madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[tp4tissue]

there is no general answer to this.

dci p3 bt 2020 and bt 709 have a white point of D65.
i don't see a reason why a display should ever change it's white point.

What does the option do then ?

[huhn]

it should replace the original meta data that can't work after 3d lut correcting.

having the mastering gamut in there is pretty normal if it is properly used by TV who knows.

for the nit option i guess the highest number your TV can do stable.

[tp4tissue]

it should replace the original meta data that can't work after 3d lut correcting.

having the mastering gamut in there is pretty normal if it is properly used by TV who knows.

for the nit option i guess the highest number your TV can do stable.

So, after the 3dlut (process hdr)..

Should the meta data be rec2020 or dci-p3.

And the Nit, should that be the 10000 nit , or the peak measured display nit ?

[etc6849]

Now I'm getting a black screen when I start video, RTX 2080 Ti fans go full speed and HDMI drops out.

This is strange as it had been working perfectly for the first 5 movies I watched and was totally beautiful too (with the exception of periodically not entering FSE).

I did receive the RTX 2080 Ti a week ago so likely the graphics card needs replaced, but I figured I would post the logs here to be sure. I don't do any gaming, but I will probably download a benchmark test program to see if the card freezes to eliminate MadVR. Any recommendations for debugging?

The card is this one:
https://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=11G-P4-2387-KR
(https://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=11G-P4-2387-KR)

Logs:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1p0vFBrN8poJE8YrrBuaw97Wd8aAvTKOO

[huhn]

Should the meta data be rec2020 or dci-p3.
do you have a screen that can do more than DCI P3? well no so you don't have to care the 3D LUT will do the gamut mapping anyway. just use the default setting.
And the Nit, should that be the 10000 nit , or the peak measured display nit ?

clearly not 10000 so feel free to use the measured peak brightness.
i personally don't think this is a useful measuring anyway on an x900f the peak brightness for 10% is far higher than 2%.

[el Filou]

Holy cow, $1300 just for madVR. :eek:
I know everybody do what they like with their money, but is there really a visible improvement in quality with a 2080 Ti Vs. something more affordable? Or is the goal here to have the card run at lighter load so as to make less noise?

[ryrynz]

Both. But it's the new HDR processing that really needs that extra oomph.

[DMU]

Greetings!
My system:
- AMD Ryzen 3 2200G (with Radeon Vega 8)
- Windows 10 1809
- MPC-HC + LAV + madVR
All last updated.
In FSE mode UHD HDR video looks great. In FSW mode video looks significantly darkened. Is there a solution to this problem? Or is it a bug in the Radeon drivers or Windows 10?
Thank you very much!

[madjock]

Both. But it's the new HDR processing that really needs that extra oomph.

You are not wrong, I was hoping to keep up with madVR latest updates to HDR, but I basically have it all disabled so I think I am just as well with Passthrough tbh.

I need a better card than a 2GB 1050, but for me personally there has to be a limit on what I can justify, and I just can't justify hundreds on another graphics card.

[Warner306]

Greetings!
My system:
- AMD Ryzen 3 2200G (with Radeon Vega 8)
- Windows 10 1809
- MPC-HC + LAV + madVR
All last updated.
In FSE mode UHD HDR video looks great. In FSW mode video looks significantly darkened. Is there a solution to this problem? Or is it a bug in the Radeon drivers or Windows 10?
Thank you very much!

Take a picture of the OSD (Ctrl + J) and post it here. Is your display entering HDR mode? Does the backlight in the picture menu go up to its highest setting when the video is played and does the OSD in madVR indicate AMD HDR?

[DMU]

Take a picture of the OSD (Ctrl + J) and post it here. Is your display entering HDR mode? Does the backlight in the picture menu go up to its highest setting when the video is played and does the OSD in madVR indicate AMD HDR?

According to statistics, it seems, everything is OK, but the video in FSW is much darker (unnatural)

[Warner306]

Your attachments need to be hosted somewhere else. Did you confirm your display is in the correct HDR mode?

