madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[SamuriHL]

It works fine with them. It just ignores the DV data and uses the HDR10 data.

Well, yea, that I very much doubt was the question they were asking.

[Andy o]

I'm now planning to buy a new PC and would appreciate guidance on what configuration would offer the best madVR performance without causing much fan noise. Would a GPU that's more powerful than madVR requires run more quietly than a lower powered GPU that just meets madVR's high end needs?

It's mostly about the cooler, but a more efficient card also will do more work for less heat. If you can get them, a midrange AMD 6000 or Nvidia 3000 should do the trick, but they're extremely hard to get right now. You'll likely be fine with a 1650 Super or something like that, but previous gens don't support HDMI 2.1 so that might be a consideration.

Years ago I used to buy low-mid-range cards (about maybe 70-100W) and replace their coolers with an Accelero S1 so I could run them fanless. After that I just got lazy and the last midrange card I used is a GTX 1650 Super with a pretty basic cooler and it's kinda noisy. Something like an Accelero Mono Plus (https://www.arctic.de/en/Accelero-Mono-Plus/DCACO-V430001-BL) should work fine for midrange cards. It should still be better than most coolers that come with such cards. You can probably get one with a very nice big cooler included but they're usually more expensive as well.

The thing is that low-midrange cards tend to have low to midrange coolers. I recently could get a 3070 FE and it's silent when running madVR and 4k HDR content because the card is overkill for video, thus its higher TDP cooler doesn't even break a sweat. In fact the fans don't even turn on when playing video at all.

But of course that's a way overkill way to go silent if you're only doing video and not playing games.

[haggis999]

.....The thing is that low-midrange cards tend to have low to midrange coolers. I recently could get a 3070 FE and it's silent when running madVR and 4k HDR content because the card is overkill for video, thus its higher TDP cooler doesn't even break a sweat. In fact the fans don't even turn on when playing video at all.

But of course that's a way overkill way to go silent if you're only doing video and not playing games.

Thanks, Andy. That's very useful information. There are two PCs in our main living room (neither of which can cope with any serious use of madVR). One is an Intel NUC that serves as an HTPC and which runs very quietly in a corner away from the seating area. The other is an older Dell Precision Workstation and is my primary computer. It's closer to where we sit, but is normally idle and silent when we are watching the TV. That's the PC I'm intending to replace, so a low fan noise level would be very important to me when using madVR on this new machine.

Do the fans on your 3070 FE start running when madVR is at its highest settings? For example, I'm assuming that using it to upscale HD to 4k would be more demanding than running native 4k with HDR.

[Dogway]

I have an issue where HDR videos trigger my display into HDR mode, despite having set a rule to tonemap HDR content... This happens like 50% of times, not always.

Also I've been wondering, there are lots of 1080p content, as it has managed to become a standard for videos now for some years. Meanwhile 4K is now the de facto resolution for Smart TVs, despite lack of 4K content (only a few UHDs and a few non-upscaled games).
2160p being double the size per dimension of 1080p I thought it could be a great idea to have an static option for nearest neighbour as it just takes a single integer scaling. This means less PC resources and power consumption and unadulterated 1080p image quality.
NGU can look nice on digital camera films where there's lack of grain, but films before 2005 where grain is common turn into a grain smear fest, not unlike some FFT based denoisers. Looking forward to set up some rules with nearest neighbour.

[mclingo]

if you have "output video in HDR format" unticked in devices settings for your display it should never output in HDR mode and therefore not trigger the TV's HDR mode surely?

[Manni]

I have an issue where HDR videos trigger my display into HDR mode, despite having set a rule to tonemap HDR content... This happens like 50% of times, not always.


I have the same issue. Please list your OS/build/GPU/driver/driver options/madVR build.

If you're on nVidia ampere with the latest driver, try to disable d3d11 so that madVR uses d3d9. That resolved weird color issues as well as the random HDR output when it should be always SDR.

