madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[clsid]

you are currently using a bicubic version called catmull-rom and the high crime of bilinear for chroma.
Actually he is not.
Shader processing is not used because he has video processor enabled. With a few exceptions where VP gets skipped in favor of shaders.
And playing 4k input as 4k output also means there likely is no luma scaling being done at all.
The renderer OSD shows what it does.

[huhn]

good point so bilinear for both.
edit: d3d11 video processor is currently bicubic for image and bilinear for chroma.
with mpeg1 placement which is not used by anything so you get wrong chroma placement too.

so the same just in worse. lucky me.

[tp4tissue]

Huhn can you explain the madvr chroma issue? Wrong color space?

[huhn]

chromaloc is not a colorspace:
https://www.mir.com/DMG/chroma.html
this old DVD stuff but it explains it a bit mpeg one didn't care about this and used centred which was perfect because that's what you get when you just scale as simple as possible. then interlacing was used and stuff got complicated so they messed it up...
with blu ray everything got very sample. it uses mpeg2 which is left so normal scaling doesn't work but it was the standard for all videos.

so UHD BD was released and they had to mess it up to elven and beyond.
they use top left only on the UHD BD youtube can use left for UHD HDR soem for every streaming site there is nothing from stopping it and it would be utterly correct.

lavfilter will tell you what the file is encoded in but madVR really doesn't care and always uses mpeg-2.
the envy will do it correctly btw depending on the source device.

the current "META" is no meta.
this creates chroma bleeding you know completely made up colours.

it get's worse there is a well known test disc they ask you to pay for.
there second version is encoded in mpeg-2 chroma placement and flag as mpeg-2 chroma placement making it UHD none complainant sold as reference test it has a chroma placement test.
so the majority clearly will not this major issue.

[varekai]

Many thanks guys for your input!

"Ask one question, three new appear..." haha!

@ huhn
I see from your excellent sliding comparison, that madVR has better sharpness in the outlines, the colors does look on my PC display the same in both images.

I don't know what all the technical video terms means, a bit over my head I'm afraid...
Do I need the Upscaling/Downscaling functions?
I want the original video from PC to TV unchanged, is that term just "passthrough"?

@Siso
When speaking of "keep things in sync", what sync is that, video/audio?
I haven't noticed any sync issues with MPC renderer so far.

@clsid
My goal is to have video source as untouched as possible when using my setup.
Geforce Nvidia RTX 4060 8GB (HDMI 2.1 8K Cable)
Playing 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray video from HDD PC Win10x64 using various mediaplayers -> HDMI 2.1 8K Cable -> Sony Bravia 8 4K OLED Smart TV (input eARC)
Is it an advantage to use the RTX Video HDR setting in MPC?
I can see that the GPU usage works a bit more with this enabled.

Could you guys advise for optimal settings in here for my setup, please?
https://i.imgur.com/HNLHdPe.png

Well, to sum it up... I'll skip madVR for now for my UHD videos and use MPC as video renderer.

[huhn]

it is literally impossible to render a video source untouched.

the RTX stuff is for user that don't want untouched anything.

if you watch a 1080 video on a UHD screen you need a scaler.

chroma scaler don't change color or shouldn't only on details they change sharpness of the image.

if you want unchanged image from PC to TV the screen is the biggest issue.

on sony you need graphic picture mode which is usually harder to calibrate.

video audio sync on a PC is an utter mess.
the audio clock and video clock even when using HDMI do not agree on what a seconded is so they drift and that's needs to be fixed usually by repeating or dropping frames.

mpcvr does this terrible right now. but doing a proper bug report would needs a lot of time to do i may do that sometime.

currently when it drops a frame it starts to judder and repeating a frame right after dropping one creating 6:4 pattern that is easily visible when 120 HZ is used. it does this for a couple of seconds or so.

with chroma you always need to scale and mpcVR is really bad at that. in the exsample i posted changing the chroma scaler will have more effect on the image then changing the image scaler.

passthrough only means the image isn't tone mapped and that on matters for HDR.

i currently use an s90c this TV is currently to stupid for blind passthrough because it clips everything over 4000 nits(i don'T really care to be honest) instead of tone mapping it so passthrough is not the easiest way to deal with that.

[Amuat]

with chroma you always need to scale and mpcVR is really bad at that. in the exsample i posted changing the chroma scaler will have more effect on the image then changing the image scaler.

Would you care to elaborate on this a bit? I suppose the main point is that if catmull-rom is a form of bilinear and 3D11 also uses bilinear for chroma there are no other options (except nearest neighbor, which I'd guess is even worse?), but what is it exactly with bilinear that makes it so bad at chroma scaling? And would you rather use shaders with catmull-rom than 3D11 or does it really make any real difference?

