madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[madshi]

Originally Posted by Boltron

Madshi. I'd like to better understand how madVR makes use of video card memory. I have an 1GB ATI5670. Watching standard 24p movies I see the GPU memory utilization sit about ~65%. The other day I watched a 1080i rip from a Bluray (interlacing was enabled) and it showed usage of ~90%. Not that I think anything is wrong, I just want to understand how memory is used so I can make a more informed decision the next time I purchase a video card. My criteria so far has been to go with 1GB and faster DDR5 memory.

65% of 1GB with a progressive 1080p movie sounds like an awful lot. Do you have Aero enabled? I guess I'll need to calculate how much GPU RAM madVR is expected to use. Right now I don't even know myself.

[Thunderbolt8]

Originally Posted by madshi

Well, does the decoder queue get empty (or near empty) when you get stuttering/frame drops? If so, the CPU is probably the problem.

in case of the 1080p AVC video it jumps between 4-8/11 all the time

for the 1080i AVC video with deinterlacing its 6-8/13

in case of the 1080i VC-1 video its 1/13 for both, deinterlacing and without deinterlacing.

so what to conclude from this? does 4-8 / full already count as near empty?

btw. does activating deinterlacing come along with an increase in brightness? seems almost like levels are changed from PC to TV at the same time. but it looks only like that in fullscreen exclusive mode, in windowed mode this shift in brightness does not happen.

[cremor]

Originally Posted by cremor

I'm using LAV splitter/audio/video 0.39. But since the one VC-1 sample which uses the Microsoft splitter/decoder shows the same problem I don't think the decoder is the problem.
But I'll also try the MPC-HC internal ones when I get home.

Just tried the MPC-HC internal splitters and decoders. Those are really bad with some files, but when they can provide enough frames to fill the decoder queue the problem in madVR is the same as with LAV or the Microsoft VC-1 decoder.

edit: Tried the madVR internal decoder too. No change.

Originally Posted by madshi

Yes, but this information won't help in any way.

Sure? I can see an increase in CPU load with a decoder queue of 12 there.
For clearer results I configured LAV to use only one thread (decoder queue is still full then). Then there are only three threads with more than 1% CPU load:

LAVSplitter.ax with 10-20% (fluctuating quite much)
madVR.ax with 16%
madVR.ax with 6% (0.77 and 8-queue-0.78) or 9% (12-queue-0.78)

I know, 3% more load isn't much, but it's constant. Is it expected that a bigger decoder queue places higher load on a madVR thread?

Originally Posted by cyberbeing

cremor, have you tried playing with the Windowed Mode Tweaks?

If you haven't tried setting everything to No Flush, that would be the first thing I'd try, then proceed to test each setting by itself one by one if all No Flush didn't help. I'd also try disabling Aero if Windowed Mode Tweaks don't help.

If your ATI 6870 w/ 60fps|1920x1080@120hz is only very slightly slower with 0.78 as madshi expects, little things like above may make a difference.

I've now tried all four options set to all four steps (same for all steps) and several other combinations, no change so far.
Do you have any specific suggestions? I don't want to try all 256 possibilities


edit2:
Some more information from 0.78 (12-queue-version):
Windowed mode without downscaling works perfectly.
Fullscreen exclusive mode with downscaling (I changed the resolution of the monitor) works perfectly too.

[Boltron]

Originally Posted by madshi

65% of 1GB with a progressive 1080p movie sounds like an awful lot. Do you have Aero enabled? I guess I'll need to calculate how much GPU RAM madVR is expected to use. Right now I don't even know myself.

Yes, Aero is enabled. It is a Windows 7 32, and the latest ATI (11.10) drivers.

I used to get tearing without Aero so I turned it on long ago. I guess now with Exclusive mode (which I use) I may not need Aero.

Edit: I use MPC-HC + LAV Filters. I also have yCMS enabled in madVR if that makes a difference.

[mr.duck]

Originally Posted by madshi

@mr.duck and @pankov, can you please try this build?

http://madshi.net/mrduckPankov.rar

Not smooth yet, unfortunately. It looks very nearly exactly the same as before. Instead of each frame being doubled, the 2nd frame in some cases looks very, very, very slightly different.

[jmonier]

I just started to try the madVR video decoders and I find that subtitles don't display. They work fine with the LAV Video decoders. Are subtitles supposed to work when the madVR decoders are used? It could well be a problem with Zoomplayer, but I'd like to know for sure that it's not a known problem with madVR before I bring it up with Blight.

[nevcairiel]

If ZoomPlayer relys on DirectVobSub or ffdshow to render subs, there is no way for them to hook into the playback graph between decoder and renderer - and therefor won't work.

[jmonier]

Originally Posted by nevcairiel

If ZoomPlayer relys on DirectVobSub or ffdshow to render subs, there is no way for them to hook into the playback graph between decoder and renderer - and therefor won't work.

Yes, after writing the above I found out that Zoomplayer inserts VobSub between LAV Video and MadVR and, of course, that wouldn't be possible with the integrated madVR filters

[pankov]

Originally Posted by madshi

@mr.duck and @pankov, can you please try this build?

http://madshi.net/mrduckPankov.rar

madshi,
you managed to reduce the GPU usage and now it's at 67-68% (instead of 79-80%) but at the cost of deinterlacing quality

The Slices clips from AVS look pretty bad - the horizontal lines are "blinking", the diagonal lines are jagged ... in general I'll never use it with such a quality

back to the original version for me.

