madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[Warner306]

To test your TV for 4:4:4 and Banding,

Banding Test: Smooth Grey Gradient (http://www.avsforum.com/content/type/61/id/209517/)
Banding Test 2Smooth Color Gradient (http://www.avsforum.com/content/type/61/id/209516/)
4:4:4 Test: Chroma 4:4:4 Image (http://madshi.net/madVR/ChromaRes.png)

You should see 4:4:4 and no banding at all.
If your TV/Projector/Monitor can display 4:4:4 Full range without banding, it would be ideal because madVR's dithering is top quality.

I see 4:4:4 in purple lettering with no blinking. Is this an assumed pass?

[huhn]

I see 4:4:4 in purple lettering with no blinking. Is this an assumed pass?

and if you didn't see 4:2:2 (sharping can show the 4:4:4) than you can at least say it isn't down sample.

i personally look at the pixel to judge 4.4:4.

[JarrettH]

Once this bug in xbr is fixed, you believe it to be a better chroma upsampler than jinc, madshi?

[nijiko]

How to REM a line in profile scripts? Because of testing, I won't delete that temporary.

[michkrol]

Once this bug in xbr is fixed, you believe it to be a better chroma upsampler than jinc, madshi?
The bug is already fixed in madVR v0.88.13.
See end of 1727312 and the changelog.
How to REM a line in profile scripts? Because of testing, I won't delete that temporary.
If you want to comment out a line use C/Java style '//' one line comments, like this:
if(...) "..."
//elseif(...) "commented out"
//elseif(...) "more commented out"
else "..."

[nijiko]

If you want to comment out a line use C/Java style '//' one line comments, like this:
if(...) "..."
//elseif(...) "commented out"
//elseif(...) "more commented out"
else "..."

Really?
I had tried REM and /* */, but it did not take effect.
Thank you!

Then, can you tell me how to judge whether some algorithm is take effect? Which var?
Such as whether Super-xBR is in use, or whether Image Doubling is working?

[bcec]

arrggh...stuck between two configs

I now understand that my Samsung 40inch LedTV can do both FULL and LIMITED by way of toggling "HDMI Black Level" to NORMAL (0-255) and LOW (16-235) and also my panel can do FULL and LIMITED range RGB 4:4:4

so now the question is what are the advantages of using FULL, FULL, FULL config compared to FULL, LIMITED, LIMITED config?

it seems my panel is a very flexible one and can do either both config, so i'm confused what config to use.

P.S. just want to put a nail on this topic and move on.

RGB is always full and 4:4:4.

Your TV does the following:

- When input is not marked as "PC":
Your TV converts incoming signal to YCbCr. If your pc was sending RGB, this gets converted by the TV. Anytime you see saturation slider not greyed out, your TV is doing a YCbCr conversion. That's why you are allowed to select full vs normal in the HDMI Black Level setting

- When input is marked as "PC":
TV doesn't do conversion and displays the RGB signal. Depending on the chipset, you may or may not be able to get 4:4:4 (a simple test would verify this).


I myself don't put my TV into PC mode, so that all calibration picture controls are available (those only apply to YCbCr signal). What this means, is that I have two options. Send RGB from the computer (TV will do YCbCr conversion), or send YCbCr from the computer (computer will do the conversion, TV won't). I like the results of latter.

[lanzorg]

Is it possible to change the madVR preferences from the command line?
I create a little installer and I need to enable smoothmotion and directx11 based on user choice.

[michkrol]

Then, can you tell me how to judge whether some algorithm is take effect? Which var?
Such as whether Super-xBR is in use, or whether Image Doubling is working?

There is no way to check it with profile rules, all the variables you can check are listed here: 1271417

If you want to see what scaling (and doubling) algorithms are used, check debug OSD (Ctrl+J).
If you want to see which profiles are activated, check settings - the active profile's name is bold. Take note you must sometimes close and re-open the settings dialog to see active profiles, since it's not updated in real-time.

[RyuzakiL]

RGB is always full and 4:4:4.

Your TV does the following:

- When input is not marked as "PC":
Your TV converts incoming signal to YCbCr. If your pc was sending RGB, this gets converted by the TV. Anytime you see saturation slider not greyed out, your TV is doing a YCbCr conversion. That's why you are allowed to select full vs normal in the HDMI Black Level setting

- When input is marked as "PC":
TV doesn't do conversion and displays the RGB signal. Depending on the chipset, you may or may not be able to get 4:4:4 (a simple test would verify this).


I myself don't put my TV into PC mode, so that all calibration picture controls are available (those only apply to YCbCr signal). What this means, is that I have two options. Send RGB from the computer (TV will do YCbCr conversion), or send YCbCr from the computer (computer will do the conversion, TV won't). I like the results of latter.


err.. nope my input is still marked as "PC" so my Samsung Telly doesn't do unnecessary conversions (RGB--to--YCbCr).

whether my input was marked "PC" or not, I can still change HDMI Black Level Settings. Except for other settings (e.g. sharpness, black tone, dynamic contrast) when MadVR switches display modes (i.e. 23hz) then only then those other settings were available/adjustable.

[nijiko]

There is no way to check it with profile rules, all the variables you can check are listed here: 1271417

If you want to see what scaling (and doubling) algorithms are used, check debug OSD (Ctrl+J).
If you want to see which profiles are activated, check settings - the active profile's name is bold. Take note you must sometimes close and re-open the settings dialog to see active profiles, since it's not updated in real-time.

I know, I use madVR for many years.
These days, I found when using Super-xBR, it's no need to use Jinc (drop frames), but if Super-xBR is not actived, Jinc is demanded.
So, I want to find a way to judge these cases.

[madshi]

For those of you still having some weekend hours left for playing, here's a pre-release version of the next madVR build:

http://madshi.net/madVR8814pre.zip

It has the new SuperRes version inside, plus a new chroma upscaler, and the AdaptiveSharpen algo. So some new things to play with. Official version will come soon.

[fairchild]

For those of you still having some weekend hours left for playing, here's a pre-release version of the next madVR build:

http://madshi.net/madVR8814pre.zip

It has the new SuperRes version inside, plus a new chroma upscaler, and the AdaptiveSharpen algo. So some new things to play with. Official version will come soon.

I'm trying out the AdaptiveSharpen as image enhancement only on HD content and at the default 0.5 it has a very good looking sharpen that is noticeable. I'll leave it up to the experts to check it with blown-up test images to see if there are any artifacts.

[James Freeman]

AdaptiveSharpen definitely does a good job for first impression.
I noticed that it does not touch the already sharp detail thus no halo or ringing is visible.
With only one knob ! Cool.

