madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[dimitrik]

Thanks for the guidance everyone! I also think the PC should be able to handle it, I'm fairly certain I got better performance on an older PC some time ago.
My content is progressive, both 720p and 480p, so that should not be a problem.

@Jong: I have tried taking the settings down to DXVA/Bicubic and the problem persisted, but I will follow the process you suggest and post a screenshot tonight.

I'm hoping the GTX 560 is enough since I'm thinking of using it to build an HTPC/gaming rig without buying much new equipment...

[diply]

Just to follow guide from here http://www.avsforum.com/t/1357375/advanced-mpc-hc-setup-guide if i want 'perfect' picture?

[Dodgexander]

I think were talking about two Bugs here:

1. The "stuck window" Bug. Can be worked around with disable desktop composition or disable minimize/maximize animation. This Bug also occurs with EVR (when using Exclusive Mode in MPC-HC). So that's something for Microsoft to fix.

2. The Black Screen Bug. This Bug I don't have and it looks like it only happens with dxva. (I don't use dxva)

Ah great, I thought these were the same bug! I only adopted the 2nd bug with the newest version of Madvr, before now it wasn't a problem.

So in relation to the second bug, is there a way to fix it?

In relation to the first bug, is this something that exists on Nvidia also? Could someone with Nvidia hardware test?

It would be interesting, because if its just AMD users who get the bug, ill submit a bug report with AMD. I have a suspicion its related to their drivers.

What exacly are presentation glitches in fullscreen exclusive mode? I dont usually use it but im asking out of curiosity,as i can accumulate really a lot of them during standard playback.
Im using latest drivers for ati hd4870.


As seen above by Prinz, you could test to see if you exhibit any of the problems using Dxva with Madvr in fullscreen exclusive mode with all visual effects (eg aero) enabled.

[Prinz]

In relation to the first bug, is this something that exists on Nvidia also? Could someone with Nvidia hardware test?

pankov has this bug also. He has a Nvidia GPU. http://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=1612699&postcount=17191 (Look at his Signature: NVIDIA GTX 460 SE 1GB (306.97))

As seen above by Prinz, you could test to see if you exhibit any of the problems using Dxva with Madvr in fullscreen exclusive mode with all visual effects (eg aero) enabled.

I get even without exclusive mode problems an my to slow ATI 2600 XT. So I can't test it, because I don't know which bug is because of the too slow card and which isn't.

[Dodgexander]

pankov has this bug also. He has a Nvidia GPU. http://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=1612699&postcount=17191 (Look at his Signature: NVIDIA GTX 460 SE 1GB (306.97))



I get even without exclusive mode problems an my to slow ATI 2600 XT. So I can't test it, because I don't know which bug is because of the too slow card and which isn't.

Thanks, hopefully konakona can also test. Although you need two screens to test.

So its a windows problem then, how on earth can we report it??

[Prinz]

I think it's a windows problem. The internal Timer for that minimize/maximize animation freezes (or gets veeery slow) would be my guess. I would not hold my breath that Microsoft will fix that bug for old Windows Versions.

http://connect.microsoft.com is the official way to report bugs in Windows.

[Dodgexander]

I think it's a windows problem. The internal Timer for that minimize/maximize animation freezes (or gets veeery slow) would be my guess. I would not hold my breath that Microsoft will fix that bug for old Windows Versions.

http://connect.microsoft.com is the official way to report bugs in Windows.

Just checked, they don't have an option for windows, or at least windows 7.

I did some searching and found this (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/gp/contactbug) instead.

Would be useful if anyone with the bug could follow the link and submit. You should get through to a webchat with a microsoft rep, if not, it gives you the option to phone and speak to them.

They charge for support if its a problem, so you have to make sure that you mention you're just reporting a bug.

On the "black screen" bug with a secondary monitor, I had this myself, but only since the latest Mad VR release. Is there any way to troubleshoot this?

[Asmodian]

Just to follow guide from here http://www.avsforum.com/t/1357375/advanced-mpc-hc-setup-guide if i want 'perfect' picture?

