madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[varekai]

@Bernix
I'm afraid it's not a setting in PotPlayer, when enabling "DXVA2" in madVR the next file won't play video, only audio, untick "DXVA2" and the video plays fine.
If I hit "Enter" (fullscreen back to windowed) when next video plays (audio only) and then hit "Enter" again (back to fullscreen) the video plays fine.
Oh, well, I can live with that, the video quality is outstanding with madVR!
Thanks for trying to help.

Regards

Edit:
There IS something with PotPlayer settings, MPC-HC with exact same madVR setting plays all mkv in folder just fine... go figure.

[PurpleMan]

Either I found a bug or I'm missing something.

I'm trying to get a custom mode set. My monitor natively supports 23hz, so it's already listed under custom modes. I click 'edit' and see the EDID info. Once I click "test mode" - it changes to that mode successfully, and the player window ctrl+j shows a display rate of 23.974 with a composition rate of 23.976 - which is good.

HOWEVER - the "test mode" button is the only way to get that result. If I let MadVR change res automatically to 1080p23, it results in 23.978 display rate and a 23.980 composition (and dropped/repeated frames). I get the same rates if I just ignore custom modes and change to 23hz with the NVIDIA control panel.

The only way to get the custom timings to actually work is the 'test mode' button. Any idea what's going on?
Thanks!

EDIT: having just finished reading the past 40 pages of the forum, I now realize that the issue is that madVR never switches to my custom mode except for when I'm testing the mode.
@madshi, assuming that we have a working piece of code behind that "test mode" button, can we apply it to handle the switching?

Cheers.

[Bernix]

Originally Posted by varekai

@Bernix
I'm afraid it's not a setting in PotPlayer, when enabling "DXVA2" in madVR the next file won't play video, only audio, untick "DXVA2" and the video plays fine.
If I hit "Enter" (fullscreen back to windowed) when next video plays (audio only) and then hit "Enter" again (back to fullscreen) the video plays fine.
Oh, well, I can live with that, the video quality is outstanding with madVR!
Thanks for trying to help.

Regards

Edit:
There IS something with PotPlayer settings, MPC-HC with exact same madVR setting plays all mkv in folder just fine... go figure.

Hi,
now I can replicate it. It happened when I switched to Video Codec: OpenCodec(Nvidia Cuda decoder) So if you initialize potplayer it should be solved.

Edit: It has to be changed manualy. In preference - filter control - Open codec - to recomended settings. Hm it didnt helped even it start with it. My screen is black after switching to next file. So I solved it to restore MadVR to default.

See you
Bernix

[BetA13]

Originally Posted by madshi

Bringing up the seekbar makes madVR enter low-latency mode. It's not nice but possible that it might stutter there, but when the seekbar goes away, it should also at least then get back to smooth. Not sure why that doesn't seem to work for you. How are the queues looking in the OSD (Ctrl+J) after the seekbar is hidden again?

hey there, i had some time today and tested the hell out of it..
heres what i got..

My main Monitor has 75hz, there it is not happening. BUT, using the seekbar and seeking while the OSD is open, MadVR crashes instant. (FSE Mode)

Wich i dont care since i dont use this monitor for watching stuff.. it just happened while testing so i decided to post it also.. The rest works, no stutter and the queues are fine.
Heres a pic of teh 75hz monitor:



Anyway, the MAIN problem was the stutter..This happens on my TV. (30hz in NV panel)
I tested some more now, and i can say that this only happens in FSE Mode. dx9 and dx11..

If i disable FSE mode everything is smooth again and teh queues work as intended.
Here are the Requested numbers:

Pic1: (i just moved my mouse down to the seekbar, and back up again to hide the bar, this is afterwards and stays this way till i restart..




its very bad stutter...

and heres a pic, when its randomly working.



i hope these are the numbers you requested
if you need more, lemme know.

edit: i know i posted this a longer time ago, but my TV has 30hz, wich it says in NV Panel, in teh MadVR OSD it says 60hz..umm.. Please someone explain

edit2:

argh, it does also happen in NON FSE Mode. But only if i watch another movie right after it or open a new one (without closing the player).
When i close the player (mpc hc) and start the movie, its all fine..

heres a PIC in NON FSE Mode with the Problem happening:


And heres a Pic, after i closed the Player and started it again.(wich does not fix it all the time, its more random)


This happens on BOTH, the 75hz Monitor and the HDTV with 1080i (30hz).