[huhn]

catmull-rom is not bilinear it is bicubic. some of them got there own name there are two variables and if you catmull-rom is also know as bicubic50. the usually "best" bicubic is 60 with anti ringing still not good...

there are two scaler that are utter trash which rarely should ever be used.

one is NN also known as nearest neighbour or point.
it needs barely any processing power and just copies pixels.
this can not fix chromaloc because the result is fixed. UHD BD chroma can actually be scaled with NN but the aliasing will be terrible.

bilinear is also super cheap and really bad at what is does it takes two pixel with offset or not adds them together and devides them by 2.

just super softscaler that even creates aliasing the only good thing about it is that it is fast. it's not Chroma where it is bad it is generally bad.

d3d11 processing or DXVA2 processing are using the GPU scaler that depends on the GPU or even driver version you have. nvidia is broken wrong placement (maybe there is a flag one could set which isn't currently) the scaler are low end. don't use it.
AMD is a bit better last time i checked it is bicubic and it uses mpeg2 placement so it is usable for SDR. there deinterlacer is utterly broken...

in general avoid. so bicubic it is using shaders. unlike madVR mpcVR does placement correctly.

chroma is usually just ignored and stated as not important which is objectively wrong. it quite some work to do but this is trivial(in terms to see the difference) to show.

edit: here is old test mostly with user scaler for mpv that are usually really bad https://slow.pics/c/fm2rliLr
if you can't tell the difference on image 5 i'm lost. bilinear is used mostly to show it shouldn't be there is no bicubic this scaler is only a small upgrade compared to bilinear.
the difference is only the chroma scaler nothing else.

[tp4tissue]

Huhn, so chroma lock, you're saying because of encoding differences from source, madvr might not lock using the right coordinate system as there are multiple varieties of 4:2:0, introducing, incorrect color fringes leading to a loss in "sharpness" ?

[varekai]

Thank you for being so kind to explain all the technical terms but...
I'm having trouble translating your technical explanations how to configure the Video Renderer window, I'm really trying hard to understand.
Could you explain by telling me what to check or uncheck in the configuration window?

I know it's being micromanaged and "there's no accounting for tastes", but for my area of ​​use I have specified as carefully as I can what I want to achieve.

Have I understood correctly that I shouldn't use "RTX Video HDR" at all?

Could you please look at the Video Render settings, are these "good" settings or "optimal" for my needs or should I change something?
https://i.imgur.com/LgoA1i9.png
You learn as long as you live...

edit: here is old test mostly with user scaler for mpv that are usually really bad https://slow.pics/c/fm2rliLr
if you can't tell the difference on image 5 i'm lost. bilinear is used mostly to show it shouldn't be there is no bicubic this scaler is only a small upgrade compared to bilinear.
the difference is only the chroma scaler nothing else.

Edit:
Now I'm confused, more than everyday confused... sorry for my ignorance.
I don't know what I'm expected to see or not see?
I saved the images to the computer and have studied them, compared them without understanding?

[huhn]

Huhn, so chroma lock, you're saying because of encoding differences from source, madvr might not lock using the right coordinate system as there are multiple varieties of 4:2:0, introducing, incorrect color fringes leading to a loss in "sharpness" ?
the name is really chromaloc: http://www.chaneru.com/Roku/HLS/X264_Settings.htm#chromaloc chromalocation is my best guess

for madVR everything is mpeg-2. yes the results can be sharpness but it is more displacement a red white image can now show pink in the transition a color that doesn't even exist in the source aliasing is possible.

Thank you for being so kind to explain all the technical terms but...
I'm having trouble translating your technical explanations how to configure the Video Renderer window, I'm really trying hard to understand.
Could you explain by telling me what to check or uncheck in the configuration window?

I know it's being micromanaged and "there's no accounting for tastes", but for my area of ​​use I have specified as carefully as I can what I want to achieve.

Have I understood correctly that I shouldn't use "RTX Video HDR" at all?

Could you please look at the Video Render settings, are these "good" settings or "optimal" for my needs or should I change something?
https://i.imgur.com/LgoA1i9.png
You learn as long as you live...



Edit:
Now I'm confused, more than everyday confused... sorry for my ignorance.
I don't know what I'm expected to see or not see?
I saved the images to the computer and have studied them, compared them without understanding?

RTX Video is turning SDR to HDR by doing stuff that's the opposide of untouched
RTX super resolution is a ultra try hard neuralnetwork scaler that will load your GPU to 11 and is denoise deblocking and who knows what else it does to the image.
generally just bad for good source but can be very very useful for very very bad sources again as far away from untouched as possible.

try this: https://ibb.co/FLk024cX i don't use it and i personally never use HDR so madVR is for me still good to go. defaults are choice for a reason but D3D11/DXVA3 scaling is just trash on nvidia with there bugs and the devs may not know.

jinc2m isn't a save scaler none truely is but it has top tier AA abilities if you don't like that one use a different one it is also on the quite sharpness side which isn't generally good.

the image comparsion. use arrow key to switch the test i recommend 5 some of them are there to show misplaced chroma which need advanced knowledge to understand and how biliteral chroma scaler work and why i hate them.

now use arrow key up and down to switch between the many different scaler used. if you want to download them there are alot.

this is still basic stuff wait until you hear the details about custom res SM, why PC mode on TVs are important for the most accurate image and so on.

[tp4tissue]

Did some estimates this morning. The minimum gpu requirement for madvr 4K tonemapping + ssim2d is a gpu with 9000-10000 passmark. Basically a 1060-3gb.

Ideally we'd want 1060-6gb lvl 12000pm for headroom.

So in the current market, you're looking at 5050-mobile is enough, 15000-17000ish passmark.

APU side, 890m with high power lvl 16 inch laptops can do 7000-8000ish, it might cut it but risky.

Anything lower won't do it right.

Pretty confident upcoming RDNA5 APU will be pretty powerful. They should do 10-15000 at 15-20watts.

So you can get a full MadvrHDR experience on a 2.8lb laptop.

Obviously 3.5-4lb is already no problem.

[Sunspark]

@varekai

Dude, you're overthinking all this.