IMO only:
The new Bilateral chroma scaler is so bad it belong between Nearest Neighbor and Bilinear.
To me it looks like a slightly (even that is too much) better (or worse?) Bilinear.
Zoom in to a red object and switch between chroma upscalers.

[madshi]

Replies to all other emails coming soon.

The new Bilateral chroma scaler is so bad it belong between Nearest Neighbor and Bilinear.
To me it looks like a slightly (even that is too much) better (or worse?) Bilinear.
Zoom in to a red object and switch between chroma upscalers.
Screenshot/sample, please? Bilateral is very different in concept. In some cases it's much better than anything else. In other situations it might be worse.

[6233638]

I see 4:4:4 in purple lettering with no blinking. Is this an assumed pass?There is an updated test pattern with examples here:

http://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=1673852&postcount=25082

@Madshi perhaps you could update the image on your server?

[James Freeman]

Screenshot/sample, please? Bilateral is very different in concept. In some cases it's much better than anything else. In other situations it might be worse.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/w681n74cwanuqk6/Chroma_Comparison.7z

EDIT: Which cases madshi?

[aufkrawall]

Biliteral chroma scaling looks totally terrifying with my cartoon example.
Chroma bleeding, aliasing etc.

Edit: Hm, retrospectively I'd say even super-xbr chroma looks terrible compared to Jinc due to problems with ringing.
Edit 2: Forget that, anti-ringing filter wasn't activated. :D

[Shiandow]

The new Bilateral chroma scaler is so bad it belong between Nearest Neighbor and Bilinear.
To me it looks like a slightly (even that is too much) better (or worse?) Bilinear.
Zoom in to a red object and switch between chroma upscalers.

Biliteral chroma scaling looks totally terrifying with my cartoon example.
Chroma bleeding, aliasing etc.


Oh dear, seems that the bilateral filter was even more experimental than I thought. If you want to help with the development you could try doing the following:

Go to the "legal-stuff\Shiandow" folder and extract the "Bilateral.hlsl" file from the "RenderScripts.zip". Then try fiddling with the following lines:


#define acuity 15.0
#define radius 0.66
#define power 3.0


Things you could try are: lowering acuity to 9.0 (or even more), or setting power to 0.5 and acuity to 100.

[aufkrawall]

Will give it a try.

However, everyone should be easily able to see it, 52kb sample download:
http://www39.zippyshare.com/v/cDstAbaj/file.html

I scale it up to WQHD with NNEDI3 64 for luma.

I suppose SuperRes for chroma is updated as well?
It doesn't seem to vanish contoures anymore, instead they look more clearly defined now. :)

[aufkrawall]

AdaptiveSharpen has a very strong effect, even with strength 0.1 the effect is very visible as an image inhancement (especially with that upscaled cartoon sample).
Hm, maybe it's a bit less destructive than FineSharp. Will need to take a closer look with blocking artifacts.

Now that SuperRes for chroma doesn't seem to vanish contoures anymore, it seems it can be enabled with default values without any disadvantage. Chroma looks a little clearer with it with Jinc AR.
Btw: With that cartoon example, Jinc also looks clearer than super-xbr. Look at the flowers of the headband.

SuperRes with low strength (1 pass, strength 0.3, softness 0.15) "magicially" seems to be able to repair structures. They look less aliased and can be more easily identified.

[Anima123]

SuperRes with low strength (1 pass, strength 0.3, softness 0.15) "magicially" seems to be able to repair structures. They look less aliased and can be more easily identified.

Are you talking about Chroma or Luma here with SuperRes?

[madshi]

One other thing: did you notice those blue artifacts in #3?
sample here:
https://mega.co.nz/#!bR8mjSCT!7ki_LvGAtfl_VEV73b_Q5iNRZh-IZAMxXB1mYPdTxvs
Thank you. This is a good sample.

Those blue artifacts are caused by chroma ringing. They occur most strongly with super-xbr with AR disabled. Next one in the list if Lanczos4 without AR. Then later comes Lanczos3/4 with AR, because the AR doesn't remove all ringing.

However, already v0.88.13 removed the problem for super-xbr, because v0.88.13 has a very strict AR algorithm implemented for super-xbr chroma upscaling. So no blue artifacts in viewer's sample when using super-xbr for chroma upscaling with v0.88.13 (or newer), if AR is enabled.

Madshi, I have another case of queues not filling all the way when toggling between fullscreen, windowed, and fullscreen again. It is the render queue that drops (0/1-2 from 7-8), which subsequently drops the present queue fill rate. Just noticed since updating. I have to pause playback for a second for queues to fill all the way up again.

Going into fullscreen initially, queues are fine. The issue occurs when going fullscreen, then windowed, then back to fullscreen again. Please let me know if you need me to debug with a special file to help narrow down where the problem may be.

D3D11 10-bit
MPC-HC 1.7.9.25 x64
MadVR 0.88.13
Nvidia GeForce 353.30
Yes, display mode switcher is currently off and refresh is already 60Hz.

Changing prepresented frames for Exclusive mode has no effect unless I set it to 1. If I set it to 2+ I get glitches on the screen (part flashes of previous frames) even though no glitches or dropped frames show on the OSD.
If I change prepresented frames to 1, everything seems to work fine.
Can you guys please first do some tests and collect some more data? E.g. does it only occur in 10bit output mode? Or also in 8bit output mode? Does the screen refresh rate matter? Do you have any other software running besides the media player? Please make sure you close everything else, even 3rd party background services, just to be safe.

Activating use of Direct3D 11 in MadVR on my setup makes my secondary monitor connected via HDMI (LG TV) to do weird things during avi payback. GTX970, Win 7 x64, latest driver 353.30, MPC-BE. Exclusive full screen. Monitor just goes black 2-3 times during video playback for a second or two.I'd say every 20-25 mins. Sometimes it's just had been stuck in some kind of signal loss loop - black-video-black-video. Even after closing video player (MPC-BE) it's still remains in on - off loop. I've deselected dx11 and usinf DX9 for now. No mystic happens. This kind of stuff started to happen in the last 2-3 build of MadVR. Possibly it's nvidia new drivers...
This is probably caused by some D3D11 internal stuff, or by the GPU drivers. Probably nothing I can do about it.

I tested FineSharp on several sources and each time I could see obvious ringing using FineSharp in image enhancements and upscaling refinement. LumaSharpen does not SEEM to do that at default settings, so it is beyond me how people find FineSharp superior to LumaSharpen...
Can I get some screenshots/samples, please? And please not some 200x100 ultra low quality sources.

