madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[brazen1]

Afaik, theoretically, HDR can be mastered to 10,000 nits. I have at least one 10,000 nit HDR video and it is very, very bright - too bright, so I guess my panel is tone mapping it down but utilizing every nit the panel is capable of. For this particular video, preprocessed tone mapping would benefit but I just reel in brightness or gamma intensity. No other HDR video needs special attention.

In reality, the vast majority of titles are between 1,000 and 4,000. I assume Master Luminance, when checking out Ctrl+J, defines this? If not, perhaps I'm relying on the wrong data to arrive at what nits a video is? I passthrough so it's untouched before it reaches the panel so I know nothing's been compromised.

Checking a couple new releases - The Batman and Ambulance... it shows 1,000 nits. My panel is capable of over 1,500 nits. I've no idea what the panel does with its left over 500+ nits except perhaps dim down although the video looks bright? Or, perhaps it's streaching 1,000 to 1,500ish which is why it looks great?

[Alexkral]

I've no idea what the panel does with its left over 500+ nits except perhaps dim down although the video looks bright? Or, perhaps it's streaching 1,000 to 1,500ish which is why it looks great?

If it's stretching the range, you should see normal scenes (those without bright highlights) brighter than in other titles. This shouldn't be the default behavior, but it would be nice as a feature.

Master Display Luminance is the luminance of the display that was used to do the mastering. Most of the time the content is below, sometimes far below, but also sometimes above.

[flossy_cake]

I assume Master Luminance, when checking out Ctrl+J, defines this?

I'm looking at that 4k HDR chroma test pattern (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-_eNLcQYHtuJeYqB2OjWQnu_MgCIN6i0/view?usp=sharing) from earlier and Mediainfo is reporting:

Mastering display luminance: min: 0.0005 cd/m2, max: 1000 cd/m2
Maximum Content Light Level: 100 cd/m2

But Ctrl+J is only reporting "HDR 100 nits" and nothing else about luminance.

My panel is capable of over 1,500 nits. I've no idea what the panel does with its left over 500+ nits except perhaps dim down although the video looks bright? Or, perhaps it's streaching 1,000 to 1,500ish which is why it looks great?

afaik the digital code values used for storing PQ HDR are absolute luminance values so I'd imagine the display would be targeting those values, unless it scales/normalises them to whatever you've set peak brightness to in the TV's menu.

I recall when HDR first came out there were complaints about it being too dim for daytime viewing due to this, but I think that trend has changed and most TV makers now offer adjustment of peak luminance for HDR, i.e sacrificing some highlight detail for brighter APL.

I included adjustable highlight rolloff (https://i2.lensdump.com/i/13VQ4M.png) in my cal app (http://tiny.cc/calibrationtools), but it's not meant for HDR, it's more to try and help with edge cases eg. where some cheap laptop monitors start clipping the blue channel near white causing a yellow tint to bright whites.

[Alexkral]

It seems that the number in the OSD is MCLL when available, and MDL if not.

[mclingo]

3D is (almost) dead simply because of marketing, and because companies have decided to invest exclusively in HDR development, but it still looks absolutely stunning on my LG. I'm sure that if glasses were not needed, right now it would be the standard of reference.

There's no way that SDR will succumb to HDR in the next few hundred years, simply because it is the format in which the vast majority of available content is and continues to be made.

As for HDR, really the only problem I see is this white level nonsense to make it compatible with SDR, and of course, not everyone has the necessary equipment. If not for that, I would rely on passthrough and forget about tone mapping. It seems pointless to me to want to see it on a projector anyway, but it's also true that most 4K content is also HDR, so if you want one, you need the other.


I'd go further, I still think OLED 3D is better than HDR, The immersion just can't be matched In a darkened room.

[James_b]

Hi Guys!

Concerning Blu-ray 1080p, has anyone compair madVR upscaling to upscaling in 2021 4k Oleds? Thinking of the affordable series like LG B1 or Philips 706 TV's. Thank's for any info or a link.

