madVR - 60fps Playback issues

[QBhd]

So for the longest time I have not been able to play 60fps mkv's. And there have been a few posts in the madVR thread by others that seem to have similar problems. I have worked for months to get this working and I am happy to report that I have finally found the issue, and wanted to start this thread to inform others of a potential solution.

The problems I have had are massive dropped frames, whether in Exclusive or Windowed mode. No matter what settings I used there would be massive dropped frames (although Exclusive did help, it was still un-watchable). My setup is this:


Phenom II X4 965
AMD HD 5700
PotPlayer (w/ latest updates)
PotPlayer setup for DXVA Renderless playback as per Configuring PotPlayer for GPU-accelerated video playback with DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA), Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) or high-performance software decoding (http://imouto.my/configuring-potplayer-for-gpu-accelerated-video-playback-with-dxva-or-cuda-and-also-high-performance-software-decoding/)


I had basically given up trying to get this to work, but the other day I decided to go back though the imouto settings, updating all the filters and updating ALL my Catalyst drivers (I had been using 11.6... SB, RAID, OCL and AVIVO). I also reset my AMD VISION Engine Control Center to factory defaults and and re-applied my hardware specific settings.

Well low and behold my un-watchable 720p60 file is now playing perfect in exclusive mode (still massive dropped frames in Windowed mode). That was yesterday, today I spent the day going back through ALL the changes I made (testing in between each change) and found that the culprit was the Catalyst OCL video drivers. Once I updated those to 11.8 all was good! And I think (not 100% sure) the 11.8 AVIVO drivers also helped.

So for anyone else having this issue with an AMD graphics setup like mine, I highly suggest you get the latest Catalyst suite (11.8) and AVIVO.

@madshi:

Your work is awesome, and I do apologize for not completely answering your questions in the past, but I really wanted to narrow down things for you and make things a little easier. I still have one odd thing that you may be interested in. It is illustrated in this screen shot, which I have highlighted:

http://i820.photobucket.com/albums/zz123/QB_the_Slayer/MISC/madvr60fps.jpg

As you can see it is a 59.940fps clip and I am wondering why the Present Queue is only going as high as 7 (very rarely going to 8) when it is set to 16. ALL other movies, files and clips I have go to 16, but this 60fps content only goes to 7. This was one of the main reasons why the bad drivers were dropping massive amounts of frames, the queue is very small and any delay/glitch quickly empties it.

Do you have any thoughts?

Here is the sample I had posted in the main thread if you need it again:

720p60 Sample MKV (http://www25.zippyshare.com/v/29544471/file.html)

I hope this helps others, I did not want this lost in the main trhead.

QB

[nand chan]

Your problem is DXVA renderless. When I use that, I get horrible, horrible frame drops as well.

I'm not sure what the cause is - might be incorrect GPU clocks but then madVR should slow down as well.

[nevcairiel]

ATI/AMD is known to be really slow with GPU->CPU memory copy. Its certainly possible that 60fps is just beyond what it can do smoothly. Use a software codec, and the problem should go away.

[QBhd]

As I said... it was a problem and I had scrapped the idea entirely until I got the Catalyst 11.8 drivers and decided to give it another go... and she was running smooth.

As for SW playback, you are correct. It goes away. But that is not what I want/need. I do a lot of x264 encoding while I watch videos, and CPU cycles are at a premium under those circumstances.

QB

[sneaker_ger]

Your work is awesome, and I do apologize for not completely answering your questions in the past, but I really wanted to narrow down things for you and make things a little easier. I still have one odd thing that you may be interested in. It is illustrated in this screen shot, which I have highlighted:

[picture]

As you can see it is a 59.940fps clip and I am wondering why the Present Queue is only going as high as 7 (very rarely going to 8) when it is set to 16. ALL other movies, files and clips I have go to 16, but this 60fps content only goes to 7. This was one of the main reasons why the bad drivers were dropping massive amounts of frames, the queue is very small and any delay/glitch quickly empties it.

