madVR - high quality video renderer (GPU assisted)

[dansrfe]

Originally Posted by Hypernova

About your monitor, unless it's a CRT, what happen is of course it uses its internal resizer, which I would not use over madVR's. And my guess is that 24p is a fake as well. I'd just left it as native and let madVR/Reclock doing the best they can.

Here's the link to my monitor: http://accessories.dell.com/sna/prod...o&sku=320-7641

If it does internally resize then I guess I'm going to have to get a better GPU because my current GPU only has a little juice left to do other things while playing a 1080p.

[Hypernova]

Originally Posted by SamuriHL

To me the pairing of a 650m on that macbook pro is a perfect match. I just got through updating my HTPC's and both are running nVidia. My main HTPC is a 3770k with a 680 and it is AWESOME for madVR. I have FSE turned off and have nary a blip. As awesome as Haswell is going to be, I could certainly stick with IVB across all my machines. I just don't have the money for any other machines right now and I BADLY want to upgrade my TV. I think that'll end up taking precedence over a new laptop this year. In the end I may end up getting Haswell anyway just because I doubt I can finance another major purchase until then. Whatever I get will have to work with madVR though. It's a requirement.

As for Windows RT, that's an interesting idea, but, who knows what's involved there. Does it support directx? I honestly haven't looked into the platform to know enough about what it supports and doesn't.

I think 680 is overkill for madVR (at least for now) I just got a 670 but I use madVR with HD 4000. No FSE, spline 3/4 taps, no frame drop. The only problem, as mentioned by nevcairiel, is when you use QS with madVR on 60p material. But I don't have any 60p video to watch so it's not a problem for me.

Yeah, I'd upgrade the TV first. As you can see from my sig though, I'd go all out and get a projector. But that's just me. I wanted to upgrade my Tablet PC for awhile now, but the fujitsu T2010 is still going strong after 4.5 years so I don't have an excuse to replace it. It can't handle madVR as you can guess, which cause me quite some troubles.

Windows RT does have DirectX from what I read. If madshi really want to, there should be a way to make it works. Either as a library for a video player app to include, or some yet unknown way to distribute non-Metro software. Let's not get into that though. In any case, it wouldn't be easy, so I don't think madshi will do it considering that there are other features which are more important, and most madVR users probably won't care about RT device anyway.

Originally Posted by dansrfe

Here's the link to my monitor: http://accessories.dell.com/sna/prod...o&sku=320-7641

If it does internally resize then I guess I'm going to have to get a better GPU because my current GPU only has a little juice left to do other things while playing a 1080p.

I'm certainly not an expert so take whatever I say as a grain of salt.

I don't think there is any LCD panel that can do native 24/48p. The only option of having a matching frame rate is a 120Hz monitor. About the pixel count, there is no way around it. If it's not the native resolution, it's resized. You cannot resize the pixel size like a CRT after all.

Can you offload some stuff to CPU? For example if you're using DXVA/LAV with CUDA/QuickSnyc, you can switch to CPU decoding and free up resource for madVR.

[SamuriHL]

Originally Posted by Hypernova

I think 680 is overkill for madVR (at least for now) I just got a 670 but I use madVR with HD 4000. No FSE, spline 3/4 taps, no frame drop. The only problem, as mentioned by nevcairiel, is when you use QS with madVR on 60p material. But I don't have any 60p video to watch so it's not a problem for me.

To be fair, I built it as a gaming machine first, with the added benefit of it being a supremely stellar HTPC. With 16 gigs of ram and an OCZ 256 gig Vertex 4, the thing just screams. madVR is definitely not an issue. I don't have any 60p content, either.

Originally Posted by Hypernova

Yeah, I'd upgrade the TV first. As you can see from my sig though, I'd go all out and get a projector. But that's just me. I wanted to upgrade my Tablet PC for awhile now, but the fujitsu T2010 is still going strong after 4.5 years so I don't have an excuse to replace it. It can't handle madVR as you can guess, which cause me quite some troubles.

