madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[dansrfe]

Maybe he has given up on madVR...:(

[SamuriHL]

So...that's what you get out of "hey guys I'm going to be gone for a while"? LOL :) He's not given up. He's taking a well deserved break.

[Mikey2]

To madshi:

First off, thank you for making by far the best renderer out there. And by best, boy I mean it - arguably, if configuration, conflict, and performance issues are all solved, then the renderer itself IMHO has by far the biggest impact on video quality. For making a renderer that is so far ahead of the competition I thank you every-time I watch a beautiful movie on my HTPC.

However, I think many of us that use your amazing filter are on the obsessive side, especially when you were releasing versions every single day! Can you please let us know if you are taking a break? You don't have to answer the pages of questions (including my own), and I think I can speak for many of us when we say you deserve it...but for the past month I have been obsessively refreshing this thread looking for an updated version. If you are taking another long break, please let us know.

Thank you very much...for everything!
MikeY

[QBhd]

Wow... people just don't read anymore. Just two posts above mine is your answer. It boggles the mind

QB

[pirlouy]

To be clear, there were one year between V10 and V11, and maybe next version will be in 2 years. So don't complain if you don't have your drugs, especially when actual version works quite well.

[cca]

I recently decided to give madVR another go, last time I had issues in fullscreen. After many tries it's apparent that in my own system MadVR is incapable to produce a smooth video image. Even when the renderer itself reports zero glitches the motion is glitchy, I can see microstutters in every panning scene. I've tried all the flush options, the DX11 option, the anti-glitch options, nothing gets rid of the glitches. It is sad, because the image quality is top, but I cannot tolerate glitches when I watch videos.

Back to MPC-HC's EVR-CP for now, image quality not great, but not a single glich, ever.

[leeperry]

Back to MPC-HC's EVR-CP for now
tried the old rendering path?

Maybe he has given up on madVR...:(
Maybe he has gotten abducted... http://forum-images.hardware.fr/images/perso/narzo.gif

Aliens need dead smooth video too, ya know.

[cca]

tried the old rendering path?


Mm, where is that option? I may missed that.

[madshi]

I'm still here, just no time for madVR at the moment. Don't worry, the break isn't going to last forever.

[cca]

Well, in the latest madvr I cannot seem to find any "old rendering path" option. Also, I noticed that the stutters go away if I change the scaling algorithms to plain Billinear. But that renders madVR useless, and it's unacceptable for a card like mine not be able to handle this.

[naoan]

Strange, I've personally tested madvr with 3850, 4850, 4870 and 6950 cards, with no problem at all. Driver issue maybe?

[cca]

Strange, I've personally tested madvr with 3850, 4850, 4870 and 6950 cards, with no problem at all. Driver issue maybe?

Could be, running 11.10 Catalysts here

[TheShadowRunner]

Well, in the latest madvr I cannot seem to find any "old rendering path" option.

At "exclusive mode settings", disable "present several frames in advance".

Also, I noticed that the stutters go away if I change the scaling algorithms to plain Billinear. But that renders madVR useless, and it's unacceptable for a card like mine not be able to handle this.

"unacceptable".. ?? lolz?

[naoan]

Yes, it is unacceptable, my late 3850 256MB could handle lanczos4 easily, 5850 is, 3-4 times more powerful than mine. Maybe his GPU doesn't throttle up from 2D mode?

[G_M_C]

tried the old rendering path?


Maybe he has gotten abducted... http://forum-images.hardware.fr/images/perso/narzo.gif

Aliens need dead smooth video too, ya know.

Ahhh, maybe, maybe,

maybe he's pondering the development of mad AudioRenderer, to combine with madVideoRenderer into madUltimateRenderer.

But maybe he's simply taking a holiday ;-)

[SamuriHL]

I'm still here, just no time for madVR at the moment. Don't worry, the break isn't going to last forever.

Thank you for calming the masses. :D Some people were starting to panic. LOL

[cca]

OK, the so called "old codepath" seems to help here. Also, the stats display must be off, seems to affect smoothness too. Weekend is coming, I intend to watch lots of stuff these days, so more practical tests will be performed.

EDIT: nah, sometimes it's smooth, sometimes not. Too erratic to be trusted. Unsolved for now.

[noee]

@cca, are you overclocking?

[naoan]

@cca
Try to monitor your GPU usage with GPU-Z during playback with madvr, if it stay in 2D mode (low clock), then that may be the problem.

[madshi]

Also make sure you disable antialiasing, anisotropic filtering etc...

