madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[crotecun]

So no color/gamma difference with DXVA2 scaling, either? Just a difference in sharpness, correct?



Yes, that's how I see it on my setup.

[fagoatse]

Has anybody ever benchmarked madvr configured with performance in mind against EVR-CP? I've got AMD E-350/HD6310(1.6 GHz DC APU) and im considering trying it once xy-vsfilter gets the new sub interface but I won't bother if its not feasible at all(720p 10bit are already taking over 80% of cpu time with evr-cp but somehow lav's dxva2-cb doesnt cause any issues and plays any 1080p stuff just fine on the contrary to what people have said in this thread).

[JarrettH]

Can anybody reproduce this? I don't have this problem on my PCs, from what I can see. Are you sure this is a new problem with v0.85.x? Does it always occur or just when using the new features (DXVA2 decoding and/or scaling)?

Actually I just checked with 0.84.7 and the same thing is happening. I remembered I installed nvidia driver 306.97 recently. I wonder if that has anything to do with it. I may as well try a reboot too :D

[rahzel]

Thanks. Could you please double check the effects of DXVA2 scaling? Does that change colors, too?
I will check later tonight


Ok, so 2, 3 and 4 are all different compared to 1. But are 2, 3 and 4 different to each other? Or all 2, 3 and 4 all identical?
2, 3 and 4 all looked the same and different from reference #1.

[AndreaMG]

@Madshi, any thoughts about "Vibrance" pixel shader?

http://forums.guru3d.com/showpost.php?p=4404811&postcount=830

Thanks :)

[Xaurus]

@Madshi, any thoughts about "Vibrance" pixel shader?

http://forums.guru3d.com/showpost.php?p=4404811&postcount=830

Thanks :)
I've just installed that one. A value of 0.3 is too much for my taste, so I've reduced it to 0.16. I think it's working fine so far.

[AndreaMG]

I've just installed that one. A value of 0.3 is too much for my taste, so I've reduced it to 0.16. I think it's working fine so far.
Yes, to my eyes it is too much as well, I'll try to reduce the value:p

[aufkrawall]

Having a little glitch with my Intel HD 3000 graphics & 9.17.10.2875 driver: There's a colored bar at the top of the image in windowed mode:
http://www.abload.de/thumb/avatar.mkv_snapshot_03zpyz.jpg (http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=avatar.mkv_snapshot_03zpyz.jpg)

It doesn't occur in FSE.
Edit: It's related to DXVA downscaling, with e.g. bilinear the bar is gone in windowed mode too.
Otherwise it seems to be running well on that GPU, with DXVA luma scaling there's even enough power for Lanczos3 AR chroma upscaling. Even at 4k video + downscaling to 720p.
No one can say that madVR would be too expensive.

[madshi]

Noticed a small bug with the latest version of Madvr: when using 'DXVA2 native' (LAV decoder), subtitles won't appear when playing DVD's.
Which subtitle renderer are you using? DXVA2 native doesn't work with vsfilter/xy-vsfilter with any renderer.

Another question: I can understand the benefit of 'DXVA2 native' compared to 'Copy-Back'.
"copy-back" means that the decoder has to copy every decoded video frame from GPU RAM to CPU RAM and then back to GPU RAM. With "native" that's not necessary, so performance with "native" should be a little bit better. That's especially true for older AMD GPUs.

But what does the brand new DXVA-option in the scaling menu do exactly?
It's the scaling algorithm as implemented by the GPU manufacturer (ATI, NVidia, Intel). Its qualities depend on the GPU manufacturer and maybe on GPU, driver version etc. The main purpose of this is to save power.

Has anybody ever benchmarked madvr configured with performance in mind against EVR-CP?
madVR is constantly changing, so there's no proper benchmark available, especially not when using the very new features like DXVA2 decoding + scaling. Just give it a try yourself...

Actually I just checked with 0.84.7 and the same thing is happening. I remembered I installed nvidia driver 306.97 recently. I wonder if that has anything to do with it. I may as well try a reboot too :D
Yes, and I think MPC-HC also has a setting for staying on top somewhere hidden in the options.

