madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[huhn]

properties don't tell you the actual version.

so you could be running 205

[ddcbsmj]

properties don't tell you the actual version.

so you could be running 205

thank you, but is this the correct way to update? or i can just overwrite the files and no need to run install.bat again? just making sure :D thanks

[huhn]

the install.bat doesn't change settings so it will not harm.

[Drybonz]

I have been looking for a breakdown of the new settings in the test builds... things like TM curve (Mercury, Mars, etc) and the differences. I haven't been able to find anything, and if someone can point me in the right direction, I appreciate it. Thanks.

[lvqcl]

Maybe it's mentioned somewhere in this thread: https://www.avsforum.com/threads/improving-madvr-hdr-to-sdr-mapping-for-projector-no-support-questions.2954506/

[Drybonz]

Maybe it's mentioned somewhere in this thread: https://www.avsforum.com/threads/improving-madvr-hdr-to-sdr-mapping-for-projector-no-support-questions.2954506/

I've looked through a few of the threads that are 900 and 3000 pages long. I was hoping someone might know where there was a specific breakdown of the settings for myself and anyone else that might be a layman looking for a place to start as far as learning the settings.

[foxyshadis]

Is there anything like a denoiser for audio? That is, a way to combat the noise floor of early sound films without messing too much with the audio track as a whole?

Hi Aumut, there's a lot more to the forum than this thread, you can post a new thread or look for threads about audio processing to see if they answer your question, or would be more appropriate place for this question. This thread is about a video processor only.

[Drybonz]

With test build 205 (and 204) MadVR/Jriver MC hangs on a black screen (must be task killed) when closing large 4k move files. i9-4060-32gb. Is this a known issue? Is there a work around? Thanks for the help.

[huhn]

if the stable release works post it here:
http://bugs.madshi.net/my_view_page.php

[Amuat]

Hi Aumut, there's a lot more to the forum than this thread, you can post a new thread or look for threads about audio processing to see if they answer your question, or would be more appropriate place for this question. This thread is about a video processor only.

My bad, post deleted, and thanks for pointing me to the right direction.

[ddjmagic]

ddjmagic:
Are you sure it's it switches to HDR mode for SDR and not that your graphic driver or video decoder is set to output a limited range? (there's a setting for this both in the GPU driver settings and sometimes in the video decoder codec).

madVR doesn't care about this part like ranges in codecs it usually get's limited range from the decoder just as it should be.
the adjust video colours settings are also ignored by madVR.
the range settings for the HDMI signal are surely something that could be amiss

it also shouldn't be able to enter HDR mode with SDR files...

Yes, for SDR content Windows 11 and the TV both show as now in HDR mode and MadVR Ctrl + J shows it as HDR too, as soon as I stop playback it switches back.
If I switch to EVR CP instead of MadVR then SDR is back to normal and works as expected, Windows and the TV then don't switch to HDR.

[Perenista]

Having problems with madVR:

- Using Windows 11 and RTX 3060.
- HDR is disabled for my Acer XV280K-B monitor, which uses 3840 x 2160 @ 60 Hz.

Whenever I open a UHD/4K lossless MKV file, it seems the entire monitor image goes darker and gray (?), flickering once. Is that a failed attempt to enable HDR?

I reseted madVR settings (using the installation directory BAT), but that didn't help.

So I have to watch everything now with the MPC Video Decoder.

What should I do to fix this? It wasn't like that before. And my NVidia card uses the latest drivers.

https://www.reddit.com/r/htpc/comments/10o79t6/disabling_hdr/

This thread seems to suggest this is some sort of conflict between these cards and madVR, to a point we can NEVER disable HDR.

When I try to open one of the 4K files, this is what it says:

MPC-BE x64 1.6.11
Filters currently loaded:
- Default DirectSound Device
- madVR Renderer
- ffdshow Audio Processor
- LAV Video Decoder
- Audio Switcher
- LAV Audio Decoder
- LAV Splitter Source

The problem also affects MPC-HC. The entire monitor goes gray.