I have a few tv's in mind. Scarily enough I think I'm going plasma this time.

Originally Posted by Hypernova

Windows RT does have DirectX from what I read. If madshi really want to, there should be a way to make it works. Either as a library for a video player app to include, or some yet unknown way to distribute non-Metro software. Let's not get into that though. In any case, it wouldn't be easy, so I don't think madshi will do it considering that there are other features which are more important, and most madVR users probably won't care about RT device anyway.

I'm not sure there'd be a huge benefit to having madVR on such a device but maybe. If you're outputting it to a TV, perhaps. But on the small screen, probably not. It's an interesting idea nonetheless.

[dansrfe]

Originally Posted by Hypernova

I don't think there is any LCD panel that can do native 24/48p. The only option of having a matching frame rate is a 120Hz monitor. About the pixel count, there is no way around it. If it's not the native resolution, it's resized. You cannot resize the pixel size like a CRT after all.

Can you offload some stuff to CPU? For example if you're using DXVA/LAV with CUDA/QuickSnyc, you can switch to CPU decoding and free up resource for madVR.

Well currently I decode everything on the CPU and the GPU only scales. I have Spline 3 taps on luma up/down scaling and softcubic 50 for chroma. CPU utilization is fairly low at around 30-40% for 1080p files with the black bars cropped. It's basically GPU power limits with which my video starts dropping frames and everything below the upload queues start to get maxed out at 2-3 frames. I honestly wish I could do something or use something to increase efficiency. I really want to avoid changing the scaling algorithm from spline to something else but I'm guessing that may be the only way to go around the GPU power problem.

The main question is, will the scaling at something a notch or two lower than spline that scales to the native resolution of the monitor be better than double scaling from spline and the monitor's internal resizer? I'm guessing the answer to the question is yes but I'm looking for some opinions other than my own to confirm this.

In the context of my plasma tv, are the multiple refresh rates that show up in nvidia control panel false? Also my tv has this setting which basically says that when the TV is set to receive input at 24Hz it will display it at 96Hz. Not too sure what that means but to my eyes it definitely looks very smooth with clear pans similar to what one would get with a 120Hz "feel". The only supports 1080p input btw.

To be honest I'm not too sure what that is a separate setting. Does that mean that the tv displays at 60Hz without conversion or repeating frames for 60Hz input?

[Hypernova]

Originally Posted by dansrfe

Well currently I decode everything on the CPU and the GPU only scales. I have Spline 3 taps on luma up/down scaling and softcubic 50 for chroma. CPU utilization is fairly low at around 30-40% for 1080p files with the black bars cropped. It's basically GPU power limits with which my video starts dropping frames and everything below the upload queues start to get maxed out at 2-3 frames. I honestly wish I could do something or use something to increase efficiency. I really want to avoid changing the scaling algorithm from spline to something else but I'm guessing that may be the only way to go around the GPU power problem.

The main question is, will the scaling at something a notch or two lower than spline that scales to the native resolution of the monitor be better than double scaling from spline and the monitor's internal resizer? I'm guessing the answer to the question is yes but I'm looking for some opinions other than my own to confirm this.

In the context of my plasma tv, are the multiple refresh rates that show up in nvidia control panel false? Also my tv has this setting which basically says that when the TV is set to receive input at 24Hz it will display it at 96Hz. Not too sure what that means but to my eyes it definitely looks very smooth with clear pans similar to what one would get with a 120Hz "feel". The only supports 1080p input btw.

To be honest I'm not too sure what that is a separate setting. Does that mean that the tv displays at 60Hz without conversion or repeating frames for 60Hz input?

About the resizer, I have my opinion, but I encourage you to try for yourself. Pick what's best for you, that can't go wrong. If you think using your monitor's resizer looks good, who am I to say otherwise?

About the TV, that 96Hz could be true. I mainly mean computer LCD screen when I said most can't do anything but 60Hz.

[DeadlyEmbrace]

Originally Posted by dansrfe

Currently I have a C2D @ 2.66GHz but my quad core desktop seems to take the file with ease as well.