LG-clip on their upscaling featrue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS46kYeMx00

[Balling]

As usual, you have no idea what you are talking about. Please just stay out of these forums. Nothing talked about here recently even interacted with ffmpeg at all. Your comments are wrong, out of context, and not wanted.

You were absolutely wrong, BTW. NV61 is the only thing not yet supported by ffmpeg, patch on the mailing list. All others are supported since patches today. NV16, P012, XV36, Y212, etc. Patch from nvidia.

[huhn]

your inability to learn is terrifying.

[flossy_cake]

Your inability to get along with each other is terrifying.

[Manni]

Your inability to not feed the troll is terrifying :)

[Balling]

You inability to not offtopic is terrifying.

[flossy_cake]

your inability to troll along with eachother offtopically is terrifying

[James_b]

nevcairiel you need to troll back now

[mclingo]

nevcairiel is too classy to get involved.

[mrbinky]

I don't criticise Madshi at all -- it's a beta version so it makes sense that experimental controls could exist in a beta version.
I wonder how many more years it will be Beta version 0.92.17? :)

[Siso]

I wonder how many more years it will be Beta version 0.92.17? :)

At least 10 more. :rolleyes:

[x7007]

did anyone notice when using potplayer the Standby list & System working set is going up while free memory going down as long as the movie plays?? why does it happen? it's not madvr related as I disabled it and used D3D11 renderer, but it should be important for everyone here as it can cause performance issues.

It's not related to subtitles
it's not related to sound as I disabled the sound (null option)

Can't figure out what is causing the standby ram usage.

Movies&TV app uses the ram properly, it releases when it's used while actually freeing it, as it seems, but the memory usage doesn't come up every one sec.

MPC does the same, it seems like it could be LAV FILTERS then

https://i.imgur.com/zhtl4eK.png

[huhn]

a playing file is usually buffered meaning this can be completely ignored.

free memory doesn't do anything anyway it only starts to be a problem when you run out of it but by default lav filter will only use a couple 100 mb which can be ignored.

i see an increase of about 0.2 mb a sec and i'm not going to check what is used after a couple of hours because it will stop after a while else something is broken.

[Damien147]

Sorry for the off topic guys but I trust your opinion.

Is there a true visual difference between a lets say 2gb full HD movie and an 8 gb full HD one?I mean can you truly notice a difference?
I understand that in theory you will say ''go with remux'' for the best possible quality but do you really notice a difference?

[flossy_cake]

Sorry for the off topic guys but I trust your opinion.

Is there a true visual difference between a lets say 2gb full HD movie and an 8 gb full HD one?I mean can you truly notice a difference?


Yes but it depends on some factors:


h264 vs h265 and the encoder settings chosen
how much film grain or other texture details, fog, water effects, fast camera movement etc. are in the movie
which copy of the movie it was sourced from (generation loss)
screen size / viewing distance


A 2GB movie is typically around 2mbps. I've seen some 2mbps x265 which looks poor to my eyes -- skin textures are smoothed, actors faces have poorly defined edges, and film grain is missing. But I've also seen 2mbps encodes which look decent and "acceptable" in many cases (but not all).

But don't take my word for it, compare it for yourself by taking screenshots, preferably on shots with camera movement. I did this with the film Beverly Hills Cop (2mbps vs 6mbps x265) and the difference was definitely noticeable. For movies with little camera movement the difference will be less noticeable, and there are many films like this which I am fine with 2mbps, except if the encoder settings are poorly chosen.

imo remux isn't really practical due to its storage requirements. On the other hand I consider future proofing where 2mbps wont necessarily hold up on a larger screen. The sweet spot for me personally is 4-6mbps x265 with optimal encoder settings and sourced from a high bitrate (25mbps+) master.

[Sunspark]

Sorry for the off topic guys but I trust your opinion.

Is there a true visual difference between a lets say 2gb full HD movie and an 8 gb full HD one?I mean can you truly notice a difference?
I understand that in theory you will say ''go with remux'' for the best possible quality but do you really notice a difference?