I think its a good idea to update the OP with new screenshots of how madVR improves image quality vs. other renderers. Something with NNEDI3 + SuperRes + whatever else would be good. madVR 0.5 is very VERY old and its gotten 100x better since then!
Yeah, might make sense, but doing that takes time, and I prefer working on madVR instead.

Not sure if it's a bug or my system not keeping up but I get dropped frames at scene transitions with the trade quality for performance setting "don't render frames when fade in/out is detected" unchecked.
Try increasing the GPU queue size, that usually helps.

Finesharp is just about destruction imo.
I agree with you only as far as "thinning" goes. The main FineSharp is quite good, IMHO. Might only work for good sources, though.

I understand that the ideal situation (for dithering, etc) should be to set up Nvidia settings as "Full RGB" (do nothing), and then madVR to "TV Levels" for the TV display, the problem is that with "Full RGB" my desktop looks wrong (clipped).
Then set everything to PC/Full RGB, including your display.

After some reading, can I say that overlay mode solves all the issues with windows DWM because it is completely bypassed?
What issues with DWM? There are no issues in Windows 8.1, as far as I'm aware.

What about DX11 10bit overlay then? Is it possible?
Not possible, AFAIK.

Since you neither share your settings (Finesharp) vs. LumaSharpen defaults nor do you provide screenshots to compare, it's a bit complicated to make meaningful conclusions without some hard facts.

There are way too many soft facts in this thread, which will ultimately lead to a product that could be better, but isn't, because people don't provide screenshots which show "what they see".

madshi can only make "good choices" with good quality feedback from this thread.

You just have to press "print screen" on your keyboard when not in fullscreen exclusive (windowed mode) at the same frame with the madVR settings you can change and will show up in realtime in your mediaplayer, upload it to some imagehost and post them here together with a short explanation "what you see". Takes less than 10 minutes to do and helps madshi as well as everyone else that uses madVR.
Fully agreed !!!

And so what?
Even when there's no processing, even when there's no scaling - there's still chroma that needs to be scaled and color conversion to be performed.
Exactly.

A typical video (mkv, Blu ray, DVD, you name it) is stored in limited range 16-235.
Selecting Full range in madVR WILL stretch it to 0-255 and will require dithering to prevent banding.

You can download the AVS709HD calibration patterns (all in video 16-236 range) and play the Grey Ramp video test pattern.
Now Disable dithering to see banding if madVR is set to Full range.
BUT, when you select Limited range in madVR and Disable dithering you will not see any difference at all with this pattern because madVR is not stretching the original range.
It is true that with a prefect color neutral grayscale, letting madVR render to 16-235 means that madVR doesn't have to dither. However, even black & white movies are usually not 100% color neutral. They often have a slight color tint. And as soon as chroma is anything but exactly color neutral, madVR instantly has to dither. Which is the case for 99.99% of all movies out there. And once madVR dithers, it shouldn't matter too much whether you configure madVR to output PC or TV levels.

Yeah, sure, in theory having madVR output 16-235 should be slightly better. But in real life I don't think there's much of a difference between 16-235 and 0-255 output. Of course 16-235 allows the preservation of BTB/WTW, which might be a plus because some displays might be calibrated to show a tiny tiny bit of BTB/WTW or something...

FineSharp is really too bad, madvr needs implementation of LimitedSharpenFasterMC and UnsharpHQ from the avisynth world.
I don't have the time to convert the AviSynth script to D3D pixel shaders. The problem already starts with that I don't even fully understand what the script does. "impand", "expand", "lutxy", I've no idea what those do exactly or how to implement them. It sure would be possible to research all that, but it would cost a lot of time. Maybe some day. Or maybe someone else will step in, as -Vit- did with FineSharp.

If you don't like FineSharp, I'd like to see some screenshots/samples which show that it's "bad". Good quality sources, please.

I don’t think super-xbr can replace Jinc as the best medium speed chroma upscaler, because Jinc is more natural looking. I prefer suber-xbr chroma (sharpness 100) over Jinc AR chroma in two instances, when the source is rather soft or the image is being downscaled by a large factor using CR AR LL.
Samples/screenshots, please?

FWIW, v0.88.13+ is better quality than v0.88.12.

For image doubling, super-xbr is good, but NNEDI3 is much superior.
Yes, that's true. But the difference shrinks if you use the new SuperRes with enough passes (if you like the resulting look).

Is it possible to change the madVR preferences from the command line?
I create a little installer and I need to enable smoothmotion and directx11 based on user choice.
Not from the command line, but you can write a little tool which loads the madVR filter and then calls the interfaces documented in this header:

madVR installation folder\developers\interfaces\mvrInterfaces.h

AdaptiveSharpen definitely does a good job for first impression.
I noticed that it does not touch the already sharp detail thus no halo or ringing is visible.
With only one knob ! Cool.
I like the "one knob only" very much. Personally, I prefer the look of FineSharp, though.

There is an updated test pattern with examples here:

http://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=1673852&postcount=25082

@Madshi perhaps you could update the image on your server?
Done, thanks.

[madshi]

madVR v0.88.14 released

http://madshi.net/madVR.zip

* updated to latest Shiandow SuperRes version
* added Bilateral chroma upscaling algorithm
* added AdaptiveSharpen to "image enhancements" and "upscaling refinement"
* improved luma anti-ringing quality for super-xbr image doubling
* super-xbr chroma upscaling now supports enabling/disabling anti-ringing
* added super-xbr sharpness options of 25 and 150
* ca. 30% performance boost for super-xbr image doubling
* ca. 15% performance boost for super-xbr chroma upscaling
* ca. 30% performance boost for FineSharp
* removed "thinning" parameter from FineSharp, now always set to 0
* added various new madTPG APIs
I consider the FineSharp feedback phase to be (mostly) finished. The interface will be simplified a bit, away from the now cumbersome edit/up/down control. Maybe it will be slider or something, we'll see. I'll decide on the range and number of "steps" after reviewing all your feedback.

Now let's move on to the new SuperRes algorithm. I'm talking about the upscaling refinement algorithm for now, *not* the chroma upscaling SuperRes. Let's concentrate on upscaling refinement for now. So I would like to have your feedback about the following questions:

First the setup:

* Please setup your media player to do exactly 200% enlargement. E.g. in MPC-HC choose "Double Size". This is important, because it helps us all comparing under the same circumstances.

* Please disable all sharpening algorithms (FineSharp, LumaSharpen, AdaptiveSharpen).