It is more about audio really. Beyond installing it that guide barely mentions MadVR at all and that is only to lower its quality if your system is too slow for the defaults. I guess in some sense MadVR at the defaults could be "perfect", though personally I prefer Jinc resize.

[bugmen0t]

please add feature to disable vsync in madvr, since forcing disable vsync in ati doesn't work

[6233638]

please add feature to disable vsync in madvr, since forcing disable vsync in ati doesn't workWhy would you ever want to disable V-Sync with video playback?

[dlb76]

you can either disable desktop composition to fix (in madvr settings)

madshi, this option says (Vista and newer), can it be any use on xp64 ?

I have "stuck window" bug too on xp64 with nvidia and I can say that its usually Chrome or Firefox who gets stuck like that here and I think I fixed Firefox by disabling hardware acceleration in it, but Chrome still gets stuck especially if Google Dictionary (by Google) 3.0.15 extension is used in it...

[Asmodian]

madshi, this option says (Vista and newer), can it be any use on xp64 ?

That option is for turning off "Aero Glass" that is only available in Vista and Windows 7. (it has its own v-sync so sometimes it helps to turn it off)

[THEAST]

Thanks for the guidance everyone! I also think the PC should be able to handle it, I'm fairly certain I got better performance on an older PC some time ago.
My content is progressive, both 720p and 480p, so that should not be a problem.

@Jong: I have tried taking the settings down to DXVA/Bicubic and the problem persisted, but I will follow the process you suggest and post a screenshot tonight.

I'm hoping the GTX 560 is enough since I'm thinking of using it to build an HTPC/gaming rig without buying much new equipment...
If you don't have both the "delay playback start..." options checked in madVR, every time you switch from full screen mode to windowed mode or back when the video is playing, some frames will be dropped. this might be the source of your issue.

[dimitrik]

First get good playback with basic (say bicubic) upscaling, then increase until you hit problems. Jinc for luma and chroma is tough.

Step back to bicubic for both and post a screenshot with MadVR OSD showing after playback has settled (say 30secs in to be sure) and after you have reset the counters. Play - settle - reset counter - leave for a while (maybe until some extra drops have happened) - grab screenshot.

When you get drops check if the buffers are emptying or not.

OK, it seems as if the problem was related to some particular files. I did some more testing and found that for the majority of my files, MadVR with Jinc3 (image & chroma) I can just about get 0 frame drops though the buffers look full (screenshot attached). GPU usage was @ 20-25%.
http://i49.tinypic.com/33yoopg.png
I will test with reclock tonight to see if it can improve my repeated frames problem.


I also tested on my HTPC where I did get the odd frame drop, because the card is a slower ATI 5570. It managed to upscale SD content to 720p but not 1080p. Actually the most difficult thing was downscaling 1080p to 720p -the only scaling algorithm that worked without drops was DXVA.
Strangely enough when upscaling SD content, the OSD said there would be a frame drop every 10 mins but this didn't happen...
http://i45.tinypic.com/2hwimi9.png

I now have a dilemma:
Should I move my GTX 560 to my HTPC so I can use MadVR, or buy a Radeon 7850?

The advantage of the Radeon would be potentially faster (?) MadVR processing + some post-processing options when using other renderers eg. XBMC.

I'm not sure it would worth it though, as the 560 seems to be just about enough, if a bit marginal. Any advice would be welcome - Thanks!

[Jong]

Personally I am using a fanless AMD 7750 and it is great. Runs beautifully cool, totally silently (of course) and currently handles jinc3 with AR for both chroma and luma for all my content, including interlaced 1080p which I think is the toughest (from memory). It is very close for that interlaced content though - <1ms margin of error. It actually couldn't handle jinc3 for chroma until the recent MadVR updated that improved performance. So I guess there is a danger a future update might mean it can't quite do it or, alternately, Madshi comes up with an even more taxing new feature!! But I kinda expect to update my card every couple of years anyway.

