madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[madshi]

Originally Posted by Razoola

I have been playing with this also since madshi has brought it up and I have not seen any banding either. This issue I have however is if I do change the nvidia HMDI setting to output desktop levels (it was set to full screen videos) then I get a washed out picture on my plasma. I think this setting is only available when using HDMI out from the gfx card and is found at the bottom of the 'adjust desktop color settings' page in the nvidia control panel.

Weird, never seen this setting before. Not sure which practical effect it has. From the description it seems it's only an information that is sent to the display. Either your plasma reacts to it in a weird way, or NVidia does more than just sending an information.

[madshi]

Originally Posted by nevcairiel

I previously had the Dynamic Range configured to 0-255, because my TV was supposed to get PC Level output. If i set that to Video Player controlled, i get the proper values in your tool.

I suppose thats how its meant to be configured to let madVR expand it to PC levels, right?

Actually this setting should have no effect on madVR at all. It does affect the madNV12Test tool, though. Having it set to "Video Player controlled" allows the madNV12Test tool to find out whether your GPU outputs PC vs. video levels (this only applies to NVidia GPUs). Since you say you get the proper values now, everything should be fine. You can set the settings back to 0-255, if you want. Shouldn't bother madVR. It might have an effect on VMR/EVR, though.

[nevcairiel]

Originally Posted by madshi

Have you checked "Adjust video color settings - Advanced - Dynamic Range"? What is this set to on your PC?

I set it to video player controlled now (which also changed the output of your tool to 16-235).

Fwiw, i do not see any difference between video player controlled, or setting PC/Video there

[madshi]

That's as its supposed to be, see my comment above yours.

[Razoola]

For my GT240 all the suggested changes you suggest do not change the way you test program reports, I still get 0-255.

This is 2nd gpu outputting to a secondary display. Like I said however I have to make the gt240 the primary display and gtx295 secondary to get the program to report details for it. I have tried all the suggested settings you suggest and it just won't go from 0-255 to 16-235.

[madshi]

Hmmmm. You have created and activated a custom resolution? Is the "smallramp.ytp" test pattern perfectly smooth if you upscale it to screen resolution?

[Razoola]

If I create my own test custom resolution it works but If I use the nvidia preset custom resolutions it does not.. Here lies the problem, I cannot create the custom resolutions I need because it messes up all the other standard resolutions in such a way that I have to clean reinstall the driver. This is an issue I think with trying to create custom resolutions on secondary displays in the nvidia control panel, it sucks. This bug has been there for ages and nvidia have not fixed it even though they are aware of it.

[yesgrey]

Originally Posted by Razoola

This is an issue I think with trying to create custom resolutions on secondary displays in the nvidia control panel, it sucks. This bug has been there for ages and nvidia have not fixed it even though they are aware of it.

I know. Did you try to create the custom resolutions on the secondary display by activating it and disabling the primary display, so it can be the only active? Whenever I do this I can create my custom resolutions on both displays without any problem. The secret is creating the custom resolutions only with one of the displays active, the one which you want to create the resolutions to.

[Razoola]

Originally Posted by yesgrey

I know. Did you try to create the custom resolutions on the secondary display by activating it and disabling the primary display, so it can be the only active? Whenever I do this I can create my custom resolutions on both displays without any problem. The secret is creating the custom resolutions only with one of the displays active, the one which you want to create the resolutions to.

I'll give it a go and report back.

Tried, as soon as I enter the first resolution all other resolutions are limited to 16bit.

[mark0077]

For those of you that didn't know, for whoever has a HDTV connected with nvidia drivers, and the entire desktop is being output in 16-235 instead of full range, the best workaround is to add this to the nv_disp.inf before installing the drivers. Makes the drivers assume your using a fullrange TV instead of limited range. I need to use this each time I do a clean install of nvidias drivers.

Add

HKR,,SetDefaultFullRGBRangeOnHDMI,%REG_DWORD%,1

to each section of your inf that begins with

[nv_miscBase_addreg_

eg

[nv_miscBase_addreg__01]
HKR,,SetDefaultFullRGBRangeOnHDMI,%REG_DWORD%,1

======================

madshi, a general question. You might remember I recently reported about having less frame drops in some particular files, when using high performance mode of my nvidia card, rather than adaptive performance. Well it turns out I'm having issues with many of these files in another way which I havn't been able to figure out, with getting much more frame drops than others even when not using any avisynth scripts, with cpu usage less than 15%. The evr-cp renderer in mpc actually showed me with its graph, that the presentation of video isn't smooth with these files compared to blu-rays / other files on my machine. See below the green line isn't straight when playing these files.