[Boltron]

So, on my never ending quest for the best quality playback possible, a question for you folks. On another forum where I sing songs praise for madVR, some made comments that they get better PQ from Nvidia than ATI.

Now I know that we all have our preferences (I am in the ATI camp), but can anyone offer a non-biased opinion on which, if either, will produce a better picture, Nvidia or ATI. I really don't care about leveraging H/W acceleration so let's ignore that ability. However, full audio Bitstreaming is a must.

I run Windows 7 and use MPC-HC/LAV Filters/madVR. Output is HDMI to a Denon receiver and on to an LG LCD TV. The TV is calibrated and data is fed to madVR yCMS.

[Mikey2]

I recently decided to give madVR another go, last time I had issues in fullscreen. After many tries it's apparent that in my own system MadVR is incapable to produce a smooth video image. Even when the renderer itself reports zero glitches the motion is glitchy, I can see microstutters in every panning scene. I've tried all the flush options, the DX11 option, the anti-glitch options, nothing gets rid of the glitches. It is sad, because the image quality is top, but I cannot tolerate glitches when I watch videos.

Back to MPC-HC's EVR-CP for now, image quality not great, but not a single glich, ever.

Your stats show that you should be able to use ReClock properly. Most people (including myself) jumped on "Hardware Decoding" Try software decoding, for me I went from many lags to perfection (even on Spline-4/Spline-4 resizing!)

There are several ways to do this, but it can be done simply by blocking your normal decoder and enabling the "processing" options in madvr.

I am a big fan of Software Decoding, it balances half of the work to the CPU [the decoding] and the other half to the GPU (the rendering.) And where the decoding occurs of course has no bearing on quality. thus leaving more resources on what does make a difference (i.e. MadVR's Rendering...)

A couple more possibilities:

Are you using ReClock [correctly] (If so what is madVR reporting as the delta from clock-speed?)
Are you sure you are in full-screen exclusive mode?
Are the shaders off on your player? (They are not compatible with madVR. Theoretically they should just be ignored, but I just checked mpc-hc and there was an option to turn them on/off...turn them off!)


I hope this helps...

[golagoda]

So, on my never ending quest for the best quality playback possible, a question for you folks. On another forum where I sing songs praise for madVR, some made comments that they get better PQ from Nvidia than ATI.

Now I know that we all have our preferences (I am in the ATI camp), but can anyone offer a non-biased opinion on which, if either, will produce a better picture, Nvidia or ATI. I really don't care about leveraging H/W acceleration so let's ignore that ability. However, full audio Bitstreaming is a must.

I run Windows 7 and use MPC-HC/LAV Filters/madVR. Output is HDMI to a Denon receiver and on to an LG LCD TV. The TV is calibrated and data is fed to madVR yCMS.

If you're not noticing things like microstutter or have driver problems/random visual glitches with ATI it won't really be any different to what you'll experience with an nvidia GPU, they're made to do the same thing really.

The only better thing about nvidia is you can use LAV CUVID for decoding, but that's just so the GPU is used for decoding not anything to do with visual quality. My only suggestion to you is that you keep trying new settings in madVR, LAVF etc.

[cca]

Thank you all for the replies.

I do not overclock the card, in fact most of the control panel options are untouched and on their defaults except the video processing options where I turned off everything, but those do not apply to madVR anyway.

Shaders and all are off in the player, and I do use ReClock, I used it for many years now without issues.


I will have a look after I get off work of what happens to my GPU clocks during playback, but my setup is fairly standard and I do not want to resort to hacky stuff to force the card or something like that.

[cca]

Your stats show that you should be able to use ReClock properly. Most people (including myself) jumped on "Hardware Decoding" Try software decoding, for me I went from many lags to perfection (even on Spline-4/Spline-4 resizing!)

There are several ways to do this, but it can be done simply by blocking your normal decoder and enabling the "processing" options in madvr.

I am a big fan of Software Decoding, it balances half of the work to the CPU [the decoding] and the other half to the GPU (the rendering.) And where the decoding occurs of course has no bearing on quality. thus leaving more resources on what does make a difference (i.e. MadVR's Rendering...)

A couple more possibilities:

Are you using ReClock [correctly] (If so what is madVR reporting as the delta from clock-speed?)
Are you sure you are in full-screen exclusive mode?
Are the shaders off on your player? (They are not compatible with madVR. Theoretically they should just be ignored, but I just checked mpc-hc and there was an option to turn them on/off...turn them off!)


I hope this helps...

