DXVA compatibility for software players thread

[cubanresourceful]

@TEB
Check all filters that decode h264 and block them in the mpc external filters preferences, block vobsub as well.
Use this video (http://rapidshare.com/files/113536801/Suzumiya_Haruhi_no_Yuuutsu_-_C4_-_Special_Ending_-__Hitsuji__e569a2b7_.mkv.html) that is 100% DXVA compliant and has subtitles as well.
Use EVR CP if you have Vista or VMR9 if you have XP and enable h264 dxva in the internal filters. Use a recent MPC HC version like rev718 from here (http://www.xvidvideo.ru/content/category/1/1/2/). Also use Haali splitter.
Check if your filters are like this (http://pwp.netcabo.pt/kado/mpc_sh_dxva.jpg) (that is MPC HC rev718 using DXVA to decode the video in a 9800GTX).

If its still not working then update your GPU drivers.

It seems as if that link does not work before. By not work, it means in a strange sense that it will not download. I have tried downloading a different file on rapidshare to test, and it downloads fine, but this video will not. Also, using a downloader like US Downloader reports the link as invalid, so maybe its rapidshares fault? Do you mind testing link to make sure its valid?

On another note, in MeGUI, there is an option to change the profile from 4.1 to 5.1, is there any reason to do this?

[Kado]

The sample provided still downloads fine. MPC HC checks the resolution and reference frames, the profile is irrelevant.

[cubanresourceful]

The sample provided still downloads fine. MPC HC checks the resolution and reference frames, the profile is irrelevant.

It was actually just my internet acting up. Thank you, and what a high quality video too, most of the Anime videos out there look like crap. :/ Maybe I should start ripping from DVDs. Again, thanks for the information! :)

[sneaker_ger]

I did a test on my pc (Windows XP + AGP Card) and it showed the following:

http://www.abload.de/img/dxvaceh.png

Does that mean, that it should theoretically support hardware decoding of H264 (and WMV and MPEG2), though it's not (yet?) supported by MPC-HC? Or does it have to support "VLD" to do that?

[Kado]

Sorry but no HW accelerated H264 for you with MPC HC internal decoder.
Your card only supports motion compensation for h264, you can use cyberlinks decoder with VMR9 to offload some of the decoding.
MPC HC internal decoder only supports Bitstream decoding i.e. VLD.
http://pwp.netcabo.pt/kado/9800gtx_dxva.png

[sneaker_ger]

Thx for the answer.
I knew that it wasn't supported by MPC-HC and did this test "for fun" and was surprised that H264 was listed.
Sadly none Power DVD decoders really worked for me (either slow, crashes or weird output) - but I guess it's probably not worth trying to get it to run when I'm already using CoreAVC...

[dZeus]

I did a test on my pc (Windows XP + AGP Card) and it showed the following:

http://www.abload.de/img/dxvaceh.png

Does that mean, that it should theoretically support hardware decoding of H264 (and WMV and MPEG2), though it's not (yet?) supported by MPC-HC? Or does it have to support "VLD" to do that?

what's interesting is that these older ATI cards appearantly expose both WMV8/9_MoComp as well as WMV8/9_PostProc. On my HD3650 AGP neither is exposed, but I can expose WMV8/9_PostProc through changing a registry setting for the driver with DXVA checker.

However, as in the screenshot for the X1950 Pro, it's only exposed for videos up to 1280x720 on my HD3650 too, and it is buggy on my system (probably the reason why it's not exposed by default):
- only works for some videos in VMR9
- doesn't work for EVR (or MS WMV DMO decoder doesn't support DXVA2?), and some videos cause player to crash to desktop (coral reef adventure works, step into liquid video crashes to dekstop).

