madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[foozoor]

Originally Posted by Damien147

@Madshi

Is it hard and a lot of work to add frame interpolation??

Probably! But is it still useful and could he make better than his competitors?

[ryrynz]

Doubt it's going to happen, you already have TV hardware solutions that offer good interpolation and SVP as well.
A mix of interpolation for frames that don't create any artifacts and blending the rest (Smoothmotion) might be interesting but a lot of work.

[70MM]

Originally Posted by Damien147

@Madshi

Is it hard and a lot of work to add frame interpolation??

I would love to see that

[huhn]

you are limited to 5/2 interpolation with our current 60 hz input screen. TVs don't have to do a 5/2 interpolation so they are so far ahead adding frame interpolation before that is just "limited" to say it friendly.

[Dclose]

Originally Posted by madshi

Doubling is always enabled, but quadrupling is not. So if you upscale more than 200%, the "<-- upscaling" algo might be used, if quadrupling isn't active.

I use madVR every day because it's the best renderer I know of even without doubling/upscaling. Having just updated it now from a 2016 version, it'd be disappointing if there's no option to turn off doubling/upscaling.

I'm not sure if doubling is forced on Lanczos/Spline/Jinc, etc. My GPU seems to be turning on 3D clocks more than it used to, but I updated GPU drivers and some settings at the same time as updating madVR, so I don't know if the GPU seemingly using more power is related to the updated madVR.

I'm posting about this because upscaling kicks my GPU up, uses more power, creates more heat, creates more noise. Plenty of video I watch I don't "need" in best possible quality, which is why my everyday madVR setting uses Spline, not NGU. Less power, less heat, less noise. But forced upscaling counters that. In one of my computer rooms that lacks airflow, that might be the difference between having to turn on the room's noisy air-conditioning or not turning it on.

And when turning on super-xbr or NGU, forced upscaling might mean having to turn off some Image Enhancements which might be preferred at the time. Though from what I can tell and remember, newer madVR versions have made great strides in lowering power usage compared to older versions.

As I said, even without doubling/upscaling, madVR still looks better than other renderers. But madVR uses more power than other renderers, though not much on lower settings, so it'd be a shame if madVR had its minimum power usage forced even higher which might cause some people to go back to other renderers unless wanting to use more power with forced doubling, etc.

I know you're always trying to simplify madVR, but I figured I'd post this to give a voice to power usage and heat and how more people than expected may be juggling settings to get the best power/quality ratio and not simply trying to get the best picture at any cost. Power is less of a concern with newer, more efficient video cards, but it's still a concern.

edit: of course a lot of the "upscaling" words above I meant "doubling."

[Dclose]

Originally Posted by Neo-XP

Remove Spline ? It is one of the best algorithm for upscaling... It is almost as sharp as Lanczos, but without the strong ringing artifacts.
Why is it not proposed anymore for this in new versions ? For those who can't afford Jinc, it is a valid choice.

I've posted before about being a Spline fan for everyday use for its quality/power ratio, as well as like you said, it's almost as sharp as Lanczos and it can make video not look as over-processed like Lanczos. In multiple ways, Spline seems to be a good all-around everyday choice.

I've never been much of a Jinc fan, and it uses more power too.

[huhn]

madVR is not always "doubling" a algorithm that can only do doubling is well doubling.
if you are using spline "nothing" really changed since 2016 it is working exactly like before and the GPU load should be the same.

[SweetLow]

Originally Posted by Paul Tronc

I expected to be able to enable smooth motion, to be honnest.

it's relatively expensive on large surfaces and this is your case (3000*2000).

Originally Posted by Paul Tronc

I think hardware acceleration is not correctly used.

Check debug OSD, probably with ShowRenderSteps option enabled.

[JarrettH]

I'd love to see smooth motion match the sharpness of the original. Thanks for the great feature.

[Paul Tronc]

Thank you for your help regarding my 3000x2000 device, finally the best optimized solution is the native windows 10 player. I can read 1080p and even 4K HEVC content with no visible frame drop, it is smooth enough for a 13.5" display. Even if I would have appreciated a bit more of sharpness, that'll be far enough for my needs. By the way, I also tried using the basic shaders of MPC-HC with no luck.

Originally Posted by XMonarchY

Could someone recommend me settings for playing 4K HEVC 10bit content on my 1080p TV for smooth playback? Obviously the settings I use to play 1080p content are too heavy to play 4K content smoothly.