[el Filou]

@BetA13 are you sure it's not 30 Hz interlaced (i.e. 60i) ?

[BetA13]

Originally Posted by el Filou

@BetA13 are you sure it's not 30 Hz interlaced (i.e. 60i) ?

hmmm, i guess, yes.. 1080i @ 30hz (is what it says in the NV panel)

[varekai]

Originally Posted by Bernix

Hi,
now I can replicate it. It happened when I switched to Video Codec: OpenCodec(Nvidia Cuda decoder) So if you initialize potplayer it should be solved.

Edit: It has to be changed manualy. In preference - filter control - Open codec - to recomended settings. Hm it didnt helped even it start with it. My screen is black after switching to next file. So I solved it to restore MadVR to default.

See you
Bernix

I found the settings in PotPlayer.
Preferences --> Filter control --> OpenCodec --> NVIDIA (3 choices) "Enable: Always show selection" on all 3.
Preferences --> Filter control --> Filter Priority (Overall) --> Custom Filter Manager "madVR" --> "Priority" enable "Prefer".
Edit:
Preferences --> Filter Control --> Video decoder --> Built-in Codec/DXVA settings --> Hardware acceleration (DXVA) settings untick "Use DXVA".
That did the trick for me!
Also I kept all my tweaked settings (not the default) in madVR.
Case closed!!

Regards

[tony359]

Hi there,
I am having some video calibration issues and hopefully someone can help me.

Problem 1:
I am using DisplayCAL to create a 3DLUT for MadVR. No matter what I do, the resulting calibrated picture is crushing the lower 5-6 steps of black. If I only run a Windows calibration (no 3DLUT) I can see all the levels. The projector brightness is correctly set so level 17 is visible with NO calibration. I tried umpteen times with different settings, I need help!

Problem 2:
In the end I reverted to a non-LUT Windows calibration and I can get the proper black levels. HOWEVER, when MadVR switches to Exclusive mode, it seems the calibration gets disabled. When I switch back to windowed mode, it's still not applied. To overcome, I need to uncheck "disable GPU gamma ramps": that does not cause any change but when I check it again, the gamma and white balance change back to what it's intended. I can replicate this behaviour on my other system. In this case I have MadVR set to "disable calibration controls for this device" but setting "this display is already calibrated" also produces the same results.

Any ideas?
Thanks!

[madshi]

Originally Posted by enctac

Maybe problem with madVR 0.92.2. (Intel GPU only?)
"D3D11 fullscreen windowed" doesn't switch to 10bit.

Spec: i7-4702MQ(HD4600), Win10 Anniversary(not CU) https://pastebin.com/c2gKPbuA
(I know my display is 6bit+FRC.)
MPC-BE x86/x64 1.5.1 (build 2755) beta
LAV Filters 0.72.2.66-git (HW decode : none)

1. restore default settings.bat
2. "devices->properties->the native display bitdepth is:" : [10bit (or higher)]
3. "rendering->general settings->enable automatic fullscreen exclusive mode" : [OFF]
4. "rendering->general settings->use Direct3D 11 for presentation(Windows 7 and newer)" : [ON]
5. play movie
6. switch to fullscreen
7. see OSD

Result:
madVR 0.92.1 -> D3D11 fullscreen windowed (10bit)
madVR 0.92.2 -> D3D11 fullscreen windowed (8bit) <- doesn't switch to 10bit

(But in this post, madVR0.92.2/Win10CU/GTX1080 works fine.)

This will probably be fixed in the next build.

Originally Posted by mrmarioman

I think I've tried most of that. I haven't set madvr to default values yet. I'll give it try.

You say you've tried most of that, but I'd like you to reply to each of my suggestions/comments with detailed information, otherwise I don't have sufficient information to help.