I'm very curious if it's possible to expose the WMV8/9_MoComp modes for ATI HD3xxx series! As it is exposed up to 1920x1080 and my cpu is too slow for fluent playback of some higher bitrate WMV9 content at 1080p

[MixMasters]

Now how to solve this thing..??

http://i44.tinypic.com/ekj4a9.jpg
http://i41.tinypic.com/23puft.png

http://i44.tinypic.com/2ywb8eb.png

i tried everything but nothing worked please help me

[tetsuo55]

I could be wrong, but i think your card only does assisted mpeg2 decoding, and it looks like you don't have the required drivers for that.

please follow the links in my signature, and follow all the steps.
Unless you require any special driver version it should expose all DXVA options.

[clsid]

If his driver/card is unable to use DXVA, then MPC should not use DXVA. His screenshot shows that it tried to use DXVA, see the media type.

[tetsuo55]

MPC-HC might be misinterprenting the dxva bits the driver is exposing.

DXVA checker should be naming codecs exactly, not showing the random number ID, this points to a misconfiguration.

[ShadowVlican]

geforce 6100 doesn't support DXVA for h264 decoding

[insect111]

ATI Radeon HD 4770
ModeMPEG2_IDCT: DXVA2, NV12, 720x480 / 1280x720 / 1920x1080
ModeMPEG2_A: DXVA1, NV12, 720x480 / 1280x720 / 1920x1080
ModeMPEG2_C: DXVA1, NV12, 720x480 / 1280x720 / 1920x1080
ModeH264_VLD_NoFGT: DXVA2, NV12, 720x480 / 1280x720 / 1920x1080
ModeVC1_VLD: DXVA1/2, NV12, 720x480 / 1280x720 / 1920x1080
CA15D19A-2B48-43D6-979E-7A6E9C802FF8: DXVA2, NV12, -
5B23D46D-FA5F-4FDC-B78A-7EB2787942EC: DXVA2, NV12, 720x480 / 1280x720 / 1920x1080


i wonder what the last two entries mean.

[Lincoln Burrows]

Is the NVidia Geforce 8800 GTS 512 supporting DXVA?

My results:
http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/8726/imagemrn.png

2nd screen:
http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/5606/imagem2w.png

Using: Windows XP SP3, plus the latest drivers from the video card.

[tetsuo55]

yes it does according to that screenshot

[Lincoln Burrows]

Then how come MPC-HC keep saying that I am not using DXVA? Is there something I should do to start using?

Can you help me pointing some thread or explaining how we may enable this while playing HD videos?

[tetsuo55]

Use GPU-Z to find out which chip it uses.
And obviously you have to use the newest driver.

[littleD]

What renderer do you use? If VMR7/9, the DXVA sign should be visible. But if EVR then not because you have only dxva1 on xp, and evr fallbacks to its own version of vmr. Lest hope drivers support this. You cant probably use shaders neither?

Just to make sure klick on MPC HC window then go to filters>>MPcvideodecoder and check.

[Lincoln Burrows]

tetsuo/littleD, take a look at this post:
http://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=1347280&postcount=10642

I will give you one example: Matrix Revolutions, Blu-ray decrypted. I tried to open the M2TS from the movie (the MediaInfo report is attached on this post - it tells you what codec the file is using, that subtitles are available, etc.).

However, when the file is playing, MPC shows that:
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/2326/imagemqq.png

Which is wrong, because the subtitles are there (I discussed this issue in that other post from the MPC-HC's thread. And if you click on "MPC Video Decoder" from the "filters used" list, you will get that result:

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/8751/imagemba.png

See?

I am using VMR9-renderless and still not getting the message that DXVA is being used. And this is happening with ALL movies tested so far.

GPU-Z result:

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/1517/imagemqc.png

EDIT: I found a guide explaining how to enable DXVA:
http://nunnally.ahmygoddess.net/watching-h264-videos-using-dxva/

But something doesn't feel right. I am still getting no subtitles (issue reported on the MPC-HC thread) and the status bar is saying "Playing DXVA", with both FFDShow Video/Audio decoders set to block on External filters (following the guide's explanation, I had set only Video, but FFDshow Audio showed up later on the filter's used list). But the image doesn't seem fluid (it looks a little faster than normal, as if were using 26 fps) and this is what I am getting in the "filters used" screen:

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/3250/imagemfr.png

[tetsuo55]

Everything related to DXVA looks fine (subtitles is a different issue).