Right now, none of the shader area is being used (that's fine).
None of the HDR area is being used (fine, depending on what display and content you have).
Disabling RTX SR just means instead of using that algo it will use a different algo. This is subjective. Since you're not using luma scaling if both your desktop and the display are 4K then all you're doing is scaling chroma.

So, look at some video of scenes that have warmer colours like red/pink and see if the colour looks better with it on or off.

[tp4tissue]

Even more simply, just use madvr. I can't think of a single reason to use any other renderer outside of Power Saving requirements on a laptop.

Get the "untouched" idea out of your head, that does not exist at all. Not from the source nor receiver nor TV end. It's simply not possible.

"untouched"/ "bit-perfect" are just marketing terms, they're meaningless in application.


Think about it this way, you buy a $1000 cnc machine vs a $40,000 cnc machine, SURELY the $40,000 machine is reference right? WRONG, Top machinists slipping little pieces of magazine/newspaper under parts to shim up on $40,000 machines is routine practice.

Everything is soft, everything fluctuates. The world is analogue.



The other thing to remember is that in post production, you have the editing, and color grading.

This is usually done by humans, and they're doing it "creatively." They are not machines, and they apply very very blunt tools/correction patches to the image.

No one is staring into the shadows and pixel peeping, it's just a big patch of darken this triangle until it looks blackish.


Your efforts to Make your equipment reference is mostly a waste of time.

Tp4tissue would argue, even our software tweaks are mostly a waste of time, unless we involve the colorimeter to make the most basic corrections. White point, Gamma / EOTF /Rolloff, Shadow behavior/offset.

[varekai]

@Sunspark and tp4tissue
I like what you say, a bit brusque but to the point and it's much appreciated!
Will do tests with different renderers and show here eventually.
There seem to be 2 camps, definitely madVR and equally definitely MPC Video Renderer.
I've bought some 4K Ultra HD movies that I ripped to HDD and it's amazingly beautiful picture with default settings? in MPC Video Renderer!!
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Fall-4K-Blu-ray/372876/ (A clear favorite from 2006 and a bit undeservedly forgotten, the movie and the story are a wonderful gem!!)
https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Kingdom-of-Heaven-4K-Blu-ray/386028/
I don't have a dedicated 4K player yet (my OPPO BDP 95 will have to hang around for a while longer) so I'll have to play 4K UHD videos from the PC for now.
Was the happy owner of a Calman calibrated Panasonic ZT60 which sadly died a while ago...
Therefore now also the happy owner of a Sony K65XR80P Bravia 8 65" 4K OLED Smart TV.
Will try to find someone who can Calman calibrate it too, read before the purchase that the "out of the box" calibration left a lot to be desired.
Could really do just fine without all the Sony "Smart TV" nonsense which unfortunately seems to be standard on all newer TVs.

So... to be continued...

Best regards,
varekai

[Sunspark]

If you haven't already done so, be sure to turn off Motionflow/TruMotion on the Sony.

[tp4tissue]

Don't listen to those idiots on AVSForum. The Sony already has very good accuracy and "tasteful" coloration out of the box.

You've probably heard the AVS narrative, OMG Delta E is > 3, your weiner is going to fall off if you watch this terrible TV.

From the textbook on Colorimetry, paraphrased, The goal of colorimetry is not color accuracy, rather, we are after Good looking colors.

The people on AVS are obssessed with poking at the CMS(colormanagementsystem) of the TV, trying to tick a box on their colorimeter software readout. Even though, the way Oled ABL and LCD Backlight zones work, pretty much make those readout irrelevant for color.

The Absolute Colorimetric rendering intent is used in PRODUCTION because it's a good middle ground for archival purposes, and it has the added benefit that usually, most consumer TVs will not exceed or fall-short of the designated color space volume by very much such that over/under-saturation becomes a problem.

Take SDR Rec709, the maximum Rec709 red is a salmon/pinkish color, if I handed you a Rec709 tomato in real life, you'd think I was ripping you off with a crap tomato.

In what way does that pink tomato or salmon fire truck reflect "creative intent" if the creator's hands were tied by the color space, despite most consumer tvs well exceeding Rec709 red.

Even the new DCI P3 Red is still slightly on the orange side.

Now, Rec 2020 red, that's red, you can't get much redder.

Point is, Colorspace is a matter of taste, and adhering to absolute colorimetric accuracy to tick a box on a readout page is foolish.


The monkeys on AVS forum also complain incessantly, and comment that Sony/Samsung/TCL doesn't know what they're doing. So, these billion $ companies, they only hire morons right? They got the Community College Colorists and Software engineers in their $100 million dollar labs working on making TVs that look terrible, and ONLY forum enthusiasts with their Colorimetric Purity can SAVE the consumer from Corporate malfeasance.

That doesn't track. What is good coloration. They've already cracked the code on this long ago. You only need to be reasonably close on memory colors, skin-tone/grass, and blow out the edges for flair (lasers, fire, scifi, clothing).


The majority of TVs in HDR just needs minor white point adjustment (to suit the viewing environment) and EOTF offsets. The rest of it is all up to consumer Taste, YOUR preference is perfectly sufficient.


You also don't want to touch a TV with any calibration until at least 500-1000 hours of heavy use in. Just set it to taste, the engineers did good jobs.

The forum is full of idiot arm chair conductors, such as Tp4tissue, these guys ruin TV for everyone, because they turn it into a measurement contest detached from the purpose of Enjoying Television. Tp4 used to be hardcore colorimetric, don't be Tp4.