A few configs:

LAV: https://i.postimg.cc/z5fz3fRw/LAV.jpg

MPC Video Decoder: https://i.postimg.cc/YMGtfyRh/MPCV.jpg

Note: all internal filters (from MPC) were disabled.

madVR stats:

https://i.postimg.cc/sy2TLktD/MADVR.jpg

P.S. Following this (read below) didn't help, either: https://www.reddit.com/r/htpc/comments/p0idoi/windows_11_mpchclavmadvr_hdr/

-Update: fixed it.
Uninstalled K-Lite fully.
Rebooted to be safe.
If using Nvidia Studio drivers, switch over to Game Ready, as these include Win 11 support.
Reboot to be safe.
Install K-Lite. Do some basic config.
Fixed. (hopefully!)Not even a clean install (followed by formatting) solved this... Until I tried a few more times and found the correct option:

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

As explained here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/htpc/comments/joz9kr/mpchcmadvr_automatically_activates_hdr_on_my/

There's just one little detail... madVR does not recognize my Acer 4K monitor, so it does not show this option anywhere in the internal settings. Even after I select "digital monitor", still doesn't show.

For some odd reason, all these inside the circle:

https://i.postimg.cc/gz4mLLJb/OPTIONS.jpg

Only appeared after I used the option "create profile group", then played a few videos (one of them a 4K/UHD MKV (movie) extracted from the original disc)... so what's the catch?

Do we need to play a few videos or wait for that option from the 1st screenshot magically appears? Because it wasn't in my first visit to madVR internal settings.

If these options are hidden and never appear when we need, we can't configure anything.

Also: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/geforce-graphics-cards/5/263391/hdr-washed-out-colors/

This post seems to hint in my case I need to check this out:
https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=172128

When I looked into NVidia's control panel (from the RTX 3060), it said

https://i.postimg.cc/mkgbhMJV/NVIDIA.jpg

Output Dynamic Range (LIMITED, not full)
And Output Color Depth = 8 bpc

What I first tried as evidenced before was to totally disable HDR while using madVR... to be able to turn it on with this cheap monitor it's another scenario. Before I finally figured out today, I was only using MPC-BE with the MPC Video Decoder.

[huhn]

just install 205 that is the win 11 bug.
https://www.videohelp.com/software/madVR/old-versions

i hope.

[Amuat]

Went through this guide (https://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=171787) again, and it says the following:

"activate only if it comes for free (as part of NGU): [Disabled] Only runs RCA if it can be run as part of NGU image upscaling. Requires NGU Sharp high for medium quality and NGU Sharp very high for high quality."

Does this mean that for medium quality NGU Sharp needs to be high both for the chroma upscaling section and both luma and chroma on the image upscaling section?

And another question: disregarding the need to have reduce compression artifacts at a certain quality, how would you set the priority for these three if you would need to compromise: chroma upscaling in its own section, chroma upscaling on the image upscaling section, and finally dithering? I predict the answer is going to be "it depends", but in that case, could you elucidate on what exactly it depends on?


P.S. Thank you clsid for the tip on Codec Tweak Tool!

[gendalv]

Is there a way to disable madVR on higher resolution (1080p+) videos and use EVR of d3d11 instead? My playback of 4k videos is lagging with it, and it's not that necessary on higher quality videos anyway.

[Sunspark]

@gendalv No, you need to either manually toggle which video renderer you want to use before starting playback, or install a second player and switch to it.

[clsid]

You can create profiles in madvr. Then you can use less heavy settings for high resolution video.

[HillieSan]

Hi. I am using an RTX 3060 Ti with madvr. I hear distortion (cracking noise) in the audio (through receiver) when I play a movie in MPC BE with madvr on NGU sharp very high. Even when I pause the movie and hover the mouse over MPC BE I hear distortion. No distortion when playing Netflix. Any idea what could cause this?