Originally Posted by Telion

madshi, I also started to encounter a very similar behaviour, but in XP (i.e. nothing fancy - FS windowed old path, sw decoding). The CPU buffers are OK, but the GPU ones stop to fill up to their max values with subsequent massive frame dropping. Although rendering/present times aren't constantly high, they begin to have random huge spikes, which are absent in the same place of a video in normal conditions. The queues continue to remain at the same low values (around 1) regardless of these spikes. I still use an old GPU, so nothing power related here. I can't reproduce this reliably or figure out the exact conditions, but it indeed seems to be somehow related to seeking. Maybe not just seeking, but seeking + pausing in some unclear combinations (something related to this?). Reloading a video fixes this (once it happened when I had debanding on and was fixed by turning it off, but since then I also couldn't reproduce this). There were no such problems in v0.91.11.

It seems somewhat unlikely to me that problems like this were introduced in v0.92.x, but it's hard to say for sure. In any case, I don't have an XP PC, anymore, and I don't really have enough information to do anything about this atm.

Originally Posted by Telion

Also, I noticed that when a video is paused, the first number of the rendering queue is zeroed and then filled up again from scratch, but after unpausing it just continues. What does this mean? In a queue format "X-Y / Z", what's the difference between X and Y?

X and Y are the lowest and highest fill states of the queue during the last OSD update interval.

Originally Posted by khanmein

@madshi When I'm playing any videos with windowed mode + enabled OSD (Ctrl + J) & paused, the OSD is flickering. If full-screen, no issue.

This scenario is normal or a bug? Thanks.

It shouldn't flicker. Which OS, which GPU? Have you tried resetting madVR to default settings?

Originally Posted by 70MM

The cable is the same cable (2M) I was using from the Lumagen to the proj, its now connected to the AVR.

FWIW, if the Lumagen outputs 4:2:2 and madVR outputs RGB (at the same bitdepth), obviously madVR's output has a higher HDMI bandwidth. So madVR has higher requirements of the quality of the cable. That said, if syncing sometimes works, I'm not sure if a low quality cable is a reasonable explanation. If the cable isn't good enough, shouldn't it always fail? I don't really know, though.

Originally Posted by Dorohedoro

One quick and silly question. If I want to automatically change the resolution to 4096x2160 which command do I have to put in madvr? because the "2160p23" command changes the resolution to 3840x2160 23hz.

Are you sure your display is really 4096x2160? Only very very few displays have that native resolution (basically only the Sony and JVC native 4K projectors!).

Originally Posted by Siso

When downscaling we should include linear light, right?

I'd recommend it, but it's your choice.

Originally Posted by PurpleMan

Either I found a bug or I'm missing something.

I'm trying to get a custom mode set. My monitor natively supports 23hz, so it's already listed under custom modes. I click 'edit' and see the EDID info. Once I click "test mode" - it changes to that mode successfully, and the player window ctrl+j shows a display rate of 23.974 with a composition rate of 23.976 - which is good.

HOWEVER - the "test mode" button is the only way to get that result. If I let MadVR change res automatically to 1080p23, it results in 23.978 display rate and a 23.980 composition (and dropped/repeated frames). I get the same rates if I just ignore custom modes and change to 23hz with the NVIDIA control panel.

The only way to get the custom timings to actually work is the 'test mode' button. Any idea what's going on?
Thanks!

EDIT: having just finished reading the past 40 pages of the forum, I now realize that the issue is that madVR never switches to my custom mode except for when I'm testing the mode.

madVR does not have the ability so specifically switch to a custom mode or not. madVR can only ask the OS or D3D to switch to a specific resolution + refresh rate combination. Whether or not a custom mode is activated in this situation is totally up to the GPU driver and out of my control.

Did creating the custom mode actually succeed? Nvidia sometimes refuses to "install" a custom mode. On my PC is does that very often.

There's a setting in the Nvidia control panel in the "change resolution" tab "use Nvidia color settings" or something like that, which one user reported to help getting the custom mode to become active. Have you tried activating that? Also, try windowed vs. FSE mode, and D3D9 vs D3D11 presentation in madVR, these things can also make a difference.