Yes, the lower the bitrate, the softer and less detailed the image is. Also, in darker areas you will have a lot more crushed black and macroblocks, etc.

If you want to see it in action, just look at what Netflix and others do with their streaming service.

[flossy_cake]

I did this with the film Beverly Hills Cop (2mbps vs 6mbps x265) and the difference was definitely noticeable.

Went back and re-checked this and the difference isn't as great as I remembered, with the 2mbps holding up quite well:

Scene 1 - slight camera movement
2mbps (https://i1.lensdump.com/i/1pMot0.png), 6mbps (https://i.lensdump.com/i/1pMMb3.png)

Scene 2 - fast panning
2mbps (https://i.lensdump.com/i/1pMPjA.png), 6mbps (https://i2.lensdump.com/i/1pMu4D.png)

Scene 3 - slight camera movement through hazy windscreen
2mbps (https://i3.lensdump.com/i/1pMX6e.png), 6mbps (https://i2.lensdump.com/i/1pMFMQ.png)

Scene 4 - medium camera movement
2mbps (https://i.lensdump.com/i/1pYJwF.png), 6mbps (https://i3.lensdump.com/i/1pYCSr.png)

[Sunspark]

Try 2 mbps with dimly lit scenes.

You will also find that 2 mbps at 720p will have more detail than it will at 1080p.

My recommendation is that if you're not on metered internet and have disk space, choose the higher bitrate option if available.

[Damien147]

My point and question is ''can you truly enjoy the benefits of a higher bitrate movie under normal conditions?While watching a movie?''
I mean that if you have to freeze a movie and put it under a microscope to see a difference you are losing the point.
I have a 50 inch calibrated TV at 2,4 meters(soon at 2 m) and I think that I am good enough for a higher bitrate movie,correct me if I am wrong.
Watching in the past ~2gb full HD movies was just fine for me but these months I am trying to do it right with almost the best possible result.Good bitrate movies it is.
Thank you very much guys.

[flossy_cake]

Try 2 mbps with dimly lit scenes.


2mb (https://i2.lensdump.com/i/17W2cx.png), 6mb (https://i3.lensdump.com/i/17WW31.png) (static)
2mb (https://i.lensdump.com/i/17WiDc.png), 6mb (https://i1.lensdump.com/i/17W0WK.png) (panning upwards)
2mb (https://i2.lensdump.com/i/17WI9Z.png), 6mb (https://i3.lensdump.com/i/17WZvP.png) (panning left to right)
2mb (https://i.lensdump.com/i/17WgGm.png), 6mb (https://i1.lensdump.com/i/17Wtki.png) (static)

If I had to guess why the 2mbps is holding up so well in this particular instance:


The h265 encoder settings are optimally chosen
Perhaps movies shot on film tend to do better under dim lighting due to the way celluloid rolls off near black

I have seen 2mbps which looks much worse, and even broadcast TV 4.5mbps h264 looks slightly worse but I suppose a significant part of that is due to it being encoded in realtime.

[brazen1]

Sorry for the off topic guys but I trust your opinion.

Is there a true visual difference between a lets say 2gb full HD movie and an 8 gb full HD one?I mean can you truly notice a difference?
I understand that in theory you will say ''go with remux'' for the best possible quality but do you really notice a difference?

Playing back low bitrate video containing less data on a cell phone or a 50" TV - naturally flaws appear smaller using smaller more dense pixels so it's easier to ignore them even though they are present.

On displays 2, 3 or 4 times that size, low bitrate video delivering less data introduces flaws more prominently especially since larger modern screen sizes amplify everything including the flaws created because of less data.

More data equals more quality with less flaws. Highest data and quality are 1:1 Blu-Ray discs and rips, be it x264 or x265. Quality begins with the source. Shrunken compressed rips and streamed video deliver less data and less quality and is very easy to notice on larger screens than smaller ones to the point it's annoying. That said, video is being shot with better cameras and better processing delivering less annoyance even using low bitrate sources much of it considered SOE which personally I embrace.

[YGPMOLE]

Hi all!