One question @Madshi. Does the OSD add to the rendering time? I.e. when the OSD is off do we have slightly more margin for error? I know the MPC-HC EVR CP and EVR Sync OSDs could add about 1ms to rendering, so you knew if you were close with OSD on you were likely fine with it off! :)

[nevcairiel]

Since 1080p content on a 1080p screen needs no image upscaling, its not the toughest you can do. Something like 720p60 would be more demanding, but it only usually comes from camcorders, and not consumer content.
I had a passive 7750 before as well, but the ongoing epic journey with AMDs fixing the drivers in beta releases and then breaking it in release versions again is just too annoying, and now i have a GTX660, not passive, but with a extremely silent cooler, it runs just prefectly and still inaudible to me.

[Jong]

Since 1080p content on a 1080p screen needs no image upscaling, its not the toughest you can do. Something like 720p60 would be more demanding, but it only usually comes from camcorders, and not consumer content.
I had a passive 7750 before as well, but the ongoing epic journey with AMDs fixing the drivers in beta releases and then breaking it in release versions again is just too annoying, and now i have a GTX660, not passive, but with a extremely silent cooler, it runs just prefectly and still inaudible to me.Did you mean 720i? because 720p is rather common I'm sure you agree! Yes, that might be tougher. I did say though "for all my content". Personally though I've found interlaced material to be far tougher than any progressive content, even if it needs upscaling. It seems to greatly increase the rendering time, quite separately from the deinterlacing time itself.

[6233638]

I have a request for you, if it's not too much trouble:

Would it be possible to have madVR disable yCMS, gamma and colour processing when taking a screenshot?

Any time I'm trying to capture a screenshot of a video to post online, I have to disable all of these individually, and then remember to enable them again. As you made a good case for the screenshot function of the player to capture an unscaled image, it seems like it would also make sense to capture an "unprocessed" image as well, leaving scaled & processed screenshots to the PrtScn key.

Having a keyboard shortcut to toggle this colour processing on/off would also be useful for when I need to take a scaled screenshot, but don't want the image to be using the gamma curve required for my display.

[nevcairiel]

Did you mean 720i? because 720p is rather common I'm sure you agree!

Not 720p in general, 720p60 is the magic thing, 720p at 60 fps.

Even worse would be something above 720p, but not exactly 1080p. Basically anything with a lot of input pixels and a lot of frames per second (just not 1080p exactly because that doesn't need image scaling then)

[HeadlessCow]

In the US, Fox broadcasts 720p60 (the other big broadcasters use 1080i), so it's common over here even though it's not the prevalent format.

[QBhd]

ABC and CBC (Canada) also broadcast in 720p60... there could be more, but 1080i30 is far more common for sure

QB

[bugmen0t]

Why would you ever want to disable V-Sync with video playback?

of course for performance boost

[6233638]

of course for performance boostV-Sync has nothing to do with performance, and will result in screen tearing if it's disabled. There's absolutely no reason to disable it with video playback.

[mandarinka]

MadVR doesn't need to run faster than is the screen framerate. And even if it did, it computes offscreen into buffers anyway, so vsync wouldn't make it faster

[ryrynz]

Enabling overlay makes it faster. Tested with my own two eyes. :D

[dimitrik]

If you don't have both the "delay playback start..." options checked in madVR, every time you switch from full screen mode to windowed mode or back when the video is playing, some frames will be dropped. this might be the source of your issue.

Thanks. It seems that was in fact the problem.

Now I need to figure out what kind of card I need on my HTPC to handle MadVR...

[dimitrik]

Since 1080p content on a 1080p screen needs no image upscaling, its not the toughest you can do. Something like 720p60 would be more demanding, but it only usually comes from camcorders, and not consumer content.
I had a passive 7750 before as well, but the ongoing epic journey with AMDs fixing the drivers in beta releases and then breaking it in release versions again is just too annoying, and now i have a GTX660, not passive, but with a extremely silent cooler, it runs just prefectly and still inaudible to me.

I'm not surprised The 660 works great, but I'm afraid it's bit out of my budget. My question is weather my GTX 560 will be enough, or if a 7850 is worth the investment (it's about half the price of a 660).

What did you find problematic about the AMD drivers in terms of broken features? Is there a specific reason I should stay away from them?

