madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[mark0077]

Thanks for the new versions. Quick q for anyone I guess. Is it possible to open in FSE without seeing the "exclusive" message. I don't delay for 3 seconds to display it, and I have mpc set to open files in fullscreen immediately which it does. I thought this wasn't supposed to show the madVR "exclusive" message?

[fallengt]

If I use 3dlut file, does it helps correcting gamut at 25/50/75%Saturation points or just at 100% saturation

[Ver Greeneyes]

Originally Posted by madshi

I think it's probably a driver problem. I think that either the driver is telling madVR that the original mode was 59Hz.

If this is the case, you could try asking the DWM instead (and do the rounding yourself): DwmGetCompositionTimingInfo. I believe the DWM is always enabled in Windows 8. I've also seen a similar problem (rounding 59.94Hz down to 59Hz) in Windows 7 though. There you can check if the DWM is enabled (full Aero) by using DwmIsCompositionEnabled.

[aufkrawall]

Small glitch: When using the uninstall.bat, cmd remains blank (doesn't show any text).

[fairchild]

I'm experiencing some weird artifacts (it is some weird horizontal lines which appear) when using image scaling other than Bilinear on a 720x480 mpg2 encoded interlaced test clip which I usually to test with. Everything from mitchell to spline exhibit it clearly, where as Jinc doesn't show the artifacts too much but is still present. When I get home later from work I'll try to throw in some actual DVD's and see if the issue is still occurring. Not sure if this has something to do with the changes you made to the shaders for speed up purposes or something else. This is with the latest 0.85.6 build and latest Lav Filters (software decoding) and MadVR deinterlacing enabled.

Even when I disable MadVR's deinterlacer the artifacts show up so that leads me to believe it's something with the image scaler algorithm used. (I also disabled MadVR's deinterlacing and enabled Yadif through Lav Video and the artifacts are still present.) Again, when the video is played back at it's original resolution of 720x480 no artifacts regardless of deinterlacing being on or off and regardless of deinterlacer used, but once I upscale and go FSE to my 1920x1080p (1680x1080 is the actual upscale resolution since it's a 4x3 clip), the artifacts are present. FSE doesn't have any impact on it either.

So for now I'll stick with bilinear for chroma and image upscaling till we can figure this out.

[pankov]

madshi, guys,
a friend of mine who is using a plasma TV for watching movies and Live/Recorded TV asked me a question that I couldn't answer.
He's using MPC-HC + madVR and asked me if it's possible to make the black bars around a 4:3 frame on a 16:9 FullHD display a shade of gray not pure black. There is such a setting in the options of the TV but this only works when the TV sees the actual 4:3 signal, not the 1920x1080 signal from the HTPC. He thinks and I kind of agree that this will make the image retention on the plasma a bit less pronounced when he switches back to 16:9 or 2.35:1 afterwards. So I thought this is something that belongs to the renderer, right? I looked around but sadly none of them has such an option.
madshi, would you consider adding something like this in madVR? I thought it would be possible to do this with a post-scaling custom pixel shader but then I remembered a discussion with cyberbeing ... or was it leeperry ... where it was explained that the custom shaders don't have access to the black bars and these are added by madVR at the last possible step before the presentation on screen. ... So that's one of the reasons that I think this belongs to madVR's options ... the other one is the lack of custom shaders support in some players.

[madshi]

Originally Posted by mark0077

Thanks for the new versions. Quick q for anyone I guess. Is it possible to open in FSE without seeing the "exclusive" message. I don't delay for 3 seconds to display it, and I have mpc set to open files in fullscreen immediately which it does. I thought this wasn't supposed to show the madVR "exclusive" message?

I suppose for some reason playback is started in windowed mode and only a couple milliseconds later switches to fullscreen. Don't know why, might be the media player doing funny things.

Originally Posted by fallengt

If I use 3dlut file, does it helps correcting gamut at 25/50/75%Saturation points or just at 100% saturation

If you don't get an answer here, try the yCMS doom9 thread.

Originally Posted by Ver Greeneyes

If this is the case, you could try asking the DWM instead (and do the rounding yourself): DwmGetCompositionTimingInfo. I believe the DWM is always enabled in Windows 8. I've also seen a similar problem (rounding 59.94Hz down to 59Hz) in Windows 7 though. There you can check if the DWM is enabled (full Aero) by using DwmIsCompositionEnabled.