[DMU]

Your attachments need to be hosted somewhere else. Did you confirm your display is in the correct HDR mode?
Yes, TV (Samsung UE40NU7100) goes to HDR mode.
What is wrong with my attachments?

[Klaus1189]

We cannot open them now, use external file hoster like google drive.

[giulianoprs]

should "fse" be the right way for the HDR and 10bit? this thing also interests me.

[DMU]

We cannot open them now, use external file hoster like google drive.
FSE (greate picture) (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1GQsx9DBehSwSX0N0aQaMqoAy7XLxpm0r)
FSW (dark picture) (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jUxP4x3yDe4peKwIK0uzbtsNG47GQFSW)
TV (Samsung UE40NU7100) goes into the HDR mode in both cases.

[SamuriHL]

Both. But it's the new HDR processing that really needs that extra oomph.

Tell me about it. My 1060 is just on the edge of keeping up and I did have to lower some settings to make it work reliably in the latest test build. The MINIMUM card I'm going to get for an upgrade is a 2070 at this point.

[madjock]

Tell me about it. My 1060 is just on the edge of keeping up and I did have to lower some settings to make it work reliably in the latest test build. The MINIMUM card I'm going to get for an upgrade is a 2070 at this point.

I was thinking of going down the Windows 8.1 route, but that is a bit of a step back in some respects, and unsure what I would gain.

My problem just now is a new 4K TV, and working with only a 2GB 1050 card, I am messing about with either just Passthrough, or using the Shaders option with most of it disabled, so don't think I am gaining anything with it.

What does confuse things is the more I mess with things, the less I understand whether that be DX9/DX11/FSE and the likes now I am messing with HDR, as I think I have things sussed out but then I can try another 4K file and things change and I may get dropped frames, or skipping with nothing really changing apart from seeing the Qs suddenly dropping off then back up again when I am within the target of ms.

So I mess with things again, and out of nowhere I may get an issue again, so it is hard to know what is the best setting or what to do or not do at this point.

So right now I am using madVR as an HDR switch as such as I dont have the right amount of spare capacity in the card I have at the moment.

[Damien147]

11111
should "fse" be the right way for the hdr and 10bit? This thing also interests me.

use fse for frame packed mvc 3d.
Use fse for uhd hdr.
Use fsw for everything else.

[SamuriHL]

I was thinking of going down the Windows 8.1 route, but that is a bit of a step back in some respects, and unsure what I would gain.

My problem just now is a new 4K TV, and working with only a 2GB 1050 card, I am messing about with either just Passthrough, or using the Shaders option with most of it disabled, so don't think I am gaining anything with it.

What does confuse things is the more I mess with things, the less I understand whether that be DX9/DX11/FSE and the likes now I am messing with HDR, as I think I have things sussed out but then I can try another 4K file and things change and I may get dropped frames, or skipping with nothing really changing apart from seeing the Qs suddenly dropping off then back up again when I am within the target of ms.

So I mess with things again, and out of nowhere I may get an issue again, so it is hard to know what is the best setting or what to do or not do at this point.

So right now I am using madVR as an HDR switch as such as I dont have the right amount of spare capacity in the card I have at the moment.

My 6g 1060 is right on the edge of being able to play well with the newest test build (which is being considered an RC so it'll likely end up close to the next official build). I've had to mess with a few things but I've got it so that I can play with all the functionality of the new HDR functionality with NO trade performance options enabled. It takes some compromises to do that, however. Giving up some chroma upscaling love, as an example. And this is only with 24fps movies. 60fps I'm GOING to have to create a profile one of these days to see if I can get that stable. I was able to play some 60fps demos the first time I tested, but, then I got an actual 60fps movie and that showed me just how punishing it can be. You have FAR less rendering time to play with for 60fps movies obviously. For now I can live with that. I have 1 60fps movie and I can always use the UB820 or the SHIELD to play that one for now. A 1050 I think is not going to be sufficient for the latest iteration of the HDR functionality without some trade offs. It MIGHT work for some movies but others it may struggle with depending on what options you have set. My advice (which comes from another user when I was struggling with the latest builds) is to sacrifice chroma upscaling for now and see what you can get away with on the HDR side of things. It's truly fantastic what the latest build is able to do.