@Madshi, any thoughts about "Vibrance" pixel shader?
No. It should work with madVR v0.85.x, so if you like it feel free to use it. I won't try every shader out there, so trust your own eyes whether it's any good or not.

Having a little glitch with my Intel HD 3000 graphics & 9.17.10.2875 driver: There's a colored bar at the top of the image in windowed mode

Edit: It's related to DXVA downscaling, with e.g. bilinear the bar is gone in windowed mode too.
It's a known problem with DXVA2 scaling in v0.85.0 and .1, probably occurs when the size of the "target rectangle" (see madVR debug OSD Ctrl+J) has an odd height.

[vivan]

I'm on Intel HD 3000 too.
Green line happens when video is scaled to odd height. I think this was already reported here.
Also if you resize fast (to different resolutions) player crashes.

And the worst part is banding (basically in any 10-bit video), the same as with EVR:
not_dxva2 (http://3.firepic.org/3/images/2012-11/24/w0n2gp2f37px.png) dxva2 (http://3.firepic.org/3/images/2012-11/24/3caqfjdf0gah.png)

[madshi]

Ouch, the banding is really bad. Could I have a sample of that scene, please?

[vivan]

Ouch, the banding is really bad. Could I have a sample of that scene, please?sample (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16254258/%5BUTW%5D_Shinsekai_Yori_-_09_sample.mkv)

[Trib]

24p running at 23Hz is not the end of the world, because surely it will be fixed in a reasonable amount of time, assuming it's an Nvidia driver bug and not something relating to madVR. (as Madshi isn't running Windows 8, it could be some time before it gets fixed if it's not an Nvidia problem)

I haven't seen any reports from Intel/AMD users on Windows 8 though, so it's difficult to know whether it's an Nvidia-specific issue, or Windows 8 in general.


There are a number of features and improvements that have made Windows 8 a worthwhile upgrade for me already though, and there have been very few issues so far.
I can confirm that atleast with both my Gtx 460 with 310.63 drivers and Intel HD 3000 with 9.17.10.2875 drivers, the monitor switches between 23 and 59Hz in Windows 8 64-bit having put the monitor to switch between 1080p24 and 1080p60 in madvr.

[mindz]

Just curious, am I the only one that likes the picture more when madVR is set to 16-235 aka washed out?

[aufkrawall]

Hello,
is there a way to set up custom resolutions with decimal place refreshrates like e.g. 59.94Hz on Intel?
Thanks.

[DragonQ]

Can I have a sample with which the image is horizontally squished? When you have the horizontal squishing, which "target rectangle" does the madVR debug OSD show?

Could you please also try DXVA2 decoding with some different material to test whether that also makes the colors look different? Thanks!
OK I tried a different SD sample, which can use DXVA2 Native. Basically, the colours are different for all four scenarios:

1) Software decoding, Bilinear scaling = Benchmark
2) Software decoding, DXVA2 scaling = Same aspect ratio, wrong colours
3) DXVA2 decoding, Bilinear scaling = Different aspect ratio, wrong colours (but not the same colours as 2)
4) DXVA2 decoding, DXVA2 scaling = Same aspect ratio, wrong colours (but not the same colours as 2 or 3)

Sample download (http://www.aotplaza.com/Files/HTPC/Screengrabs/MadVR/Buffy%20S06E06%20-%20All%20The%20Way%20(SAMPLE).mkv)
Screenshots: 1 (http://www.aotplaza.com/Files/HTPC/Screengrabs/MadVR/Software,%20Bicubic75AR,%20Bilinear.png), 2 (http://www.aotplaza.com/Files/HTPC/Screengrabs/MadVR/Software,%20Bicubic75AR,%20DXVA2.png), 3 (http://www.aotplaza.com/Files/HTPC/Screengrabs/MadVR/DXVA2,%20Bicubic75AR,%20Bilinear.png), 4 (http://www.aotplaza.com/Files/HTPC/Screengrabs/MadVR/DXVA2,%20Bicubic75AR,%20DXVA2.png)

All were displayed full screen at 1920x1200 and all had the same "target rectangle" (0, 60, 1920, 1140).

[madshi]

@vivan, thanks.