Until recently using a pre-461.09 driver (I was using 460.89) allowed to prevent this, but now even using this older driver doesn't help.

if you have "output video in HDR format" unticked in devices settings for your display it should never output in HDR mode and therefore not trigger the TV's HDR mode surely?

Unfortunately it does that here, as well as other things, especially when using D3D11.

I never had these issues with d3d11 before upgrading to Ampere, but it could also be 20H2 and/or a driver issue.

A lot of issues are config/GPU/OS/driver specific.

d3d9 works fine, but I lose BD Menus in jRiver (hence reliable forced subtitles with BD folders) which is a shame.

[mclingo]

ah right, things pretty stable here over on the RED team but i've been experimenting with some different settings in general, i'm now running everything in 8 bit and tone mapping to SDR, i'm also now using smooth motion, i forced myself to use it for a few a week to see if I could get used to it and I did, I get a much smoother pan shots with this on, my TV has some issues with stuttering when using motion settings on my LG OLED EF950 when playing some HDR movies and episodes which i've not been a ble to defeat, I just dont think this TV has enough processing power to do HDR movies with some TRUMOTION turned on as it only happens at 2160p, with MADVR smooth motion on everything plays perfectly and it has the added advantage of not having any delays starting whilst it refresh rate matches.

I've also been able to get 3D without FSE for a while now too so I dont use that anymore, things are pretty good on the RED side at the moment for HTPC playback.

[huhn]

team red is doing really great deint didn't work for a single day using a 5000 series. quite an achievement having a basic feature been broken from release to the point some if not all of these cards are EOL.

[Dogway]

@Manni, I'm still on driver 456.55 so I don't think that's the issue.

I'm on Win7 SP1 x64, GTX 1070, an madVR v0.92.17.

A very different setup, I think this might be a bug in madVR.

[mclingo]

team red is doing really great deint didn't work for a single day using a 5000 series. quite an achievement having a basic feature been broken from release to the point some if not all of these cards are EOL.

remind me again whats broken at the moment exactly?

[Manni]

@Manni, I'm still on driver 456.55 so I don't think that's the issue.

I'm on Win7 SP1 x64, GTX 1070, an madVR v0.92.17.

A very different setup, I think this might be a bug in madVR.

It's probably a bug in madVR, but it's not going to be fixed for a while, so it might be worth trying disabling d3d11 in rendering/general to see if it fixes the issue for you as it fixed it for me.

[Dogway]

It's probably a bug in madVR, but it's not going to be fixed for a while, so it might be worth trying disabling d3d11 in rendering/general to see if it fixes the issue for you as it fixed it for me.

It didn't fixed it for me. In any case it's his best interest to fix it, looks like a major issue IMO. My SmartTV is 1080p so for the time being I'm ok with that.

[Manni]

It didn't fixed it for me. In any case it's his best interest to fix it, looks like a major issue IMO. My SmartTV is 1080p so for the time being I'm ok with that.

It’s not about interest, it’s about time. Madshi has little time available currently to fix bugs in madVR as he’s still very much focused on Envy. No doubt he will fix this if it’s a bug when his focus will be back on madVR.

[jkauff]

It’s not about interest, it’s about time. Madshi has little time available currently to fix bugs in madVR as he’s still very much focused on Envy. No doubt he will fix if it’s a big when his focus will be back on madVR.
From the Envy marketing email I received yesterday, there seems to be a LOT going on with Envy. Makes me wonder if we'll ever see even a bug fix of madVR again.

[mclingo]

that could be true but we all understand why he's putting all his time into Envy at the moment, I guess we just have wait an see, could be a month or two, could be a year or two :)

[SirMaster]

From the Envy marketing email I received yesterday, there seems to be a LOT going on with Envy. Makes me wonder if we'll ever see even a bug fix of madVR again.

I mean, all that Envy DTM 2.0 beta development stuff is happening in madVR before Envy in the madVR test builds.

So madVR development is absolutely still happening, it's just hyper-focused on tone-mapping and nothing else at the moment.

