madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[madshi]

One thing I found is that you can't just look at one image of one HDR demo. If you optimize for that, things will look bad in other scenes of other demos. Anyway, when dumbing down HDR to SDR, we're between a rock and a hard place. It's simply impossible to keep all the information. The only proper way to evaluate if any given HDR -> SDR algo works "correctly" would be to test with a true 4000 nits or 10000 nits display. But we don't have those yet. So it's really hard to properly test these algos.

[HillieSan]

Originally Posted by Georgel

I peacefully disagree with you.

Latest nvidia drivers are broken in every way possible, they crash the card and do more bad things...

When drivers work, madVR works. Haven't experienced problems with madVR when everything else worked fine, using windows 10 64bit, nvidia GPUs, laptop. Tried multiple configurations and all went well on most configurations.

Even on ati laptops it worked flawlessly.

Just saying, some companies break the drivers and let us walk in the darkness, had to reinstall windows + nvidia drivers 3 times to get those things working. not only madVR was broken, but everything else was...

Well, they seem stable now and everything runs well now on most configurations I've tried, so we can happily use madVR now

But I've had my share of mpc-hc has stopped working and mpc-hc critical errors, can understand where you're coming from...

I understand your point. Indeed broken drivers could be blamed, but sometimes people blame the drivers too easily. In this case, all renderers work well with mpc-hc and potplayer except for madvr. This points to madvr. BTW I have an AMD RX 480, not nVidia.

I have found the solution to my problem. The issue is with madvr all right. This is an issue with upscaling. With non-upscaling I experience no problems with madvr. madvr uses directx11 for upscaling and this should be enabled. This is disabled by default. Dunno why.

I've found the solution here and it works. I had to enable directx11 in madvr.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comment...ngscrashes_on/

This works for the x64 versions of mpc-hc and potplayer.

Now BlueSkyFRC doesn't work anymore. SVP works fine instead.

[huhn]

have a look at this: http://bugs.madshi.net/view.php?id=431

you don't have to use DX11

[HillieSan]

Originally Posted by huhn

have a look at this: http://bugs.madshi.net/view.php?id=431

you don't have to use DX11

This doesn’t help. I have no problems with the latest drivers and DX9 in windowed mode. My problem is with switching to EFS mode. I read that people with nVidia and Intel experience similar problems.

All other renderers I have used work fine in DX9 with DXVA2-cb. madVR is the unstable one. Looking at the different behaviors I read on forums, including my experience, I am thinking more about a race condition or a floating pointer than can cause undefined behavior , which may explain the different behaviors per driver/system. I am a software engineer and I have encountered these pathological problems a lot. My guess is that the madvr should be based on, for example, the haali implementation (they got is right). This is my feeling based on analysis, but I could be wrong. This is a nasty defect anyway.

BTW I experience issues in DX11 mode. No crashes, but weird stuttering with potplayer. I had to restart potplayer a few times.

[Asmodian]

Originally Posted by HillieSan

In this case, all renderers work well with mpc-hc and potplayer except for madvr. This points to madvr. BTW I have an AMD RX 480, not nVidia.

That is not conclusive evidence it is madVR at fault. madVR uses a lot of driver features that those other renderers do not. madVR works fine with current Nvidia drivers and with older versions of AMD's drivers, nothing changed in madVR to cause this problem.

It is an issue with AMD's new drivers, they seem to have broken something for new path DX9. This had been common recently with AMD's Crimson drivers, some versions fix an issue and others introduce a new one.

Originally Posted by HillieSan

I read that people with nVidia and Intel experience similar problems.

I have not had any issues with Nvidia's drivers in quite some time, madVR has been stable with all their recent drivers.

[HillieSan]

Originally Posted by Asmodian

That is not conclusive evidence it is madVR at fault. madVR uses a lot of driver features that those other renderers do not. madVR works fine with current Nvidia drivers and with older versions of AMD's drivers, nothing changed in madVR to cause this problem.

It is an issue with AMD's new drivers, they seem to have broken something for new path DX9. This had been common recently with AMD's Crimson drivers, some versions fix an issue and others introduce a new one.



I have not had any issues with Nvidia's drivers in quite some time, madVR has been stable with all their recent drivers.

Indeed I have no conclusive evidence that madVR is at fault. I really hope that this is a driver issue, but the fact is that other renderers are stable (for AMD/nVidia/intel drivers) makes me wonder. This is evidence! You say that madvr is using more features of DX than other renderers (if that is true!) is also no conclusive evidence that madVR is not at fault.

I do not want to exclude the madVR implementation from the problem. I have good reasons to suspect the madvr implementation, but I do not exclude the drivers from the problem either.

BTW I am having similar issues with my GTX 660 with latest drivers.