@mindz, maybe your monitor expects 16-235.

@DragonQ, that's pretty terrible. Do you get identical colors using LAV's DXVA2 copy-back decoding compared to software decoding?

[egur]

sample (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16254258/%5BUTW%5D_Shinsekai_Yori_-_09_sample.mkv)

I didn't get any banding on Intel HD2000 or ATI Radeon 6950.

As for the top green line - this happens because both Cb & Cr are zero.
Madshi, maybe, when the height is odd you should scale to a height smaller by 1 and add a black line at the bottom (in final RGB image). Since DXVA works in NV12, having odd number of lines makes little sense to the driver. In other words, there's no valid NV12 representation for odd height images.

[DragonQ]

@DragonQ, that's pretty terrible. Do you get identical colors using LAV's DXVA2 copy-back decoding compared to software decoding?
DXVA2 Copy-Back gives the same results as software decoding for both DXVA2 and Bilinear resizing, yes.

[nevcairiel]

I didn't get any banding on Intel HD2000 or ATI Radeon 6950.

The banding only happens when you use the new DXVA2 Scaling option, and its quite obvious. I think madshi said that he only rounds down the images to 8-bit for DXVA2 scaling, which would result in this banding.

If i tell LAV to dither to NV12 instead of outputting P010 to madVR, the banding is gone. An "easy" fix would be to simply not accept 10-bit input if DXVA2 scaling is used, but not sure thats a good solution. Better would be to add dithering, of course.

[egur]

I used NV12 output from ffdshow, no idea if dithering or rounding was used. On 10/16 bit output I saw the banding too.
Madshi, do you convert 10bit to NV12 via clipping or rounding? Rounding is very cheap and may solve the problem.

[Aikibana]

Which subtitle renderer are you using? DXVA2 native doesn't work with vsfilter/xy-vsfilter with any renderer.

The subtitle issue might be related to something else. When playing DVD's, I had to block a certain 'MPV Decoder Filter' in MPC-HC under 'external filters' in order to activate Madvr, even though all LAV decoder&filters were already set to 'prefer' status.

After blocking the 'MPV Decoder', the LAV filter took over and Madvr worked it's magic as expected, including the subtitles (in DXVA-CB or software mode). But when I use the new superior 'native' mode, the subs are gone.

Another thing: the LAV splitter doesn't kick in while plaging DVD's. In stead I see 'DVD Navigator' is being used. Blocking this one within MPC-HC doesn't seem to work. Is this normal?

Thanks for helping.

[DragonQ]

Another thing: the LAV splitter doesn't kick in while plaging DVD's. In stead I see 'DVD Navigator' is being used. Blocking this one within MPC-HC doesn't seem to work. Is this normal?

Yes it is.

[Aikibana]

Which subtitle renderer are you using? DXVA2 native doesn't work with vsfilter/xy-vsfilter with any renderer.

The subtitle issue might be related to something else. When playing DVD's, I had to block a certain 'MPV Decoder Filter' in MPC-HC under 'external filters' in order to activate Madvr, even though all LAV decoder&filters were already set to 'prefer' status.

After blocking the 'MPV Decoder', the LAV filter took over and Madvr worked it's magic as expected, including the subtitles (in DXVA-CB or software mode). But when I use the new superior 'native' mode, the subs are gone.

Another thing: the LAV splitter doesn't kick in while plaging DVD's. In stead I see 'DVD Navigator' is being used. Blocking this one within MPC-HC doesn't seem to work. Is this normal?

Thanks for helping.

Update! Problem = fixed.

It appears to have been indeed a bug in the latest LAV software. Subs now work perfectly with the new 'DXVA2 native' mode.

Version history:
0.54 - 2012/11/24 - Release Notes

LAV Splitter
- Subtitle selection in "Default" mode now properly takes the "Default Track" flag into account
- Fixed an issue that could cause graph flush events to be send out of sync

LAV Video
- The DXVA2 Native decoder can now properly detect hardware support for video resolutions
- Allows 4K DXVA2 decoding on NVIDIA
- New options to control which resolutions are being handled by the hardware decoder (SD, HD and 4K/UHD)
- Added support for DVD menu overlays and DVD subtitles with DXVA2 Native
- Improved DXVA2 Native support with madVR
- Fixed a freeze when playing corrupted H.264 streams in DXVA2 Native
- Fixed a few rare DVD menu issues when using the QuickSync decoder

[vivan]

If i tell LAV to dither to NV12 instead of outputting P010 to madVR, the banding is gone.Dunno, even with NV12 output (in LAV) I still get noticeable banding: pic (http://4.firepic.org/4/images/2012-11/25/2v3yva43buat.png).

