CPU monitor and the same software tells me that cpu speed drops to minimum and temperatures are within normal range - well below thermal throttling.

When not using madvr the speeds are much higher and so are the temperatures.

Only thing could be if the GPU is overheating (or simply not being used by the standard renderer which would explain why cpu slows down with madvr) but it's integrated in the cpu so I reckon my cpu temperature should include the GPU one.

Thanks

[Blackfyre]

Upgrading my GPU tomorrow; going from an AMD HD 7970 (equivalent of 280X), to an MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X.

Yep, that's a massive jump. Looking forward to finally tone up some of my Madvr settings.

Anyone here with a GTX 1070? How are you experiences thus far?

[Sunset1982]

Originally Posted by Blackfyre

Anyone here with a GTX 1070? How are you experiences thus far?

My MSI GTX 1070 Gaming will come this week. I'll report back if there are any (driver) problems with madvr.

[Xaurus]

I'm using a 1080 now. Shaved off roughly 10-12 ms on my different profiles compared to my 980 Ti. This at 3840 x 2160.

[jerryleungwh]

Hi I am very new to this and recently I'm hoping to try out the stereoscopic 3D function of madVR but with no luck. I try to follow steps I can find on the forum but somehow I can't get it to work. May I ask how can I play a stereoscopic 3D movie on TV? I'll really appreciate it if there are detailed steps as I'm no quite familiar with this.

What I've done is trying to use MPC-HC and MPC-BE to play a 3D mvc mkv movie I've made using makemkv. I've done similar settings on both players.

I disabled all formats from the internal filter, added external filters name LAV Video Decoder, LAV Audio Decoder and LAV Splitter Source, which are of version 6.81.1.17-git and set all of them as "preferred".

In the LAV Video Decoder, I've set the hardware decoder to be NVIDIA CUVID and RGB level as untouched, and leave everything as is.

As for the LAV Audio decoder, I checked all the audio formats to be bit-streamed for better sound quality directly output to my AMP, then leave everything as is.


In the LAV Splitter Source, I leave everything as is.

Then I selected madVR which is of version 0.90.21 as the DirectShow option.

In madVR setings, I selected D format in device->properties as auto, unchecked "enable automatic fullscreen exclusive mode" in general settings, checked "enable stereo 3d playback" and "when playing 3d content" and chose "enable", and also checked "restore os stereo 3d settings when media player is closed". I have also unchecked all items that has the keyword "DXVA" in the "trade quality for performance" tab as I've heard that has something to do with playing 3d. Everything else are leave as is.

My computer is I think what people called a optimus machine which has Intel HD Graphics 530 and also a Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M graphic card. I've set both players to use the Nvidia graphic card though. And is running on Win 10 64 bit.

When I'm using MPC-HC to play a 3d video, it changes the framerate of my TV from 60fps to 24 fps, but doesn't change the TV into 3d mode. I got it to change into 3d mode once but forgot how, yet it is still only showing a 2d image even the TV 3d mode is on. As for the MPC-BE player, it changes the tv to 3d mode every time but always immediately crashes my computer and triggering a blue screen stating there is something wrong with the Intel graphic card driver.

Can someone please help me with it? With some detailed step by step methods? I'll really appreciate it. Thanks!

[Warner306]

Originally Posted by Xaurus

I'm using a 1080 now. Shaved off roughly 10-12 ms on my different profiles compared to my 980 Ti. This at 3840 x 2160.

What are your maximum settings for 1080p content? Many would be curious.

[Ranguvar]

Originally Posted by Blackfyre

Upgrading my GPU tomorrow; going from an AMD HD 7970 (equivalent of 280X), to an MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X.

Yep, that's a massive jump. Looking forward to finally tone up some of my Madvr settings.

Anyone here with a GTX 1070? How are you experiences thus far?

Jumped from a GTX 680 to a GTX 1070 myself.

It's pretty glorious. On 1080p video going to a 1440p monitor, I disable all tradeoffs and use NNEDI3 64 neuron on luma, 32 neuron on chroma, and then Jinc AR+LL for everything else. No dropped frames.

[aufkrawall]

Nice that it works out for you, but scaling 1080p -> 1440p with NNEDI3 is pure overkill.
The resources are really better invested in Jinc AR SL + SR3 or 4 if you like it sharp.
I got a 1440p display too and I compared many real scenes with 1080p -> 1440p Jinc vs. NNEDI3, I doubt anyone would ever pass a double blind test for this.

[ryrynz]

Still recommend Super-XBR 100-125 for chroma upscaling, also it's a lot less resource hungry than NNEDI3. Would recommend comparing them and deciding for yourself.

[Ranguvar]

Originally Posted by aufkrawall

Nice that it works out for you, but scaling 1080p -> 1440p with NNEDI3 is pure overkill.
The resources are really better invested in Jinc AR SL + SR3 or 4 if you like it sharp.
I got a 1440p display too and I compared many real scenes with 1080p -> 1440p Jinc vs. NNEDI3, I doubt anyone would ever pass a double blind test for this.