[madjock]

Agreed on dialling back the chroma.

But just having a play this morning, and if I do set chroma to bilinear, and enable the HDR options in trade for performance, I get a slideshow in either D3D11 Fullscreen Exclusive or Fullscreen windowed and D3D9.

But if I come out of fullscreen exclusive or fullscreen windowed to just windowed it drops from the hundreds down to 21 ms ish ?

Does this make sense ?, should going from windowed to fullscreen exclusive or fullscreen windowed make that big a difference ?

I am using nVidia drivers 416.34.

[ryrynz]

The MINIMUM card I'm going to get for an upgrade is a 2070 at this point.

Right now you'd be be better served by a 1080/Ti for madVR mostly due to the premium of the unused (for madVR) Tensor cores, otherwise if using it for gaming as well RTX makes some sense.

[nevcairiel]

Right now you'd be be better served by a 1080/Ti for madVR mostly due to the premium of the unused (for madVR) Tensor cores, otherwise if using it for gaming as well RTX makes some sense.

You can't exactly buy a 1080/Ti anymore (at least around here), other then super expensive or used. And some people like their warranty.

New 2070s are cheaper then new 1080s here, nevermind 1080 Tis (in which case 2080s are also cheaper).

[madjock]

Just for clarification guys, and maybe to stop me pulling any more hair out.

If I use HDR tone mapping but have to select all the Trade for performance options to on, is this still better than allowing HDR passtrough ?

[ryrynz]

Personally I'd wait until the new release before evaluating this for yourself.. My guess would be yes, but it's going to depend entirely on your manufacturer's tone mapping for that particular model/firmware.

[chros]

If I use HDR tone mapping but have to select all the Trade for performance options to on, is this still better than allowing HDR passtrough ?

My guess would be yes

Definitely not, although I haven't seen your TV. Use passthrough then.

[madjock]

Definitely not, although I haven't seen your TV. Use passthrough then.

It is nothing fancy at all
https://www.philips.co.uk/c-p/65PUS6703_12/6700-series-ultra-slim-4k-uhd-led-smart-tv-with-ambilight-3-sided

I did think I would be limited with chroma, but was a little naive about how much the tone mapping would hammer my 1050 GTX, it was a case of I could get better chroma settings and use passthrough, but was unsure what I would achieve by disabling the trade options comparable to passthrough, as it classed it as dumb on the OSD when you do this with the options ticked, and that used to be options in older madVRs.

[Warner306]

FSE (greate picture) (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1GQsx9DBehSwSX0N0aQaMqoAy7XLxpm0r)
FSW (dark picture) (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jUxP4x3yDe4peKwIK0uzbtsNG47GQFSW)
TV (Samsung UE40NU7100) goes into the HDR mode in both cases.

It looks you are getting a different tone curve depending on whether you are using windowed or exclusive. I'm guessing madVR is sending the same values either way and either the GPU driver or display is misinterpreting something. Maybe the metadata isn't getting through correctly. I don't know how to correct it.

[Warner306]

I was thinking of going down the Windows 8.1 route, but that is a bit of a step back in some respects, and unsure what I would gain.

My problem just now is a new 4K TV, and working with only a 2GB 1050 card, I am messing about with either just Passthrough, or using the Shaders option with most of it disabled, so don't think I am gaining anything with it.

What does confuse things is the more I mess with things, the less I understand whether that be DX9/DX11/FSE and the likes now I am messing with HDR, as I think I have things sussed out but then I can try another 4K file and things change and I may get dropped frames, or skipping with nothing really changing apart from seeing the Qs suddenly dropping off then back up again when I am within the target of ms.