[huhn]

DX11 is used for presentation.

madVR behaviors more like a video game than a video renderer so it's not an easy comparison.

the AMD driver are currently in a very very bad state.
just an example: http://bugs.madshi.net/view.php?id=413

and now windowed new path is completely broken on AMD.
openGL is currently pretty much broken...

i have a RX 480 myself connected to a UHD screen and i can't even get as far as you so i can't reproduce the problem sorry for that.

but you are saying the player is crashing so you should have a crash report. i would start with that.

or just use a different player and have a look at the crash report from that player.

[aufkrawall]

Does anybody else experience random player crashes when the player starts?
I'm experiencing this with MPC HC & BE x64 (latest nightlies) + latest LAV nightlies. Having this for quite some time now. Wonder if there is a connection to madVR?
Haven't tested without madVR yet since I would have to cease using it for some time to find out.
Nothing severe, opening the video file a second time usually always works.

[Georgel]

Got that part with why I would prefer to not use DSR.

what I would prefer, though, is to use a larger factor for image upsampling instead of having just chroma and luma upsampling. The algorithm for image upsampling can be better, this is why I would want an image doubling on image upsampling.

Why: Because on some anime, there is some aliasing on some edges otherwise. With everything else turned to max, maybe increasing image upsampling algorithms would yield in cleaner lines.

It could be a problem of the encoding or of the anime itself, but still wouldn't hurt to try. An anime where it's pretty proeminent is To Aru series (index, railgun, you name it). The problem is as it follows: some patters on the background will get aliasing on edges, especially for example a floor pattern that is zoomed out, gets pretty aliased. Or objects that are far in the background tend to look aliased instead of smooth (where they could look smooth). Using NNEDI chroma + JINC Image upsampling + Image doubling NNEDI + a few more bells and whistles, tried both with and without those activated.

Or maybe I haven't stricken the best combo to solve this little problem yet...



And about the drivers, madVR was stable on my ATI setup. In fact, everything was too stable on that setup. So stable that games like Dota2 run without a driver installed, but they use ATI GPU to max. Can't tell what is going on, but windows 10 drivers for ati are so bad that I get instant freeze after installing the drivers, so I run that setup (an i3 laptopy) driverless. Worked based on the theory that if it ain't broken, don't fix it..

MadVR is easily broken by bad driver support, that much is clear.

Looking forward for a madVR plugin that could be used with photoshop or other image software to enhance image quality for large pictures, if one will ever be made ^_^

[huhn]

Originally Posted by aufkrawall

Does anybody else experience random player crashes when the player starts?
I'm experiencing this with MPC HC & BE x64 (latest nightlies) + latest LAV nightlies. Having this for quite some time now. Wonder if there is a connection to madVR?
Haven't tested without madVR yet since I would have to cease using it for some time to find out.
Nothing severe, opening the video file a second time usually always works.

i get a one time "could not render this file" after rebooting.

not sure yet if it is constant.

@Georgel:
the to aru series is a low quality production in term of resolution. nothing unusual from J.C staff at that time.

if you sharp which you are doing with "maxing settings"
than you can easy high light aliasing.

the sharpest image is an aliased image sad but true.

[HillieSan]

Originally Posted by huhn

DX11 is used for presentation.

madVR behaviors more like a video game than a video renderer so it's not an easy comparison.

the AMD driver are currently in a very very bad state.
just an example: http://bugs.madshi.net/view.php?id=413

and now windowed new path is completely broken on AMD.
openGL is currently pretty much broken...

i have a RX 480 myself connected to a UHD screen and i can't even get as far as you so i can't reproduce the problem sorry for that.

but you are saying the player is crashing so you should have a crash report. i would start with that.

or just use a different player and have a look at the crash report from that player.

Turn DVXA2 h/w support off in kodi. That fixed it for me with Kodi 17 beta 3. More like a workaround.

[huhn]

i don't use kodi.

[mzso]

Hi!

I had this annoyance I've been wondering for months why my ctrl+R shortcut doesn't work. I only just figured out that it's madVR's fault... I see that it's not a new thing, but I never used it so I didn't make the inference that madVR is stealing it. And it's single modifier shortcut, which makes it worse, because it's far more likely to be used by the player.

So I think it's a very bad idea that the reset statistics option doesn't have a visual feedback. I think it should display a message just like almost all the other options do. (Actually I can't think of any other hotkey function that has no visual sign.)

[neno]

Originally Posted by HillieSan

This works for the x64 versions of mpc-hc and potplayer.

Now BlueSkyFRC doesn't work anymore. SVP works fine instead.

So what is the matter with BlueSkyFRC? Did you meet an issue I mentioned in #39634 and #39639?