[Jong]

Not 720p in general, 720p60 is the magic thing, 720p at 60 fps.Of course :o, how did I miss that. Just done some tests with my 7750 and with latest MadVR 720p does take over 16.67ms to render, 17.25ms to be precise, which does raise the question again whether the OSD is adding anything to these times. If it does it could be crucial to allowing jinc on both chroma and luma for 720p/60. Jinc-3, AR for luma and Lanczos-4 AR for chroma is fine by the way,and may be safer if you don't know what media you are going to be playing.

I'm not surprised The 660 works great, but I'm afraid it's bit out of my budget. My question is weather my GTX 560 will be enough, or if a 7850 is worth the investment (it's about half the price of a 660).

What did you find problematic about the AMD drivers in terms of broken features? Is there a specific reason I should stay away from them?Yes, I'd be interested too. I have to say I haven't had any problems with the 7750 since I got it about a year ago once I settled on the right settings (not always easy with any GPU!). But there might well be something I have not tried.

[jkauff]

Let me first say I'm very, very pleased with madVR using default settings. I mostly play commercial movies, both DVD and Blu-ray, using LAV filters.

Being the tweaker I am, however, and being the proud owner of a new GTX 660, I'm wondering if I should fool around with some of the advanced settings. I'm running an i5 3570K with a mild overclock, so I've got decent CPU resources. My display is an LED IPS running at 1920x1080.

Do any of you madVR experts have recommendations for advanced settings tweaks for my (basically vanilla) type of usage, or should I leave well enough alone? ;)

[Asmodian]

My suggestion is Jinc 3 + AR for both image and chroma upscale, your video card can handle it. :)

[jkauff]

My suggestion is Jinc 3 + AR for both image and chroma upscale, your video card can handle it. :)
Tried it, works fine, looks great. Thanks!

[pie1394]

Tried it, works fine, looks great. Thanks!

Please try this ... TS sample (https://hotfile.com/dl/185596632/ddef693/ayaka_MSSL12.ts.html)

Make sure the DXVA deinterlacing is activated, and output is 1920x1080p60.

I expect GTX560Ti / GTX660 are both capable of handling such content with per-pixel-adaptive deinterlacing and madVR Jinc3+AR up-scaling at 60 fps.

The old-school GTX260+ is just not fast enough. It needs to use Lanczos3+AR on Luma for such contents.

[Jong]

Wow. That clip takes my 7750 apart! Can't do jinc at all, chroma or luma. Even with chroma on bicubic, render times with jinc-3 AR for luma are ~23ms, much higher than the needed 16.67ms. With Lanczos-4 AR render times are ~6ms.

Good job I never normally have any such stuff!

[secvensor]

Video: MPEG2 Video 1440x1080 (16:9) 29.97fps [Video]
Audio: AAC 48000Hz 6ch 390kbps [Audio]
Jinc 4 + AR
Jink 8 + AR
Spline 4 + AR
droped frames ~1 every 5 sec

HD4770 O.C.

[konakona]

Video: MPEG2 Video 1440x1080 (16:9) 29.97fps [Video]
Audio: AAC 48000Hz 6ch 390kbps [Audio]
Jinc 4 + AR
Jink 8 + AR
Spline 4 + AR
droped frames ~1 every 5 sec

HD4770 O.C.

there is no point of anything above 3taps jinc,+the whole point of these settings is to make sure there are NO dropped/delayed frames at ALL.
also camtull-rom ar linear light is best downscaling alg.

[jkauff]

Please try this ... TS sample (https://hotfile.com/dl/185596632/ddef693/ayaka_MSSL12.ts.html)

Make sure the DXVA deinterlacing is activated, and output is 1920x1080p60.

I expect GTX560Ti / GTX660 are both capable of handling such content with per-pixel-adaptive deinterlacing and madVR Jinc3+AR up-scaling at 60 fps.

The old-school GTX260+ is just not fast enough. It needs to use Lanczos3+AR on Luma for such contents.
Played perfectly, with only 6 dropped frames for the total clip.

When I was trying to decide whether to buy a discrete card for watching movies, the folks on the Anandtech forums told me I would be wasting my money. Glad I didn't listen and invested the $200 in the GTX 660 (BTW, I bought the Asus version and it runs very quiet and reasonably cool even when heavily stressed by benchmarks--recommended).