Some answers:
I do use ReClock as it should, cann't report the delta at the moment as I am away from my playback system.
I am sure I am in exclusive mode, it says so in madVR stats screen.
Shaders are off, along with everything else.
The Decoding is done by the LAV video decoder which is the best way to decode 10bit h264 to my knowledge.

[THX-UltraII]

I want to autochange my display output resolution when switching to different fps material. Tried the mpc-hc's own autochange option. No matter what I try, the checkbox 'use autochange fullscreen monitor mode' keep UNCHECKING when I play a movie.....

So I found the option in madVR to autoswitch to a specific output. Does this work flawlessly? And when I play content that is a little off range (like 1920x1080@23,800 instead of 1920x1080@23,976), which does not happen often but stil, can madVR 'read' this and is it able to send out 1920x1080@23 (ATI mode for 1920x1080@23,976)?

And do I just fill in 1080p23, 1080p25, 1080p29, 1080p30, 1080p50, 1080p59 and 1080p60 so that madVR picks the best one?
And are there changes I need to make in my ATI CCC?

Basically I m looking for a guide for this :)

[G_M_C]

[...]

Basically I m looking for a guide for this :)

seeing all your questions, spread over different thread, you are looking for a manual so you can RTFM.

I'd advise you to use the search function. I have found the answers you many of your questions myself when i started using madVR. I have the feeling that you simlpy ask, and dont (or dont want to) do some of the work yourself.

[golagoda]

^^

Search in thread works well, bound to find something of use with 500 pages of replies in here already ;)

[THX-UltraII]

seeing all your questions, spread over different thread, you are looking for a manual so you can RTFM.

I'd advise you to use the search function. I have found the answers you many of your questions myself when i started using madVR. I have the feeling that you simlpy ask, and dont (or dont want to) do some of the work yourself.


Someone got out of bed wrong here..... Jesus man, calm down a bit.

Anyway, I did some searching and I could not find specific answers to my questions. Can someone point me in the right direction?

[cca]

@cca
Try to monitor your GPU usage with GPU-Z during playback with madvr, if it stay in 2D mode (low clock), then that may be the problem.

so I had some time to check, it goes to 3D and back to 2D all the time, from 157Mhz to 750Mhz and back.

At this time I am at a loss, it is just not reliable.

[kennae]

so I had some time to check, it goes to 3D and back to 2D all the time, from 157Mhz to 750Mhz and back.

At this time I am at a loss, it is just not reliable.

Reading all your posts you seem to think everything is madVR's fault, not yours or your computers.

It works fine with 3D clocks for most of the people, even with the excact same GPU as you.

I don't use ATI myself since the drivers usually fail in numerous of ways, but I bet you can lock madVR to use low level 3D clocks at all times it is in use, thus making it smooth.

[Boltron]

My career (mostly software) spans 25 years. Over that time I have seen many engineers who have stood out. These are the people that are gifted, passionate and take pride in their work. I, very much, am like that also. When I do something, big or small, I am going to take the time to do it right.

I have been following the forums where Madshi and Nevcairiel (Lav Filers author) share their stuff for a long time. What quickly became evident was that these people are of that rare breed who are technically gifted (even brilliant), passionate and take pride in their work. They do it right, no shortcuts or hacks permitted.

I use their stuff happy in the knowledge that it is best in class. I know it has been done right and the results I see on my screen are evidence of this. Thanks for your passion guys, I wish we more Nevs and Madshis in the world.

Edit: OOPS wrong forum hehe... Dang, too many tabs open :)
Edit2: Guys, have a look at http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1364824&page=3 for an interesting discussion.

[Boltron]

I want to autochange my display output resolution when switching to different fps material. Tried the mpc-hc's own autochange option. No matter what I try, the checkbox 'use autochange fullscreen monitor mode' keep UNCHECKING when I play a movie.....

So I found the option in madVR to autoswitch to a specific output. Does this work flawlessly? And when I play content that is a little off range (like 1920x1080@23,800 instead of 1920x1080@23,976), which does not happen often but stil, can madVR 'read' this and is it able to send out 1920x1080@23 (ATI mode for 1920x1080@23,976)?

And do I just fill in 1080p23, 1080p25, 1080p29, 1080p30, 1080p50, 1080p59 and 1080p60 so that madVR picks the best one?
And are there changes I need to make in my ATI CCC?

Basically I m looking for a guide for this :)

In the madVR display mode changer field, you enter all the valid refresh rates your set supports, madVR will then choose the best choice automatically based on the file being played.