[SamuriHL]

He's using the data gleamed from the madvr betas to improve the Envy. That was the whole premise of how this was going to work going forward. madvr tests things and tweaks it, Envy benefits. It's what allows us to keep getting improved madvr betas.

[brazen1]

and why the betas time out. Look at it from the investors point of view too.

[SirMaster]

and why the betas time out. Look at it from the investors point of view too.

But there is no real reason to use an old beta version so long.

Madshi said that he will always release a new beta version with a refreshed expiration timer before the previous one ends.

He added this because companies are selling PCs with madVR pre-installed which is not allowed by the license.

[brazen1]

Madshi said that he will always release a new beta version with a refreshed expiration timer before the previous one ends.

He added this because companies are selling PCs with madVR pre-installed which is not allowed by the license.

I'd say that's very, very gracious of madshi then. Sort of a thank you to those providing feedback and a blank you to those profiting on PC's with his hard work in it.

I actually thought it was investor pressure not to give anything away for free and if they did it would have a time limit.

After reading your thoughts, I guess madshi likes and needs testers as much as they like and need him. It's a win win. It's especially nice to see madVR keeps advancing on the Envy front and the software front.

Boy, I wish I had one of those but the software is nothing short of a miracle in itself :)

[HillieSan]

The beta 129 and 130 can be downloaded but seems to have Trojan virus on board.

[*MidnightWatcher*]

The beta 129 and 130 can be downloaded but seems to have Trojan virus on board.

False positive per Madshi.

[ryrynz]

seems to have Trojan virus on board.

You need to learn what false positives are.

[mclingo]

well I got through nearly 10 days this time before I had to turn smooth motion off, i'd really love to see some development by MADSHI on this after the bugs and stuff, whenever he gets time. Most of the time it looks ok but the loss of sharpness and fidelity gets me every time, I can deal with the slight smearing on fast shots.

I hear its better at higher frame rates but I cant see how that what work, why would it be sharper at 120hz for instance?

[el Filou]

But there is no real reason to use an old beta version so long.
Madshi said that he will always release a new beta version with a refreshed expiration timer before the previous one ends.
He added this because companies are selling PCs with madVR pre-installed which is not allowed by the license.While I understand madshi has to take steps to prevent people profiting off his free software and unfairly competing with his own product, people should realize he also said the test builds' only purpose are to improve HDR tone mapping, not improve madVR for PC as a whole, and people who are not willing to keep updating builds and therefore sometimes encounter bugs or unexpected changes in processing quality should not use them, as you can't expect a stable experience without following that thread closely and understanding all the new settings and how to tweak them for your setup.

I personally am still using the v113 test build as I know what to expect from it and it was the last one for a long time (and I don't use smoothmotion which crashes with it), but if you consider a use case of wanting some stability for a system to just enjoy watching movies on, then madVR for PC hasn't received a development for anything other than tone mapping for 2,5 years now which is quite a lot.
So, for sure all the development for the Envy first appears in the PC version test builds so you can benefit from it if you want, but I think it's reasonable to expect only the development that benefits the Envy and only the bug fixes which allow it to continue will be added to the PC version from now on (except maybe if madshi decides to release some paid PC version?).
I still consider madVR the best renderer for now, but things change so fast in tech I hope it will stay that way.

[JarrettH]

I've noticed people talk about MPC Video Renderer as a faster option (is it)? But I don't think it's something they intend to develop more features for. I'm still hanging on to madvr for Smooth Motion, doubling, profiles, etc.

[el Filou]

Yes, it's light and has reasonable quality, but madVR has many many more features.
The only thing MPC VR has that madVR still lacks is the ability to use D3D11 deinterlacing/processing with native decoding.

[chros]

Yes, it's light and has reasonable quality, but madVR has many many more features.
The only thing MPC VR has that madVR still lacks is the ability to use D3D11 deinterlacing/processing with native decoding.

And HLG HDR "passthrough" :) That's a big feature difference.

