madVR 10-bit Display Support Test [Archive] - Page 11

huhn

27th December 2015, 20:16

I don't know if it's always on but it doesn't matter in this case.
madVR presenting an 8 bit undithered frame to the GPU. dithering doesn't remove banding it simply doesn't add any banding.

so correct AMD dither is relative worthless in this case.

i don't know if AMD is even dithering every time.

it's known that in the past the image was changed with AMD but it is also known now that AMD is outputting 10 bit if possible by default this can be changed a now.

maybe 8 bit input with 8 bit output is now lossless.

but I don't have an full range RGB capture card to check it.

XMonarchY

29th December 2015, 19:08

Isn't 10bit+ output required to FULLY utilize / see 10bit content? If 10bit output is not required to fully utilize / see 10bit content, then what is the point of 10bit content? I assumed 10bit content would look better on displays with true 10bit+ output.

NVidia's previous drivers allowed me to select 8bit or 12bit output for my TV. The most recent 361.xx drivers now give me 3 choices - 8bit, 10bit, and 12bit. The problem I have is that selecting 10bit ends up resetting itself to either 8bit or 12bit. Any ideas why? I figured using 10bit output would be more sensible than to use 12bit output because the panel is only 10bit, and the other 2bits with 12bit setting is a "Black Box / Unknown", which could possibly be Internal Processing and / or Dithering that could increase input lag, something I'd like to keep at its minimum. Maybe it is a bug because my friend with Panasonic ST60 cannot NEITHER 12bit NOR 10bit to work with the latest 361.xx drivers even with High-Speed HDMI cable using any mix of settings (16-235 w/ RGB, 0-255 w/ RGB, 16-235 w/ YcbCr444, and 0-255 w/ YcbCr444) in 4:4:4 Direct Input mode (on other panels known as Pixel Perfect, PC Mode, etc.). However, what I can't figure out is whether he should be trying using 0-255 & 16-235 ranges through NVidia CP settings or through actual TV controls? Obviously he will need to re-calibrate to make 16-235 image accurate because right now it is in 0-255 RGB 8bit mode.

huhn

29th December 2015, 19:25

it mostly stops the encoder from creating banding and for SDR.

and for HDR 10 bit is really needed for the encode.

XMonarchY

29th December 2015, 23:12

10bit+ does that for 8bit sources too, so what's the point of doing it in 10bit? I guess anything above 8bit is worthless since ALL that 10bit+ does is reduce gradation effects, which is easily done by madVR dithering. I guess the same applies 16bit+. BUT then it makes me question - why does madVR use 16but 3DLUT processing and some other upscaling to 16bit and back to 8bit or whatever the correct term is. Is it JUST to reduce gradation visibility?

Some people say that higher color bit-depth actually increases accuracy, not just reduce gradation visibility.

Asmodian

30th December 2015, 01:11

10bit+ encoding is very nice because dithering doesn't survive lossy encodes (and 10-bit is more efficient) but 10-bit sent to the display is mostly worthless because madVR's dithering works so well.

The only time 10bit+ is useful is when you do notice the dithering noise at 8-bit, which this thread seems to agree isn't common; if you have to disable dithering to tell if 10-bit is working why bother getting 10-bit to work? HDR is different because the dynamic range is so high dithering noise is more visible.

Do not worry about sending 12-bit instead of 10-bit, input lag and further processing is not going to be different.

madVR uses 16-bit internally because that is what GPUs use natively and because there is a difference between processing and displaying. madVR has a lot of internal steps and dithering between every one would be slow and add a lot of noise in total.

10-bit does allow increased color accuracy but it is such a minor increase it is completely insignificant and entirely meaningless.