[aufkrawall]

You are right, a higher refresh rate should lead to occasional repeats, not drops.

I tried your test clip and it worked fine here, but it's only 1 min long, so hard to be sure. Up to you, but you could upload a longer clip (maybe 10 mins). If you do I'd suggest adding an audio stream, even if it is a silent one. There is no audio track at all at the moment, which is, at the very least, unusual, could lead to unexpected behaviour in some players and stops tools like Reclock and Videoclock matching frame rate to refresh rate.

If you are seeing the same behaviour with more normal clips I'd suggest looking at the OSD just as the drops occur - do the buffers suddenly empty, suggesting something else might be getting in the way. For instance, I get drops every 7 secs, accompanied by emptying buffers, if I have GPU-Z running while playing video. Clearly it's polling of the GPU (maybe sensors) causes problems. But any rogue process could I guess cause problems. You could also try switching between H/W and S/W decoding, just to eliminate that as a possible problem. But I'm clutching at straws now, the first thing is whether you see these 3 min drops in 'normal' material, or only in this somewhat unusual test video.
Thanks.
I see those drops with every 60fps video. Don't have any OSDs etc. active.
I somehow don't have the problem in windowed mode.

[Jong]

Played perfectly, with only 6 dropped frames for the total clip.

When I was trying to decide whether to buy a discrete card for watching movies, the folks on the Anandtech forums told me I would be wasting my money. Glad I didn't listen and invested the $200 in the GTX 660 (BTW, I bought the Asus version and it runs very quiet and reasonably cool even when heavily stressed by benchmarks--recommended).In fact, for movies, they were almost certainly right. The demanding thing about this clip is it is almost, but not quite, 1920x1080 (lots of source pixels yet they still need upscaling to 1080p) and, after de interlacing, it is 60fps (frames have to be rendered fast). Movies are almost always 24fps (round numbers) so frames have more than twice the time to render. Bluray and DVD, for different reasons, will also take less time to render. So it is a win-win - movies are easy, at least until we get to 4 and 8k! But for HD 50/60fps (or higher) stuff there is still a role for discrete GPUs, certainly if you want to use the better upscaling methods. Your beast though is only needed if you want to do all that - HD at high frame rate with better than Lanczos upscaling ;)

[jkauff]

In fact, for movies, they were almost certainly right. The demanding thing about this clip is it is almost, but not quite, 1920x1080 (lots of source pixels yet they still need upscaling to 1080p) and, after de interlacing, it is 60fps (frames have to be rendered fast). Movies are almost always 24fps (round numbers) so frames have more than twice the time to render. Bluray and DVD, for different reasons, will also take less time to render. So it is a win-win - movies are easy, at least until we get to 4 and 8k! But for HD 50/60fps (or higher) stuff there is still a role for discrete GPUs, certainly if you want to use the better upscaling methods. Your beast though is only needed if you want to do all that - HD at high frame rate with better than Lanczos upscaling ;)
Well, my Intel HD4000 iGPU couldn't handle Jinc 3 AR, so I still think it was worth it. My commercial 1080p stuff definitely looks better.

[Jong]

Well, my Intel HD4000 iGPU couldn't handle Jinc 3 AR, so I still think it was worth it. My commercial 1080p stuff definitely looks better.Yeah I can't really talk as I use a 7750! But I bet Lanczos would be fine and until recently everyone thought that was brilliant :)

[Jong]

Thanks.
I see those drops with every 60fps video. Don't have any OSDs etc. active.
I somehow don't have the problem in windowed mode.Odd! Do you see the buffers suddenly empty at the time of the drops? Does the OSD still say you should be seeing repeats? What's your CPU utilisation like?

[JMGNYC]

There seems to be some interest in this thread on what card is good for madVR. So I just got a new card and thought I'd report on it.

I ended up choosing this card:

ASUS HD7770-1GD5
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121663

It's an easy fit being somewhat small for a 7770 and is very quiet and cool.