Sorry, but I got a very dumb question, a dub actually...

When madVR sends a 8 bit signal to the projector, to avoid that the 10 bits metadata activates its own tone mapping, doesn't we lose the 10 bit color quality? I mean, the 10 bit bitdepht is what makes possible to see 1.07 billion colors instead of 16.7 million with 8 bit. Stupid question?

[huhn]

bit deep is not about more it's just about banding compression efficiency and such the colours don't change.

if your PJ work different with 10 bit than 8 bit well ok then... get a different one next time.
HDR is not trigger by 10 bit because 12 bit was a default feature for 10 years or so it trigger by HDR meta data.

[flossy_cake]

Hi all!

When madVR sends a 8 bit signal to the projector, to avoid that the 10 bits metadata activates its own tone mapping, doesn't we lose the 10 bit color quality?

If the video file is 10-bit and GPU is outputting 8-bit to projector, I think MadVR will use pixel shader to dither the 10-bit source to 8-bits (assuming you have it enabled in MadVR settings) and you probably won't even be able to tell it's not true 10-bits because the dithering algorithm is very good.

[Siso]

Does anyone have Log Conservative (Neo-XP) curve numbers for HSTM in 112 beta?

[flossy_cake]

Does anyone have Log Conservative (Neo-XP) curve numbers for HSTM in 112 beta?

I don't, sorry, but I'm sure someone else does and they will hopefully chime in so you can nail down those magic settings to finally fix the HDR image and start enjoying movies again.

[SirMaster]

Does anyone have Log Conservative (Neo-XP) curve numbers for HSTM in 112 beta?

Should be able find then by searching the madvr hdr for projectors thread on AVSForum when they were discussing HSTM curves a couple years ago.

[tony359]

Hi all

I'd like to tweak the low light of my C7 when playing HDR. TV is old and there are no controls for that - and what is available causes banding so better to leave them default.
I was wondering if I could use MadVR tone mapping to tweak the picture a bit? Is there a way to do so?

Thanks all!

[flossy_cake]

Hi all

I'd like to tweak the low light of my C7 when playing HDR. TV is old and there are no controls for that - and what is available causes banding so better to leave them default.
I was wondering if I could use MadVR tone mapping to tweak the picture a bit? Is there a way to do so?

Thanks all!

/shameless self-promotion/

You could use my app (http://tiny.cc/CalibrationTools) to do that -- I have implemented adjustable knee and rolloff length of the 0-30% range (https://i1.lensdump.com/i/1SdhZa.png) ("gain" and "range" in the app). This is done through the video card gamma table so it applies to everything.

But you will get banding if you are outputting 8-bit to the display and haven't enabled dithering in the driver. For Nvidia you can enable dithering through the app (https://i.lensdump.com/i/1SdGcQ.png). For AMD you can enable it with regkeys like DP_DisableDither=0 and HDMI_DisableDither=0 (https://i3.lensdump.com/i/1Sd5OM.png). For Intel dithering there is an app here (https://kawamoto.no-ip.org/henteko/myapp_en.html) which might be able to help.

edit: if you only want it to apply to HDR then it looks like you'll have to use MadVR setttings > hdr > tone mapping curve > arve custom curve, and choose an arve curve file (https://www.avsforum.com/threads/official-jvc-20ltd-rs640-x990-x9900-rs540-x790-x7900-owners-thread.2923938/page-149#post-55203652) with your desired shadow detail boost. MadVR has good dithering so you should get smooth near-black gradients.

[tony359]

Amazing thanks!

For SDR I have a colour meter and I can calibrate everything to match the standard and or my eyes.

For HDR I looked into the arve curves but I couldn’t find anything to explain things. I’ll study your link and find out.

One thing: as a user already posted on this thread somewhere, whenever I try to import an arve curve on madVR it just doesn’t seem to work. It goes back to BT.2390. Is there anything special to do to apply a custom curve?

Thanks a lot so far!

[flossy_cake]

For SDR I have a colour meter and I can calibrate everything to match the standard and or my eyes.