XMonarchY

30th December 2015, 04:09

In that case 10bit+ helps games' image quality more than it helps madVR's playback image quality. Here's my little thought train and I am 100% certain you, ASModian, know far more about this than I do:
- Just about any ICC profile (the grayscale "vcgt" / 1DLUT part to be precise) is going to produce visible banding on any 8bit monitor, even one made with ArgyllCMS High Quality setting/preset. ICC profiles do not include internal processing and / or dithering that can reduce banding like madVR's dithering.
- Aside from ICC profiles / 1DLUT's, ReShade TuningPalette shader allows for full grayscale and colorspace correction, but again, it does not include super-internal-processing like madVR because it is only a shader / effect, which means it also produces some banding in games (even with 4096x64 LUT).
- ReShade Dithering (or even Colored FilmGrain shader / effect from CustomFX) can be used, but Dithering / Film-Grain is applied BEFORE TuningPalette LUT / ICC profile (1DLUT). That's the opposite of what and how madVR applies Dithering, which it applies AFTER 3DLUT processing, reducing banding.
- That leaves 10bit+ as the only method to reduce banding in games and based on my personal tests, gradation smoothness difference is huge between 8bit output and 12bit output on my TV (although its only 10bit panel like all others). The big problem I see is that banding in games is rarely due to banding of adjacent levels. It is mostly due to crappy gradation where several grayscale levels are skipped, which results in very obvious banding that neither 12bit not 16bit nor any other Color Bit-Depth value can improve.

On a scale from 0-100/100, how much of the above did I actually get right?

Asmodian

30th December 2015, 06:57

That all sounds pretty much correct to me.

The only addition I have is that ICC profiles can not produce banding by allowing less accuracy for some colors so the difference between steps is not obvious or if the display doesn't need much correction. It is technically possible to apply an ICC profile in high bit depth and with high quality dithering afterwards to avoid adding banding, it is simply that most current implementations do not.

XMonarchY

2nd January 2016, 20:04

Panasonic ST60 10bit mode does not work for me at 60Hz, but it DOES work at 24Hz! When I try to select 10bit @ 60Hz, the setting simply does not stick. There is no way to select 12bit @ 60Hz. Why won't 10bit option stick at 60Hz??? Why isn't 12bit mode available at 60Hz? I had exactly the same problem on my other 12bit TV, but it was resolved when I purchased a High-Speed HDMI cable. I tried 2 different High-Speed HDMI cables for ST60, including the one that allowed 12bit @ 60hz on my other TV. Again, I can select 8/10/12bit @ 24Hz, but only 8/10bit is available for 60Hz and AFAIK there should be a 12bit option @ 60Hz, shouldn't there?

My Settings:

TV:
- Direct Pixel / PC 4:4:4 Mode
- Normal (16-235) Range

NVidia 361.43 Drivers:
- Limited (16-235) Range
- RGB

Here's what works:
- At 24Hz - 8bit OR 12bit - Full Range OR Normal/Limited Range - RGB OR YcbCr444 - any combination of these settings works as long as the refresh rate is set to 24Hz.

I know this isn't exactly a Display Hardware forum and thread, but I figured this is still a good place to ask about this issue I am having.

ryrynz

2nd January 2016, 21:15

Panasonic ST60 10bit mode does not work for me at 60Hz

That's because it's hardware limited in this respect. This has been mentioned before. (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1727228&highlight=st60#post1727228)
The benefits of 10 bit on this set are minor to insignificant, try a grey test pattern to see for yourself.

XMonarchY

3rd January 2016, 03:04

That's because it's hardware limited in this respect. This has been mentioned before. (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1727228&highlight=st60#post1727228)
The benefits of 10 bit on this set are minor to insignificant, try a grey test pattern to see for yourself.

And yet others DO get 1080p @ 60Hz to work with 10/12bit.

ryrynz

3rd January 2016, 03:32

And yet others DO get 1080p @ 60Hz to work with 10/12bit.
What others? If you can't do it, I can't do it and James can't do it then the limitations for our models are obvious.

XMonarchY

3rd January 2016, 04:11

What others? If you can't do it, I can't do it and James can't do it then the limitations for our models are obvious.

James says he CAN do it - that's my point.

ryrynz

3rd January 2016, 06:10

James says he CAN do it - that's my point.