Otherwise I agree with you what you said 2 posts ago. I just went back to b113, exactly for the same reasons you mentioned.

@mclingo, I've never liked and used SM, and I'm also with an Oled.

@SirMaster, I'm not sure that idea is valid anymore: there was not useable build for me since b123, and who knows when will be.

[VBB]

I used to be a big proponent of smooth motion, but I've gone back to my purist ways. These days, I match the refresh rate in normal HDMI mode with only Real Cinema enabled. I did try TruMotion at 2 again recently, but I just cannot stand the artifacting.

As for why SM works the way it does (from Asmodian's excellent guide (https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=171787)):

"Uses frame blending to perfectly display the video’s frame rate at the display’s refresh rate without any dropped or repeated frames and while staying in sync with the audio. This eliminates frame time judder in exchange for slightly increased blurring due to the frame blending. The blurring is more visible when the refresh rate matches the source frame rate because all the frames will be blended frames. The blurring is less visible on higher refresh rate displays because fewer frames will be blended frames. Smooth motion will harm motion interpolation, do not use them at the same time."

[mclingo]

i cant say i notice any artifacts with TM on 2, panning shots are too jarring for me without it, we're all going to experience this differently though.

[QBhd]

TM on 2 is really quite nice. I decided to give it ago a while ago since I was firmly in the camp that TM was bad, full stop... But after trying it at 2, I'm totally impressed by the slight boost to motion at a zero cost to image quality. I too can't stand SM... to soft and fuzzy for lack of better words.

QB

[ryrynz]

I too can't stand SM... to soft and fuzzy for lack of better words.
QB

Should shine when you have a HDMI 2.1 set that supports 120Hz. I'm hoping set manufacturers add their own blending options.

[mclingo]

i'm hoping my current 60hz panel will last a while longer yet as it I still love OLED passive 3d but i'll certainly give it a try with 120hz when I change up.

[chros]

I don't have any issue with framerate matched content and I don't use anything, not even trumotion on the TV, just like VBB.
Sometimes content is butter smooth, other times there is visible stutter. I wanted to say it's in the "source", but as it turned out, it's way more complicated. There was a good youtube video about it, I'll link it if I'll find it, basically it's the combination of the camera settings /panning speed/image resolution/and display resolution. There is even a software package that studios use that should handle these issues via postprocessing algos.
So when it happens, I accept it that this is what it is :)

[SamuriHL]

There's a reason the Hobbit movies were filmed in 48fps. As much as it made some people sick to watch, man it was smooth.

[Andy o]

Thanks, Andy. That's very useful information. There are two PCs in our main living room (neither of which can cope with any serious use of madVR). One is an Intel NUC that serves as an HTPC and which runs very quietly in a corner away from the seating area. The other is an older Dell Precision Workstation and is my primary computer. It's closer to where we sit, but is normally idle and silent when we are watching the TV. That's the PC I'm intending to replace, so a low fan noise level would be very important to me when using madVR on this new machine.

Do the fans on your 3070 FE start running when madVR is at its highest settings? For example, I'm assuming that using it to upscale HD to 4k would be more demanding than running native 4k with HDR.

I was curious myself so I did some logging with HWiNFO. I'm not sure how high settings is this but my upsampling setting is Jinc both for chroma and overall, with anti-ringing enabled. All the options to trade quality for performance are turned off, and smooth motion also turned off. Screen is at 2160/120p.

Playing a half hour of 1080p h.264 turned on the fans after about 18 minutes, temps started at about 38°C and increased to 61°C during that time. After that the fans stayed at about 1000 RPM and the temps steadily decreased until the video was over, at 35°C, but it was still going down. It only needs minimal airflow for the GPU to stay very cool in this scenario, and the fans were inaudible.

My setup is the most silent I could build, it's a Cooler Master H500, with fans replaced for 2x 200mm Noctua ones, and I even cut the case cause normally it has metal flaps blocking the 200mm fan holes on the sides. I installed the fans inside the case so it has more space to breathe behind the front mesh, and took out the PSU shroud cause it's a fanless Seasonic PSU.