Having said that I still don't understand why the C2D can't handle the decoding since the processor usage is barely touching 70%. What about the other 30%?

I have noticed that too, sometimes it will even sit at an idle 40% yet video playback will remain stuttery.

I am guessing a bit, but I suspect that it relates to the speed (read bandwidth) of the RAM (my laptop has DDR2) MadVR uses the gfx card for rendering, so the processor uses the system RAM for decoding (meaning data has to be copied from HDD to RAM, decoded and sent back to system RAM and then copied to video RAM) which kills the slow(er) RAM. My brother has a Core i3 (dual core) with DDR3 and it seems to handle 10bit just fine.

[e-t172]

Originally Posted by Hypernova

I don't think there is any LCD panel that can do native 24/48p.

My Hyundai W240D V2 is able to display (real) 48.034 Hz. I think it's just pure luck though, and was never intended by the manufacturer (it's not part of the EDID, obviously).

[namaiki]

Can most LCD or plasma monitors do a custom 24Hz or higher multiple like if set via Custom Reso.lution in Nvdia Control Panel or similar? For example, I can easily create a 48Hz or 72Hz mode @ 1920x1080 to use on r my laptop's inbuilt screen. I haven't tried doing the same on an external monitor.

[Qaq]

How can I watch pics (jpg, png) with madVR? For me screenshots never look as good from image viewer as original picture from video renderer. Do I need to build some special chain in GraphEdit?

[6233638]

Originally Posted by SamuriHL

$3300 bucks for the one I just priced out for myself. YIKES. But it'd be a nice screen for movies and madVR would rock on something like that.

IPS LCD panels are far too low contrast to be good for films, and 15ʺ is tiny. It would definitely be interesting to see the results—I certainly checked out how Blu-ray looked on my new iPad—but I can't imagine anyone seriously watching films on either. I'm more disappointed that the display is 2880×1800 rather than 3360×2100. I've always found the 1440×900 workspace on the standard MacBook Pros to be restrictive compared to the 1680×1050 models. OS X does offer non-integer scaling to give you a larger workspace, but it doesn't look great.

Hopefully next year they will be able to offer a "high res" option as they do with the standard 15ʺ MacBook Pro.
Actually, I'm more interested in pairing a 4K television with a new Mac Pro, if they ever decide to put modern hardware inside one again.

Originally Posted by namaiki

Can most LCD or plasma monitors do a custom 24Hz or higher multiple like if set via Custom Reso.lution in Nvdia Control Panel or similar? For example, I can easily create a 48Hz or 72Hz mode @ 1920x1080 to use on r my laptop's inbuilt screen. I haven't tried doing the same on an external monitor.

Most LCDs won't do it. However, if your LCD supports 50Hz signals (some monitors do, and most European displays will) there's a chance it will have a large enough tolerance that it will support 48Hz.

I had an old Toshiba DLP projector that officially only supported 480p, 720p and 1080i at 50/60Hz, but was able to send it a native resolution 854×480 image at 48.0Hz, which looked considerably better.

I've actually found that more recent displays are less likely to support this though, if they have proper 24p support. This is unfortunate, as we now have some 48p films in production, and 48Hz is far more usable for tasks other than watching film—watching a video windowed while multitasking for example.

[SamuriHL]

Originally Posted by 6233638

IPS LCD panels are far too low contrast to be good for films, and 15ʺ is tiny. It would definitely be interesting to see the results—I certainly checked out how Blu-ray looked on my new iPad—but I can't imagine anyone seriously watching films on either. I'm more disappointed that the display is 2880×1800 rather than 3360×2100. I've always found the 1440×900 workspace on the standard MacBook Pros to be restrictive compared to the 1680×1050 models. OS X does offer non-integer scaling to give you a larger workspace, but it doesn't look great.

Hopefully next year they will be able to offer a "high res" option as they do with the standard 15ʺ MacBook Pro.
Actually, I'm more interested in pairing a 4K television with a new Mac Pro, if they ever decide to put modern hardware inside one again.