* Please choose one of the following algorithms for image doubling/upscaling and in your feedback report please state which one you selected:
- Catmull-Rom AR
- NEDI
- super-xbr
- NNEDI3

Questions:

1) Which image upscaling/doubling algorithm do you like to use with SuperRes and why?
2) Which values do you like for "strength" and "softness". Please note that the default values are strength=1.0, and softness=0.0. And these *may* be the best values. But you can still try other values to see if you like them more.
3) The "use HQ downscaling" option changes the overall "look" of SuperRes a bit. Which look do you prefer? Please note that with the option turned on, you may have to increase the number of passes, because the SuperRes effect is slightly less intense with this option turned on.
4) How many passes should be used as default?

Please don't put too much weight on performance. There is room for performance improvements. For now I'm mostly interested in discussion about quality.

Thanks!!

[iSunrise]

Thanks for the new test build madshi.

I did a very short (to be continued) test between the new Adaptive Sharpen and Finesharp.

The sharping effect is about equal when you have Finesharp at 1.0 and Adaptive Sharpen at 0.3.

From what I can see, Adaptive Sharpen has a lot less ringing (which may or may not be a good thing, not sure yet), but it still does a very good job digging up blurred details very nicely. Very interesting sharpener to say the least.

I need to do some further tests though, not sure what looks more natural/accurate to my eyes this late in the day. Will do some tests and some comparisons this week and report back.

[SecurityBunny]

Can you guys please first do some tests and collect some more data? E.g. does it only occur in 10bit output mode? Or also in 8bit output mode? Does the screen refresh rate matter? Do you have any other software running besides the media player? Please make sure you close everything else, even 3rd party background services, just to be safe.


It seems to only occur when using D3D11 with 10bit output. D3D11 with 8bit, it is fine. D3D9 with 10bit, it is fine.

Subsequently, D3D11 10bit output takes longer to go into exclusive fullscreen compared to D3D11 8bit or D3D9 10bit. Second(s) compared to instantaneously. If D3D9 can switch to fullscreen instantly with 10bit output, shouldn't D3D11 be able to do so just as fast?

Again, reproduction steps: Toggle fullscreen with D3D11 10bit, watch for queues to fill. Toggle back to windowed mode, watch for queues to fill. Toggle back to fullscreen, present queue does not fill and the video frames appear to stutter. Continuous playback the entire time, no pausing between toggling modes. Need to pause and unpause to get queues to fill again / get smooth playback.

No other software running in the background - only the media player. Changing my monitor to 24hz, the present queue starts at 6-7 from the get-go instead of filled to 14-15 like at 59.95hz. When trying to reproduce by toggling fullscreen, windowed, and fullscreen again, playback appears to be laggier but has the same dropped render queue and present queue with the higher refresh rate. (0-2 & 2-5 respectively) I usually just keep my monitor at 60hz, but figured I'd see if it is any different at 24hz for you. Unfortunately it isn't.

madVR 0.88.14

[aufkrawall]

Are you talking about Chroma or Luma here with SuperRes?
I mean this regarding luma, look at the medallion:

off:
http://abload.de/thumb/off50pp5.png (http://abload.de/image.php?img=off50pp5.png)

on:
http://abload.de/thumb/on5nodr.png (http://abload.de/image.php?img=on5nodr.png)

Screenshots were created before madshi asking about zoom.

[Eyldebrandt]

For those of you still having some weekend hours left for playing, here's a pre-release version of the next madVR build:

http://madshi.net/madVR8814pre.zip

It has the new SuperRes version inside, plus a new chroma upscaler, and the AdaptiveSharpen algo. So some new things to play with. Official version will come soon.

First, the new SuperRes is no longer destructive as the old one in somes demanding scene with very high bitrate, which is a very good thing.
On others points, the result seems very similar to the old version with everything @ 0.0 except strength, which is also a very good thing to me, regarding it was my set up.
On aliasing and ringing control, the improvement seems really efficient.
SuperRes is definitely going on the right direction, regardless the material content.

About AdaptativeSharpen.
Obviously, it's by far superior to FineSharp and LumaSharpen, on each particularity they've got.
It's fast and the aliasing and ringing control is amazing regarding his strength of effect.
With moderate set, it's an all-around process for very HQ content.
But, on med sources, like 720p and DVD content, the result is ugly.
That's based on my personal taste, and i basically think that sharpen algorithms are negatives ways with low quality content.

So, again and again, madVR becomes better each time and that's a great state.

[JarrettH]

Thank you. This is a good sample.

Those blue artifacts are caused by chroma ringing. They occur most strongly with super-xbr with AR disabled. Next one in the list if Lanczos4 without AR. Then later comes Lanczos3/4 with AR, because the AR doesn't remove all ringing.

However, already v0.88.13 removed the problem for super-xbr, because v0.88.13 has a very strict AR algorithm implemented for super-xbr chroma upscaling. So no blue artifacts in viewer's sample when using super-xbr for chroma upscaling with v0.88.13 (or newer), if AR is enabled.

@viewer you should test again when you can :D

[Eyldebrandt]

On 1080p content with 3440x1440 monitor.

1) Which image upscaling/doubling algorithm do you like to use with SuperRes and why?

Super-xbr 100 or NNEDI3 32/64
Both are quite quivalent. NNEDI3 is more clean, with a better ringing control, Super-xbr is more natural and infinitely less expansive.


2) Which values do you like for "strength" and "softness". Please note that the default values are strength=1.0, and softness=0.0. And these *may* be the best values. But you can still try other values to see if you like them more.

Strength is 0.35 and softness is 0.0, with HQ downscaling.


3) The "use HQ downscaling" option changes the overall "look" of SuperRes a bit. Which look do you prefer? Please note that with the option turned on, you may have to increase the number of passes, because the SuperRes effect is slightly less intense with this option turned on.

With HQ downscaling, by far.


4) How many passes should be used as default?

5 passes on most Blu-ray content.
With very soft pictures, i set it to 7.

[JarrettH]

It's honestly hard to tell jinc and xbr apart for chroma for *film movies* The most obvious thing I see is xbr being slightly more saturated and it may be less granular and more well defined...may be...

xbr is now faster than jinc for chroma upscaling, madshi ;)

and re: image doubling in general...is the idea behind doubling supposed to get you closer to the original? (i.e. it's easier to present a more accurate picture on the downscale step (catmull) than for an upscaler to enlarge the picture)

[aufkrawall]

With HQ downscaling, by far.

Agreed. The effect reminds me a little of LL for FineSharp with the thickening of contoures.
This effect is less distinctive with HQ, which I like.