So I mess with things again, and out of nowhere I may get an issue again, so it is hard to know what is the best setting or what to do or not do at this point.

So right now I am using madVR as an HDR switch as such as I dont have the right amount of spare capacity in the card I have at the moment.

You should download GPU-Z and check your VRAM usage during playback. You only have 2GB to work with, which isn't a lot for 4K UHD content. At 1080p, I am using 2.5GB of VRAM with 4K content with a few settings enabled.

Network latency could also be an issue if the queues suddenly drop when playing certain files. Check to see if the video bitrate is higher with these files.

[Warner306]

Just for clarification guys, and maybe to stop me pulling any more hair out.

If I use HDR tone mapping but have to select all the Trade for performance options to on, is this still better than allowing HDR passtrough ?

You would have to test it. madVR should do a fine job of tone mapping. However, you risk double processing if the display also tone maps the result provided by madVR. I'd start with a target nits above your display brightness and work your way down as a test. Find some really bright scenes using the OSD as a reference for scene brightness and test with passthrough enabled and disabled.

Pixel shaders might be a bad idea with the limited amount of VRAM you have.

[madjock]

You would have to test it.

All valid points in the last two replys.

I guess I may just bite the bullet and go for passthrough as to be quite honest I don't even know what to look for, have no idea what my peak nits would actually be.

I think now I actually have a 4K TV now, the miriad of options for setting up HDR settings/contrast and colour, unlike setting up to maybe get a comparable ISF setting by reading reviews, there is very little on what HDR should actually look like.

I have been following your now updated guide which is very informative, the hard part is a lot of it boils down to what we like to see on our screens, and HDR/4K is still so new to me I do not know what is actually good or bad, I have long since stopped understanding the BETA builds and the testing of madVR for HDR, and maybe I just need to let it go and go passthrough as stated before.

[SamuriHL]

Right now you'd be be better served by a 1080/Ti for madVR mostly due to the premium of the unused (for madVR) Tensor cores, otherwise if using it for gaming as well RTX makes some sense.

You can't exactly buy a 1080/Ti anymore (at least around here), other then super expensive or used. And some people like their warranty.

New 2070s are cheaper then new 1080s here, nevermind 1080 Tis (in which case 2080s are also cheaper).

Exactly what Nev said. Not to mention those tensor cores COULD have some usefulness in the future. And yes, I would use it for gaming, as well. Completely moot point right now anyway as I don't have the money but it's on the top of the list when I do.

[SamuriHL]

It is nothing fancy at all
https://www.philips.co.uk/c-p/65PUS6703_12/6700-series-ultra-slim-4k-uhd-led-smart-tv-with-ambilight-3-sided

I did think I would be limited with chroma, but was a little naive about how much the tone mapping would hammer my 1050 GTX, it was a case of I could get better chroma settings and use passthrough, but was unsure what I would achieve by disabling the trade options comparable to passthrough, as it classed it as dumb on the OSD when you do this with the options ticked, and that used to be options in older madVRs.

IMO you're better off with passthrough if you enable dumb tonemapping in the trade performance options.

[zapatista]

Hi Madshi,

thank you for your great program, it really improves the video quality on my 1080p display compared to other pc video players, or when using a stand alone bluray player (assuming the source video file is of good quality)

Q1) is there a way i can set my display max nits in madvr ?

i am using madvr on my win 8.1 pc to play some 4k hevc h265 rec2020 video files, which i output over hdmi to my 1080 display (which is accepting 1080p 12 bit 4.4.4 RGB full) .
in madvr settings i am using DXVA2 for down-scaling wich gives me a gpu load of 72% and uses 90% of my 3gb vram (the other custom pixel shader settings like SSIM cause a significant rate of frames being dropped and i get micro stutters)

some of the 4k video files are HDR (which i know is not part of the SDR specs), but my 1080 tv display has a spec of 380 nits (compared to most older 1080 displays only going up to 150 nits usually)

i know that some of the higher end stand alone 4k bluray players (like the samsung or panasonic) allow you to select a max nits setting when outputting the 4k HDR video to 1080 (for ex on the samsung player i would have been able to set it to 350 or 400 nits iirc)

can i similarly set a max nits setting in madvr for my 1080p downconversion output ? (i remember discussion about this taking place in the madvr forum, but cant find the settings)

note: i am aware most HDR movies can range from 500 to 1000 nits (or even higher w dolby vision ?), but my display relatively low 350 nits ability would be nice to be able to use for higher luminance detail available from some of these HDR source files