[Amuat]

I don't know if Tp4 is still on board with this, but I find it rather ridiculous how the official AVF recommended settings for my 806 gimp even Filmmaker Mode significantly, turning OLED Contrast from 100 to 70 and disabling Light Boost completely. Combine this with turning Gamma all the way up to 2.4 to be in line with BT.1886, and the result is major black crush and just criminally underutilized monitor for content that makes up the overwhelming majority consumed by someone like me. I turned the contrast back to 100 even on the profile I use for checking the footage I shoot myself (so striving for that unreachable "neutrality") as it started to feel just unnecessary to have it lowered (also brightness from 50 to 57 based on my own calibration). It's not like I'm advocating Vivid or even Home Cinema, but you can safely have Light Boost at medium (even then need to have brightness at 54 btw) without paper and white shirts glowing like the Sun, and have a picture that actually looks great without being garish. It might be for some, but who cares.

[Sunspark]

The LCD Steam Deck is a good example of how one needs to look at the image instead of just measuring. It only has something like 72% (or less?) sRGB coverage. In native colour vibrancy mode, each colour is equally spaced apart, this is mathematically correct. In practice, if you look at an sRGB photo with paler tones in it, it looks dull and lifeless like the blood drained from the face. It looks much better if you advance the vibrancy by a single click, less gray.

Colour temperature is also adjustable, and it is also tricky here too.. the panel is very cold. Something like 8000K. There is a slider to adjust the temperature. The problem here now is that as you adjust it, it also gets dimmer because the crystals are changing orientation. If you're in a bright environment it's better to leave it at the native colour temperature for maximum light transmission (in the evening this is not important).

Then there's the backlight brightness slider. Adjusting it up or down also affects the presentation. If it's at maximum then blacks get raised and other colours start to become washed out, if it's too low then the colours become dull. Need to find that spot where mid-tones are good.

So, yes, I agree with the sentiment that you also need to look at the image, not just use an instrument.

Instruments are great, if there is software support. Then you can make calibrations where you adjust the colour shade patches while leaving the backlight at native temperature and the brightness adjustment I mentioned.

[huhn]

just a skill issue.

an instrument see black crash an instrument sees dull colors and an instrument will tell you that changing away from the native colortemp will cost you brightness.

and the statement they know what they are going? no no they don't if they would even remotely know what they are doing TVs wouldn't look different...

[tp4tissue]

The meter has its place, and thanks to Madtpg, it's fairly reliable.

But when they're trying to squeeeze out 10% patch measurements on a dynamic backlight lcd / abl oled for Color accuracy, that's just silly. It doesn't behave nearly well enough for that kind of pinching to help much.

White balance for the viewing environment, EOTF tracking / roll off to make sure it's not clipping, Madvr tonemapping to peak brightness, shadow offsets for 1-5 % depending on lighting conditions. Check for saturation clipping. That's really all we need the meter for.

Colors just have to be close enough, and as wide as possible for flourish. Clamping to gamut edges is wrong for consumer consumption. There's no reason to do it unless you just love sticking that color probe up one's back side.

no no they don't if they would even remotely know what they are doing TVs wouldn't look different...

Huhn, we all know what a T-shirt looks like. There's probably a standard definition some where.

But what is the PURPOSE of having every T-shirt look exactly the same. Do we start cutting people's shoulders off to fit a certain size if they're over or under.

People mistake the purpose of standards. The avsforum, they call themselves enthusiasts, but the majority of the color-purists are just fearful cats that want to shove themselves into a shoebox, hehe, I fit, therefore I am validated, I am loved, what a wonderful world, but that's not for me, I live in a box.

Take it from Tp4, he's living in a box right now, not a healthy disposition.

[tp4tissue]

Does anyone know how to get madtpg to behave on the new version?

Do I have to select a tone curve somewhere? the older v113 was very straight forward for testing. The new version seems to be doing something weird.

[JarrettH]

MPC VR is so close to replacing madvr for me. All it needs is a few better algorithms (maybe doubling) and a way to customize scaler per resolution; I also like that MPC VR shows realtime movie frame rate.

[htnut]

I'm looking for a way to programically toggle the checkbox for "automatically detect hard coded black bars" (in the Processing - Zoom control menu).

I tried saving and swapping the settings.bin file, but that doesn't seem to store the value.

Is there a registry key that will toggle this option, command line, or hotkey?

Thanks!

[huhn]

it is stored in the setting.bin.
if the settings.bin isn't used it is stored in the registry meaning you have installed madVR in a folder you shouldn't install it.
in playback changes to the settings.bin or registry are ignored.

a profile with a hotkey can be applied.
or just a condition.

[mclingo]

Hi, just wondering if anyone on win11 has 100% non glitchy playback and if so what have they done to get it, could be i'm using AMD instead of NVIDIA?. I've solved most of my issues by disabling GPU scheduling and enabling FSE but I am still getting a total freeze for a second or so mainly when playing HDR movies now and again, I feel i've tried everything at this point:

disabled gpu scheduling
running madvr and GPU in 8bit instead of 10 bit modes
ticking unticking compromise on HDR in trade quality for performance
changed CPU and GPU queue sizes, increased and drecreased
changed flush settings in windows and exclusive mode
enabled flicker protection, tried various values

[tp4tissue]

That sounds more like you have memory instability.