Bumping this one - I don't even know where to start. I use best image quality settings for 1080p content playback, but have no idea which ones to try for 4K content. I assume any type of Chroma, Luma, Image, and any other type of upscaling should be set to bilinear or somehow turned off? I assume that since the image is already upscaled and just needs to be downscaled from 4K to 1080p?

[clsid]

Chroma is normally first upscaled to match luma resolution. Then both are downscaled.

The chroma scaling can be skipped. With "trade quality for performance" setting "scale chroma separately if it saves performance".

Then you only need to adjust image downscaling. Image upscaling isn't used in your case.

Originally Posted by clsid

Chroma is normally first upscaled to match luma resolution. Then both are downscaled.

The chroma scaling can be skipped. With "trade quality for performance" setting "scale chroma separately if it saves performance".

Then you only need to adjust image downscaling. Image upscaling isn't used in your case.

I use SSIM 2D @ 100% strength with Scale in Linear Light + AR Filter (Relaxed). I guess SSIM is out of the question for such content.

Thank you for helping me out!

EDIT: Even Bilinear image downscaling results in massive dropped frames... Could someone with similar specs share the settings they use to play 4K content on their 1080p displays???
EDIT 2: DXVA2 downscaling works!

[huhn]

disable "always supersampling" and it will work.

[rahzel]

I'm a long time user of madVR but I haven't kept up with these newer advanced scaling algorithms as my HTPC isn't the best, and I haven't updated madVR in a while. I have been using jinc+AR for image upscaling/chroma for years and previously used Catmull+LL+AR for downscaling. I finally updated madVR because I reinstalled Windows on my HTPC and noticed Catmull was gone, so I decided to look into all the new scaling options to see what's best and test what the best scalers my slower rig can handle (Radeon 7750 1GB GDDR5 & Celeron G1620).

I mostly view 720p/1080p film sources that are fairly clean on my 1080p plasma.

I tried my best to read through the thread to get answers and settled on these settings:
Chroma - NGU AA Low (edit: switched to super-xbr 100, NGU AA Low was a bit too much for my GPU)
Image upscaling - NGU AA Low
Image Downscaling - Bicubic 150 + AR (edit: switched back to bicubic50/catmull)
(under 'trade quality for performance') don't use linear light for dithering is unchecked
Smooth motion enabled when needed
Render times for the videos I tested never exceeded 28 or 29ms.

Few questions:
1) Is there anything you guys would suggest changing?
2) Previously it was recommended to scale using linear light when downscaling with Catmull. Is it still recommended to check this box with Cubic 150?
3) Should I keep 'don't use linear light for dithering' checked if that means I can afford to use higher settings for image/chroma scaling?

[huhn]

1. i personally think bicubic 150 is terrible. it can create very ugly motion artifacts. cat rom mull is still in madVR it's bicubic 50 they are the same.
2. depends on the scaler. i still think it is good on bicubic 50.
3. i can't notice a performance difference.

[rahzel]

Originally Posted by huhn

1. i personally think bicubic 150 is terrible. it can create very ugly motion artifacts. cat rom mull is still in madVR it's bicubic 50 they are the same.
2. depends on the scaler. i still think it is good on bicubic 50.
3. i can't notice a performance difference.

Ah, didn't see catmull there, thanks. I guess I'll just go back to it.

Note that I changed the chroma scaler to super xbr 100... NGU low was a bit too much for my GPU to handle.

[Siso]

Isn't super xbr way more sharper than jinc for chroma? Why do you guys prefer it over jinc?

[rahzel]

Originally Posted by Siso

Isn't super xbr way more sharper than jinc for chroma? Why do you guys prefer it over jinc?

Admittedly, I haven't actually compared for myself yet. I find differences in chroma harder to spot personally, so I haven't took the time to look. I simply took one poster's advice earlier in this thread, and since my GPU seems to handle it OK for my viewing content, that's what I have it set to right now.

It's probably a personal preference thing, and probably depends on the type of content you're watching too.

FWIW, I used Jinc+AR before and had no complaints. I read a lot of posts where people liked NGU for chroma, but it's a little too much for my weaker GPU. And I can't seem to find any posts comparing Jinc and super xbr for chroma.

[no1d]

I think, when I have "don't rerender frames when fade in/out is detected" option disabled, subtitles are flashing sometimes. Are there any workarounds for it?