Originally Posted by ryrynz

Still recommend Super-XBR 100-125 for chroma upscaling, also it's a lot less resource hungry than NNEDI3. Would recommend comparing them and deciding for yourself.

Sure. But what else can I spend the power on, if I have it to spare and want to?

For anime I can run SVP - still figuring out best possible settings total. That definitely forces me to turn off NNEDI3 or drastically reduce settings.

But for normal film, can't make it better any other way really?

[kiwijunglist]

Question regarding 3d madvr reclock and mpchc.

I like to use reclock to speed up 23.976 to 24. However reclock doesn't seem to play nice with 3d movies using madvr and mpchc.

What are people's solutions for this? Is this a problem for you. Is there a good automatic solution?

[ryrynz]

Originally Posted by Ranguvar

Sure. But what else can I spend the power on, if I have it to spare and want to?

I think that's the wrong way to look at it. You should compare before and after screenshots and judge what to run based on those results.

Your call, just seems pointless using ~100W to do something you don't even notice. For lower res content those settings would make more of an impact but upscaling 1080P with NNEDI3 then downscaling with SSIM (likely 2D AR LL) isn't going to do much to the final result. Hell you might be better off just using Jinc AR. If it was a 4K screen, well that'd be a different story.

Focus on results not specifically on how many neurons of NNEDI3 you can set, this does seem to be a rather reoccurring theme here with people just taking the short route ticking boxes and setting things as high as they'll go and running into performance issues as a result..

[Blackfyre]

Originally Posted by Blackfyre

Upgrading my GPU tomorrow; going from an AMD HD 7970 (equivalent of 280X), to an MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X.

Yep, that's a massive jump. Looking forward to finally tone up some of my Madvr settings.

Anyone here with a GTX 1070? How are you experiences thus far?

Can someone explain to me what's going on here, I just got the GTX 1070, and I'm getting dropped frames like no tomorrow using the same settings I had with my 5 year old AMD card... the HD7970. Mind you I'm running SVP @ 75FPS too with custom settings.

So without everything is working fine with Madvr @24FPS, but otherwise @ 75FPS I get dropped frames...



Is this a driver issue? A what issue exactly? I haven't used an nVidia GPU with Madvr before...

Even without SVP, I can barely push Madvr settings above the HD7970 settings I had. You guys have no idea how disappointed I am right now...

[kiwijunglist]

Originally Posted by jerryleungwh

Can someone please help me with it? With some detailed step by step methods? I'll really appreciate it. Thanks!

you have to install the intel software codec mentioned a few pages back. i had the same problem, view the replies to my prev questions.

[James Freeman]

Originally Posted by Blackfyre

Can someone explain to me what's going on here,

The right way would be to teach you how to troubleshoot it yourself layer be layer.

First thing first, disable SVP.

The rendering time (ms) should be less than the movie frame time (ms), this can only happen when the queues are full, all of them.
If one of the queues is not filling there is a problem in that region responsible for filling that queue, you'll see that as rendering time greater than frame time.

Please report what is the status of your queues and rendering time (average).

[jerryleungwh]

Originally Posted by kiwijunglist

you have to install the intel software codec mentioned a few pages back. i had the same problem, view the replies to my prev questions.

May I ask why is the intel driver affecting it? I know I have both intel and Nvidia gpu but I've manualy set it to use Nvidia so why does the intel driver need to do anything?

[Blackfyre]

Originally Posted by James Freeman

The right way would be to teach you how to troubleshoot it yourself layer be layer.

First thing first, disable SVP.

The rendering time (ms) should be less than the movie frame time (ms), this can only happen when the queues are full, all of them.
If one of the queues is not filling there is a problem in that region responsible for filling that queue, you'll see that as rendering time greater than frame time.

Please report what is the status of your queues and rendering time (average).

Thanks for the quick reply. Alright I seem to have fixed the issue, the GTX 1070's core and memory speeds were fluctuating (going from 200Mhz to 2000Mhz+), so I went to nVidia control panel, and set MPC.exe &MPC64 both to performance mode basically. This stopped the fluctuation of Core & Memory speeds and set them to MAX constant as soon as I open MPC.

Which worked like a charm. Here's a picture with SVP running, with my SVP Settings, and with the chroma upscaling you see + in upscaling refinement I also have SuperRes now selected at (4, linear light, anti-bloating, and anti-ringing enabled, strength @ 100%).

http://imgur.com/OonTMo4

With the 280X I couldn't do SuperRes + Jinc (well I did, but GPU usage was around 90% and fans turned really loud with the 280x)....

Anyway I still can't do image doubling, as soon as I select double luma resolution and chroma resolution with NEDI, NEDI3, or Super-XBR, the dropped frames begin to happen.

[ryrynz]

Originally Posted by Blackfyre

Anyway I still can't do image doubling, as soon as I select double luma resolution and chroma resolution with NEDI, NEDI3, or Super-XBR, the dropped frames begin to happen.

And that would be because you're maxing out the GPU?