I suggest you completely start over by following the checklist in my signature.
And you should use the latest SVN version (also in my signature)

[Lincoln Burrows]

I see now that MPEG-4 videos from M2TS are not only playing fine, but showing subtitles. I tested two different movies: Godfather and LOST.

What's wrong with those VC-1 videos? Are they messed or something? Maybe the Matrix was not decrypted properly so it's not showing subtitles only on MPC (but it is on Total Media Theatre?). Ok, let's accept that, as if was a MPC minor issue with this title. Then why the video is not playing normal? What's up with the lags, do I have some drop frames?

EDIT: Whoaaaaaaa, subtitles are now being recognized in the last MPC build (1351) for MATRIX! You got that right! They were fading and appearing again, and now I know why (and that answers the video lag question, too):

I needed to enable the external filters showed bellow:

http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/1523/imagemqng.png

I had only H264 enabled and that was causing the lag and not displaying the subtitles properly. But that guide explained all I needed to do to use the DXVA feature.

[Lincoln Burrows]

I am experiencing some issues here:

H.264 videos (and other kinds from M2TS Blu-ray streams) are fine. But not the VC-1 type.

* I can only see "Playing DXVA" on the status bar if:

1) I disable VC-1 FFMpeg on "external filters" from MPC-HC. If VC-1 FFMPeg is enabled, it will not show that. And "VC-1 DXVA" needs to be enabled.

2) If I choose VMR-9 renderless. Other output methods don't show the DXVA status.

And the filters being used by MPC-HC while playing the VC-1 stream are:

WMVideo Decoder DMO (where does it come from?)
DScale Audio Decoder

The problem is that the video is playing totally out of sync and I am experiencing severe lag, making impossible to watch those videos.

I don't understand, if H264 videos are fine, why only the VC-1 kind are messed?

I tested with Batman Returns Blu-ray decrypted to my Hard-Drive.

One other thing: despite what that guide said at first, it's possible to use the FFDShow audio decoder filter while playing H264 videos. The tutorial said that if we used any filter(s) at all, DXVA won't work, but that isn't 100% true.

In this VC-1 case, I blocked all filters and no one were interrupting.

Notes: Tested on Windows XP SP3 and the last MPC-HC build - 1369.

[Snowknight26]

The tutorial said that if we used any filter(s) at all, DXVA won't work, but that isn't 100% true.
Any video filters....

[clsid]

WMVideo Decoder DMO (where does it come from?)
That is Microsoft's VC-1 decoder.

One other thing: despite what that guide said at first, it's possible to use the FFDShow audio decoder filter while playing H264 videos. The tutorial said that if we used any filter(s) at all, DXVA won't work, but that isn't 100% true.It means any video processing filters in between the video decoder and the renderer. Audio filters are irrelevant.

[Lincoln Burrows]

About the VC-1 issue, it's not out of sync at first time, but only if you jump to another point of the movie. And it's not fluid, but faster than normal all the time. Bottom line: using MPC-HC, the video seems to be running at fast speed, you can clearly see the difference, it's far from being considered normal.

Do you know if Total Media Theatre from Arcsoft uses DXVA? Is it wasting the same ammount of memory compared with MPC-HC in the DXVA scenario?

Is there some explanation for TMT (and probably PowerDVD Ultra, I haven't tested) being able to run VC-1 and all sorts of codecs without any issues at all? Even interlaced material (try CSI: LA) is recognized.

Are we even close of seeing that happening on MPC-HC? Because it seems odd that only proprietary software can do that (and a sad irony, they are always the ones I don't like to use it).

[clsid]

View -> Renderer Settings -> Presentation -> Enable Frame Time Correction

That might fix the speed problem with VC-1 video.