If the software you used generated a .icc or .cal file, you can open that file in Calibration Tools and then edit its shadow detail manually to how you prefer.


For HDR I looked into the arve curves but I couldn’t find anything to explain things. I’ll study your link and find out.

One thing: as a user already posted on this thread somewhere, whenever I try to import an arve curve on madVR it just doesn’t seem to work. It goes back to BT.2390. Is there anything special to do to apply a custom curve?


I've never used arve curves sorry, maybe someone else can help with that.

From what I can tell that avsforum post seems to contain all the info though, so it should be possible, just have to learn how to use Arve Tool's commands.

Although from what I can tell from skimming it, the Arve Tool's black level adjuster might be raising the black level which you can already do with the C7's "Brightness" control. It sounds like you want to raise shadow detail a bit without raising black. That is what the shadow detail control in Calibration Tools does -- adjusts the near-black gamma without affecting black itself.

[tony359]

I have calibrated in SDR but unfortunately I have no way to calibrate in HDR - otherwise it would be easy to adjust as you say.

I’ve looked into that extensively and it’s just not possible with the C7, madVR and displayCAL. If someone has other info, please do let me know.

Maybe I could create a ‘flat’ calibration file and then tweak the low level manually?

Let me start with studying that link, maybe that is telling me all I need to know!

Thanks again!

Edit: I've looked at the link and I have some notes
1. As you suspected, the tool allows to tweak the black level, which could be useful but still not what I am looking for.
2. I still have the issue that arve files don't seem to load on my madVR
3. If I understand correctly, madVR features a dynamic tone mapping - basically "why tone mapping when the brightness on screen is below the max capability of the TV?" I guess. If I load a fixed tone mapping curve, I believe I lose that feature. Is there a setting in madVR which allows me to tweak the low light without losing the dynamic tone mapping?

@Flossy_cake
Your tool seems to be what I am looking for to be honest. I am normally using displayCAL generated files inside madVR. Wouldn't madVR take care of the dithering?

Thanks!

[flossy_cake]

One thing: as a user already posted on this thread somewhere, whenever I try to import an arve curve on madVR it just doesn’t seem to work. It goes back to BT.2390. Is there anything special to do to apply a custom curve?

Yeah i can't get it to work either. I downloaded a bunch of arve .conf files from that avsforum thread and none of them load in MadVR, it just defaults back to BT.2390. Perhaps the .conf files aren't formatted as MadVR is expecting and so it just ignores them?

If I open the .conf files in notepad they have plaintext lookup tables which you could edit manually. So if you could get it working in MadVR then all you'd have to do is tweak the shadow detail in Caltools editor, then open the Caltools .cal file which is also plaintext lookup table and copy paste the table values into the arve .conf file. It looks like arve uses a range of 0-1023 so you just have to convert the .cal file's 0-1 range to 0-1023 range using a spreadsheet.

If you cant get arve .conf files working then another possible option is that Caltools can do per-application .cal files (Tools > install to game > apply by: video card gamma table). Then you will need an executable to run only while you're in HDR mode, eg. making a copy of the media player's executable and renaming it something like "mpc-hc64_HDR.exe" and using that executable when playing HDR videos. Then Caltools will load your HDR .cal file only while mpc-hc64_HDR.exe is running.



3. If I understand correctly, madVR features a dynamic tone mapping - basically "why tone mapping when the brightness on screen is below the max capability of the TV?" I guess. If I load a fixed tone mapping curve, I believe I lose that feature. Is there a setting in madVR which allows me to tweak the low light without losing the dynamic tone mapping?

I'm using the latest non-beta version of MadVR in which that feature seems to be called "measure each frame's peak luminance" which according to the faq "allows madVR to only compress highlights as much as necessary on a per frame basis resulting in more detail in highlights". I am not sure if this becomes grayed out after selecting an arve file as I can't get an arve file to load.


Wouldn't madVR take care of the dithering?