Q2) is there a simple way i can save my preferred presets for different resolution video files that i might be playing ? (eg 720p, 1080p, 2160 4k files etc)
- for my pc hardware i can use higher quality settings for 720p and 1080p files, but for 4k files i can only just play them and have to dial several settings down

Q3) when playing 4k files (with my limited settings ) my GPU reports 72 or 75% GPU load, and 93 % vram used for ex, but my i7 cpu is only at 20 or 25% load.
- is there a way i can offload some of the video tasks more to the CPU and then be able to enhance other settings in madvr that are GPU load dependent ?
i have tried different "video decoder" selections in mpc-hc, but it doesnt seem to alter this (am using dxva2-copyback as this was suggested by you in an earlier setup guide iirc)

pc specs: win 8.1 (64 bit) w most recent video drivers and updates, i7 4770k, 32 gb ram, 1060 3gb GPU
using mpc-hc 6.3 with madvr latest version

[madjock]

IMO you're better off with passthrough if you enable dumb tonemapping in the trade performance options.

Yes I think I have to really.

One more thing and I am unsure if there is an issue with madVR and my TV. The one easy thing I seem to have is NV HDR is ativated quite easily, which is a blessing on having read back over multiple threads on it not for some people due to drivers et al.

But if I select the OSD for the TV once activated, sometimes it says BT 2020 and SMTPE 2084, but mostly only if I change a setting in the settings side of the TV. The majority of the time it will say RGB for colour space and 2160p24, but sometimes it will say 2160p24SMTPE 2084 for video and BT.2020 for colour space.

it looks to be getting the right information from looking at the madVR OSD, so is this an issue with my TV not being very clever and I can just ignore it, or do I need to mess with drivers to get this correct information.

[madjock]

Hi Madshi,

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=259188&pid=2238942#pid2238942

Have a look at this guide for the presets, under profiles.

Also the target peak nits under HDR, but would assume you have seen this ?

[border.community]

If you use the display mode switcher in MPC-HC, you can add an audio delay that only applies to 23-24 Hz.

Thanks Warner, that's what I ended up doing in LAV settings. For some reason I thought a perfect custom timing in madvr would naturally fix that delay.

[SamuriHL]

Yes I think I have to really.

One more thing and I am unsure if there is an issue with madVR and my TV. The one easy thing I seem to have is NV HDR is ativated quite easily, which is a blessing on having read back over multiple threads on it not for some people due to drivers et al.

But if I select the OSD for the TV once activated, sometimes it says BT 2020 and SMTPE 2084, but mostly only if I change a setting in the settings side of the TV. The majority of the time it will say RGB for colour space and 2160p24, but sometimes it will say 2160p24SMTPE 2084 for video and BT.2020 for colour space.

it looks to be getting the right information from looking at the madVR OSD, so is this an issue with my TV not being very clever and I can just ignore it, or do I need to mess with drivers to get this correct information.

Couldn't tell you on that one. For HDR content, it should be BT.2020 unless you have madvr tonemap and convert it to rec.709. But if you're doing passthrough, it should be showing at BT.2020. RGB is what madvr will output to. I don't know how you have your GPU driver set, but, it should also be set to RGB, as well, to avoid unnecessary conversions.

[Damien147]

Which one of these (https://imgur.com/a/AWVUZtT)three gpu load readings I can trust?Gpuz gpu load goes up and down as you see and the other two are stable.