[huhn]

sadly the answer is that's pretty normal.
the gpu is under some to heavy load which distorts the DC 12V rail modern PSU only have one of these usually meaning all devices get a distorted DC 12V.
this is usually not filtered at all so it is send over HDMI (not as 12v obviously) the digital data is still 100 % readable but the AVR usually just throws that at the dac for what ever reason and it will distort the audio.

if your TV PJ has eARC you can try that maybe it will filter the signal first. make sure the PC is not connected at all.

the stereo dac in monitors are usually perfectly filtered this doesn't make the dacs good but distortion is usually gone. why this is not the case for onboard audio or AVR i don't know.

be careful you are not mixing this up with a ground loop this a 50-60 Hz buzzing this needs different handling.

[HillieSan]

Thanks for the reply. It’s not a ground loop. I have just tried a netfilter on the PC and an optical hdmi cable. The anomalies are the same. It must be in the graphics card at highest performance (NGU sharp very high).

How does madvr perform on amd graphics cards nowadays, or does madvr still perform best on nvidia graphics cards? Does the RTX 4060 make a difference?

[clsid]

Or just try NGU high instead of very high. The difference is so minimal that you probably can't even see the difference.

[ryrynz]

Or just try NGU high instead of very high. The difference is so minimal that you probably can't even see the difference.This. Very high is usually a waste of resources. Give your card a break.

[huhn]

Thanks for the reply. It’s not a ground loop. I have just tried a netfilter on the PC and an optical hdmi cable. The anomalies are the same. It must be in the graphics card at highest performance (NGU sharp very high).
my 4060 has this problem close to idle so hmmm.

How does madvr perform on amd graphics cards nowadays, or does madvr still perform best on nvidia graphics cards? Does the RTX 4060 make a difference?

amd usual performance better then nvidia except for polaris. but tests haven't been done in a long time with newer navi cards or nvidia cards.
beware of some feature issue like been unable to flag an HDMI stream as bt 2020 and the more broken deint.

my 4060 is the worst with this issue i have encountered in my life.
i have to grab my asus essence stx and use that nightmare of a soundcard again. with all of it's countless flaws it was always able to beat issues like this like they never exist. and i have an creative AE-5 in right now in hope it would do something about this... well it was good enough with the 5700 xt and 1060.
Or just try NGU high instead of very high. The difference is so minimal that you probably can't even see the difference.

good point different load on the card can minimise or remove this issue. i forgot to point this very important workaround out.

and VH is just a general waste.

[strumf666]

sadly the answer is that's pretty normal.
the gpu is under some to heavy load which distorts the DC 12V rail modern PSU only have one of these usually meaning all devices get a distorted DC 12V.
this is usually not filtered at all so it is send over HDMI (not as 12v obviously) the digital data is still 100 % readable but the AVR usually just throws that at the dac for what ever reason and it will distort the audio.

It's not normal, it indicates a problem, probably with the graphics card VRM.

[HillieSan]

Setting madvr from very high to high helped a bit. Still some distortion when I hover with the mouse over mpc be. Could it be related to mpc be? Is there a better player with madvr?

[huhn]

It's not normal, it indicates a problem, probably with the graphics card VRM.

i didn't have a single card in my life that doesn't have this problem.
and no as long as the card is within spec it can ruin the power signal as much as it pleases. modern GPU and especially zen CPU switch the Volt in such a fast pace no signal will keep it's integrity.

filtering the signal is not the job of the GPU. the digital signal is still bit perfect.

Setting madvr from very high to high helped a bit. Still some distortion when I hover with the mouse over mpc be. Could it be related to mpc be? Is there a better player with madvr?

if you just replace the GPU get another one. same for board and PSU.

still sounds like a fix you are not hovering and moving your mouse in playback.

[Siso]

Or just try NGU high instead of very high. The difference is so minimal that you probably can't even see the difference.

Then why does "very high" exist in the scaling options?