Keeping it enable while playing other video formats might lead to problems though. I wish Beliyaal would make this option automatic, so it would only get used when needed.

[Lincoln Burrows]

View -> Renderer Settings -> Presentation -> Enable Frame Time Correction

That might fix the speed problem with VC-1 video.Why is that option locked here? I can't select it even when the video is not playing. :confused:

[Mangix]

are you using EVR-CP?

[Lincoln Burrows]

No, as I said, VMR9-renderless.

http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/8123/imagemyxk.png
http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/2395/imagem2ry.png

As you can see (second image), the "Enable Frame Time Correction" can't be selected, same for RGB-10 bits.

P.S. Don't know if that will help in any way, but I took a picture from the "Statistics" option from that same menu:

http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/8844/imagemhv.png

[Mangix]

i believe those only work with EVR-CP

[Lincoln Burrows]

It worked with EVR-CP. No lags/issues with image speed. But I needed to enable VC-1 FFMpeg, which was disabled before.

And enabled or not, DXVA is not working with EVR-CP - only VMR9-renderless. It's not working for H.264 neither.


That means if I solve this VC-1 issue, it will disable DXVA for good, and not only for VC-1. Subtitles are also working fine with EVR.


Is that how it's supposed to work? And in the "playback filter list", I see that MPC Video Decoder is being used now, instead of WMVideo Decoder DMO.


One more config that we need to change everytime we want to play a different file... I guess it's time to create a button to do those things (unless restarting MPC-HC is required to apply the changes), each codec is requiring different settings to be enabled/disabled that on a daily basis, you will get tired of changing that everytime, and while interlaced videos like CSI: Las Vegas are not common, normal VC-1 is being constantly used.

Why can't MPC-HC detect the differences and apply all those measures on the fly?

[tetsuo55]

EVR-CP is the best renderer in MPC-HC.

However, on XP:
h264 DXVA is only available in VMR9 (its blocked on the driver level in EVR)
VC1 is available in both VMR9 and EVR-CP.

There is a problem with VC1 that requires an almost complete refactor of the ffmpeg vc1 decoder to fix, the workaround in MPC-HC is the "Enable frame time correction" feature.l

Solving this whole problem completely is pretty simple.
Do what ms and nvidia want you to do, ugrade to windows 7, and all these features will work.(exept interlaced VC1 which is not supported in ffmpeg)

[fastplayer]

However, on XP:
h264 DXVA is only available in VMR9
It works with VMR7 just fine, too.

[Lincoln Burrows]

Are you saying that if I use Windows 7, and enable both VC-1 DXVA and VC-1 FFMpeg, plus VMR9 renderless, I will not have any lag/fast speed issues?

Using EVR-CP, at least on XP, will disable DXVA for both H264 and VC-1. Can you please clarify what output methods will work with DXVA? For example: VMR 7 window, VMR 7 renderless, etc.

EVR/CP = not compatible with DXVA, at least on Windows XP. That's what I said.

Are you actually able to play VC-1 files using DXVA and with no lags (and no need to change the output for VMR-9/EVR if you need to play H.264)?

The lag/issue for VC-1 using VMR-9 renderless is a bug on Windows XP itself? I thought it was somehow related to the power of video card (it can't be my CPU because I am using Q9450/2 GB of RAM, so it should be fast enough).

I mean, the fact that we were forcing MPC-HC to display embedded subtitles from a large M2TS stream was forcing the video-card to work harder by this logic (don't know if makes any sense, I read that somewhere about VMR9-renderless).

[littleD]

Lincoln, you see in DXVA checker window, that you have support vc-1 dxva2 but h264 only dxva1 for xp.
On ati card h264 is the same (xp/h264/dxva1 only), but acceleration with EVR works too. Its just evr/drivers matter, not decoder.
So everyone blame atis's drivers, but you are second one with nvidia i know, that have problem XP/h264/dxva1/EVR decoding. I dont know if it should work actually. Maybe its locked by nvidia drivers for good.