The video card gamma table gets applied after MadVR so it needs to be dithered again. But if your C7 accepts a 10-bit or 12-bit signal for both SDR and HDR then you shouldn't need dithering as 10-12 bits has enough tones to avoid significant banding. The video card gamma table is 16-bit.

[andybkma]

Hi guys, been using madVR on Win7 for the past umpteen years but now have (finally) bought a new computer of which I can install Win10 or Win11 on. So of course my first and foremost question is that since I will be mostly using this as a media machine connected to an 85" Sony should I install Win10 or Win11 on the new comp? I plan to watch mostly 4K/HDR so basically does madVR work better with either or? I would hate to install and set up Win11 just to find out that I should have installed Win10 because madVR and/or LAV doesn't play nice... Cheers :-)

Oh the video card is an Nvdia RTX3080... that will probably make a difference with the OS, no?

[mclingo]

Hi, I think there have been some issues with win11 but workarounds have been found I think, i'm still on win10 with an AMD card so i'm not much help, however, i'd say build a win10 machine first and if you find later down the line you need to upgrade to win11 you can, if you build a win11 machine you'll have to build it all again on win10 if you have issues, at least if you go win10 to start with, if you put win11 on afterward you have some time to roll it back.

[andybkma]

Hi, I think there have been some issues with win11 but workarounds have been found I think, i'm still on win10 with an AMD card so i'm not much help, however, i'd say build a win10 machine first and if you find later down the line you need to upgrade to win11 you can, if you build a win11 machine you'll have to build it all again on win10 if you have issues, at least if you go win10 to start with, if you put win11 on afterward you have some time to roll it back.

Thanks for replying coz goodness you make too much sense :-) You're right of course to better stick with the known entity for now and then screw around with Win11/12 down the road (like if we finally get some sort of working mVR Dolby Vision support or something that actually has to run on a newer OS)

[tony359]

Thanks @flossy_Cake

My LG does not really like more than 8bit - in fact I discovered I had madVR set to 10bit and had significant banding and also discovered that enabling nVidia dithering reduces the banding a lot - this is without a custom .cal file being used. Is it ok to enable nVidia dithering when using madVR? I did try ages ago via registry but I was never succesfull - your app makes things much easier.

I am really happy with the outcome achieved with Caltools, thanks for that! And thanks for the hint on how to use it only with HDR - I will have to experiment a bit as displayCAL obviously fights Caltools when it comes to the .cal file loaded! :)

But the outcome is great, it's exactly what I was looking for - plus you made my picture better by enabling nVidia dithering!

[flossy_cake]

Thanks @flossy_Cake

My LG does not really like more than 8bit - in fact I discovered I had madVR set to 10bit and had significant banding and also discovered that enabling nVidia dithering reduces the banding a lot - this is without a custom .cal file being used. Is it ok to enable nVidia dithering when using madVR? I did try ages ago via registry but I was never succesfull - your app makes things much easier.

I am really happy with the outcome achieved with Caltools, thanks for that! And thanks for the hint on how to use it only with HDR - I will have to experiment a bit as displayCAL obviously fights Caltools when it comes to the .cal file loaded! :)

But the outcome is great, it's exactly what I was looking for - plus you made my picture better by enabling nVidia dithering!

Regarding the NVidia dithering setting, I think you have to match the 6-bit/8-bit/10-bit setting to whatever the GPU is currently outputting to get optimal results. And you may need to do a reboot in between.

And yeah, the regkey works on some systems but not others. Caltools calls directly the Nvidia API function in system32\nvapi64.dll. The function parameters were undocumented to the public, but someone on NVidia forum had a Quadro which exposed the parameters to developers and we got it working. It's still a little buggy though, eg. after waking up from windows sleep/hibernation the driver can disable it and then not respond to turning it back on even though Caltools is refreshing it automatically 2.5 seconds after waking from sleep. I added some config.ini settings to try and help with those cases which are documented in the readme file's config.ini section.

It's okay to use NVidia driver dithering at the same time as MadVR's dithering but you will have 2 rounds of dithering applied. Here (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WdtpXFWGsa1X5Fbn2t-AOuYrJWYmaSgG/view?usp=sharing)is a grey ramp test pattern video.