He should comment on it again, I think It's very unlikely he actually had 10 bit accepted unless he is running a different model (different region) with different firmware (I assume you're running the latest fimrware)
You won't be able to "unlock" it if that's the case, If you can't get it now then I strongly believe you won't be able to get it at all and like I said.. it's not a big deal anyway.

KoD

3rd January 2016, 14:48

All plasma TVs use dithering all the time, it's inherent to this display technology. The discussion here about accepting 10 or 12 bit input for such TVs is moot, as they dither even 8 bit content. The strong point of plasma TVs was always their motion reproduction which is better than anything LED interpolation tech manages to do (there are always either artifacts or the "soap effect" - even though we get accustomed to the latter in time), and not their color reproduction.

Just think about it: irrespective of whether madVR or your GPU is doing dithering, your TV does it in addition to that all the time, no matter that you send it 8 or 10 or 12 bit per color. There is no way to escape the plasma image "noise" and all the other plasma tech effects. Complaining about not being able to send 10 bit is irrelevant as you have worse to worry than that.

As for whether the ST60 accepts or not 10 bit input, it might very well not because of hardware limitations. Panasonic was very late even to introduce full 4:4:4 color reproduction on their TV sets, and I think in the end it was only available on some models that had the "Pure Direct" setting. At least, that's what I remember from the reviews on hdtvtest dot co dot uk, or avforums. I have just looked now at the review for a ST60 model on hdtvtest, and when they carried the test there were sharpening issues when "Pure Direct" was enabled, so even this was not working properly - that might have been fixed in the meantime though.

chros

3rd January 2016, 15:14

Just think about it: irrespective of whether madVR or your GPU is doing dithering, your TV does it in addition to that all the time, no matter that you send it 8 or 10 or 12 bit per color. There is no way to escape the plasma image "noise" and all the other plasma tech effects. Complaining about not being able to send 10 bit is irrelevant as you have worse to worry than that.
And the same happens on my LCD CCFL IPS panel as well so it's not just about plasma.

KoD

3rd January 2016, 18:21

The plasma "dithering" is performed differently than on a LCD display though, and it's more visible. It's in fact, a side-effect of how these panels are driven, and the "noise" doesn't necessarily have a link to the actual color data.

But you are right, on any display which is driven with less than 8 bit, there will be dithering performed irrespective of technology. And in this case it's not worth bothering with 10 bit input, nothing of the extra info carried in those 10 bits will make it to the displayed image.

Warner306

4th January 2016, 04:57

My 2007 Panasonic Plasma will accept and output at 10-bits. I was able to confirm that using the test patterns in this thread. This is not surprising considering the panel is anything but thin and flimsy, and it was considered one of the top plasmas at the time. This is at 60 Hz, 4:2:2. Based on some reading here, outputting at 4:2:2 seems to be the key to proper 10-bit output -- at the cost of chroma downsampling.

I do notice the dithering introduced by plasma tech, particularly when connecting an Xbox and playing a game like NHL xx, which features a large filed of white. I wonder what the Xbox is sending? Still, motion is indeed superior to the LED in the house, as are its black levels and natural color.

huhn

5th January 2016, 06:49

you can't confirm that with that test pattern.

the only thing that can be confirmed with the test pattern is "is it possible to send 10 bit to the screen". but a lot of tricks are needed for this.

a plasma bit deep depends on the DAC. but even a 10 bit DAC isn't really worth 10 bit it's an analog signal with all of it's flaws.

in general i would avoid a high bit deep signal on a screen older than ~2009.

XMonarchY

5th January 2016, 22:12

This is so confusing. madVR uses dithering to not just remove/reduce banding, but increase accuracy. That is why it processes 3DLUT's in 16bit. If that is the case, why wouldn't 10bit+ output help Plasma TV's dither better and show more accurate colors?

Asmodian

5th January 2016, 22:42

That isn't really accurate, the 3DLUT is processed in 16-bit because that reduces or prevents banding due to the 3DLUT correction step.