TP4 am running xfx 6900xt, 7900xtx red devil, 7900xtx sapphire, xfx 7900gre

9700x, 9800x3d, 7800x3d, 7700, respectively, all on 2066mhz fabric, samsung 6200mhz (32,34,33,80)

No problems whatsoever. Other than the Fullscreenexclusive bug where you have to use the script shortcut to reset explorer.

Win 11 24H2

Try disabling the windows 11 visual stuff under performance, shadow, animation, etc.

Turn off VRR. (Optimize for windowed game is disable for mpchc)

Make sure you have memory retraining on every boot enabled. (disable memory context restore).

ALso are you using MPCHC ? Tp4 is still using the oldoldold MPCHC with just the updated lav filter. dxva2 copyback.


Swap your GPU paste for PTM7950 (Buy from a reputable source), and floof the memory/vrm silicone pads, just pinch it towards the middle a bit. It's possible your gpu is overheating from a dry spot on the die, stop using thermal paste on GPUs, PTM is the way to go.

Make sure your Cable is good.

Go into CRU, under hdmi 2.1 support, disable all the Display stream compression settings, remove max chunk total. (delete multiple edids if detected), make sure to edit the right one. It may have different EDID under different modes gamemode etc.

DSC is bad, you can't even disable it on Nvidia because it ignores certain edid edits. ONLY GLORIOUS AMD.

Nvidia has alot of problems involving DSC with certain TVs.

Check the default 4k120/144 timings from the EDID, you might be able to use a reduced edit to lower the load on the cable.

[tp4tissue]

it is stored in the setting.bin.
if the settings.bin isn't used

Huhn , is madtpg on the newer version than v113 working for you?

Mine is giving me an sdr looking response curve, but pop back 113, and it measures hdr correctly. :scared:

[dbcooper]

the new beta version are mostly fixing some windows 11 related bugs .

Does it actually fix the windows 11 24H2 frame presentation error problem?

[Sunspark]

Re: Windows 11

I read they broke HDCP, DRM, etc. in a recent "security" patch which affects physical media.

Software streaming still works.

11 is such a lemon, this coming right after the reports of it destroying nvme drives.

[varekai]

Hello!
A few days later...
After a lot of fiddling with settings, I chose a new approach.

Started by playing the movies I mentioned earlier with my OPPO Blu-ray (Blu-ray versions came with the purchase of the 4H UHDs).
Set the Sony TV to the picture OPPO showed, wonderful picture!!, turned off most of the "picture enhancers" that only "boost" and show the picture on "steroids".
About the same settings as I did on my now dead Panasonic ZT60.

Then on to GPU settings via Nvidia Control Panel, I hate it!! Can't let it autostart with Win10,
Dell displays and Sony TV flicker when starting Win before Win decides which main display it wants to use,
sometimes it chooses to start on TV if I don't use an HDMI switch, so I disable Nvidia Control Panel in services. Got the GPU settings working fine.

New attempts with madVR v0.92.17 and succeeded quite well, to my great joy! Colors and sharpness are really good.
Also tried with madVR Test Build 208 and it ran amok... wow, completely crazy results... swoosh, that was really way over my head!! So none of that!
Changed a few settings in the media player, (I know that PotPlayer is not popular with some in here... but it is a really good media player, I use it exclusively for video,
it has absolutely superb settings for subtitles, English is not my native language, I speak and read English well but need the support of subtitles,
I also create my own texts and also translates from English, saves to .srt, .ass and .sup.

I am very unsure about some (quite a few...) things, e.g. in dark scenes with a lot of blackness, details disappear, I understand that it is called "crushed blacks".
I find lots of results on the web, the first hit is AI... which I don't completely trust, and from many forums, but no real clear and concise explanation of how to set it in madVR.
Tested in some dark scenes, and can see that there are details in the blacks if I turn up the bright settings, but then the image changes in both color tones,
which becomes duller, and increases the brightness in the rest of the image. Switched between madVR and MPC Video Renderer (which also shows crushed blacks,
I don't know how the settings work in there, maybe it's better to ask about it in the MPC-HC thread?)
The major difference I see between madVR and MPC Video Renderer is in the fine details, e.g. close-ups of faces where madVR shows pores, wrinkles etc.,
but MPC misses those finer details, the finer details are slightly smoothed out in MPC.

The $10,000 question is...
How to adjust madVR settings to fix crushed blacks and at the same time retain natural colors and details?

Best regards,
varekai

[mclingo]

That sounds more like you have memory instability.



I thought those visual performance options had long gone in win11, i've disabled them.

I wasnt aware that FSE needed to be forced on in windows though, that might be were i'm going wrong, i've setup a batch file to start that with KODI, thanks

[tp4tissue]

The $10,000 question is...
How to adjust madVR settings to fix crushed blacks and at the same time retain natural colors and details?


It's hard to tell if the crush is a TV/PC problem, or crush in the film itself.

As mentioned before, post processing is done by HUMANS, they use very imprecise, broad stroke tools.

Yes there's shadow texture in there, but only because they filmed during daylight, and wanted it to look much darker in post.

Most scenes are filmed that way. Some are filmed during the day, and post processed into night.

If you want to know with 100% certainty if it's crush, you need a calibrite-colorimeter to measure the TV behavior. Do not buy a datacolor-spyder, they're not good, can only read down to 0.3-0.5 nits reliably.. Consumer software HCFR+Calibrite allows you to read down to ~2% black (0.01 nits), Displaycal technically can read lower (0.001nits), but I don't know if it's actually operating on those reads. They're supposed to take 30seconds per read, but I feel like the preset calibration function doesn't take the time to do actually do that.