It's not the "real" refresh rate that counts, but the short number Windows uses to identify different modes. That's got nothing to do with Aero/DWM.

Originally Posted by aufkrawall

Small glitch: When using the uninstall.bat, cmd remains blank (doesn't show any text).

You're not supposed to uninstall madVR...

Originally Posted by fairchild

I'm experiencing some weird artifacts (it is some weird horizontal lines which appear) when using image scaling other than Bilinear on a 720x480 mpg2 encoded interlaced test clip which I usually to test with. Everything from mitchell to spline exhibit it clearly, where as Jinc doesn't show the artifacts too much but is still present. When I get home later from work I'll try to throw in some actual DVD's and see if the issue is still occurring. Not sure if this has something to do with the changes you made to the shaders for speed up purposes or something else. This is with the latest 0.85.6 build and latest Lav Filters (software decoding) and MadVR deinterlacing enabled.

Even when I disable MadVR's deinterlacer the artifacts show up so that leads me to believe it's something with the image scaler algorithm used. (I also disabled MadVR's deinterlacing and enabled Yadif through Lav Video and the artifacts are still present.) Again, when the video is played back at it's original resolution of 720x480 no artifacts regardless of deinterlacing being on or off and regardless of deinterlacer used, but once I upscale and go FSE to my 1920x1080p (1680x1080 is the actual upscale resolution since it's a 4x3 clip), the artifacts are present. FSE doesn't have any impact on it either.

So for now I'll stick with bilinear for chroma and image upscaling till we can figure this out.

Try changing the scaling factor slightly. Does that fix the issue? The new shaders are for exact 2.000x and 3.000x scaling factors. Do you get those artifacts only with those scaling factors? Or also with others?

Originally Posted by pankov

a friend of mine who is using a plasma TV for watching movies and Live/Recorded TV asked me a question that I couldn't answer.
He's using MPC-HC + madVR and asked me if it's possible to make the black bars around a 4:3 frame on a 16:9 FullHD display a shade of gray not pure black.

Most renderers support this (including madVR), but the media player has to activate it. See here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd377318%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

[Niyawa]

Originally Posted by madshi

Which GPU and OS are you using? I'll try to reproduce that, but I have some doubts whether I'll be able to. FWIW, it might have to do with which video decoder you're using. Is it the same in MPC-HC and PotPlayer?

I'm using Windows 8 x64, my GPU is a Intel Graphics HD 4500. I'm using the same setup as my guide, so LAV Video decoder.

[pankov]

Since I'm a bit late to the testing and feedback I'll only respond to the questions about the options that are still present in madVR

Originally Posted by madshi

(2) "use a separate device for presentation". This was and still is enabled by default. It used to be a good method to reduce glitches with older NVidia drivers. I'm wondering if this option is still beneficial today with both NVidia and AMD GPUs. I've been told this option can make problems for NVidia Optimus, so I'm wondering whether I should disable it by default.

I find this option useful and for my setup it's better to have it enabled. When I disable it I get actual dropped frames when downscaling (1080i to 671x382 for example) in windowed mode. From the OSD I see that the backbuffer queue is 0-3/3 and the render queue is 2-5/8 when the option is OFF and 2-3/3 and 5-6/8 when the option is ON while the GPU usage (monitored with GPU-Z) is virtually the same 81-84%. So I think from GPU load point of view there is no difference but using the same device for presentation somehow interferes with the rendering ... at least on my setup (NVIDIA).

Originally Posted by madshi

(3) "use a separate device for DXVA processing". This is a rather new option, introduced recently. I've got one report that it helped. So I wonder if I should enable it by default. But I guess this might also make problems with NVidia Optimus (because it's similar to (2), see above). Right now I'm wondering whether maybe I should combine options (2) and (3) into one, so that I'm either using only 1 device for everything, or 3 devices, one for rendering, one for presentation and one for DXVA processing. Thoughts?

Generally I don't use DXVA so I'm not used to it and I'll have to make additional test and report later.

Originally Posted by madshi

(4) "enable windowed overlay". When I originally implemented overlay, it wasn't ready for prime time yet, so I disabled this by default. But since its introduction, I have applied lots of fixes, so now it seems to work very well (only for NVidia and Intel, unfortunately). It works so well IMHO that I'm reevaluating whether I should enable this by default (not for AMD, obviously). Any thoughts on this?

