DXVA benchmarks - Avivo vs PureVideo vs Clear Video

[tetsuo55]

They seem to have changed a lot in the driver this time, results might be different when compared to older drivers.
Retesting would be welcome

[mesostinky]

I've found this to be a very interesting thread. I guess most people aren't complaining because they have fast enough cpu's and don't even worry about dxva anymore? Anyway I just ordered a low powered amd system, a dell zino w/P340/onboard vid, and after reading here about lacking DXVA implementations and seeing DXVA benchmarks like this I wonder if I'd made a mistake? I originally was going to get a atom/ion system but just ordered a Zino instead. So sorry for taking the thread slightly off course but does anyone have an opinion if AMD should be avoided for low end HTPC systems due to issues talked about in this thread? Thanks

[NikosD]

Well, it seems that ATI/AMD finally did it.

In Catalyst 10.12 they fixed the H.264 DXVA SD bug.

You can play your favorite anime in SD with full DXVA support in both DS and MFT decoders.

Also, the WMV HD (WMV3) and VC-1 support in Win 7 introduced in Catalyst 10.10, simply meant they added a new Media Foundation decoder with an obvious name: AMD Playback Decoder MFT capable for full DXVA decoding of WMV3 and WVC1 files.

This new MFT decoder is used automatically by WMP12 only and accelerates successfully only progressive VC-1 (not interlaced - many artifacts)

The performance of that MFT decoder is the same as of AMD Fast (DnD) MFT decoder, but without crashing DXVAchecker.

Maybe the most interesting thing I found out in Catalyst 10.12 (perhaps it was there in earlier versions too) is the HUGE performance increase (x4) in Microsoft H264 Video Decoder MFT.

The difficult clip of birds (clip 3) -1080p60 fps gave me a max of 460fps!, an average of 224 fps and a min of 64.

Check out the first page to realize that people in ATI have taken their job of improving DXVA performance seriously in the latest Catalysts.

[tetsuo55]

wow that is good news, too bad you do not have a 6xxx card to add divx results with

[hwti]

Originally Posted by NikosD

The difficult clip of birds (clip 3) -1080p60 fps gave me a max of 460fps!, an average of 224 fps and a min of 64.

It seems very strange :
- benchmark results are very bad with DS (Microsoft DTV-DVD decoder) : Avg 24 / Min 23 / Max 30
- both DS and MFT do not manage to play correctly (55fps average)

Perhaps the decoder skips frames in benchmark mode, making the result wrong.

[NikosD]

Originally Posted by hwti

It seems very strange :
- benchmark results are very bad with DS (Microsoft DTV-DVD decoder) : Avg 24 / Min 23 / Max 30
- both DS and MFT do not manage to play correctly (55fps average)

Perhaps the decoder skips frames in benchmark mode, making the result wrong.

Try WMP12 and the built-in FPS counter of WMP12.
Give me your results.

[hwti]

Originally Posted by NikosD

Try WMP12 and the built-in FPS counter of WMP12.
Give me your results.

Most of the video is played at 43fps (it starts at 40-50fps, there is a big drop to <20fps after 3s, then it goes up and stabilises).

[NikosD]

Card?
OS?
Catalyst version?

[hwti]

HD5870
Win7 64bit
Catalyst 10.12 (8.801-101125a-109686E)

[NikosD]

Try a clean system.

I can't think of anything else

[hwti]

I checked the number of DXVA2_DecodeDeviceBeginFrame events in DXVAChecker Trace Log.
The video has 2487 frames.

WMP12 : 2322 events
So it skips a few frames, which is not surprising since it can't play at full speed.

MF benchmark : 2146 events (fps results : avg 312 min 61 max 973)
341 frames have been skipped.
The maximum fps is random, between 350 and 1000 fps, it could perhaps come from skipped frames being counted as decoded.

DS benchmark : 2487 events
So all frames are decoded


The 24fps average framerate with DS benchmark comes from the fact it wants to play at 25fps ("(@25fps)" text in blue).
It seems to come from Haali Media Splitter.
In MPC-HC, looking in the "Pin Info" tab of the decoder (ffdshow with ffmpeg-mt):
- with Haali Media Splitter, the framerate is not present on input, and is 25fps on output (but it still plays at the correct framerate)
- with internal MP4 source, the framerate is 59.94fps on both pins

So I tried the DS benchmark with the standalone "MPC - MP4 Splitter".
It works, but the fps and time stay at 0 during the benchmark (even if I enable the preview, which shows the video is correctly decoded).
But in "play" mode, the fps and time are displayed !

[NikosD]

Interesting research.

I suggest to forward your results to DXVA Checker developer. I know he was in the process of making a new version. Your results of MFT benchmarking mode would be useful.

I have a beta of DXVA checker 2.4.0.0 and the DS benchmark mode gives 52/56/60 and the MFT benchmark mode gives similar results with 2.3.0.0

In my last email to him, I was complaining about the "strange" results of built-in WMP12 fps counter he is using as reference.

I suggested to him to use FRAPS.

I suggest to you also to use FRAPS while playing the clip in WMP12 and come back with your results.

[hwti]

In WMP12 FRAPS gives 57-60fps, so some decoded frames are displayed several times, or WMP12 counter is wrong.

[NikosD]

New MFT DXVA codec for UVD3 in Catalyst 11.6

It's called AMD Hardware MFT Playback decoder and accelerates in hardware MPEG-4 ASP:

MP4S, M4S2, MP4V, DIVX, DX50, XVID

[TheElix]

Wow! Will it be possible to use it in MPC-HC for those formats?

[nevcairiel]

Originally Posted by TheElix

Wow! Will it be possible to use it in MPC-HC for those formats?

No, MPC-HC does not support MFTs, and most likely never will. Only real player that can use them is WMP.

BTW, why are there two of this thread?

[NikosD]

This is the first one created for DXVA in general.

The other is for DXVA H.264 only vs CPU.