I am absolutely thrilled with the performance compared to the HD4000 graphics I was using. There's no visible stuttering, frame drops, frame repeats, or video corruption and it handles 25fps PAL superbly unlike the HD4000. The timings are much better than HD4000 so that I am only getting frame drop or repeats in the days rather than minutes or seconds. Some examples.

23.976: actual 23.97609
29.970: actual 29.97021
30.000: actual 29.99997
50.000: actual 50.00017
59.940: actual 59.94037

Here are the rendering times using madVR Jinc3+AR for chroma and image upscaling to 1080

1080 6.31 ms
480 8.34 ms
720 11.54 ms

I couldn't be happier so far. :)

[YxP]

Please try this ... TS sample (https://hotfile.com/dl/185596632/ddef693/ayaka_MSSL12.ts.html)

Intel Q9450 + ATI 7850 here. Did a quick test with lots of others stuff running in the background. Played nearly perfectly with jinc3 + sharpencomplex2 (tried software, DXVA2 native and copy-back), but dropped a lot of frames when I used GPU-Z to check GPU load.

[aufkrawall]

Odd! Do you see the buffers suddenly empty at the time of the drops? Does the OSD still say you should be seeing repeats? What's your CPU utilisation like?
Buffers are constantly filled. I hope madshi will find anything in the debug log I uploaded.
They really seem to appear out of nowhere :(
CPU usage is below 10%, stays in idle clocks.

[nx6]

there is no point of anything above 3taps jinc,+the whole point of these settings is to make sure there are NO dropped/delayed frames at ALL.
also camtull-rom ar linear light is best downscaling alg.

Logical fallacy: If there is no point in settings above Jinc 3-Taps why do the settings exist?

[vivan]

Why not? That's why.I kinda expected that. Simple solution: Don't use Jinc 8! I've added it on request, but I don't recommend using it.

[YxP]

Logical fallacy: If there is no point in settings above Jinc 3-Taps why do the settings exist?

Many people asked them for testing purposes. jinc3 seems to be the sweet spot.

[Asmodian]

Logical fallacy: If there is no point in settings above Jinc 3-Taps why do the settings exist?

I am not sure why higher taps are available (madishi likes giving us options I guess :D ) but:
Jinc3 AR is all you need. No need to use higher taps for Jinc.

[DarkSpace]

Please try this ... TS sample (https://hotfile.com/dl/185596632/ddef693/ayaka_MSSL12.ts.html)

That sample works fine for me, but strangely, madVR displays some frame drops when downscaling that. The rendering times should actually be fast enough, and I have yet to do some extensive testing, but it appears to only happen for interlaced content (thee card should be fast enough, at least rendering times indicate that).

[6233638]

That sample works fine for me, but strangely, madVR displays some frame drops when downscaling that. The rendering times should actually be fast enough, and I have yet to do some extensive testing, but it appears to only happen for interlaced content (thee card should be fast enough, at least rendering times indicate that).Something to be careful of, is that this source changes between film and video mode, so if you are forcing one or the other, you could potentially run into framerate problems caused by that. DXVA Native tends to not handle deinterlacing as well as DXVA Copy-Back, CUVID, or Software Decoding either in my experience.

It's also broadcast material, so be sure to have the "only look at pixels in the frame center" option enabled.

That said, madVR is not reporting any dropped frames here when playing back this file, whether downsampling or not, or forcing film/video.

Perhaps deinterlacing 1080i content while downsampling is simply too much for your card, despite what the render times report. Are you using custom flush settings?

P.S. It would be useful for you to mention the hardware you are running on when reporting performance issues. (or add it to your signature)

Logical fallacy: If there is no point in settings above Jinc 3-Taps why do the settings exist?Because madVR is still under active development, and Jinc was introduced with 3 & 4 tap options, with Jinc 8 being requested by some people here. It's the same reason we ended up with Bicubic 100 even though that has terrible levels of aliasing.

I would argue that any of the scaling choices in madVR above 3-tap are not worthwhile trade-offs, even with the anti-ringing filter.

Perhaps once we get closer to the 1.0 release, there will be a "clean-up" of the options available, and some of these will be removed. It's hard to remove options though, because there will inevitably be someone that complains.