Well, I do see a few percents improvement in the GPU usage with it enabled (down to 76-79% from 81-84% for the sample that I used in the first test) and it solves the problem that I'm reporting for the first option (empty backbuffer queue) ... and it's pretty stable but there are couple of drawbacks that I'm not so happy about. The first one is the transition between windowed and fullscreen exclusive mode which now takes a bit longer with more visual "quirks" (blinking) than the non overlay mode and the second one is of course the fact that we can no longer take screen shots. I think these two are enough to not enable this mode by default even for NVidia/Intel.

I hope my report is not too late and will be sort of usefull

[pankov]

Originally Posted by madshi

Most renderers support this (including madVR), but the media player has to activate it. See here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd377318%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

I had absolutely no idea. I'll have to look into this.
Does anybody know if there is an option about this somewhere in MPC-HC?


madshi,
I'm happy that you've found a way to improve the Jinc 3 AR chroma upscaling performance but sadly I still can't use it with all content. For example for 24/25/30 FPS it's working without dropped frames but for 50/60i/p content my GPU is not fast enough (I'm talking about upscaling 720p to 1080p)

So I'll be glad when/if you add different profiles for different resolutions (SD/HD 720/HD 1080/4K) you could also support the different framerates as a parameter we the user can select different algorithms for <=30 and >30 for example.

[AndreaMG]

Originally Posted by pankov

Does anybody know if there is an option about this somewhere in MPC-HC?

You can give a try to SVP "black bars lighting" function

[AndreaMG]

Originally Posted by pankov

So I'll be glad when/if you add different profiles for different resolutions (SD/HD 720/HD 1080/4K) you could also support the different framerates as a parameter we the user can select different algorithms for <=30 and >30 for example.

Already asked in the past: he said some kind of scaling function will be implemented in future versions, please be patient

[petran79]

with the newer madshi versions, some video files and subtitles look pixellated when I switch to full screen

eg this one.screenshot was taken exactly as it appears on full-screen. On windowed mode image is smooth.
happens in both Potplayer and MPC . when I use the internal subtitle engine and not VSfilter, they appear smooth

http://www.abload.de/img/test5ckz7.jpg

Though it also might have to do with the fact that directx blitter is not supported on my system in certain emulators.

[e-t172]

Originally Posted by fallengt

If I use 3dlut file, does it helps correcting gamut at 25/50/75%Saturation points or just at 100% saturation

Yes, 3DLUTs are able to correct intermediate saturation points. They are able to correct any color-related issues, in fact. You should, however, verify that the software you're using to generate the 3DLUT supports your feature.

[fairchild]

Try changing the scaling factor slightly. Does that fix the issue? The new shaders are for exact 2.000x and 3.000x scaling factors. Do you get those artifacts only with those scaling factors? Or also with others?

How do I change the scaling factor? I'm taking a 720x480 4x3 video and upscaling it to 1920x1080 (which gets scaled to 1680x1080)

[cyberbeing]

With my GT440 1GB DDR5
_

use a separate device for presentation

Very significant performance improvement, especially when deinterlacing to 60fps.
_

use a separate device for DXVA processing

Significant performance drop when deinterlacing. Constant delayed frames, with queues never completely filling. (only with 0.85.6.0)

Edit: Didn't notice 0.85.6.1, re-testing now.
Edit2: None of the above queue issues in 0.85.6.1, and this setting now improves avg rendering times performance by 13%
_

speed up DXVA deinterlacing at the cost of a little chroma blur

Significantly reduces overall performance, despite it's name. Why was this enabled by default?
(25% higher rendering times, 6% lower deinterlacing times, and 5% higher GPU load. )

Edit3: Ouch, using 0.85.6.1 with both the "use a separate device for DXVA processing" & "speed up DXVA deinterlacing at the cost of a little chroma blur" setting enabled, resulted in 75% higher avg rendering times and constant dropped delayed frames when deinterlacing!
_

Summary of best performance settings for this GPU when deinterlacing 1920x1080i to 60fps and downscaling:

use a separate device for presentation: Enabled
use a separate device for DXVA processing: Enabled
speed up DXVA deinterlacing at the cost of a little chroma blur: Disabled

[pie1394]

Originally Posted by fairchild

How do I change the scaling factor? I'm taking a 720x480 4x3 video and upscaling it to 1920x1080 (which gets scaled to 1680x1080)

With MPC- Classic or HC or BE, you can use NumPad keys to adjust video's target window size.