Tp4's ultimate "ghetto/poor man's" way of checking for crush is use madvr to tonemap (disable all shadow related setting) to SDR 120nits and just take a screen shot. Look at the pixel values of that shadow detail, if it's something between rgb values 0-13, that area is supposed to look crushed. 13 is 5% black, 5% is the threshold where you can barely see it as "grey" above black in a real movie scene. In situations where the whole scene is 1-5 nits, you can see it as shadow detail, but in lit scenes, 5% is slightly above black, anything lower is more/less black.

If you want to check SDR, just straight take a screen shot.


Tp4 highly doubts a SoNy would have crush problems out of the box, unless it was an OLED.

OLEDs will have crush problems until at least 500-1000 hours of use..


Varekai, you have to understand, this is a sickness. You shouldn't be doing this, you should be enjoying your TV, not looking through its underwear drawer.

[Sunspark]

There is no "true" FSE anymore in Windows 11. Just use regular windowed mode.

[tp4tissue]

There is no "true" FSE anymore in Windows 11. Just use regular windowed mode.
Sunspark, the true FSE may be gone, but the 10bit path doesn't work unless you're in FSE.

Tp4 has tested this extensively.

This only matters if your TV actually processes 10bit well, like the new Samsung/Panasonic oleds, TCL/ Sony LCD.

If your TV is an LG, stick to 8 bit.

[huhn]

Huhn , is madtpg on the newer version than v113 working for you?

Mine is giving me an sdr looking response curve, but pop back 113, and it measures hdr correctly. :scared:

i do not care about HDR. i have nothing to watch in HDR i wouldn't know.

Does it actually fix the windows 11 24H2 frame presentation error problem?

no but killing the explorer over and over again does.

Re: Windows 11

I read they broke HDCP, DRM, etc. in a recent "security" patch which affects physical media.

Software streaming still works.

11 is such a lemon, this coming right after the reports of it destroying nvme drives.

yes i read those.
now you tell me how to destroy an ssd by writing 0 and 1 on it. see...
madVR couldn't care less about HDCP.

There is no "true" FSE anymore in Windows 11. Just use regular windowed mode.
if you hit it hard enough it is still there.
they really don't want you to use it.

Hello!
A few days later...
After a lot of fiddling with settings, I chose a new approach.

Started by playing the movies I mentioned earlier with my OPPO Blu-ray (Blu-ray versions came with the purchase of the 4H UHDs).
Set the Sony TV to the picture OPPO showed, wonderful picture!!, turned off most of the "picture enhancers" that only "boost" and show the picture on "steroids".
About the same settings as I did on my now dead Panasonic ZT60.

Then on to GPU settings via Nvidia Control Panel, I hate it!! Can't let it autostart with Win10,
Dell displays and Sony TV flicker when starting Win before Win decides which main display it wants to use,
sometimes it chooses to start on TV if I don't use an HDMI switch, so I disable Nvidia Control Panel in services. Got the GPU settings working fine.

New attempts with madVR v0.92.17 and succeeded quite well, to my great joy! Colors and sharpness are really good.
Also tried with madVR Test Build 208 and it ran amok... wow, completely crazy results... swoosh, that was really way over my head!! So none of that!
Changed a few settings in the media player, (I know that PotPlayer is not popular with some in here... but it is a really good media player, I use it exclusively for video,
it has absolutely superb settings for subtitles, English is not my native language, I speak and read English well but need the support of subtitles,
I also create my own texts and also translates from English, saves to .srt, .ass and .sup.

I am very unsure about some (quite a few...) things, e.g. in dark scenes with a lot of blackness, details disappear, I understand that it is called "crushed blacks".
I find lots of results on the web, the first hit is AI... which I don't completely trust, and from many forums, but no real clear and concise explanation of how to set it in madVR.
Tested in some dark scenes, and can see that there are details in the blacks if I turn up the bright settings, but then the image changes in both color tones,
which becomes duller, and increases the brightness in the rest of the image. Switched between madVR and MPC Video Renderer (which also shows crushed blacks,
I don't know how the settings work in there, maybe it's better to ask about it in the MPC-HC thread?)
The major difference I see between madVR and MPC Video Renderer is in the fine details, e.g. close-ups of faces where madVR shows pores, wrinkles etc.,
but MPC misses those finer details, the finer details are slightly smoothed out in MPC.

The $10,000 question is...
How to adjust madVR settings to fix crushed blacks and at the same time retain natural colors and details?

Best regards,
varekai

208 doesn't do anything in terms of HDR passthrough only tone mapping changes.

in SDR you can try this: http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php
may work just fine in HDR. with my OLED i can see 2 when other information is on the screen een 120 nits white 1 only when the rest is really dark and that's normal.
the control that usually destroys blacks in a TV is constrast when it is to high some TV just crushing.

[huhn]

Sunspark, the true FSE may be gone, but the 10bit path doesn't work unless you're in FSE.

Tp4 has tested this extensively.

This only matters if your TV actually processes 10bit well, like the new Samsung/Panasonic oleds, TCL/ Sony LCD.

If your TV is an LG, stick to 8 bit.

no there is still true FSE. and it will really doesn't like it
i get 10 BIT WFS still working.