With HQ downscaling, it seems I can set softness to 0 without artificial look.

[Magik Mark]

When using DXVA for upscaling images, will the upscale refinements still work? Could hardly see any difference

Chroma upscaling using pixel shader is definitely no longer applicable

[JarrettH]

Questions:

1) Which image upscaling/doubling algorithm do you like to use with SuperRes and why? IMO, SuperRes is the best of the upscaling enhancements. Jinc is the most faithful upscaler, right? It makes sense to use that.
2) Which values do you like for "strength" and "softness". Please note that the default values are strength=1.0, and softness=0.0. And these *may* be the best values. But you can still try other values to see if you like them more. I was using strength=0.45 and softness=0.20 in 0.88.13

4) How many passes should be used as default? 2



p.s. You've made super-xbr chroma and image doubling much, much faster in the last couple versions. I completely ruled it out - my times were too close to the movie frame interval (41 ms). In 0.88.14, my times are down to 25-32 ms (Core 2 Duo E6600, 4 gb DDR2, GeForce 550 Ti, Windows 7). Amazing, eh? :cool:

[nijiko]

@madshi , why not support for judging between vars? Such as if (targetWidth >= srcWidth * 4) then ...?

[madshi]

I did a very short (to be continued) test between the new Adaptive Sharpen and Finesharp.

The sharping effect is about equal when you have Finesharp at 1.0 and Adaptive Sharpen at 0.3.

From what I can see, Adaptive Sharpen has a lot less ringing (which may or may not be a good thing, not sure yet), but it still does a very good job digging up blurred details very nicely. Very interesting sharpener to say the least.

I need to do some further tests though, not sure what looks more natural/accurate to my eyes this late in the day. Will do some tests and some comparisons this week and report back.
Thanks. Maybe I can add an AR filter to FineSharp in the future.

It seems to only occur when using D3D11 with 10bit output. D3D11 with 8bit, it is fine. D3D9 with 10bit, it is fine.

Subsequently, D3D11 10bit output takes longer to go into exclusive fullscreen compared to D3D11 8bit or D3D9 10bit. Second(s) compared to instantaneously. If D3D9 can switch to fullscreen instantly with 10bit output, shouldn't D3D11 be able to do so just as fast?

Again, reproduction steps: Toggle fullscreen with D3D11 10bit, watch for queues to fill. Toggle back to windowed mode, watch for queues to fill. Toggle back to fullscreen, present queue does not fill and the video frames appear to stutter. Continuous playback the entire time, no pausing between toggling modes. Need to pause and unpause to get queues to fill again / get smooth playback.

No other software running in the background - only the media player. Changing my monitor to 24hz, the present queue starts at 6-7 from the get-go instead of filled to 14-15 like at 59.95hz. When trying to reproduce by toggling fullscreen, windowed, and fullscreen again, playback appears to be laggier but has the same dropped render queue and present queue with the higher refresh rate. (0-2 & 2-5 respectively) I usually just keep my monitor at 60hz, but figured I'd see if it is any different at 24hz for you. Unfortunately it isn't.
I'm slightly confused now. First you're saying at 59.95hz the present queue is nicely filled. And then you're saying it's not any different at 24hz for you. That seems to contract itself, doesn't it?

First, the new SuperRes is no longer destructive as the old one in somes demanding scene with very high bitrate, which is a very good thing.
On others points, the result seems very similar to the old version with everything @ 0.0 except strength, which is also a very good thing to me, regarding it was my set up.
On aliasing and ringing control, the improvement seems really efficient.
Yes, these are all good and correct observations. The old algo introduced some ringing and aliasing. I think that's why Shiandow added AR and AA to the algo in the first place. The new algo doesn't ring/alias, anymore, so AR and AA could be removed.

About AdaptativeSharpen.
Obviously, it's by far superior to FineSharp and LumaSharpen, on each particularity they've got.
It's fast and the aliasing and ringing control is amazing regarding his strength of effect.
With moderate set, it's an all-around process for very HQ content.
But, on med sources, like 720p and DVD content, the result is ugly.
That's based on my personal taste, and i basically think that sharpen algorithms are negatives ways with low quality content.
It may be superior to FineSharp in some aspects, but my honest opinion is that FineSharp has a better look to it. Using FineSharp it seems to me that the image gets "clearer" (image detail is easier to see), but it doesn't introduce the usual "digitally sharpened" look. AdaptiveSharpen may have less ringing, and some other advantages over FineSharp, but to my eyes AdaptiveSharpen produces the same old "digitally sharpened" look, where edges get sharper, but the whole image looks just "bloated up" somehow. Just my personal opinion, of course.

I find that SuperRes without HQ downscaling reproduces a look more similar to AdaptiveSharpen, and SuperRes with HQ downscaling is nearer to FineSharp. However, SuperRes with HQ downscaling is able to achieve sharpness levels FineSharp can't reach, without being destructive. So I like SuperRes with HQ downscaling. It needs a performance boost, though.

It's honestly hard to tell jinc and xbr apart for chroma for *film movies* The most obvious thing I see is xbr being slightly more saturated and it may be less granular and more well defined...may be...

xbr is now faster than jinc for chroma upscaling, madshi ;)
Yes, the latest speed increases should have made super-xbr slightly faster than Jinc AR for chroma upscaling, and very near to Jinc AR performance in image doubling. Of course for image upscaling Jinc AR still has the big advantage of being able to scale to any resolution, while super-xbr can only exactly double the image size.

and re: image doubling in general...is the idea behind doubling supposed to get you closer to the original? (i.e. it's easier to present a more accurate picture on the downscale step (catmull) than for an upscaler to enlarge the picture)
Some of the better upscalers (like NNEDI3 and super-xbr) can only do 200% steps. They cannot upscale to 150% or anything other than 200%.

Strength is 0.35 and softness is 0.0, with HQ downscaling.

With HQ downscaling, by far.

5 passes on most Blu-ray content.
With very soft pictures, i set it to 7.
Agreed. The effect reminds me a little of LL for FineSharp with the thickening of contoures.
This effect is less distinctive with HQ, which I like.

With HQ downscaling, it seems I can set softness to 0 without artificial look.
So you both like softness set to 0.0 and HQ downscaling enabled. That's good to hear, it matches my own preferences. How about strength, though? @Eyldebrandt, is 0.35 a random value? Or do you really like it better than 1.00? Personally, I'm using 1.00. Of course using 0.35 and increasing the number of passes should work well, too. But I wonder if using 1.00 and a lower number of passes shouldn't achieve similar results with faster performance?