I still havn't figure it out but am wondering does madVR do any type of timestamp smoothing or is it something you think might be useful. So far all I can think of that causing this effect with these files is something to do with timestamps. Some are mkv, some are mp4 and I havn't tried too many more files to see how many it effects. (PS: The evr-cp graphs / or the unsmooth presentation would have come in handy in madVR in this case ). Even when there are 0 frame drops its easy to see from the graph something isn't right..

[namaiki]

Originally Posted by mark0077

HKR,,SetDefaultFullRGBRangeOnHDMI,%REG_DWORD%,1

This should be useful for me since I've been using VGA because of that issue.

Would you happen to know how I might be able to enable a 24Hz (or multiple of 24Hz) mode on my TV? At the moment, I've only got bloody 25Hz and 60Hz.

[mark0077]

Originally Posted by namaiki

This should be useful for me since I've been using VGA because of that issue.

Would you happen to know how I might be able to enable a 24Hz (or multiple of 24Hz) mode on my TV? At the moment, I've only got bloody 25Hz and 60Hz.

Yes, exactly, the other workaround I had was some edid override which limited the hz that were possible.

The workaround I gave doesn't have any negative effects... pity there isn't a gui based option...

[Razoola]

Originally Posted by mark0077

For those of you that didn't know, for whoever has a HDTV connected with nvidia drivers, and the entire desktop is being output in 16-235 instead of full range, the best workaround is to add this to the nv_disp.inf before installing the drivers. Makes the drivers assume your using a fullrange TV instead of limited range. I need to use this each time I do a clean install of nvidias drivers.

Add

HKR,,SetDefaultFullRGBRangeOnHDMI,%REG_DWORD%,1

to each section of your inf that begins with

[nv_miscBase_addreg_

eg

[nv_miscBase_addreg__01]
HKR,,SetDefaultFullRGBRangeOnHDMI,%REG_DWORD%,1

======================

madshi, a general question. You might remember I recently reported about having less frame drops in some particular files, when using high performance mode of my nvidia card, rather than adaptive performance. Well it turns out I'm having issues with many of these files in another way which I havn't been able to figure out, with getting much more frame drops than others even when not using any avisynth scripts, with cpu usage less than 15%. The evr-cp renderer in mpc actually showed me with its graph, that the presentation of video isn't smooth with these files compared to blu-rays / other files on my machine. See below the green line isn't straight when playing these files.



I still havn't figure it out but am wondering does madVR do any type of timestamp smoothing or is it something you think might be useful. So far all I can think of that causing this effect with these files is something to do with timestamps. Some are mkv, some are mp4 and I havn't tried too many more files to see how many it effects. (PS: The evr-cp graphs / or the unsmooth presentation would have come in handy in madVR in this case ). Even when there are 0 frame drops its easy to see from the graph something isn't right..

Are you sure you can't simply use the setting I mentioned earlier at the bottom of the 'adjust desktop color settings' page in the nvidia control panel?

There are 2 settings that show if your outputting via HDMI, you can choose either RGB or YCbCr444 for digital color format. Also you can choose either auto select, desktop programs or full screen video for content type reported to the display.

When ever I update the driver I have to do these settings again to get full range back.

[madshi]

Originally Posted by mark0077

For those of you that didn't know, for whoever has a HDTV connected with nvidia drivers, and the entire desktop is being output in 16-235 instead of full range, the best workaround is to add this to the nv_disp.inf before installing the drivers. Makes the drivers assume your using a fullrange TV instead of limited range. I need to use this each time I do a clean install of nvidias drivers.

Add

HKR,,SetDefaultFullRGBRangeOnHDMI,%REG_DWORD%,1

to each section of your inf that begins with

[nv_miscBase_addreg_

eg

[nv_miscBase_addreg__01]
HKR,,SetDefaultFullRGBRangeOnHDMI,%REG_DWORD%,1

Cool trick! But a google search tells me this only works in Vista / Windows 7, but not in XP. So for XP creating custom resolutions is still the best workaround.

Originally Posted by mark0077

madshi, a general question. You might remember I recently reported about having less frame drops in some particular files, when using high performance mode of my nvidia card, rather than adaptive performance. Well it turns out I'm having issues with many of these files in another way which I havn't been able to figure out, with getting much more frame drops than others even when not using any avisynth scripts, with cpu usage less than 15%. The evr-cp renderer in mpc actually showed me with its graph, that the presentation of video isn't smooth with these files compared to blu-rays / other files on my machine. See below the green line isn't straight when playing these files.

I still havn't figure it out but am wondering does madVR do any type of timestamp smoothing or is it something you think might be useful. So far all I can think of that causing this effect with these files is something to do with timestamps. Some are mkv, some are mp4 and I havn't tried too many more files to see how many it effects. (PS: The evr-cp graphs / or the unsmooth presentation would have come in handy in madVR in this case ). Even when there are 0 frame drops its easy to see from the graph something isn't right..