I sit at about 2m from the case and I can't hear anything most of the time, the 5900x has a Noctua NH-D15S on it, and the fan does ramp up and is audible sometimes, but never when playing video unless I disable HW decoding in LAV filters.

[ryrynz]

There's a reason the Hobbit movies were filmed in 48fps. As much as it made some people sick to watch, man it was smooth.

The first and second films were a hard watch but they improved the lighting in the final film so much they basically fixed the soap opera effect.
I'm surprised that it hasn't taken off and has improved in the process, can't stay at 24fps forever, I want the smoother motion but the same visual appearance of 24fps
but this seems like it's too much effort for anyone outside of the pioneers of film.

[Alexkral]

All three look amazing in 3D @ 60fps with SVP IMHO, the second better than the first and the third the best. But I agree that the lighting is decisive.

[el Filou]

It's possible to still get the 'cinema motion look' with higher frame rates if they use shutter speed of 1/(2x fps), equivalent to a 180° with a rotating shutter. As you say and noticed on the Hobbit films, it's not always easy because you then need two times as much light.

[SamuriHL]

Quite true on the lighting. It was the first time anyone had tried using 48. It did evolve as you said. My point in bringing it up here is that it would have been nice if the bd or uhd had given us 48 as well. I suspect that would look remarkable in madvr.

Sent from my SM-G998U1 using Tapatalk

[mclingo]

I don't have any issue with framerate matched content and I don't use anything, not even trumotion on the TV, just like VBB.
Sometimes content is butter smooth, other times there is visible stutter. I wanted to say it's in the "source", but as it turned out, it's way more complicated. There was a good youtube video about it, I'll link it if I'll find it, basically it's the combination of the camera settings /panning speed/image resolution/and display resolution. There is even a software package that studios use that should handle these issues via postprocessing algos.
So when it happens, I accept it that this is what it is :)

I dont use trumotion to smooth out stuttering as such, its just that panning or fast motion shots can look at little jarring or jagged, for instance if you pan past a white windows frame or light on an OLED the edges can look jagged, on an LCD as there is smearing between frames this is less pronounced, TRUMOTION on 2 clears this up nicely.

However I do have an issue with a slight stutter but only on HDR movies if I use TRUMITION+HDR mode, if I tonemap to SDR this happens much less, if I also downscale to 1080p this goes away, if I use SM it goes away even in 2160p, could this be the issue you refer to or is it likely just to be an issue with my particular TV?

harry potter, chamber of secrets 0:45:50 when they look down to see the spiders crawling up the wall it stutters, when the camera pans back up to their faces it stutters again, same place every time, its odd, it does it every time, I even tried a second remux, I made a clip but it doesnt do it on the clip, this is just a screen shot of where it happens.


https://1drv.ms/u/s!AgvFafeelEBilPQQP4Q5gbQyjsH_UQ?e=DbYnK2

[haggis999]

I was curious myself so I did some logging with HWiNFO. I'm not sure how high settings is this but my upsampling setting is Jinc both for chroma and overall, with anti-ringing enabled. All the options to trade quality for performance are turned off, and smooth motion also turned off. Screen is at 2160/120p.

Playing a half hour of 1080p h.264 turned on the fans after about 18 minutes, temps started at about 38°C and increased to 61°C during that time. After that the fans stayed at about 1000 RPM and the temps steadily decreased until the video was over, at 35°C, but it was still going down. It only needs minimal airflow for the GPU to stay very cool in this scenario, and the fans were inaudible.

My setup is the most silent I could build, it's a Cooler Master H500, with fans replaced for 2x 200mm Noctua ones, and I even cut the case cause normally it has metal flaps blocking the 200mm fan holes on the sides. I installed the fans inside the case so it has more space to breathe behind the front mesh, and took out the PSU shroud cause it's a fanless Seasonic PSU.