[madshi]

Originally Posted by Thunderbolt8

in case of the 1080p AVC video it jumps between 4-8/11 all the time

for the 1080i AVC video with deinterlacing its 6-8/13

Those should be good enough. So your CPU does not seem to be the problem with AVC.

Originally Posted by Thunderbolt8

btw. does activating deinterlacing come along with an increase in brightness? seems almost like levels are changed from PC to TV at the same time. but it looks only like that in fullscreen exclusive mode, in windowed mode this shift in brightness does not happen.

This should not happen. Can anybody else reproduce this?

Originally Posted by cremor

Just tried the MPC-HC internal splitters and decoders. Those are really bad with some files, but when they can provide enough frames to fill the decoder queue the problem in madVR is the same as with LAV or the Microsoft VC-1 decoder.

edit: Tried the madVR internal decoder too. No change.

Ok, thanks. Will try to do some more experiments.

Originally Posted by Boltron

Yes, Aero is enabled. It is a Windows 7 32, and the latest ATI (11.10) drivers.

What happens to GPU RAM consumption when disabling Aero? Just as a test.

Originally Posted by jmonier

Yes, after writing the above I found out that Zoomplayer inserts VobSub between LAV Video and MadVR and, of course, that wouldn't be possible with the integrated madVR filters

That's true. MPC-HC, PotPlayer and J.River MC all have internal subtitle renderers that are able to communicate directly with madVR. All these media players show subtitles just fine when using the internal madVR video decoders. ZoomPlayer does not have its own internal subtitle renderer, it relies on VobSub or ffdshow, and that doesn't work when using the internal madVR video decoders, of course.

Originally Posted by mr.duck

Not smooth yet, unfortunately. It looks very nearly exactly the same as before. Instead of each frame being doubled, the 2nd frame in some cases looks very, very, very slightly different.

Originally Posted by pankov

madshi,
you managed to reduce the GPU usage and now it's at 67-68% (instead of 79-80%) but at the cost of deinterlacing quality

The Slices clips from AVS look pretty bad - the horizontal lines are "blinking", the diagonal lines are jagged ... in general I'll never use it with such a quality

back to the original version for me.

Ok, thanks for testing, both of you. Here comes the next try:

http://madshi.net/madVRdeinterTest.rar

[Thunderbolt8]

Originally Posted by madshi

Those should be good enough. So your CPU does not seem to be the problem with AVC.

so what could be the cause that deinterlacing, at least for AVC, does not work smoothly, when the decoder queue is ~half full and GPU load is only at 75% max?

[e-t172]

Originally Posted by Thunderbolt8

btw. does activating deinterlacing come along with an increase in brightness? seems almost like levels are changed from PC to TV at the same time. but it looks only like that in fullscreen exclusive mode, in windowed mode this shift in brightness does not happen.

This reminds me of something… just to confirm: what video card are you using? Also, what is the resolution of your video? If it's 1080i, can you check using another video with a different resolution?

[Thunderbolt8]

radeon HD 4770. resolution of that video was 1080i. but its the same for a 1080p video for example. or with 720p or 320x200.

[Portioli]

I have some issues with PC Levels.

Using the Clipping Pattern of Spears & Munsil High-Definition Benchmark

Test pattern could be found here

I tried this pattern using nVidia & ATI cards, in either case PC levels failed the test

[Boltron]

Originally Posted by madshi

What happens to GPU RAM consumption when disabling Aero? Just as a test.

I ran a couple of quick scenarios:
Aero ON
1080i Windowed: GPU=72% MB=889
1080i Exclusive: GPU=37% MB=955
24p Windowed: GPU=23% MB=541
24p Exclusive: GPU=11% MB=543

Aero OFF
1080i Windowed: GPU=56% MB=789
1080i Exclusive: GPU=34% MB=843
24p Windowed: GPU=22% MB=467
24p Exclusive: GPU=9% MB=406


- 24p movie details
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1h 59mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 23.0 Mbps
Maximum bit rate : 31.0 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.462
Stream size : 19.2 GiB (87%)


- 1080i movie details
Video
ID : 1
Format : VC-1
Format profile : AP@L3
Codec ID : WVC1
Codec ID/Hint : Microsoft
Duration : 1h 30mn
Bit rate : 28.1 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Top Field First
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.452
Stream size : 17.8 GiB (96%)

These were 100% accurate as I didn't note usage at the exact time of playback in each case but they were close.

Again, It's not a problem for me, I just would like to understand (to run madVR I'd would happily go with the highest end graphics card if I had too).

[pankov]

Originally Posted by madshi

Ok, thanks for testing, both of you. Here comes the next try:

http://madshi.net/madVRdeinterTest.rar

Both the quality and the GPU Load are back to v0.78 state

[Portioli]

@madshi

i am really enjoying your 4K/MTF/35mm conversation in AVSforum

[Qaq]

Originally Posted by Boltron

I ran a couple of quick scenarios:

Thanks for testing. As I see there is no sence for me to even try that new de-interlace feature with my 5450 512Mb. Gotta wait for HD 75?? 1Gb.

[SamuelMaki]

I have maybe a problem with the presentation queue... Now with 0.78 version presentation queue is 0-3/4, when 0.77 reports 3-4/4 all the time... I do not have any presentation qlitches or dropped frames thought... So, what is the problem, or is there any problem with ctrl+j reporting? I am using radeon hd 5650...

[mr.duck]

Originally Posted by madshi

Ok, thanks for testing, both of you. Here comes the next try:

http://madshi.net/madVRdeinterTest.rar

Not smooth. Every other frame is doubled.