I'm not really sure what you're asking here. The problem seems to occur with EVR just as much as with madVR? So I'd guess it's probably either a problem with the movie files, or with your splitter/decoder setup. What kind of files are these? MKV? Broadcast (ts)? Blu-Ray (m2ts)? If it's MKV try remuxing with eac3to. Maybe that helps?

[Razoola]

Originally Posted by madshi

Cool trick! But a google search tells me this only works in Vista / Windows 7, but not in XP. So for XP creating custom resolutions is still the best workaround.

My gtx 295 does not have custom resolutions added but it returned the correct values with your test program. It uses DVI however and not HDMI.

For now I have given up trying to get correct setting with the secondary GT240 as I cannot set up the custom resolutions I need on it using the nvidia control panel.

[mark0077]

Hi madshi, I suppose what I'm asking is

1) Does madVR do any sort of checking for uneven timestamps, and is it able to smooth them out?
2) If not, do you think its something the renderer should / or could do in future?
3) I'm going to go through alot of my content over the next few days to see which are effected, and will use evr-cp to check this, unless madVR has a way of indicating the issue I see using evr-cp's graphs, with some of its CTRL-J stats? Not a big issue I can use evr-cp if madVR hasn't a way of showing such problems up.

Here is one clip which I downloaded recently, its Lada Gaga's new music video, 1080p. I won't post a direct link but the filename is "Lady Gaga - Born This Way(1080p_H.264-AAC) VEVO.mp4" - 171 MB (179,834,004 bytes)

I don't know the source but if you wanted you could try it and see the evr-cp graphs, and see the framedrops with madVR and other renderers of course. I can only assume thousands of people will have similar files, and I would love a way to workaround the problems I'm having with them without having to remux them all Let me know if you have any thoughts. If madVR could workaround such problems, it would be another step ahead of evr-cp but I'm unsure if its appropriate for the renderer to do such a thing.

In the meantime I'll try remuxing one of the mkv's I have the problem with, with eac3to to see if it helps.

[madshi]

Originally Posted by mark0077

1) Does madVR do any sort of checking for uneven timestamps, and is it able to smooth them out?
2) If not, do you think its something the renderer should / or could do in future?
3) I'm going to go through alot of my content over the next few days to see which are effected, and will use evr-cp to check this, unless madVR has a way of indicating the issue I see using evr-cp's graphs, with some of its CTRL-J stats? Not a big issue I can use evr-cp if madVR hasn't a way of showing such problems up.

1) madVR swaps swapped timestamps back. But if the timestamps are not swapped, just "uneven", madVR does not do anything about it. However, if you have a 1:1 refresh rate map (24fps content with 24Hz refresh rate), uneven timestamps should automatically get smoothed out. That doesn't work if you have a higher refresh rate than frame rate, though.
2) Maybe.
3) I don't know what the issue is so I don't know if madVR shows it.

[Mr Alpha]

What is madVR doing that makes pagefile writes take off? Just got and SSD and was wondering if I'm making enough writes to the pagefile to make it worth moving it off the SSD. So I fired up Process Monitor, and made a long capture.

During normal desktop usage the pagefile writes were areound 5MB/h, but when watching something with MPC-HC and madVR the pagefile writes increase to over 3GB/h. This does not happen with EVR.

3GB per hour is quite a lot of writes. What is madVR doing?

[madshi]

The pagefile is managed by the OS. If madVR increases pagefile usage then probably your PC doesn't have enough RAM in it. madVR keeps 8 decoded frames in system RAM. I don't think EVR does that. Sorry, nothing I can do about it. The max I could do is to offer an option to decrease the queue size. I have that planned for a future build, but it may take some time until I get there.

[mark0077]

Originally Posted by madshi

1) madVR swaps swapped timestamps back. But if the timestamps are not swapped, just "uneven", madVR does not do anything about it. However, if you have a 1:1 refresh rate map (24fps content with 24Hz refresh rate), uneven timestamps should automatically get smoothed out. That doesn't work if you have a higher refresh rate than frame rate, though.
2) Maybe.
3) I don't know what the issue is so I don't know if madVR shows it.

Thanks madshi. I'll do more tests with these files tomorrow but if it wouldn't be too much work on your part I would really appreciate the timestamp smoothing ability. I can report back If this is ever implemented and if it resolves these frame drops with these problem files I think it could improve htpc playback for those with these seemingly imperfect / badly muxed files which could be a very good thing

Razoola. That nvidia cp option never has any effect on my pc. I'm not sure what it does but for me I need that registry tweak to get full range with samsung series 9 - gtx295 - win 7 64 bit