[strumf666]

Hi, just wondering if anyone on win11 has 100% non glitchy playback and if so what have they done to get it, could be i'm using AMD instead of NVIDIA?. I've solved most of my issues by disabling GPU scheduling and enabling FSE but I am still getting a total freeze for a second or so mainly when playing HDR movies now and again, I feel i've tried everything at this point:

disabled gpu scheduling
running madvr and GPU in 8bit instead of 10 bit modes
ticking unticking compromise on HDR in trade quality for performance
changed CPU and GPU queue sizes, increased and drecreased
changed flush settings in windows and exclusive mode
enabled flicker protection, tried various values
I wouldn't say I have it 100% non glitchy, but it mostly working as expected, so it is possible with an amd card.
P.S. I didn't have to enable FSE or disable gpu scheduling I only had to stop using error diffusion to get rid of the delay before starting playback.
And if I want to have 10bit output I need to restart the computer before playback.

[excellentswordfight]

How to adjust madVR settings to fix crushed blacks and at the same time retain natural colors and details?

Best regards,
varekai
For a all SDR scenario:

First of all make sure that decoder (mediaplayer), videooutput (pc) and videoinput (tv) are all configured for same levels, i.e. limited/tv-range (16-235), or full/pc-range (0-255). Then use a a test-sample, e.g. the black-level one from here https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9FgjTtNzSy0dTZwZ3p1eGVnTG8/edit?usp=sharing

https://www.avsforum.com/threads/avs-hd-709-blu-ray-mp4-calibration.948496

You can also use the lagom.nl testsite first to eliminate the mediaplayer variable.


Then you can tweak/correct your tv-settings to make sure no clipping is done (or at least limit the amount), as the settings can affect clipping in the upper range (whites), so that test-pattern should be looked at as well when dialing in the settings.

[mclingo]

I wouldn't say I have it 100% non glitchy, but it mostly working as expected, so it is possible with an amd card.
P.S. I didn't have to enable FSE or disable gpu scheduling I only had to stop using error diffusion to get rid of the delay before starting playback.
And if I want to have 10bit output I need to restart the computer before playback.

yeah I had that issue where it delayed playback with MPC player but not with KODI DS, I had to enable FSE and disable GP scheduling for a while because when I skipped in a movie, after that I got tons of presentation errors.

The only issue I have now is every now and again the movie freezes for a second or so and then continues normally, it takes you right out of the movie, cant solve that one. I have 8bit throughout, gp sched on and FSE off / standard dithering. I'm also on an older driver as latest drivers are back to the old problem with sound drops out occasionally when using bitstreaming, AMD have has that issue for years on and off, i've had it with several generations of cards, I thought it was my setup but i'd also changed my HTPC and GPU, the only thing i've never changed it my TV.

[strumf666]

It could be something in your setup/settings, because for me bitstreaming sound works as it should (for years) and I update all drivers fairly often.

[mclingo]

It could be something in your setup/settings, because for me bitstreaming sound works as it should (for years) and I update all drivers fairly often.

i used to think that as well but I can go several driver updates before is happens, i've often been a year or more with no issues and I get a particular driver and it starts again, if I go back to the other driver it stops and this is with a full DDU wipe. Others have reported similar issues, it only people with receivers though, if you go direct to TV it stops. I have had three different receivers over the years, onkyo 1080p, denon4k 2.0hdmi and yamaha 2.1 hdmi, all had same issue.

[strumf666]

Well, sorry to hear you have issues for such a long time. For me bitstreaming (to avr) has been working as it should for years with various amd graphics cards. I have a marantz cinema 40 for about 2 years now, had a marantz 7012 (hdmi 2.0) for a couple of years before that and an onkyo (hdmi 1.4) before that.
I tried to put the TV in front of the avr in chain, but always reverted due to the passthrough format limitations of the TVs.

[mclingo]

it not a big deal to be honest, If I go back to previous driver its fine, I'd say it probably 1 in 10 releases now, back on my old RX 5700 though it was really bad for a while, it was nearly all releases when I first got the card. It might be my 10 year old TV causing a handshake issue, it does have issues sometimes where I can cant a picture when booting into BIOS so I know it has some issues, it was like that from new though. Its still a fantastic 3D OLED TV with plenty of brightness still which is frankly amazing after 10 years, to me the picture looks as good as it did from day one back in 2015 but it must have lost some brightness. No burn in though.

[varekai]

Conclusion madVR vs MPC Video Renderer

I have taken in a lot of info from the forum but am struggling to get a constant and stable result.
The ideal would be if some savvy madVR guru could convey something like this:
"Try this, I have a similar setup to you, click in this box, check this, turn this off,
set this value to this, it works well on my setup so test it and we can take it from there",
I have searched the web and can find minimal such "mentor" guidance.
I have found some threads which unfortunately are many, many years old and no longer seem to be relevant.

Run as admin madVR uninstall.bat, then cleaned everything related to madVR in the Win10 registry.
Removed all paths on HDD to madVR in Win10.
Uninstalled PotPlayer, cleaned registry of everything PotPlayer related.
Reinstalled PotPlayer from scratch and to my great surprise madVR is still there as a possible choice of renderer?
With a pretty good picture(!) but madVR is not running and nowhere to be configured? Weird...
Maybe PotPlayer has sneaked in its own version of madVR settings, really weird if that's the case.

So from now on I'll just use MPC Video Renderer.
It's easy to configure, stable and gives a really good picture result for my new Sony K60XR80P Bravia 8 60" 4K OLED.
Thanks to the developers of MPC Video Renderer, you've made my life so much easier! Kudos!!