When using DXVA for upscaling images, will the upscale refinements still work? Could hardly see any difference

Chroma upscaling using pixel shader is definitely no longer applicable
Good question. Chroma upscaling definitely doesn't work when using DXVA scaling. I think upscaling refinement probably won't work, either. Although I think it should be possible to make FineSharp, LumaSharpen and AdaptiveSharpen work. But SuperRes won't work, because SuperRes needs an "original image" in RGB to compare to. And DXVA upscaling needs an NV12 "original image", which SuperRes can't access and wouldn't know what to do with. And about FineSharp, LumaSharpen und AdaptiveSharpen: You can just as well use them in "image enhancements". There's no difference when using DXVA upscaling.

p.s. You've made super-xbr chroma and image doubling much, much faster in the last couple versions. I completely ruled it out - my times were too close to the movie frame interval (41 ms). In 0.88.14, my times are down to 25-32 ms (Core 2 Duo E6600, 4 gb DDR2, GeForce 550 Ti, Windows 7). Amazing, eh? :cool:
Yes, I did improve performance quite noticeably. I really think super-xbr for chroma should replace Jinc AR now. But you're still the boss.

@madshi , why not support for judging between vars? Such as if (targetWidth >= srcWidth * 4) then ...?
I'm not sure. I would have thought that it works. If it doesn't then please file a bug report on the madVR bug tracker. Thanks.

[madshi]

http://www.mediafire.com/download/w681n74cwanuqk6/Chroma_Comparison.7z

EDIT: Which cases madshi?
This looks interesting. Can I have a small sample of this video? Would look to look into what's happening there.

Bilateral chroma upscaling is different from the other algorithms because it tries to use the luma channel as guidance. So if the luma channel has a good quality and if it has edges which match the chroma channel, Bilateral should look great. But if the luma channel is aliased or doesn't really match the chroma channel well, Bilateral can look rather bad. But I'd like to delay Bilateral testing until SuperRes feedback is complete. At this point I think I should wait at least 2 weeks for SuperRes feedback.

[lanzorg]

It lacks a capital letter for Kodi DSPlayer on the madVR homepage. ;)


If you don't like FineSharp, I'd like to see some screenshots/samples which show that it's "bad".


Sorry, I was misled by my faulty graphics card.

As my GPU just died and as FineSharp looks perfect like with Avisynth on my 4 years old laptop, forget what I said.


Not from the command line, but you can write a little tool which loads the madVR filter and then calls the interfaces documented in this header:

madVR installation folder\developers\interfaces\mvrInterfaces.h


I am very far from being a developer. :(
Do you know how for example to enable "smooth motion" from C# or PowerShell? Have you got any code sample, can't find on Github. :(

[James Freeman]

This looks interesting. Can I have a small sample of this video?

OK, later this day.
I may have to find some freeware video splitter/cutter.

[huhn]

OK, later this day.
I may have to find some freeware video splitter/cutter.

mkvtoolnix

[SecurityBunny]

I'm slightly confused now. First you're saying at 59.95hz the present queue is nicely filled. And then you're saying it's not any different at 24hz for you. That seems to contract itself, doesn't it?


Sorry if I confused you. It was unintentionally. Let me try to simplify my findings.

When going into fullscreen initially at 59.95hz, all queues fill fine.

When going into fullscreen initially at 24hz, the present queue only fills to 6-7.

When toggling to windowed mode and then back to fullscreen again without pausing, both refresh rates show the same behavior of the bug I commented about. That is, queues not filling at all and playback stuttering until I pause and unpause again.

Again, only seems to occur with D3D11 10bit. D3D9 10bit & D3D11 8bit don't have this problem.

[aufkrawall]

So you both like softness set to 0.0 and HQ downscaling enabled. That's good to hear, it matches my own preferences.

I think softness still could make sense when using an additional sharpen algorithm as image enhancement.
At least with AdaptiveSharpen with strength 0.1 I like to use it. Maybe softness can be removed, but then it would be neat if lower values than strength of 0.1 would be possible with AS.


How about strength, though? @Eyldebrandt, is 0.35 a random value? Or do you really like it better than 1.00? Personally, I'm using 1.00. Of course using 0.35 and increasing the number of passes should work well, too. But I wonder if using 1.00 and a lower number of passes shouldn't achieve similar results with faster performance?

I prefer 0.3 because higher values mean artificial look with the cartoon sample. It's similar with passes, I don't prefer more than 1. More passes are not cheap performance wise either.


Yes, I did improve performance quite noticeably. I really think super-xbr for chroma should replace Jinc AR now. But you're still the boss.

Take a look at the flowers of the headband:

Jinc AR:
http://abload.de/thumb/jincllqjc.png (http://abload.de/image.php?img=jincllqjc.png)

super-xbr AR sharpness 100:
http://abload.de/thumb/super-xbr1003bppz.png (http://abload.de/image.php?img=super-xbr1003bppz.png)

In this example, Jinc is better because it mixes green and pink less than super-xbr. And despite of AR-filter, it struggles more with ringing than Jinc.

[ryrynz]

Take a look at the flowers of the headband:

In this example, Jinc is better because it mixes green and pink less than super-xbr. And despite of AR-filter, it struggles more with ringing than Jinc.

Specifically the flower on the far left, it's a lot brighter with Jinc AR.
Also the other area worthy of mention is the inside of photo frame which has more mess around the edges. Looks to me like Jinc AR still wins.
It would be interesting to see higher sharpness xbr results here.

[tFWo]

Is it just me or is there a problem with the 0.88.14 superres? Aliasing is horrible in this example. I had much better results with superres in previous version.


upscale of a low quality SD source with s-xbr50 quadrupling (images are not zoomed in)
http://i.imgur.com/HTVWNIm.png

with superres turned on - 0.50 strength, 0.00 softness, HQ off, 6 pass just to show the problem more clearly, aliasing is visible with 2 pass
http://i.imgur.com/11jucqY.png

same settings as above, now with 0.50 softness
http://i.imgur.com/KOQwovI.png


Now that we can't control sharpness, antialiasing or antiringing for superres anymore, what are the values for those settings in 88.14?

In 88.13 i really didn't like the effect of high values for antiringing and antialiasing. It made the picture waxy/artificial. When upscaling good quality 720p movies i used <0.15 values, otherwise i would get a noticeable wax/oil painting effect.

Also in 88.13 i could use superres as a blur/deblock filter for low quality sources. Negative sharpness values were great for removing blocking/noise! Negative sharpness is not the same as softness, right?