[tony359]

Understood and good job with the nVidia dithering API!

The thing is that the ramp improves considerably when I enable nVidia dithering even with a flat .cal file. But to be honest I didn't remember it to be so bad before I enabled it so I was wondering whether playing with the nVidia dithering option has "broken" something somewhere else?

I'm talking about HDR ramps btw - I didn't try with SDR ramps.

[flossy_cake]

Understood and good job with the nVidia dithering API!

The thing is that the ramp improves considerably when I enable nVidia dithering even with a flat .cal file. But to be honest I didn't remember it to be so bad before I enabled it so I was wondering whether playing with the nVidia dithering option has "broken" something somewhere else?

I'm talking about HDR ramps btw - I didn't try with SDR ramps.

I believe the NVidia dithering is needed to avoid banding whenever Nvidia driver is doing any sort of conversion process of the dynamic range, such as modifying the video card gamma table, converting between SDR <-> HDR, or other conversions like on my system I am outputting limited range signal so Nvidia driver is converting 0-255 to 16-235 and that also results in banding unless I enable Nvidia dithering.

I doubt that enabling NVidia dithering has broken anything permanently but if you wanted to make sure you could do a clean install of the Nvidia driver. Windows 10 also has some bugs with its colour management system that can potentially cause banding -- see here (https://hub.displaycal.net/forums/topic/windows-10-1903-please-read/) although I think they may have been sorted out by now.

edit: I just remembered that a flat (linear) .cal file has a quirk where a mathematically correct linear file is slightly different to what Nvidia/Windows thinks is a linear file. Basically a mathematically correct one goes from 0-65535 but the default state of the gamma table without any user intervention is actually 0-65280. So try unticking "run at windows startup" and then reboot so you should get the 0-65280 linear table and see if that changes anything. The "file > unload" button loads a mathematically correct 0-65535 table (CaltoolsFolder\CalibrationFiles\linear.cal).

[flossy_cake]

I'm talking about HDR ramps btw - I didn't try with SDR ramps.

Are you able to upload the HDR ramp(s) somewhere?

[tony359]

edit: I just remembered that a flat (linear) .cal file has a quirk where a mathematically correct linear file is slightly different to what Nvidia/Windows thinks is a linear file. Basically a mathematically correct one goes from 0-65535 but the default state of the gamma table without any user intervention is actually 0-65280. So try unticking "run at windows startup" and then reboot so you should get the 0-65280 linear table and see if that changes anything. The "file > unload" button loads a mathematically correct 0-65535 table (CaltoolsFolder\CalibrationFiles\linear.cal).

Interesting and also infuriating! There is always something! I like thinkering but sometimes I feel hopeless with the immense amount of information you have to dive in and test! :D Thanks a lot though.

I used Mehanik patterns which you can find here: https://www.avsforum.com/threads/hdr10-test-patterns-set.2943380/

Ramps are here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1S-79Oxjr3NSbvNeEqNdqAc3XT0LO_AFt

[flossy_cake]

Ramps are here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1S-79Oxjr3NSbvNeEqNdqAc3XT0LO_AFt

Thanks.

I checked the 1000nit & 8-bit ramps and observe on my system that Nvidia dithering has no effect on ramp smoothness if the video card gamma table is linear (either one) and my GTX 1070 is outputting RGB 8-bit full range @ TV's native "PC mode" resolution.

But, if I output any other video mode (even just non-native res but still RGB 8-bit full range) then Nvidia dithering starts affecting gradient smoothness of both ramps, but not if MadVR dithering is set to "random", "colored" & "change every frame".

[brazen1]

https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-delivers-quantum-leap-in-performance-introduces-new-era-of-neural-rendering-with-geforce-rtx-40-series

[ryrynz]

https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-delivers-quantum-leap-in-performance-introduces-new-era-of-neural-rendering-with-geforce-rtx-40-seriesJesus. *AMD starts sweating*