[huhn]

because it is technically better. same for nnedi3 256.

for 480p you may see a difference between then not saying you can tell them a part but a difference is still there.

[Siso]

because it is technically better. same for nnedi3 256.

for 480p you may see a difference between then not saying you can tell them a part but a difference is still there.

What about 1080p to 2160p?

[Charky]

Then why does "very high" exist in the scaling options?
In crude words? To make your d*ck feel longer thx to placebo effect.

Take a couple of minutes, take screenshots, and tell us if you see the difference in actual content at viewing distance. If you can't (and you most likely won't), then it's a pure waste of watts.

[clsid]

Then why does "very high" exist in the scaling options?There are several settings in madvr that have massive performance penalty for barely no quality gain. I guess they never got removed due to all the "I want the absolute best quality and I don't care if it takes a terawatt of power" nerds.

Madvr himself has once said that difference between high and very high is literally just a few pixel values, and not necessarily better values.

Some general rules for beginners:
- Do not use NGU very high
- Do not use any difficult algo for Chroma
- Do not uncheck everything on "trade quality ..."
- Once you start touching any of the more advanced settings, do actually compare if you see any visual improvement.

[Siso]

Some general rules for beginners:
- Do not use any difficult algo for Chroma
- Do not uncheck everything on "trade quality ..."

Can you give more specific info about these two rules?

[strumf666]

i didn't have a single card in my life that doesn't have this problem.
and no as long as the card is within spec it can ruin the power signal as much as it pleases. modern GPU and especially zen CPU switch the Volt in such a fast pace no signal will keep it's integrity.

filtering the signal is not the job of the GPU. the digital signal is still bit perfect.

I'll try it on my gpu, since it's made by AMD if I get the noise too.
Well, the output signal has to be within hdmi spec, that's the job of the graphics card, otherwise the picture would drop out too in addition to sound issues; switching power levels probably has the most impact here, but that shouldn't affect madvr too much since it is a more constant load than gaming. So it's kind of weird issue.

[huhn]

I'll try it on my gpu, since it's made by AMD if I get the noise too.
Well, the output signal has to be within hdmi spec, that's the job of the graphics card, otherwise the picture would drop out too in addition to sound issues; switching power levels probably has the most impact here, but that shouldn't affect madvr too much since it is a more constant load than gaming. So it's kind of weird issue.
i hope you get nothing.

madVR is a very inconstant load. the insane number of shaders resulting in a load like CS go at 1000 fps.
if you really want to trigger such issue try mpv in benchmark mode.
dither=no
audio=no
untimed=yes
video-sync=display-desync
vulkan-swap-mode=mailbox
opengl-swapinterval=0
osd-msg1="FPS: ${estimated-display-fps}"

actually i could go and do recording of all of this i have the hardware to do so or only miss small optimal stuff like spdif cables. the problem this is extremely time consuming to do so and barely anyone will care.

[clsid]

Can you give more specific info about these two rules?
- Don't use NGU for Chroma. Chroma scaling is much less important than image scaling. There is plenty of advice for Chroma scalers to be found in this topic.
- Don't touch anything at all on "Trade quality ..." page.

And also good rule:
- Start with basic settings. Check rendertime (Ctrl+J). Then adjust settings one by one and observe if it improves quality and what the effect on rendertime is.

[Siso]

I'm on rtx 4070 ti, even with all settings maxed out I can reach ~ 15-20ms rendering times. I was asking cause there maybe some settings I can adjust, I'm not those freaks who pump all settings to the max.

[ryrynz]

If you're not doing tonemapping there's not much of a benefit to going beyond 3060/3070 levels of performance for most of today's content. Some people will want more.

I think a standard 5060 (4060 Ti levels of performance?) would do very well for anything I need in future since the standard features aren't being updated any more and I'm still primarily playing only 24 fps content, you can run settings that look great at around the 20ms odd frame time. Not hard to reach essentially peak madVR these days, go back twelve odd years and it was a bit different.