Originally Posted by PurpleMan

assuming that we have a working piece of code behind that "test mode" button, can we apply it to handle the switching?

No. It's a dedicated "try" API from Nvidia, which isn't suitable to stay active for long. Furthermore, even the "test mode" button doesn't always produce the correct results on my PC.

In any case, all this trouble with Nvidia custom modes are Nvidia driver issues. I've reported the issues to 2 different places @ Nvidia, but haven't gotten any reply so far.

Please all Nvidia users feel free to complain to Nvidia customer support about the various custom mode problems!!

Originally Posted by BetA13

My main Monitor has 75hz, there it is not happening. BUT, using the seekbar and seeking while the OSD is open, MadVR crashes instant.

Ok, so where' the crash report for me to look at?

Originally Posted by BetA13

Anyway, the MAIN problem was the stutter..This happens on my TV. (30hz in NV panel)

Please generally don't use interlaced output modes with your HTPC, unless there's absolutely no other way to sync to your TV in FullHD.

Originally Posted by BetA13

I tested some more now, and i can say that this only happens in FSE Mode. dx9 and dx11..

If i disable FSE mode everything is smooth again and teh queues work as intended.
Here are the Requested numbers

Seems the render queue doesn't fill, but I'm not sure why...

Originally Posted by tony359

I am having some video calibration issues and hopefully someone can help me.

Problem 1:
I am using DisplayCAL to create a 3DLUT for MadVR. No matter what I do, the resulting calibrated picture is crushing the lower 5-6 steps of black. If I only run a Windows calibration (no 3DLUT) I can see all the levels. The projector brightness is correctly set so level 17 is visible with NO calibration. I tried umpteen times with different settings, I need help!

I'm not a calibration expert. I'd suggest you ask in this thread, where you'll find the DisplayCAL and ArgyllCMS devs helping out:

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/139-di...argyllcms.html

One important thing, though: Please make sure you have your GPU configured to output RGB 0-255 (Full range). Don't use Limited Range, don't use YCbCr. You can choose between 0-255 and 16-235 in madVR.

Originally Posted by tony359

In the end I reverted to a non-LUT Windows calibration and I can get the proper black levels. HOWEVER, when MadVR switches to Exclusive mode, it seems the calibration gets disabled. When I switch back to windowed mode, it's still not applied. To overcome, I need to uncheck "disable GPU gamma ramps": that does not cause any change but when I check it again, the gamma and white balance change back to what it's intended. I can replicate this behaviour on my other system. In this case I have MadVR set to "disable calibration controls for this device" but setting "this display is already calibrated" also produces the same results.

This description confuses me. Especially the "that does not cause any changE [...]" sentence is totally unclear to me.

[madshi]

madVR v0.92.3 released

http://madshi.net/madVR.zip

* added extended screenshot functionality, new settings page etc
* added "IMadVRFrameGrabber" interface for media player developers
* added HDR support to madTPG
* added (limited) support for cropping through the DirectShow pin info
* slightly improved super-xbr weights
* fixed: settings dialog (madHcCtrl) could crash for AMD users
* fixed: Nvidia FSE HDR passthrough tweak stopped working in v0.92.2
* fixed: D3D11 DXVA decoding: NNEDI3 chroma upscaling crashed
* fixed: D3D11 DXVA decoding: sometimes froze for 5 seconds
* fixed: using FSE seekbar in paused state could freeze media player
* fixed: custom modes of secondary monitor showed primary monitor data
* fixed: madTPG: mouse cursor could confuse the measurements
* odd horizontal porches are punished with a higher compatibility hit now

Please give the screenshot functionality a try and let me know if it works for you or not. You'll need a media player which fetches screenshots from madVR the usual way (which is the IBasicVideo::GetCurrentImage() API). AFAIK, most media players do screenshots this way.

[khanmein]

@madshi FYI, I'm using 1703 (15063.608) + GTX 1070 + I've reset to the default settings too. The videos don't flicker, but the OSD does flicker under windowed mode only.