The increase in accuracy isn't real because argyllcms didn't target 10-bit output steps. There is a theoretical increase but not a practical one. What I mean is that the >8-bit accuracy (from resizing or YUV to RGB conversion) is kept through the 3DLUT step but the white point isn't more precise.

The advantage for a Plasma TV, at best, would be reduced dithering noise but the noise added by the way plasma TV works is high enough you cannot tell the difference between 8 and 10-bit input.

FDisk80

28th January 2016, 07:32

Note for NVIDIA users:
Quote:
Since driver version 353.06 users can select bit depth in the Nvidia Control Panel on all systems.
If you can't see 10bit option in the CP, Nvidia will dither down to the bit depth selected if it is lower.

In other words, If you can't choose 10bit in nvidia CP and keep it on 8bit, when you run madVR in 10bit FSE, nvidia WILL Dither and you'll see smooth gradient, not true 10bit.
If you can select 10bit in Nvidia CP, the driver will NOT dither and sent true 10bit signal to your display.

Wait. What do you mean "If you can't choose 10bit in nvidia CP and keep it on 8bit".

I see only 8 and 12 options in the Nvidia control panel.

Asmodian

28th January 2016, 18:53

Wait. What do you mean "If you can't choose 10bit in nvidia CP and keep it on 8bit".

I see only 8 and 12 options in the Nvidia control panel.

Those options also depend on your display and what it accepts.

FDisk80

28th January 2016, 19:49

Those options also depend on your display and what it accepts.

I know. Not my question though.

I just don't understand the sentence "If you can't choose 10bit in nvidia CP and keep it on 8bit"

What does it mean?

Asmodian

28th January 2016, 23:04

EI know. Not my question though.

I just don't understand the sentence "If you can't choose 10bit in nvidia CP and keep it on 8bit"

What does it mean?

If you set the GPU to output 8-bit because there was not a 10-bit option in the Nvidia CP.

FDisk80

29th January 2016, 00:02

E

If you set the GPU to output 8-bit because there was not a 10-bit option in the Nvidia CP.

The options I have are 8bpc and 12bpc. There is no 10bpc.
So if I leave it at 8bpc and set 10bit in madvr nvidia driver will dither?

But if I set it to 12bpc and set madvr to 10bit nvidia driver should not dither?

Is that right?

I do see a difference in gradient test pattern when changing from 8bit to 10bit FCE in madvr with dithering in madvr disabled.

But how can I be sure that it's actually true 10bit and not nvidia's dithering kicking in instead of the madvr's dithering when I switch to 10bit FCE mode?

Asmodian

29th January 2016, 00:20

Just consider 12-bit = 10-bit for you. Nvidia will not dither 10-bit input when set to 12-bit. All else is the same, check the same way as anyone does in this thread.

Also remember to turn madVR's dithering on when you are done testing.

huhn

29th January 2016, 01:58

I do see a difference in gradient test pattern when changing from 8bit to 10bit FCE in madvr with dithering in madvr disabled.

But how can I be sure that it's actually true 10bit and not nvidia's dithering kicking in instead of the madvr's dithering when I switch to 10bit FCE mode?

when switching to 10 bit in madVR and switching to 10/12 bit in the GPU you are sending "10 bit" to the display.

and here is the next issue. how do you find out if your display is 10 bit or is 8 bit and just dithering. there is no clear answer to that.

in theory a 10 bit display should be a lot more smooth than a 8 bit screen. so the difference between sending 8 bit dithered or 10 bit dithered should be day/night. but in practice it isn't.

FDisk80

4th February 2016, 17:29

Something strange I noticed when using madVR. If I start a movie in 23.976Hz, 10-Bit FSE mode then I pause the video and let the monitor go in to standby mode, after waking it up the picture freezes (it also looks very pixelated) and only sound continues playing.
If I go out of FSE mode and back in again it continues as normal.
I'm thinking the monitor not initializing correctly by itself after a standby when running in this mode? And only restores itself to 10-Bit mode after triggering it manually?