[Sunspark]

For those wondering since it's been awhile, the default installation checkboxes on "trade quality for performance" are the first 9 from "optimize" to "compromise".

I don't recall a measurement study where the impact of any of them has been quantified, other than the scale chroma separately one which is needed for 4K.

I did look at the subtitles one, and it was subtly blurrier. It wouldn't be noticed at a distance on a TV. On a monitor at closer range? Maybe.

[huhn]

the compromise HDR stuff has massive effects on image quality and performance.

[Amuat]

I tried several different types of videos, and at least for me having those default options on or off makes absolutely no difference whatsoever on performance. Changing chroma from NGU at medium to Cubic (with no filters) makes a slight difference, but I'm not convinced it's worth it. Anyway the difference is so small that in my case it doesn't enable me to exchange the freed resources to anything more meaningful.

[clsid]

The important lesson is just to do a comparison before enabling any of the more advanced settings. Certainly for the majority of people who have weaker hardware. Then make informed decision.

[gfxnow]

- Don't use NGU for Chroma. Chroma scaling is much less important than image scaling.

What would you recommend for Chroma scaling? Jinc?

Edit: don't have performance issues/dropped frames on my RTX 4060 Ti but I do notice presentation glitches when the processing pipeline gets too complicated e.g. NGU image upscaling first and then SSim downscaling when playing 1080p videos on my 1440p display. Chroma upscaling is set to NGU Anti-alias very high quality.

Thanks!

[ryrynz]

What would you recommend for Chroma scaling? Jinc?
Chroma upscaling is set to NGU Anti-alias very high quality.


Ideally you should've read the earlier posts just made days ago.. Very High is a complete waste of resources and for chroma it's even more so.
Jinc is good AFAIC, but feel free to look at the others and compare, some people prefer sharper.

[clsid]

Jinc and super-xbr are popular choices for chroma.

[traykov77]

Hi, when apply 3d lut BT709 in madvr , do I have to set color and gamma - enable gamma processing or just leave it empty?

[huhn]

you leave it off.

[Mordred]

I've been using DSPlayer Kodi for a while now, but several months ago I began getting a flashing/pixellation on overlays when the video was paused. It's good for about 2-3 seconds and then half of the overlay will disappear, the rest has diagonal holes in it which flashing off and on, etc. Anybody seen anything like this before or know how I can fix it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjIQ2mkz26I

Edit: the fix for this was to set "prefer maximum performance" in the nVidia settings. Must have occurred when I upgraded graphics cards.

[Emulgator]

Graphic card degradation ?

[Mordred]

Graphic card degradation ?Not sure what you're asking.

I've got an nVidia 4070 that I upgraded from a 3060. Unfortunately I'm not sure if this problem started happening after a video driver/madvr update or when swapping to the new card as I'm not sure I noticed it right away. It's been going on for several months though.

[Heaud]

What would you recommend for Chroma scaling? Jinc?


Sorry to butt in, but based on what I have tried out, the best chroma scaler has been NGU Anti-Alias Low. With the Medium setting, it's so marginally better that it requires pausing the video on areas with deep reds and pulling out a magnifying glass to find a difference between it and Low. Any setting above Medium is placebo for chroma scaling.

Another great chroma scaler is Super XBR, but it sometimes adds a fuzzy oversharp ringing on chroma edges which can be noticeable with anime and cartoons. Dropping down the sharpness setting with Super XBR can help reduce the ringing. Setting the sharpness to 75 or 50 is recommended, anything lower I would not.

As for Jinc, Lanczos, and Spline, I found those to not be as ideal when compared to the image doubler variants. They may be sharp, but those three introduced ringing which not even the anti-ringing filter could eliminate completely.

Bilateral can be insanely good or quite bad. I have seen it fix aliased reds, but also bleed chroma into outlines where there should have not been any color, such as black outlines in anime and cartoons.