Tp4 highly doubts a SoNy would have crush problems out of the box, unless it was an OLED.
OLEDs will have crush problems until at least 500-1000 hours of use..
Varekai, you have to understand, this is a sickness.
You shouldn't be doing this, you should be enjoying your TV, not looking through its underwear drawer.
You are funny... haha...
It is an OLED, I didn't know about 500-1000 hours of use... that is maany hours...

Exactly right, I want to enjoy my new TV, not get lost in completely impossible configurations for me.
Some of you in here might be able to get a good result but not me...

Case closed and best regards,
varekai

[tp4tissue]

All oleds have crush out of the box. This is designed for, because they know that it breaks in over time, and the shadow will start to lift, so the internal curve crushes on purpose to compensate for this.

Tp4 could not measure the 5% patch on both his 77" s90c when brand new at 144hz. After 350 hours, the 5% patch is measureable, and at 500 hours it's right about the right brightness, and 2% is now measurable as well.

[huhn]

the s90c has a well known bug where it crushes sometiems especially at 144 hz.

without services menu 144 HZ is utterly buggy anyway.

neither my s90c nor my cx had any black crush and they barely drifted if at all for the s90c

[tp4tissue]

the s90c has a well known bug where it crushes sometiems especially at 144 hz.

without services menu 144 HZ is utterly buggy anyway.

neither my s90c nor my cx had any black crush and they barely drifted if at all for the s90c


Tp4 also thought the 144 crush was a bug, it's not a bug. This was factory compensation for the panel's gamma lift after breaking-in and slight compensation for chromanance overshoot during VRR, which is what PC users would run into as they're the only ones that'd use the 144hz mode.

Point is, After 1000s of hours now, Tp4's 144hz mode is at the proper gamma down to 2% (lowest measurable), whereas 5% was not measurable out of the box.

[flossy_cake]

Just thought I would share some tips which seems to have fixed my frame pacing stutters and black frame flickers on Windows 10 Pro 22H2 with a RTX 3060 running madvr in mpc-hc64.exe (k-lite codec pack "full")

1. Constant black frame flashes in D3D9 full screen exclusive mode

Appears to be madvr and dwm fighting back and forth to set/unset exclusive mode (put up ctrl+J debug screen and watch the text change back and forth every time it flickers). Solution for me was to right click mpc-hc64.exe, compatibility tab, tick disable full screen optimisations. Now D3D9 full screen exclusive mode works without the black flash frames

2. Frame pacing issues

For this I use a 60.0fps test file of scrolling text displayed at 120.0hz and watch for jerks for a couple of minutes.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\DWM\Schedule] -> add "FrameRateMin" DWORD set to decimal 200. Supposedly this sets the minimum DWM frame rate to 200fps, and it was effective on my Win7 machine too and seems to be effective on Win10 as well

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Multimedia\SystemProfile] -> add "SystemResponsiveness" DWORD set to decimal 0 (or 10... default is 20... lower value supposedly allocates more time slices to multimedia processes)

Windows Graphics Settings -> Graphics performance preference - browse -> mpc-hc64.exe -> set to high performance

If the above didn't solve your stuttering then the last resort appears to be adding the following two

1. Force max GPU clocks in Nvidia control panel for mpc-hc64.exe. Will probably make your idle temps and power consumption go up to unacceptable levels though (it does on my 3060 so I don't use this one...for now). Ironically 4k60 files play smoother than 1080p60 because GPU is loaded higher by 4k60 thus preventing GPU downclock. Wish there was some way to set a hard lower limit to downclocking.

2. Windows Graphics Settings -> Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling ON (default is OFF, probably should be kept off for stability with other apps...I didnt need to use this one...yet)


So my performance in MPC-HC64.exe with MadVR appears to be smooth now, but I still have frame pacing issues in youtube in all web browsers at 120hz with 60fps scrolling videos. If I change my refresh rate to 60hz then those stutters go away so it's some sort of 8ms buffer vs 16ms buffer issue. My win7 machine plays the same youtube videos in browser perfectly @ same 120hz display mode, not a single stutter. On Windows 10 even calling up the progress bar at bottom with mouse hover induces a stutter. So there is something badly broken with Windows 10 / NVidia driver combo :(

[flossy_cake]

Just to clarify that (1) is a part of the solution (2) as well - I think that "disable full screen optimization" is helping with frame pacing as well cause apparently that forces it to use the old windows FSE mode that you would get in windows 7. The only difference that in win10 and above you can't disable desktop composition, but it is still FSE mode, or at least a different mode to just windowed. In other words, just because it is going through the windows compositor doesn't mean it's not FSE. FSE just goes through the compositor, but it's not the same as on win7 where if you go through the compositor you get triple buffering and forced vsync.

Also for some reason when I use HDMI 4k120 instead of 1080p120, the 4k120 has more frame pacing issues. GPU is barely loaded so it's not lack of processing power of the 3060 it's just nvidia retarded drivers I would say. Because if I put vsync "Adaptive half rate" in NVCP then I get much better youtube framepacing in browsers, but then there are side effects like scrolling sometimes gets stuck at 60fps so I dont really want to use it. Maybe I will switch over to AMD GPU cause I had so much frame pacing issues with 3060 on windows 7 too, currently have an ancient R9 380 and that one has perfect frame pacing on videos in MPC and web browsers.

Am I going crazy or has it switched now where AMD has the better driver and NVIDIA has the poop driver? It used to be the other way round didn't it?