[ajp_anton]

lanczos3 10-bit scaling (http://i.imgur.com/3WKfr.jpg)
DXVA "10-bit" scaling (http://i.imgur.com/UUns5.jpg)
DXVA NV12-scaling (from LAV) (http://i.imgur.com/8Woik.jpg)

(HD3000)

Looks like DXVA scaling does more than just scaling... at least mine looks slightly closer to non-DXVA than vivan's.

[dansrfe]

What is the benefit of using DXVA?

[ryrynz]

Looks like DXVA scaling does more than just scaling...

Adds some beautiful banding.

[Pillars of Creation]

Hi madshi, I would like to advice a proposal:

Please add screensaver support while pausing video playback. Every plasma TV user will thank you...

[Farfie]

What is the benefit of using DXVA?

For performance purposes on slower hardware. You shouldn't use it if your hardware can handle Jinc or the like. That's my understanding anyway.

[crotecun]

I'm on Intel HD 3000 too.
Green line happens when video is scaled to odd height. I think this was already reported here.
Also if you resize fast (to different resolutions) player crashes.

And the worst part is banding (basically in any 10-bit video), the same as with EVR:
not_dxva2 (http://3.firepic.org/3/images/2012-11/24/w0n2gp2f37px.png) dxva2 (http://3.firepic.org/3/images/2012-11/24/3caqfjdf0gah.png)

I thought it was just my content, I see banding on my side too.

Using madVR output, bilinear chroma and DXVA2 image upscaling -

http://i.imgur.com/lMdNAl.jpg (http://imgur.com/lMdNA)

Please don't mind the pixelisation, it wasn't there in the original. That was added from imgur converting the uploaded screenshot to jpeg.

EDIT: screenshot comparison with jinc3 ar on both chroma and image upscaling -- http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/159988

[ryrynz]

Hi madshi, I would like to advice a proposal:

Please add screensaver support while pausing video playback. Every plasma TV user will thank you...


You asked in January and he replied:


Oh well, sounds reasonably useful, I'll add it to my to do list, but with very low priority.


Also LloydA asked in September.


Please ask again when madVR has reached v1.0. I've so many more important things to implement first.




For performance purposes on slower hardware. You shouldn't use it if your hardware can handle Jinc or the like. That's my understanding anyway.

Hardware de-interlacing and post-processing (noise reduction, edge enhancement, cropping etc) are benefits with DXVA also.

[6233638]

Hello,
is there a way to set up custom resolutions with decimal place refreshrates like e.g. 59.94Hz on Intel?
Thanks.With Nvidia at least, you just set 1080p59 instead of 1080p60 for example. (though there seems to be a bug that sets both to 59Hz right now)

Hi madshi, I would like to advice a proposal:

Please add screensaver support while pausing video playback. Every plasma TV user will thank you...This is already working on my system, on both Windows 7 & 8. I just have the standard "blank" screensaver after 10 minutes because that causes my set to turn the backlight off. Windows' option to turn off the monitor actually leaves my TV on the "blank input" screen instead.

In fact, I was going to request an option to disable the screensaver from activating while the player was paused, once more important things were taken care of.

[JarrettH]

Yes, and I think MPC-HC also has a setting for staying on top somewhere hidden in the options.

You know what happened is I reset my madvr settings before using 0.85 (which reset the ctrl+A anti ringing shortcut). I must have pressed ctrl+A before setting the shortcut again because ctrl+A in MPC puts the player "always on top" :p

[ryrynz]

In fact, I was going to request an option to disable the screensaver from activating while the player was paused, once more important things were taken care of.

Why not just request that the MPC devs implement that?