[Thunderbolt8]

@madshi, could you please give us a little up-to-date writeup which parameters of GPUs are most important for madVR speed? something which we can use as guidelines when looking for a new graphics card. e.g. when going to the "List of Nvidia graphics processing units" and "List of AMD graphics processing units" at wikipedia, which coloms of features (like bandwith for example) are most important.

would love to see this a) for general madVR speed and b) additional/different factors which possibly come into play with SSIM downscaling and NGU upscaling (if there are any compared to the general ones)

[tony359]

Quote:
Originally Posted by tony359

This description confuses me. Especially the "that does not cause any changE [...]" sentence is totally unclear to me.

Apologies, let me clarify.
When I enable/disable the calibration I can visually see gamma/colour changes on the picture - that is the calibration being enabled/disabled.

Let me try and recap:

- "disable GPU gamma ramps" - unchecked. I can see the calibration is being applied and I am in windowed mode.

- MadVR switches to Exclusive: calibration not applied anymore ( I can see that visually)

- I switch back to windowed: calibration still not applied despite "disable GPU gamma ramps" is still unchecked.

- I check "disable GPU gamma ramps" in windowed mode: calibration not applied - as it should be, but it should have been applied before!

- I Uncheck "disable GPU gamma ramps" in windowed mode: now I see the calibration is being applied again.

- I switch back to exclusive mode: calibration is being disabled again (but "disable GPU gamma ramps" is still UNCHECKED).

I believe this is more obvious if your calibration is greatly different than your monitor native response - then you can clearly see the difference between calibration being enabled/disabled.
Thanks for your other advice: I already switched to 0-255 following a previous post.

I will ask the experts on AVS.

Cheers for your time!

[huhn]

that's a waste of time.

a simple example.
you have an old GCN 1.0 like a r9 270 with about 2.5 Gflop and compare it to a new GCN 2.0 RX 480 with 6 Gflops than the RX 480 is at least double as fast as the r9 270 but with NGU that not the case because of drivers or/and other stuff.


so a bigger card in the same series is generally faster for madVR and a bigger card is usually faster in everything.

[ryrynz]

Originally Posted by Thunderbolt8

please give us a little up-to-date writeup which parameters of GPUs are most important for madVR speed?

As madshi has said, Just buy the fastest card you care to afford, don't think AMD is as good as Nvidia overall with madVR but maybe things have changed. I use a 960 for upscaling to fullhd and don't really need anything higher because upgrading doesn't yield that much benefit, but once things like denoising, deblocking, improvements to NGU etc come around I'll want a 1060 for sure and if dealing with 4K or 60fps, I'll probably want something closer to 1070 performance. Dealing with high frame framerate and high res is the biggest killer performance wise if you just calm your settings on that content you can get by on average hardware fine.

You're best pushing what you have then compare that to higher settings to see if it's worth it to upgrade. For me getting to NGU high/very high for certain resolutions doesn't justify the spend for the content I'm running (this will likely change with future updates) Run the right hardware for your demands, it's really quite easy to evaluate this for yourself.

madVR isn't a program where you just tick more things and select more demanding settings and better image happens, you gotta know what your goal is.
So far I've achieved like over 90% of what I want, no point in upgrading until the next big version comes along and there's something I just gotta have enabled.

[PurpleMan]

Originally Posted by madshi

madVR does not have the ability so specifically switch to a custom mode or not. madVR can only ask the OS or D3D to switch to a specific resolution + refresh rate combination. Whether or not a custom mode is activated in this situation is totally up to the GPU driver and out of my control.

Did creating the custom mode actually succeed? Nvidia sometimes refuses to "install" a custom mode. On my PC is does that very often.

There's a setting in the Nvidia control panel in the "change resolution" tab "use Nvidia color settings" or something like that, which one user reported to help getting the custom mode to become active. Have you tried activating that? Also, try windowed vs. FSE mode, and D3D9 vs D3D11 presentation in madVR, these things can also make a difference.