[madshi]

It lacks a capital letter for Kodi DSPlayer on the madVR homepage. ;)
Fixed.

Do you know how for example to enable "smooth motion" from C# or PowerShell? Have you got any code sample, can't find on Github. :(
No, sorry.

Sorry if I confused you. It was unintentionally. Let me try to simplify my findings.

When going into fullscreen initially at 59.95hz, all queues fill fine.

When going into fullscreen initially at 24hz, the present queue only fills to 6-7.

When toggling to windowed mode and then back to fullscreen again without pausing, both refresh rates show the same behavior of the bug I commented about. That is, queues not filling at all and playback stuttering until I pause and unpause again.

Again, only seems to occur with D3D11 10bit. D3D9 10bit & D3D11 8bit don't have this problem.
Ok, that makes things more clear.

The problem is the following: As long as I allow D3D11 to use its default refresh rate, the presentation queues seem to fill nicely. But D3D11 is very reluctant to switch to some refresh rates sometimes. I've implemented a hack to work around the problem, which forces D3D11 to switch to our wanted refresh rate. But with some GPUs and some GPU drivers this seems to trigger this problem with queues not filling. Unfortunately I don't think there's much I can do about it. It seems that your D3D11 GPU drivers simply don't like outputting anything but 59.940Hz, for some reason. I'm not totally sure if it's D3D11 itself, or the GPU drivers which are at fault. Could be either, but I would guess it's probably the GPU drivers.

You could try creating custom resolution for 24Hz output. Or try using this tool:

http://www.monitortests.com/forum/Thread-Custom-Resolution-Utility-CRU

Maybe that helps, or maybe not. At this point the only thing I can offer is to either remove the hack I implemented, or to live with the consequences. If I remove the hack, you'll always get 59.940Hz, though, which is probably very far from what you want, too.

You can try some D3D11 games. Can any of them switch to anything other than 59.940Hz with your GPU? I doubt it...

I think softness still could make sense when using an additional sharpen algorithm as image enhancement.
At least with AdaptiveSharpen with strength 0.1 I like to use it. Maybe softness can be removed, but then it would be neat if lower values than strength of 0.1 would be possible with AS.

I prefer 0.3 because higher values mean artificial look with the cartoon sample. It's similar with passes, I don't prefer more than 1. More passes are not cheap performance wise either.
Oh well. I don't really want two options for SuperRes. I'd prefer to have only one. Currently we have 4. If you had to take a pick, which option(s) would you like to keep? Passes, strength or softness? Or maybe I could settle on allowing something like low/medium/high with different settings each for passes, strength and softness. But it might be difficult to decide which values to use there.

Take a look at the flowers of the headband:

Jinc AR:
http://abload.de/thumb/jincllqjc.png (http://abload.de/image.php?img=jincllqjc.png)

super-xbr AR sharpness 100:
http://abload.de/thumb/super-xbr1003bppz.png (http://abload.de/image.php?img=super-xbr1003bppz.png)

In this example, Jinc is better because it mixes green and pink less than super-xbr. And despite of AR-filter, it struggles more with ringing than Jinc.
I think this is actually beneficial ringing you're seeing here: The pink flower is so pink with Jinc because Jinc allows more ringing through than super-xbr. Sometimes ringing can be beneficial. I could show you a different sample where super-xbr looks better because of that.

Btw, super-xbr with sharpness 100 is *much* sharper than Jinc. Try a lower sharpness setting with super-xbr to get a fairer comparison to Jinc.

Also the other area worthy of mention is the inside of photo frame which has more mess around the edges. Looks to me like Jinc AR still wins.
It would be interesting to see higher sharpness xbr results here.
Why *higher* sharpness? I'd rather say lower sharpness, because Jinc is quite a bit softer than super-xbr 100.

Is it just me or is there a problem with the 0.88.14 superres? Aliasing is horrible in this example. I had much better results with superres in previous version.

upscale of a low quality SD source with s-xbr50 quadrupling
http://i.imgur.com/HTVWNIm.png

with superres turned on - 0.50 strength, 0.00 softness, HQ off, 6 pass just to show the problem more clearly, aliasing is visible with 2 pass
http://i.imgur.com/11jucqY.png

same settings as above, now with 0.50 softness
http://i.imgur.com/KOQwovI.png

Now that we can't control sharpness, antialiasing or antiringing for superres anymore, what are the values for those settings in 88.14?

In 88.13 i really didn't like the effect of high values for antiringing and antialiasing. It made the picture waxy/artificial. When upscaling good quality 720p movies i used <0.15 values, otherwise i would get a noticeable wax/oil painting effect.

Also in 88.13 i could use superres as a blur/deblock filter for low quality sources. Negative sharpness values were great for removing blocking/noise! Negative sharpness is not the same as softness, right?
v0.88.14 has none of these algorithms, anymore. There's no sharpness, no AR, no AA. The reason you're getting aliasing is probably because you're using quadrupling with "refine the image after every ~2x upscaling step" activated. Try using "refine the image only once after upscaling is complete". That seems to help avoiding SuperRes aliasing.

The new SuperRes algo is brand new, it may need a bit of fine tuning. That's why I've asked users for feedback with very specific settings. One of the setup recommendations I made was to set zooming to exactly 200%.

[viewer]

@viewer you should test again when you can :D

;)

Source: H.264 8bit 4:2:0 http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1727413#post1727413

a. SuperRes off
b. SuperRes on (passes: 2 strength: 0.75 softness: 0.10)
c. SuperRes on (passes: 2 strength: 1.00 softness: 0.00)

\ a b c
1) chroma upscaling: Catmull-RomAR
2) chroma upscaling: Bicubic75AR
3) chroma upscaling: SoftCubic50AR
4) chroma upscaling: Lanczos3AR
5) chroma upscaling: JincAR
http://s5d2.turboimagehost.com/t/23452965_test1-1.png (http://www.turboimagehost.com/p/23452965/test1-1.png.html)

\ a b c
1) chroma upscaling: Bilateral
2) chroma upscaling: super-xbr100AR
3) chroma upscaling: super-xbr150AR
4) chroma upscaling: Nedi
5) chroma upscaling: NNEDI32
http://s5d2.turboimagehost.com/t/23452966_test1-2.png (http://www.turboimagehost.com/p/23452966/test1-2.png.html)

\ a b c
1) chroma upscaling: Catmull-RomAR
2) chroma upscaling: JincAR
3) chroma upscaling: Bilateral
4) chroma upscaling: super-xbr150AR
5) chroma upscaling: NNEDI32
http://s5d2.turboimagehost.com/t/23452967_test2.png (http://www.turboimagehost.com/p/23452967/test2.png.html)

It seems like no need Chroma SuperRes.:rolleyes:

[aufkrawall]

Oh well. I don't really want two options for SuperRes. I'd prefer to have only one. Currently we have 4. If you had to take a pick, which option(s) would you like to keep? Passes, strength or softness? Or maybe I could settle on allowing something like low/medium/high with different settings each for passes, strength and softness. But it might be difficult to decide which values to use there.