You can enable evr, so you have net framework 3 installed. Now make sure you have DXVA2.dll in system32 folder.

You cant use MPC HC vc-1 decoder as your card cant do bitstream decoding. I dont think WMP codec can decode VC-1, only WMV. Use e.g. cyberlink decoder to test dxva2.

[Astrophizz]

EVR-CP is the best renderer in MPC-HC.

Well, this is subjective. On my system, HR is better because I can get bicubic scaling with good performance. Even without scaling, HR is generally better and the performance of the bicubic scaler in EVR-CP is really bad for me. The funny thing about this is that it means that I get better performance when watching HD videos in full-screen than SD videos. I've never submitted a bug for it or checked, because HR has worked just great and I'm not sure what benefit I'd see with EVR-CP over HR even if my issues did get fixed. What does EVR-CP offer over HR? My system is pretty unique so I'm not sure how beneficial to the project it would be to spend time fixing the issue(s).

[avivahl]

On windows 7, using EVR-CP and the latest nvidia drivers (geforce 8800GT):
H.264 DXVA works (using either the internal DXVA decoder or the Microsoft one);
MPEG-2 DXVA works (using the Microsoft decoder);
VC1 DXVA- I didn't test yet.

[Pr3d]

Section 2: Software players supporing DXVA

Gomplayer and Kmplayer didnt support DXVA anymore?

[Lincoln Burrows]

VC1 DXVA- I didn't test yet.Please tell us when you do.

I already have Win7 here but at this time I can't install it.

[tetsuo55]

It works with VMR7 just fine, too.Sorry, i was not completely clear, other than VMR9-Renderless and EVR-CP no other renderers are supported anymore (we just decided to not remove them)
Besides these 2, the other renderers also have minor issues with scaling and timing. Although its true that currently both renderers have a slightly higher cpu usage than the older ones, this is because they have a lot of debug code right now, this is slowly being removed, eventually the speed will be at least as fast as regular vmr7 and maybe even as fast as overlay.Are you saying that if I use Windows 7, and enable both VC-1 DXVA and VC-1 FFMpeg, plus VMR9 renderless, I will not have any lag/fast speed issues? On windows7 you simply use EVR-CP and everything works (after manually enabling frame time correction)Are you actually able to play VC-1 files using DXVA and with no lags (and no need to change the output for VMR-9/EVR if you need to play H.264)?Yes, on windows 7 with evr-cpWell, this is subjective. On my system, HR is better because I can get bicubic scaling with good performance. Even without scaling, HR is generally better and the performance of the bicubic scaler in EVR-CP is really bad for me. The funny thing about this is that it means that I get better performance when watching HD videos in full-screen than SD videos. I've never submitted a bug for it or checked, because HR has worked just great and I'm not sure what benefit I'd see with EVR-CP over HR even if my issues did get fixed. What does EVR-CP offer over HR? My system is pretty unique so I'm not sure how beneficial to the project it would be to spend time fixing the issue(s).Sorry, again i was not clear, HR is not developed by us, its a closed source renderer (that has a ton of bugs with scaling)
Indeed bicubic scaling in EVR-CP is heavy, we are looking in to further optimisation.
EVR-CP offers only DXVA and no scaling bugs as an improvement over HR, personally i would always choose MadVR over HR as the image quality is much betterGomplayer and Kmplayer didnt support DXVA anymore?They never have, but you can use MPC-HC's codecs in them

[xiulet]

hi all, i have a question :) i like to know if on bitstream(dxva) there are quality difference compared to cpu(ffmpeg) decode video
i am not sure, but i think cpu decode bring better video quality ....

i did make several visual reviews on my mpc hc , using hd video(50Mb bitrate) and apreciate cpu(ffmpeg) was little better quality( better definition and colour).

¿what do you think?

tanks a lot, adéu.

sorry for my english!