That is normal. The present queue is limited by the render queue in some way. It can only go higher if your display refresh rate is higher than the movie fps. In your test you were watching a 60 fps movie on a 60 Hz display, so it could never exceed 8 frames (=the maximum of the render queue). Your other movies are probably 24 fps < 60 Hz.

[nand chan]

That is normal. The present queue is limited by the render queue in some way. It can only go higher if your display refresh rate is higher than the movie fps. In your test you were watching a 60 fps movie on a 60 Hz display, so it could never exceed 8 frames (=the maximum of the render queue). Your other movies are probably 24 fps < 60 Hz.

Doesn't change the fact that he has 46 frame drops though.

[nevcairiel]

I can easily pile up 46 drops if i switch between windowed and FSE a couple of times, yet during normal playback nothing is ever dropped.


As for SW playback, you are correct. It goes away. But that is not what I want/need. I do a lot of x264 encoding while I watch videos, and CPU cycles are at a premium under those circumstances.
If you desperately need hardware decoding with ATI/AMD, maybe you should switch to EVR. The DXVA renderless is slow, and its prone to performance issues, like you're seeing. The only chance you have is trying other drivers, and if you find one that works, never ever install a new one again. ATI/AMD likes breaking drivers over and over again. So if 11.8 works for you now, never touch it again. ;)

[madshi]

As you can see it is a 59.940fps clip and I am wondering why the Present Queue is only going as high as 7 (very rarely going to 8) when it is set to 16. ALL other movies, files and clips I have go to 16, but this 60fps content only goes to 7.
The present queue is limited by the size of the other queues. If movie frame rate and display refresh rate are identical, the present queue can't be higher than the other queues. So it can never go higher than 8. If the movie frame rate is *lower* than the refresh rate, things are different. E.g. with a 24fps movie on a 60Hz display, madVR presents every movie frame 2-3 times. So basically every frame in the render queue is presented multiple times. That's why in this specific situation the presentation queue can go up to 2.5 * render queue size.

[QBhd]

The present queue is limited by the size of the other queues. If movie frame rate and display refresh rate are identical, the present queue can't be higher than the other queues. So it can never go higher than 8. If the movie frame rate is *lower* than the refresh rate, things are different. E.g. with a 24fps movie on a 60Hz display, madVR presents every movie frame 2-3 times. So basically every frame in the render queue is presented multiple times. That's why in this specific situation the presentation queue can go up to 2.5 * render queue size.

Wow... that makes so much sense and is so obvious. It never even crossed my mind! Thanks for clearing that up, it was a small curiousity that was still bothering me after getting the DXVA Renderless setup to finally work.

As for drivers... I know all too well how AMD can pooch a good setup with a simple "update". That is why I always have a system image to roll-back to if a driver all of a sudden goes bad.

"Vanilla" DXVA (EVR cp) does work flawlessly with a heavy CPU load such as x264 encoding. And if I must fall back to it I will, but madshi's work on madVR is truly awesome and videos have NEVER looked better. Once you have seen just how good videos can look, you never want to go back. Keep up the good work madshi and nevcairiel (LAV really rocks too!!) :)

QB

[petran79]

in Potplayer what key do you press to see the dropped frames like in the picture? When I press TAB it shows just the file info.

I have also issues with dropped frames in 60fps video and I am using an Nvidia GTS video card

Other renderers play smooth.

[nand chan]

in Potplayer what key do you press to see the dropped frames like in the picture? When I press TAB it shows just the file info.

I have also issues with dropped frames in 60fps video and I am using an Nvidia GTS video card

Other renderers play smooth.

That's madVR's OSD (Ctrl+J) in the picture.

[Malow]

i tested a while ago, 60fps would give me drops as well.

today, i downloaded this much newer version, compared to previous, and in full-screen exclusive mode, works perfectly. smooth as butter.

haali renderer still give a lot of drops.