I can live without softness option with HQ downscaling enabled.
I think it makes more sense to be able to control strength instead of passes. I think it's a good compromise to have only one pass, but HQ downscaling enabled. Both for performance as for quality.
There are still huge differences between low strength and high strength with these settings.
So my vote goes for just keeping strength as an option, setting passes to 1, enabling HQ downscaling and setting softness to 0.
The strength option could be even more simplified by replacing the value box with templates like we have it with deband. Then it'd be just "SuperRes: low, medium, high".
Edit: But maybe it would also make sense to use 2 passes and instead lowering the strength a bit if one wants the SuperRes effect more distinct with the high setting.


I think this is actually beneficial ringing you're seeing here: The pink flower is so pink with Jinc because Jinc allows more ringing through than super-xbr. Sometimes ringing can be beneficial. I could show you a different sample where super-xbr looks better because of that.

Well possible, the pink flowers also look darker with NNEDI3 64 chroma scaling.


Btw, super-xbr with sharpness 100 is *much* sharper than Jinc. Try a lower sharpness setting with super-xbr to get a fairer comparison to Jinc.

Lower sharpness makes the pink even darker, like if it gets mixed more with green due to blur.

[Eyldebrandt]

It may be superior to FineSharp in some aspects, but my honest opinion is that FineSharp has a better look to it. Using FineSharp it seems to me that the image gets "clearer" (image detail is easier to see), but it doesn't introduce the usual "digitally sharpened" look. AdaptiveSharpen may have less ringing, and some other advantages over FineSharp, but to my eyes AdaptiveSharpen produces the same old "digitally sharpened" look, where edges get sharper, but the whole image looks just "bloated up" somehow. Just my personal opinion, of course.

I can see your point, and I have to confess that I never like FineSharp, so maybe I'm not absolutely objective about it ^^
Anyway, the aliasing and ring control of AdaptativeSharpen is so much better than in case i would use a sharpen, it definitively be this one.
He have a sort of very digital look, indeed, and wax is able to come very fast.
Then, with a well-thinked process around, and, always, moderate set, he's just a killer for those who wants a faithful and clean picture and a noticeable amount of details (with no creation of non-existant details).

Which is, obviously, a great possibilty.


I find that SuperRes without HQ downscaling reproduces a look more similar to AdaptiveSharpen, and SuperRes with HQ downscaling is nearer to FineSharp. However, SuperRes with HQ downscaling is able to achieve sharpness levels FineSharp can't reach, without being destructive. So I like SuperRes with HQ downscaling. It needs a performance boost, though.

So you both like softness set to 0.0 and HQ downscaling enabled. That's good to hear, it matches my own preferences. How about strength, though? @Eyldebrandt, is 0.35 a random value? Or do you really like it better than 1.00? Personally, I'm using 1.00. Of course using 0.35 and increasing the number of passes should work well, too. But I wonder if using 1.00 and a lower number of passes shouldn't achieve similar results with faster performance?

Well, I'm a conviced adept of the soft-natural look.
And never forget I have to upscale most 1080p content to very high resolutions (3440x1440 in my desk, and 4K in the dedicated room). I have Titan and Titan X to motorize those set-up, so performance will never be an issue :o
i.e, if I upscale 1080p Blu-ray to 4K, regardless the algo in Double, low amount of passes in SuperRes will result with a lack of precision. So I have to multiple the passes, and with this state, strength > 0.5 will result to some pixels moving, and you have to renounce using any sharpen if needed. If you add some softness, you can adjust, but why add another process to maybe reach a targeted result you can win with 1 process in less ?
0.35 is a good median setting for clean regular skin, with fantastic precision, and the possibility to add some sharpening if I want/need.
To be simple, in 1080p to 4K, 5 passes @ 0.35 are far more accurates and faithfuls than 1 passe @ 1.0.
But, with 480p to 1080p, definitively, 1 passe @ 1.0 will be better than 5 @ 0.35.

BTW, I have a question/request for future.
Is it technically possible to add in madVR a sort of internal supersampling ? I explain. With 1080p screen, you can't obtain the benefits of image doubling and SuperRes without some tricks.
If madVR could let the user set an internal resolution to reach by image doubling (+SuperRes etc..), with downscaling set up, the benefits of quality in HQ content could be very substantial.
It's just a thought, because it's currently feasible, but it's really not ergonomic.

[James Freeman]

@ madshi, everyone.

Here is a great chroma sample: http://www.mediafire.com/?nyzrd9qt6nv9t41
*I removed all traces of the original name of the movie, but if it is still found somewhere, all rights reserved to the original creators.

[tFWo]

v0.88.14 has none of these algorithms, anymore. There's no sharpness, no AR, no AA. The reason you're getting aliasing is probably because you're using quadrupling with "refine the image after every ~2x upscaling step" activated. Try using "refine the image only once after upscaling is complete". That seems to help avoiding SuperRes aliasing.

The new SuperRes algo is brand new, it may need a bit of fine tuning. That's why I've asked users for feedback with very specific settings. One of the setup recommendations I made was to set zooming to exactly 200%.

OK.

Here is an example with a ringing/blooming problem (and other artifacts with hq on). I'm using "refine the image only once" option now. It's an SD source upscaled with s-xbr50 quadrupling. Image is additionally zoomed in 2x in MPC-HC.

no superres
http://i.imgur.com/9R65zEz.png

2pass strength 0.50 softness 0.00 nohq
http://i.imgur.com/mAFZDxk.png

2pass strength 0.50 softness 0.00 hq
http://i.imgur.com/91RmoRJ.png

2pass strength 1.00 softness 0.00 nohq
http://i.imgur.com/hmREzhz.png

2pass strength 1.00 softness 0.00 nohq
http://i.imgur.com/LL7DAKs.png

and to compare with 0.88.13 and the settings i used before (refine the image after every ~2x upscaling step, 2pass, strength 0.50, sharpness -0.50, softness 0.15, AA 0.10, AR 0.10)
http://i.imgur.com/WDyf1Rc.png

I prefer the old Superres look and versatility :) .