[AngelGraves13]

Originally Posted by Sunset1982

So what would you suggest for upscaling to 4K?

Chroma: NNEDI3
Image: Jinc +LL +AR +SR4

Atm I use:

Chroma: SuperXBR 100, AR, SR1
Image Doubling: SuperXBR AB25
Image: Jinc AR

Chroma at Jinc SR4 as well

[aufkrawall]

Large upscaling with Jinc introduces quite some amount of aliasing, which is not the case with NNEDI3. SuperRes can be used to fight its artificial look.

[HillieSan]

Originally Posted by neno

So what is the matter with BlueSkyFRC? Did you meet an issue I mentioned in #39634 and #39639?

Hi Neno. I didn’t meet these issues yet.

[markanini]

Originally Posted by madshi

SMPTE 170M is not the same as SMPTE-C, I think. madVR at least treats them differently. That also explains why madVR is using the BT.709 3dlut.

I'm confused about this. Technically 170M and SMPTE-C are identical?

Apparently they differece in black level: http://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?...7&postcount=18
MadVR output uses the same black level though.

[BatKnight]

I have been reading your opinions on scalers and have tried some combinations myself.
Since I don't understand some of the technical terms for scaling like Jinc or NEDDI3, I don't know if I am choosing the best combination for my goal.

My main goal is to watch 1080p videos at 3840x2160@23Hz.
My CPU is an Intel i5-750 with a GTX 660 with 2GB vram

My current choice is Bicubic75 AR for both chroma and image upscaling. No image doubling.
Upscaling refinement: Enhance detail 1.0
Image enhancements: 1.0 sharpen edges, 1.0 enhance detail, activated anti-bloating 100% and activated AR filter

CPU queue size 8 and GPU size 6. Windowed/Fullscreen mode both 4 frames presented in advance.
I am using D3D9 fullscreen overlay (seems to be the one providing less rendering ms)

These are giving me about 29ms at the rendering stats after the nvidia card automatically downclocks to a power saving move. It show 13ms when at the highest clock.

My question to you is, considering a 1920x1080 upscale to 3840x2160 of 4:2:0 videos:
1- how high do you think the rendering stats can go without dropped frames?
2- If I have room for improvement, which is more important PQ-wise, the image upscaling or the chroma upscaling? Why isn't there a luma upscaling choice, other than doubling?
3- In terms of image enhancements and upscaling refinements, I've noticed that some don't cost any ms, but others are quite expensive. Are there any that you might considered a must?

Sorry for the long post. Would love to read your insights on this.

Thanks
Nuno

[Warner306]

Originally Posted by BatKnight

I have been reading your opinions on scalers and have tried some combinations myself.
Since I don't understand some of the technical terms for scaling like Jinc or NEDDI3, I don't know if I am choosing the best combination for my goal.

My main goal is to watch 1080p videos at 3840x2160@23Hz.
My CPU is an Intel i5-750 with a GTX 660 with 2GB vram

My current choice is Bicubic75 AR for both chroma and image upscaling. No image doubling.
Upscaling refinement: Enhance detail 1.0
Image enhancements: 1.0 sharpen edges, 1.0 enhance detail, activated anti-bloating 100% and activated AR filter

CPU queue size 8 and GPU size 6. Windowed/Fullscreen mode both 4 frames presented in advance.
I am using D3D9 fullscreen overlay (seems to be the one providing less rendering ms)

These are giving me about 29ms at the rendering stats after the nvidia card automatically downclocks to a power saving move. It show 13ms when at the highest clock.

My question to you is, considering a 1920x1080 upscale to 3840x2160 of 4:2:0 videos:
1- how high do you think the rendering stats can go without dropped frames?
2- If I have room for improvement, which is more important PQ-wise, the image upscaling or the chroma upscaling? Why isn't there a luma upscaling choice, other than doubling?
3- In terms of image enhancements and upscaling refinements, I've noticed that some don't cost any ms, but others are quite expensive. Are there any that you might considered a must?

Sorry for the long post. Would love to read your insights on this.

Thanks
Nuno

Try the guide in my signature. I'm sure you could use some form of image doubling. Downgrade chroma upscaling to Catmull-Rom and try super-xbr image doubling.

1 - 35-37 ms for 23.976 content.
2 - Image upscaling/Image doubling are most important. Chroma upscaling is not that important. Image upscaling includes both luma and chroma scaled together.
3 - SuperRes is widely regarded as the best upscaling refinement.

Try super-xbr100 + AR image doubling with SuperRes 3, ordered dithering, artifact removal - debanding.

If that is too expensive, try Jinc + AR image upscaling.

If that is too expensive, try Lanczos3 + AR image upscaling.