I sit at about 2m from the case and I can't hear anything most of the time, the 5900x has a Noctua NH-D15S on it, and the fan does ramp up and is audible sometimes, but never when playing video unless I disable HW decoding in LAV filters.

Hi Andy,
Many thanks for checking this topic out in more detail. It's very useful to know that the RTX 3070 stays relatively cool in this scenario. Even though I'm not a gamer, I would be happy to buy that GPU to keep the noise levels down.

From what you say, the GPU's fans need to be running when using madVR for an extended period but could probably do all that is needed at a lower speed than 1000 rpm. Do you have enough control over the 3070's fans to run them at lower speeds when below 61°C?

[x7007]

With the LG OLED CX do I need to change to 10Bit YCbCr 4:2:0 when watching HDR Movies/Games instead RGB Full? Also, do I need to change from PC Input to HDMI 1 or Game Console?
I have 6900XT

I disabled the Freesync VRR for Potplayer so it's only 120Hz.

[Asmodian]

No, PC mode on the CX is much improved for HDR.

The near black banding is only a bit worse in full range with the newest TV software, at least on my CX, but you should send the TV 8 or 10 bit YCbCr 4:4:4 @ 120 Hz all the time if you want to avoid that (it tends to bother me the most in games). Switching out of PC mode does not improve this in anyway. With HDMI 2.1 there is no reason to use YCbCr 4:2:0 ever again.

I prefer having madVR dither to 8 bit for any output type, HDR especially benefits with reduced banding and posterization.

[chinobino]

Has anyone using Windows 10 insider preview tried the new Auto HDR (https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/auto-hdr-preview-for-pc-available-today/) (converts SDR to HDR) for Directx 11/12 to see if it interferes with madVR?

I use MPC-HC with the Direct3d 11 decoder and would like to know if it breaks anything.

[x7007]

No, PC mode on the CX is much improved for HDR.

The near black banding is only a bit worse in full range with the newest TV software, at least on my CX, but you should send the TV 8 or 10 bit YCbCr 4:4:4 @ 120 Hz all the time if you want to avoid that (it tends to bother me the most in games). Switching out of PC mode does not improve this in anyway. With HDMI 2.1 there is no reason to use YCbCr 4:2:0 ever again.

I prefer having madVR dither to 8 bit for any output type, HDR especially benefits with reduced banding and posterization.

Cool that's what I though. but isn't Black Level supposed to be LOW? because it only looks good on High in HDR.

[Andy o]

Hi Andy,
Many thanks for checking this topic out in more detail. It's very useful to know that the RTX 3070 stays relatively cool in this scenario. Even though I'm not a gamer, I would be happy to buy that GPU to keep the noise levels down.

From what you say, the GPU's fans need to be running when using madVR for an extended period but could probably do all that is needed at a lower speed than 1000 rpm. Do you have enough control over the 3070's fans to run them at lower speeds when below 61°C?

I haven't tried, but at 1000RPM they're really inaudible. From a quick google a couple of apps might be able to tweak the fan curve of this card https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/rtx-3070-fe-0rpm-custom-fan-curve-bug.435287/

But if you don't game it's really a waste of money. There are lower tier cards that have come out recently that have HDMI 2.1 like the 3060 or AMD 6700XT that are less expensive and also most of them should have good coolers. And they're just as hard to get as a 3070FE as well.

[Asmodian]

Cool that's what I though. but isn't Black Level supposed to be LOW? because it only looks good on High in HDR.

Black level is dependent on what range you have set in Nvidia control panel.

For full range set black level to High.
For limited range set black level to Low.

Also, Auto seems to work properly, but I do set it manually. :o

Since you are running RGB Full, High is correct.

[Milincho]

Any idea why I get this long list of "identification" devices?

https://i.imgur.com/h0b2U3P.png

[JaylumX]

Any idea why I get this long list of "identification" devices?

Snip

One possibility results from making changes to refresh rate timings amongst others using CRU. If that is the case then just delete all but the active identification as it won't allow you to delete the active one anyway.