Solved the issue.
Here are the steps on a clean install of the display driver and madVR:
1. Set the NVIDIA color settings to "use nvidia color settings".
2. In madVR control panel, create the custom resolution.
3. Go to NVIDIA control panel - resolution not listed there.
4. Click on "Customize..." to get to the create new custom resolution screen.
5. You'll see the custom resolution that madVR had created - but it's unchecked (as in - disabled). Check it and click OK.
6. New custom mode appears on the main resolution selection screen (although listed as 24hz).
7. madVR now changes to that resolution when choosing 2160p23 regardless of the mode (FSE/D3D9/DSD11).

Hope this helps.
Cheers!

[el Filou]

@madshi : I tested the screenshot functionnality with MediaPortal (latest "madVR test build" v327), but it only works with D3D9 presentation and not D3D11. Is this a bug, or do you think it's because MediaPortal is using D3D9 for its GUI and it somehows conflicts with madVR's screen capture?

[mrmarioman]

Originally Posted by madshi

You say you've tried most of that, but I'd like you to reply to each of my suggestions/comments with detailed information, otherwise I don't have sufficient information to help.

Okay. Thanks.

Originally Posted by madshi

There are many possible reasons why this could happen. Here are a couple of questions and comments:

1) When you say "blu-ray player" do you mean a 1080p Blu-Ray player and a 1080p Blu-Ray, or are we talking about UHD Blu-Ray? This is a really important difference, and missing in your post.

It's an Xbox One S (4K player). And I get the same -good- results with the TV's own player.

2) In your blu-ray player, can you choose different output settings, like RGB vs 4:2:0 vs 4:2:2 vs 4:4:4 etc? Can you try to see if any of them looks different, maybe nearer to what the PC outputs? If so, that might indicate that your TV might not handle one specific type of input as well as another. Otherwise, if all looks the same, we can probably rule out the TV as the guilty party here.

It has the 'allow HDR and 4K" options ticked, and then colour deph: 10 Bit, color space: standard.

On PC, I've tried all colour options available on NvidiaControl Panel: 12 bit RGB 444, 12 bit ycbycr 422, 420, 8 bit...

3) For a fair test, use the same HDMI port with the identical TV settings for both the blu-ray player and the PC.

I did, I just used the hdmi 1 port. (my tv only supports hdr on one port)

4) In your PC, I (always) strongly recommend to use RGB output with 0-255 (Full) range. Try the madVR "use D3D11 for presentation" option and in the display properties tell madVR that your display supports 10bit. Finally, make sure that in your GPU control panel there are no funny color modifications, skin tone optimizations or other crap enabled.

For my system, it works best if I set the PC to 12 bit RGB 444 (24hz) or Ycbycr 422 16-235 on NCP -and madVR to 0-255 10 bit. Blacks don't look washed out like this, (and use D3D11 for presentation ticked). I also tried LAV filters latest nightly D3D11 decoder. ( I'm clueless about this, I thought I should use CUVID as an nvidia user --anyway made no difference).

5) Have you tried resetting madVR to default settings, just to be safe?

Yes, did that yesterday. I also reinstalled Nvidia drivers just in case...

6) Do you have the OS setting "HDR and Advanced Color" turned on or off? Please make sure it's turned OFF, because it's a really bad option.

Yes, it's off.

7) If all else fails, you could also try to let madVR convert the HDR content to SDR for you (using pixel shader math). It could look better or worse than what the Samsung does internally, when receiving HDR content. You can also try different "display peak nits" values.

Not tried this yet, but I'm not happy about the idea of converting the picture to SDR. :/

Here's a screenshot of a sample of Life Of Pi, with all my mad VR settings.

https://abload.de/img/sinttulo76swp.png

My TV doesn't have a true 10 Bit panel, it has (i think) 8 bit + FRC. Maybe that's why colours are not right? Maybe I should set my display to 8 bit; madVR to 8 bit; disable dithering in madVr. And let the TV do its 8 bit + dithering when it detects the HDR signal? I'll give that a try.

[Ver Greeneyes]

Originally Posted by madshi

madVR v0.92.3 released

http://madshi.net/madVR.zip

* added extended screenshot functionality, new settings page etc

Tiny bug: The settings page is called "screeenshots" with 3 "e"s

Edit: Just tried it, seems to work well!

[Sebastiii]

Originally Posted by madshi

madVR v0.92.3 released

Big thanks, again a great release :P