[Pillars of Creation]

@ryrynz: Thanks for the link. I overlooked madshi's answer. This thread is very busy all the time. :)

@ 6233638: Won't work for me. My setup: mpc-hc (1.6.5.6243), LAV filters (0.54), madVR (0.85.1), win7 x64 and standard blank screensaver after 1 minute

mpc-hc @ overlay mixer -> black screen after 1 minute
mpc-hc @ madVR -> nothing happens

But you're right, it's not a killer feature, but a very nice to have feature, especially for plasma owners.

[dansrfe]

I just set my screen to stop getting a signal (turn off) after 5 mins. It works like normal when MPC-HC is paused. The best screen saver is to stop sending a signal to (turn off) the screen.

[6233638]

Why not just request that the MPC devs implement that?I agree, it does seem more like an MPC-HC request rather than a madVR one. Another reason I hadn't brought it up.

@ 6233638: Won't work for me. My setup: mpc-hc (1.6.5.6243), LAV filters (0.54), madVR (0.85.1), win7 x64 and standard blank screensaver after 1 minute

mpc-hc @ overlay mixer -> black screen after 1 minute
mpc-hc @ madVR -> nothing happens

But you're right, it's not a killer feature, but a very nice to have feature, especially for plasma owners.Strange, it's definitely working here whether madVR is running in Windowed, Windowed Overlay, or Fullscreen Exclusive mode.
I also tried changing the "always on top" option to see if that would make a difference, and it does not.

I'm using DXVA copy-back decoding, and Jinc scaling.
I don't know if DXVA native decoding, or DXVA scaling might affect it?


Most Plasmas should at least start to dim the screen with a static image, and some of them will enable the orbiter if they have one.

[ajp_anton]

Adds some beautiful banding.I meant the different brightness and colors. The banding is much reduced when LAV dithers to 8 bits.

[rahzel]

Thanks. Could you please double check the effects of DXVA2 scaling? Does that change colors, too?

DXVA2 scaling on my AMD rig also affects color, even when using software decoding. No colored bar at the top like my intel rig, though.

[trip_let]

Could you upload a small sample of such a material with which you see a shifted image? And please write down the "target rectangle" in the madVR debug OSD (Ctrl+J) when you see that shifting, so that I can reproduce it here. Thanks!

It indeed was about a weird target rectangle. I was trying to scale a 720x480 video exactly 2x via MPC-HC shortcut for Zoom 200%, windowed mode, with the precise amount of GUI on the screen to make that not happen on my 1920x1080 display. Video frame was set to "touch window from inside", "keep aspect ratio".
target rectangle 1, 0, 1438, 958
Anything with that precise video resolution / scaling / GUI produced the same results, so it isn't a particular video sample or unusual resolution of interest.


...fake edit: scratch that, I reproduced the problem with another video by dragging the window size (same settings as above). Video original res 240x160.
target rectangle 0, 0, 691, 460

[romulous]

Hi madshi,

I have a clip that locks up Zoom Player when using LAV Video (set to Copy-Back mode) as the decoder. It only happens when madVR is used as the renderer. The sample gets to about 3 seconds in, and then just stops playing - the picture stops moving, but the timeline progress keeps moving. It also locks the player, so Task Manager is required to kill it. Sample link:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/105555957/JustCause2-H264.mkv (27MB)

Not sure if it is a general madVR problem, or just something interfering with madVR on my system (NVIDIA GTX460, 310.61 drivers, Win 7 64bit). This is in windowed mode, not fullscreen - and I am not using Overlay. My video card can't handle hardware acceleration at that video resolution (1920x1200), so LAV falls back to software decoding for all three types (Copy-Back, Native, CUVID).

[aufkrawall]

With Nvidia at least, you just set 1080p59 instead of 1080p60 for example. (though there seems to be a bug that sets both to 59Hz right now)

With Nvidia it works just fine for me, how is it bugged for you?
With Intel I simply can't add those resolutions in the GUI. :D

[nevcairiel]

With Nvidia it works just fine for me, how is it bugged for you?

Its bugged on Win8 only.