Make sure to enter only valid rates and make sure to turn off any other rate changer like the one in MPC-HC.

Check out http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=146228&page=362

[cca]

Reading all your posts you seem to think everything is madVR's fault, not yours or your computers.

It works fine with 3D clocks for most of the people, even with the excact same GPU as you.

I don't use ATI myself since the drivers usually fail in numerous of ways, but I bet you can lock madVR to use low level 3D clocks at all times it is in use, thus making it smooth.

I did not blamed madVR or anyone else, I only report that is not working reliably on my system. Before implying anything about systems and people you never seen, you better have good reasons. There not 2 PCs that are exactly the same, PCs are not gaming consoles. I never ruled out a driver issue, but I do not have the free time to play with drivers right now. Just like madshi himself doesn't have time for madVR now. He has life. So do I.

[kennae]

cca: just saying that you can get it to work easily by locking the 3D state your GPU works. Takes as much time as one forum post. ;)

[cca]

cca: just saying that you can get it to work easily by locking the 3D state your GPU works. Takes as much time as one forum post. ;)

Noted. Any clue how to do this?

[leeperry]

Noted. Any clue how to do this?
flash a modified BIOS, did it on my HD3850 when I realized that it could randomly go 2D/3D in the middle of a movie(double-checked in RivaTuner) :devil:

mind you I've also done it on my current nvidia board, I want stable clocks ffs.

[cca]

flash a modified BIOS, did it on my HD3850 when I realized that it could randomly go 2D/3D in the middle of a movie(double-checked in RivaTuner) :devil:

mind you I've also done it on my current nvidia board, I want stable clocks ffs.

Out of the question, I don't want to transform the card into a toaster. Too drastic of a measure to kill all power savings of the card.

EDIT: found a way through AMD Overdrive profiles. No effect to my problem, something else is causing it.

[Xaurus]

I'm still here, just no time for madVR at the moment. Don't worry, the break isn't going to last forever.
Thank you for clearing that up. You're greatly missed. :)

[ryrynz]

Madshi, Any chance you can comment on the comparison SEt showed of his renderer vs yours here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=156191&page=301)?

[nand chan]

Out of the question, I don't want to transform the card into a toaster. Too drastic of a measure to kill all power savings of the card.

EDIT: found a way through AMD Overdrive profiles. No effect to my problem, something else is causing it.

Note that you can also do this by changing a few lines in your profile's .ini. I wasn't aware that Overdrive could affect 2D clocks.

[THX-UltraII]

In the madVR display mode changer field, you enter all the valid refresh rates your set supports, madVR will then choose the best choice automatically based on the file being played.

Make sure to enter only valid rates and make sure to turn off any other rate changer like the one in MPC-HC.

Check out http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=146228&page=362

I ve read 10+ pages from this page but it still is not clear to me precisely:

First of all, treat 25fps as 23,976 option in madVR will not work in my setup. This is because I ONLY bitstream and if I am correct this function only works when you let the decoding by done by the HTPC.

I ll explain exacly what I want to do so you can tell me if this is possible or not:

80% of the content I play is 1080p@23,976. That why my standard ATI setup is 1080P23 (ATI 23=23,976). 15% of the content I play is 1080p@25,000fps so what I want is that with this content madVR let s my output switch to 1080p@25Hz. The rest of my content (5%) is tv-shows material and movie trailers. These can be anything like 59, 29, 24Hz. For this content I would also like that madVR tells my videocard to switch to the best compatible output res.+freq.
What i DONT want (and which I ve read on some pages) is that madVR switches my video output to 1080p@24 for 23,976 material or 1080p60 for 25fps material.

Pitty that MPC-HCs own changer does not work with madVR because this is very finetuned.

[noee]

Have you actually tried it yet for your various sources? Does your monitor actually support 25Hz? Remember, do not set a refresh rate in madVR that your monitor will not support.

Why don't you just try it and report back what you can't get working?

[THX-UltraII]

Have you actually tried it yet for your various sources? Does your monitor actually support 25Hz? Remember, do not set a refresh rate in madVR that your monitor will not support.

Why don't you just try it and report back what you can't get working?

No, have not tried it yet. But I m just wondering what video output madVR will pick when 29,97 material is played and I have filled in 1080p29 AND 1080p30 in the madVR settings.

[Andy o]

D3D11 works for playback for me as well, however its somewhat unusable because exiting FSE doesnt re-draw the desktop or the player properly.