Edit: Oops, meant to post this in madVR thread.

rivera

11th April 2016, 03:30

My config is:
- Z170-A (Intel HD Graphics 530);
- Win7x64
- madVR v0.90.17;
- latest MPC-HC;
- Panasonic PR65VT60 (not calibrated professionally).

All settings are according to the 1st post:
madVR: display->properties->10bit
madVR: display->properties->PC levels (0-255)
Panasonic: input = FullRGB
madVR: display->calibration->disable & disable GPU gamma ramp.
madVR: rendering-> general-> Direct3D 11 ON
madVR: rendering->dithering->none
madVR: rendering->general->automatic exclusive fullscreen mode (FSE)-> on
Windows: Aero = On (an appropriate theme is selected)
MPC-HC: Playback -> Repeat forever (otherwise the pleer leaves FS)

1. When I open .png file in MPC-HC there is a text in madVR OSD "fullscreen exclusive (10 bit)".
From 2.5 m from the TV screen I can see vertical stripes (about 3..5 mm width).
Same stripes I can see if "automatic exclusive fullscreen mode (FSE)-> off".
Seems there is no difference?

2. If I leave FS with "Alt-Enter" and go to FS again, then in madVR OSD there is a text "fullscreen exclusive (8 bit)".
Why it is not "10 bit"?

huhn

11th April 2016, 04:00

either your GPU, GPU driver or screen isn't able to properly dither the image.

rivera

11th April 2016, 04:06

either your GPU, GPU driver or screen isn't able to properly dither the image.
I asked TWO questions, which one are you talking about?

huhn

11th April 2016, 04:12

this one.

1. When I open .png file in MPC-HC there is a text in madVR OSD "fullscreen exclusive (10 bit)".
From 2.5 m from the TV screen I can see vertical stripes (about 3..5 mm width).
Same stripes I can see if "automatic exclusive fullscreen mode (FSE)-> off".
Seems there is no difference?

rivera

11th April 2016, 04:57

this one.
1. According to EDID, Panasonic PR65VT60 has a 10bit support:
Supports 48bpp........... No
Supports 36bpp........... Yes
Supports 30bpp........... Yes
2. As for 10-bit support by Intel, I cannot find any info...

huhn

11th April 2016, 07:35

i never got it working on intel using a HD 4400.

BTW. i never saw a TV that doesn't have 12 bit input support. but that doesn't mean it is worth using.

you are most likely wasting your time on this. just by the way how a plasma works. even through there are 12 bit or higher DAC for plasma screens. doesn't really help them they are noising by nature.

i can't answer your second question this simply sounds like a bug.

rivera

11th April 2016, 08:26

you are most likely wasting your time on this.
As far as I understood from reading this thread, you are not so optimistic with the whole idea "let's try to output 10-bit"

huhn

11th April 2016, 08:52

happen when you have to 10 times tell someone you can't send 10 bit to a device if it doesn't support 10 bit input.

rivera

11th April 2016, 09:03

happen when you have to 10 times tell someone you can't send 10 bit to a device if it doesn't support 10 bit input.
You do not believe EDID?
Supports 30bpp........... Yes

huhn

11th April 2016, 09:11

no your screen supports for sure 10/12 bit input. no question.

Kirk Lazarus

13th April 2016, 07:49

Hi Guys,
I've an NVIDIA GTX 970 with latest drivers on Win 7 64bit and NVIDIA CP looks like this:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/62605175/cp_nvidia.jpg

Like you can see I've not a 10bit selection option. Only 8bit or 12bit.

If I choose 12bit I'll have the graphic card that dither??:(

many thanks.

I guys, I reboot this post because in the first post of this thread James wrote:

"If you can't see 10bit option in the CP, Nvidia will dither down to the bit depth selected if it is lower."

So, in my case I do not have 10 bpc selection; only 8 or 12 bpc.
So if I select 12bpc do I've the nvidia dither??