[tetsuo55]

hi all, i have a question :) i like to know if on bitstream(dxva) there are quality difference compared to cpu(ffmpeg) decode video
i am not sure, but i think cpu decode bring better video quality ....

i did make several visual reviews on my mpc hc , using hd video(50Mb bitrate) and apreciate cpu(ffmpeg) was little better quality( better definition and colour).

¿what do you think?

tanks a lot, adéu.

sorry for my english!the output is identical

[xiulet]

the output is identical

ok , thank you :)

saludos, adéu.

[littleD]

Well, there actually might be difference. Not in decoders, but further processing. If you have HQ rgb conversion enabled and RGB32 only as na output in ffdshow, you get better picture. During DXVA decoding, ATI drivers make poor rgb conversion. Enable yv12 Chroma upsapling shader in MPC HC to fix that.

[xiulet]

Well, there actually might be difference. Not in decoders, but further processing. If you have HQ rgb conversion enabled and RGB32 only as na output in ffdshow, you get better picture. During DXVA decoding, ATI drivers make poor rgb conversion. Enable yv12 Chroma upsapling shader in MPC HC to fix that.

ok , i see that you say, on colour quality, i am using divx7 for h264
and when compare with dxva (ati) i saw better quality colour on divx7. Then using dxva with chroma upsampling shader fix this, isen't it?
or if i use the rgb32 on ffdshow also ok.
ati use nv12 for output , and i have less color space quality.

thank, you :)

[Pr3d]

They never have, but you can use MPC-HC's codecs in them

I've never used GomPlayer but it seems to support DXVA with something called "Quick Play Mode". :confused:

[tetsuo55]

Well, there actually might be difference. Not in decoders, but further processing. If you have HQ rgb conversion enabled and RGB32 only as na output in ffdshow, you get better picture. During DXVA decoding, ATI drivers make poor rgb conversion. Enable yv12 Chroma upsapling shader in MPC HC to fix that.That is correct, every decoder treats chroma differently, see this thread for more info: http://85.230.118.136/showthread.php?p=1271416#post1271416

Also note, that everyone does poor chroma upsampling(except madvr).

I've never used GomPlayer but it seems to support DXVA with something called "Quick Play Mode". :confused:Qucik play mode disables all internal decoders in GOM and forces it to use external codecs, on windows 7 this means the microsoft DXVA codecs will be used.

[Forteen88]

How come I get more graphics-bugs (when going from fullscreen and moving the mousepointer) only in DXVA-mode when playing mbtree x264-video than non-mbtree x264-video? Sometimes I get graphicsbugs in mbtree even when I don't touch anything :P
I use MPC-Homecinema.1400_(x64) and got a ATI HD 4200 graphicschip (with latest graphicsdriver, Catalyst v9.11), in Windows 7 Pro 64-bit.
Thanks in advance.

[tetsuo55]

How come I get more graphics-bugs (when going from fullscreen and moving the mousepointer) only in DXVA-mode when playing mbtree x264-video than non-mbtree x264-video? Sometimes I get graphicsbugs in mbtree even when I don't touch anything :P
I use MPC-Homecinema.1400_(x64) and got a ATI HD 4200 graphicschip (with latest graphicsdriver, Catalyst v9.11), in Windows 7 Pro 64-bit.
Thanks in advance.
Casn you provide a sample please

[Forteen88]

Can you provide a sample pleaseIt happens in all x264-videos that I've tried with DXVA, but the graphicsbugs doesn't appear often (mostly when I go over to fullscreen and the reverse, and sometimes when I move the mouse much in fullscreen. Often I get graphicsbugs after a few minutes, even though I don't touch anything since pressing play from the start of the video).
nombtree: http://www.imagebam.com/image/d3332e59156110

mbtree: http://www.imagebam.com/image/42f2c559156111

the graphicsbugs are almost the same here.

It seems to be less graphicsbugs now, because before it could look as terrible as this (when I went over to fullscreen and the reverse):
http://www.imagebam.com/image/813ce859156444 although that's a different source (that uses mbtree).

I should point out that when I rewind and see those frames again, they have always been good.