[el Filou]

I was thinking of going down the Windows 8.1 route, but that is a bit of a step back in some respects, and unsure what I would gain.Performance wise, nothing.My problem just now is a new 4K TV, and working with only a 2GB 1050 cardThe only way to achieve some kind of smooth playback with 4K and 2 GB VRAM is to lower the render and present queues until you're below the VRAM limit. Try something like present queue 3 or 4, render queue 5 or 6. If you're using DXVA/D3D11 native mode for the decoder, also lower the decoding queue to 7 or 8, as those modes use more VRAM too.

[Asmodian]

Which one of these (https://imgur.com/a/AWVUZtT)three gpu load readings I can trust?Gpuz gpu load goes up and down as you see and the other two are stable.

madVR load is odd, once the buffer is full it runs as fast as possible for one frame and then waits for the next frame. This causes aliasing artifacts that change with the polling rate which can make it look like the load is fluctuating a lot.

[Damien147]

All three were different and got confused.
I guess the answer is that you can't measure it in % accurately then.I'll measure it in ''dropped frames'':p
Thanks.

[Asmodian]

If you set the polling rate really fast you can get a better idea of the real load, something like 100 ms.

[Damien147]

I see.No big deal,just curious because previous gpu years ago was giving me more stable readings without spikes in gpu z.Thanks again.

[nevcairiel]

Depending on how the workload is structured, you would want an average load that takes into account bursts and idle periods. GPU-Z seems to not do that. Spiky 0/100 graphs are not very useful. :)

madVR is rather special in how it works load-wise, because it has practically no CPU limit, so when it can work it'll work 100%, but it has a hard frame rate limit, so it doesn't have endless work - ie. very spiky behavior. An ordinary 3D renderer would be CPU limited and/or capable of rendering an unlimited amount of frames, so it would either always cap the GPU, or be limited consistently by the CPU, but not simply by "time".

[Damien147]

Ok,I'll stay with ''no dropped frames,all good''.Thank you too.

[ryrynz]

Definitely not, although I haven't seen your TV. Use passthrough then.

"Definitely not" but I don't really know for sure. Lol.

If configured right I would expect better results but a 1060/1070/2060 would really help a lot.

[madjock]

"Definitely not" but I don't really know for sure. Lol.

If configured right I would expect better results but a 1060/1070/2060 would really help a lot.

Haha, well I have mostly given up after trying all the different options, I could never really get much below 36ms at a base level, with obvious spiking and jumps into stutter levels or having it at dumb.

Just can't justify a Graphics Card more expensive than the TV I just got, so it is what it is. :)

[ryrynz]

That's a shame, with 2060 out now 1060's should start to lower in price so if you're okay with second hand jump on one, preferably the 6GB model.

[chros]

Q3) when playing 4k files (with my limited settings ) my GPU reports 72 or 75% GPU load, and 93 % vram used for ex, but my i7 cpu is only at 20 or 25% load.
- is there a way i can offload some of the video tasks more to the CPU and then be able to enhance other settings in madvr that are GPU load dependent ?
i have tried different "video decoder" selections in mpc-hc, but it doesnt seem to alter this (am using dxva2-copyback as this was suggested by you in an earlier setup guide iirc)
1060 3gb GPU

What's checked in trade performance options? If nothing then check only "scale chroma separately..." option, it should improve things a lot.
Also use DXVA11 native in LAV filters not copyback, it's way faster.
Although the 3GB version of 1060 has less shaders than the 6GB one but I think it should handle 4k hdr well on 1080p screen. But you'll see :)

"Definitely not" but I don't really know for sure. Lol.

:) I meant exactly this for a starter:

IMO you're better off with passthrough if you enable dumb tonemapping in the trade performance options.

if you're okay with second hand jump on one, preferably the 6GB model

I second that, just buy a used 1060 6GB model (it has more shaders (=more powerful) than the 3GB variant) that's what I did. If noise level is important than go for MSI GTX 1060 Gaming X 6GB (although probably that's the most expensive card out of all of them).