I've had the queues dropping low problem as well with some settings, but the current setup is working just nice. :)

Regarding this earlier discussion, I've been testing out what works without the render and present queues dropping (present drops to zero and then glitches start) on H.264 720p 30p content (haven't tested much other so maybe happens with other formats as well) without having to use D3D11. The flush settings don't seem to do anything either way.

I had set it to present 10 frames in advance and that worked. 8 didn't work, and the render queue still dropped a bit, and the present queue slowly to zero again. At 10, present stays 7-9/9 for the most part. But then I just noticed that playing 24p content when switching to exclusive mode, the damn silent stream bug hits and I have to wait 1-2 seconds to hear sound again... Not so when presenting lower number of frames in advance, like the default 4.

So just to see what would happen, I decided to make it 2, and surprisingly the render queue stays solidly at 5-7/8, and present queue at 1-2/2 without dropping to zero at all. I then tried 3, and it also works, at 5-7/8 and 2-3/3 respectively. After that, so far so good.

[iSunrise]

I`ve recently upgraded from my old GTX260 (which served me very well and madVR ran great with it) to a shiny new GTX570 which is almost silent. (ASUS Direct CUII cooling, I am quite impressed). What is surprising for me is that madVR still runs great with the same settings I used for my old card and even the same drivers (newest quadro or geforce beta 285.38, both run great).

I didn´t expect this since I was getting the impression from reading this thread that newer cards have some unusual problems.

madshi:
Like you already wrote in this thread, the D3D11 path also works best for me (23.976fps or 24fps@24Hz). However, it would be great if you could improve it to the point where going out of FSE mode to windowed draws the desktop each time.

Currently, after you start playback of a file, switching usually works 2-3 times but stops working for no reason and then starts to work again, etc. It is quite random. Switching works in every other mode or path I´ve tested, so there must be something weird going on specifically when you enable D3D11. A workaround is to pause the file and switch when in pause and then start playback again.

Other than that madVR is smooth as butter and I wouldn´t trade it for anything else.

[bran]

Can someone tell me the advantages of using DX11 and/or Exclusive mode in madVRs options?

I get very choppy playback (but no difference in CPU/GPU load) when I enable exclusive mode. Using LAV Filters with CUDA and GTX460 together with MPC-HC.

[THX-UltraII]

Just found the calibration option in madVR. I own a JVC RS25 projector which is ISF calibrated by a professional. What should I choose in madVR?

[XRyche]

Just found the calibration option in madVR. I own a JVC RS25 projector which is ISF calibrated by a professional. What should I choose in madVR?

If it's already calibrated "professionally" then choose "this display is already calibrated", of course.

[nand chan]

Just found the calibration option in madVR. I own a JVC RS25 projector which is ISF calibrated by a professional. What should I choose in madVR?

If it's already calibrated "professionally" then choose "this display is already calibrated", of course.

It's careful to note here that you can't confuse “calibrated” with “profiled”, or confuse the different types of calibration with eachother. There are basically multiple possibilities of what has happened here:

1. The projector is hard calibrated in such a way that the gamma, gamut and white point are adjusted correctly. In this case, just choose “this monitor is already calibrated”.

2. The projector is hard calibrated in such a way that the gamma and gamut are adjusted, but the white point is not. In this case, determine your projector's white point and calculate a chromatic adaptation matrix, then load that (as .3dlut).

3. The projector is hard calibrated in such a way that the gamma is adjusted, but the gamut is not - in this case, the gamut will be profiled (eg. as ICC profile), and gamut correction has to be calculated manually (eg. with a 3dlut or the built in yCMS option)

4. The projector is not hard calibrated at all, but contains a soft calibrated gamma (CLUTs) along with an ICC profile (the two are usually combined into the same file). In this case, you will need to fix both gamut *and* gamma using a 3dlut.

I don't know which of these is the case for you as they're all valid solutions in practice, and all just as common. Personally, I use option 4 because my projector/monitor does not support hard calibration (well, it does - but it only includes a few hard calibrated options - in particular sRGB, for which it is option 2).

Edit: It sounds like the ISF calibration just fixes the white point to be at precisely 6500K (which is also incorrect, incidentally, but I trust that the “professional” doing your calibration knows this) - I don't know how well and to what standard your gamma is calibrated and I don't know anything at all about your gamut. Do you know if your calibration has performed this additional task and how well? Is there something like a calibration report that he gave you?

I'll have to do some research on your projector.

Edit 2: It sounds like you have at least a “THX Mode” which is supposed to be (in theory) calibrated to 2.2 PPC, D65 and BT.709. Can you confirm how many color “modes” you have, and which one you are using?