[madshi]

As for the top green line - this happens because both Cb & Cr are zero.
Madshi, maybe, when the height is odd you should scale to a height smaller by 1 and add a black line at the bottom (in final RGB image). Since DXVA works in NV12, having odd number of lines makes little sense to the driver. In other words, there's no valid NV12 representation for odd height images.
I'm usually handling NV12 images with odd widths/heights in such a way that I support an extra chroma line/column. That seems to work fine with ATI and NVidia, but not with Intel. Anyway, I think I can simply crop the target rectangle, it shouldn't be hard to do (I hope).

Better would be to add dithering, of course.
True. Unfortunately madVR supports about 2 million different formats, so adding dithering to all of them would be quite a lot of work. It's on my to do list, though.

Madshi, do you convert 10bit to NV12 via clipping or rounding? Rounding is very cheap and may solve the problem.
I'm using rounding, if I'm not very mistaken.

I thought it was just my content, I see banding on my side too.
Could I please have a short sample of this scene, too? Thanks!

I have a clip that locks up Zoom Player when using LAV Video (set to Copy-Back mode) as the decoder. It only happens when madVR is used as the renderer. The sample gets to about 3 seconds in, and then just stops playing - the picture stops moving, but the timeline progress keeps moving. It also locks the player, so Task Manager is required to kill it. Sample link:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/105555957/JustCause2-H264.mkv (27MB)

Not sure if it is a general madVR problem, or just something interfering with madVR on my system (NVIDIA GTX460, 310.61 drivers, Win 7 64bit). This is in windowed mode, not fullscreen - and I am not using Overlay. My video card can't handle hardware acceleration at that video resolution (1920x1200), so LAV falls back to software decoding for all three types (Copy-Back, Native, CUVID).
Sounds weird. I'll give this a try later...

[madshi]

@devs:

Could you please visit this thread (discussion about custom pixel shader "specs") and post your opinion:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=166548

Thanks!

[Carpo]

@madshi - I know you can take single screenshots with madVR now, but will you be implementing it s that it can do stepped frames? or should we just use a different render?

[ajp2k11]

Well, as I said, it looks like a driver problem to me. There's nothing I can do about it. Maybe you should just go back to win7.

Madshi (or anyone),

been trying to troubleshoot my problem with some mkv files and madvr (they play fine using EVR/CP). It's mostly some 1080p files but also some 720p files.

Anyway, I just remuxed a problem file to mp4 using mkv2mp4 and mpc-hc with madvr plays it without any problems!? I tried just remuxing the mkv using mkvtoolnix but the new mkv didn't play.

Any suggestions? What more can I test?

(running Win8 Pro, graphics card is radeon 6650M with catalyst mobility 12.10. LAV 0.54/MadVR 0.85.1, MPC-HC b6252)

EDIT: Never mind, looks like the remux only helped on one file...

EDIT2: All files work in ZoomPlayer Free 8.5!

[Blight]

Madshi:
The screen-capture cosmetic glitch happens when when paused (ZP always pauses before taking a screenshot).
For a split-second, whatever was in the frame prior appears. If I just run ZP play a video and press Alt+F, a black screen will appear, but if I open the navigation interfaces that appear on-top of the video and then close the navigation interface, then play a bit of video and take a screenshot, the navigation interface will pop for a split second. It appears like windows that don't get the 'wmpaint' event.


Carpo:
MadVR does seem to support frame-advance, In Zoom Player all you need to do is press "A" (pause) and then "A" again to frame-step and "Alt+F" to take a screenshot.

[peckec]

Hi,

I have found weird issue with native dxva decoding, it seems dxva2n input is not handled same way as dxva2cb.

My output settings are following:
Output format in CCC is set to Limited RGB, madvr outputs TV levels and my TV is set to Limited RGB, basically everywhere is limited RGB.

When using dxva2cb for decoding, WTW and BTB are preserved, after switching to dxva2n, WTW and BTB are cut off, also when watching Black Clipping test video, 17-25 are not flashing anymore.

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+I shows in both cases: "source levels: auto detect (TV)"

When using EVR-CP there is no such difference when changing dxva mode in LAV decoder.


setup: HD 6670, Win7, madvr 0.85.1, LAV filters 0.54.0