In window mode, there are also hot keys for pre-defined ratios for player + video's window size:

Alt-1 ... 50%
Alt-2 ... 100%
Alt-3 ... 200%
Alt-4 ... Auto

[fairchild]

Thanks pie1394.

So madshi, yes changing the scaling factor causes the artifacts to go away. I was even able to reproduce with a paused image. Increasing or decreasing the width, instantly removes the artifacts, where as making the video shrink or expand vertically (the height) seems to retain the artifacts.

I also popped in a DVD which is also 720x480 4x3 aspect ratio and the same artifacts can be seen.

So going from the default target rectangle of: 240, 0, 1680, 1080 (artifacts)

going to a target rectangle of: 254, 0, 1665, 1080 (no artifacts)

going to a target rectangle of: 225, 0, 1693, 1080 (no artifacts)

[madshi]

Originally Posted by pankov

Since I'm a bit late to the testing and feedback I'll only respond to the questions about the options that are still present in madVR

[...]

I hope my report is not too late and will be sort of usefull

Thanks.

Originally Posted by fairchild

How do I change the scaling factor? I'm taking a 720x480 4x3 video and upscaling it to 1920x1080 (which gets scaled to 1680x1080)

In MPC-HC you can use the "NumPad 9" key to slightly zoom into the image. Doing that modifies the scaling factor. Anyway, I think I found the problem. The next build should fix it.

Originally Posted by petran79

with the newer madshi versions, some video files and subtitles look pixellated when I switch to full screen

I think this should be fixed in the next build.

Originally Posted by cyberbeing

Very significant performance improvement, especially when deinterlacing to 60fps.

Ok. I've still disabled it by default now, though, cause it results in problems with NVidia Optimus (and similar AMD) setups.

Originally Posted by cyberbeing

Significant performance drop when deinterlacing. Constant delayed frames, with queues never completely filling. (only with 0.85.6.0)

Edit: Didn't notice 0.85.6.1, re-testing now.
Edit2: None of the above queue issues in 0.85.6.1, and this setting now improves avg rendering times performance by 13%

Ehm, what? I'm confused. With v0.85.6.0 you couldn't even activate this option. That's why v0.85.6.1 was necessary in the first place. Did you really test with v0.85.6.0? Or maybe with v0.85.5? In any case, how this option works didn't change between v0.85.5 and v0.85.6.1 at all. So I wonder why your test results turned upside down!

Originally Posted by cyberbeing

Significantly reduces overall performance, despite it's name. Why was this enabled by default?
(25% higher rendering times, 6% lower deinterlacing times, and 5% higher GPU load. )

Edit3: Ouch, using 0.85.6.1 with both the "use a separate device for DXVA processing" & "speed up DXVA deinterlacing at the cost of a little chroma blur" setting enabled, resulted in 75% higher avg rendering times and constant dropped delayed frames when deinterlacing!

Ok, I'll disable that option in the next build again. It's a "complex" option. It practically stops madVR from using copyback and instead tries to convert the DXVA output to a format compatible with madVR on the GPU. This *does* consume more GPU power, however it saves CPU power. Furthermore the PCIe bus can be a bottleneck. So it could result in faster rendering, too, depending on where the exact bottleneck is in your system (GPU, CPU, PCIe transfer speed). I've now renamed the option to make it clearer what it does, namely disable copyback.

[madshi]

Originally Posted by fairchild

Thanks pie1394.

So madshi, yes changing the scaling factor causes the artifacts to go away. I was even able to reproduce with a paused image. Increasing or decreasing the width, instantly removes the artifacts, where as making the video shrink or expand vertically (the height) seems to retain the artifacts.

I also popped in a DVD which is also 720x480 4x3 aspect ratio and the same artifacts can be seen.

So going from the default target rectangle of: 240, 0, 1680, 1080 (artifacts)

going to a target rectangle of: 254, 0, 1665, 1080 (no artifacts)

going to a target rectangle of: 225, 0, 1693, 1080 (no artifacts)

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. If you do the math, the target rectangle asks madVR to render the video to "left" coordinate 240 and "right" coordinate 1680. So the width of the scaled image is 1680 - 240 = 1440 pixels. The source video is 720 pixels wide. So the scaling factor in X direction is 1440 / 720 = exactly 2x. There's a bug in the current madVR build which incorrectly activates the 2x shader not only for X resampling, but also for Y resampling in this situation. But Y resampling is not a factor of 2x, that's where the artifacts are coming from. This will be fixed in the next build.