Many thanks for a clarification.

kolak

13th April 2016, 17:47

in theory a 10 bit display should be a lot more smooth than a 8 bit screen. so the difference between sending 8 bit dithered or 10 bit dithered should be day/night. but in practice it isn't.

Not really true.
Well dithered 8bit can look very decent. I've done such a test on Sony broadcast OLED reference monitors over SDI. It's not day and night.

huhn

13th April 2016, 21:14

Not really true.
Well dithered 8bit can look very decent. I've done such a test on Sony broadcast OLED reference monitors over SDI. It's not day and night.

in theory a 10 bit display should be a lot more smooth than a 8 bit screen. so the difference between sending 8 bit dithered or 10 bit dithered should be day/night. but in practice it isn't.

thanks for making that clear.
I guys, I reboot this post because in the first post of this thread James wrote:

"If you can't see 10bit option in the CP, Nvidia will dither down to the bit depth selected if it is lower."

So, in my case I do not have 10 bpc selection; only 8 or 12 bpc.
So if I select 12bpc do I've the nvidia dither??

Many thanks for a clarification.

we don't know how nvidia is outputting 12 bit with an 10 bit input.

if nvidia isn't changing the image in any way it should add some 0 to the signal. that would be fine.

if nvidia is doing some processing like color correction in high bit deep than dithering would be welcome.

chros

14th April 2016, 21:10

All settings are according to the 1st post:
madVR: display->properties->10bit
madVR: display->properties->PC levels (0-255)
Panasonic: input = FullRGB
madVR: display->calibration->disable & disable GPU gamma ramp.
madVR: rendering-> general-> Direct3D 11 ON
madVR: rendering->dithering->none
madVR: rendering->general->automatic exclusive fullscreen mode (FSE)-> on
Windows: Aero = On (an appropriate theme is selected)
MPC-HC: Playback -> Repeat forever (otherwise the pleer leaves FS)

1. When I open .png file in MPC-HC there is a text in madVR OSD "fullscreen exclusive (10 bit)".
From 2.5 m from the TV screen I can see vertical stripes (about 3..5 mm width).
Same stripes I can see if "automatic exclusive fullscreen mode (FSE)-> off".
Seems there is no difference?
1. There's one more thing to set with intel drivers (at least I had to): set FullRGB output with the help of madleveltweaker (it's inside the madvr folder). Only after this I could manage to get 10bit output.

2. Always use fullscreen to check the image: just disable/enable D3D11 in options between runs.

huhn

14th April 2016, 22:32

1. There's one more thing to set with intel drivers (at least I had to): set FullRGB output with the help of madleveltweaker (it's inside the madvr folder). Only after this I could manage to get 10bit output.

2. Always use fullscreen to check the image: just disable/enable D3D11 in options between runs.

newer intel driver for hd 4400 or newer have an options for that in the driver.

chros

15th April 2016, 10:44

newer intel driver for hd 4400 or newer have an options for that in the driver.
Interesting, is it desktop or laptop?

huhn

15th April 2016, 11:04

desktop.

my hd 4400 has this option my hd 4000 doesn't have this option.

i haven't checked the hd 4000 in a long time.

rivera

15th April 2016, 20:40

1. There's one more thing to set with intel drivers (at least I had to): set FullRGB output with the help of madleveltweaker (it's inside the madvr folder). Only after this I could manage to get 10bit output.

2. Always use fullscreen to check the image: just disable/enable D3D11 in options between runs.
1. As it was mentioned above by another user, latest Intel drivers for Skylake have a corresponding option for "0-255" in Display control panel.
2. Of course I am checking this in FS exclusive.

chros

16th April 2016, 14:21

1. As it was mentioned above by another user, latest Intel drivers for Skylake have a corresponding option for "0-255" in Display control panel.
2. Of course I am checking this in FS exclusive.
OK. What's your panel string that reported by madvr? (Under devices) If it's not so specific then what's your model number of the TV?