As I said, my interest in putting madVR on something like that is strictly for when traveling. I suspect it'll look a lot better than my 10" Xoom. It would certainly not be for daily watching by any means. I need a new laptop anyway so I was only toying with the idea since the build quality is pretty good on Apple machines. I'm NOT a fan of gluing components in place. I find that to be anti-consumer. And since I have to wait anyway, I want to see what I can put into a Windows machine that'll match or beat the specs of that MacBook Pro.

As for Mac Pros it'll be interesting to see if they continue improving them or kill off the entire line altogether. Again, good build quality on those. Certainly would be able to run madVR with no problem.

[nevcairiel]

Originally Posted by 6233638

IPS LCD panels are far too low contrast to be good for films

Maybe, but you have to remember that you were talking about laptops here, and really, what alternatives are there?

If i look at comparisons of the newest Ultrabooks, the FullHD IPS Panel in the Asus Zenbook Prime has much higher contrast then any other panels used in comparable Laptops (including the 15" 2011 MBP). Granted its a tiny 13.3" screen, but still.
It really show the biggest problem with Laptops, no-one ever cared to put *good* displays into them. Asus finally created one, but its only a small Ultrabook, so hey.

[e-t172]

Originally Posted by namaiki

For example, I can easily create a 48Hz or 72Hz mode @ 1920x1080 to use on r my laptop's inbuilt screen.

A word a caution: make sure the display doesn't lie to you. For example I can send my laptop's screen basically anything from 30 Hz to 80 Hz or so, but its actual refresh rate is still 60 Hz and it's dropping/duplicating frames internally to compensate. Suffice to say, the result is pretty much unwatchable.

[dansrfe]

Originally Posted by Hypernova

About the resizer, I have my opinion, but I encourage you to try for yourself. Pick what's best for you, that can't go wrong. If you think using your monitor's resizer looks good, who am I to say otherwise?

Originally Posted by DeadlyEmbrace

I have noticed that too, sometimes it will even sit at an idle 40% yet video playback will remain stuttery.

I am guessing a bit, but I suspect that it relates to the speed (read bandwidth) of the RAM (my laptop has DDR2) MadVR uses the gfx card for rendering, so the processor uses the system RAM for decoding (meaning data has to be copied from HDD to RAM, decoded and sent back to system RAM and then copied to video RAM) which kills the slow(er) RAM. My brother has a Core i3 (dual core) with DDR3 and it seems to handle 10bit just fine.

@ Hypernova

The part that bugs me is the clarity of the OSD when the monitor upsizes the 1080p input internally. It's difficult to see the result of the monitor scaling on the video but the subtitles could be a bit sharper as well. The only scaling algorithm that I can use is bilinear to scale from 1080p -> 1152p with all the queues full. I guess I'll have to upgrade my hardware. It sucks that this is in a laptop though. GPU is part of the board.

@ DeadlyEmbrace

I have DDR2 RAM as well. That is probably the reason for all the frame drops.

[Andy o]

Originally Posted by dansrfe

What I fear the most is upscaling of 1080p content to that resolution. My monitor is 2048 x 1152p60 but it can change it's resolution (by some mechanism unknown to me) to 1080p24 (which I control in madVR's refresh rate changer) and it works perfectly without adding unnecessary burden on the GPU to sit there and upscale.

It's getting upscaled somewhere. Best bet is let madVR do it, cause the GPU scaling directly is probably poor (but faster) in comparison.

Originally Posted by SamuriHL

$3300 bucks for the one I just priced out for myself. YIKES. But it'd be a nice screen for movies and madVR would rock on something like that.

I've always contended that Apple is not overpriced in general, but they make you think you need unnecessary expensive hardware. The upgrades, though, they ARE very overpriced. With this one, you can't upgrade your own stuff for the most part, but on the other hand, the base model is pretty powerful as it is. I would only upgrade the 8GB to 16, though that's a rather expensive (but manageable) $200 for a total of $2400.

But as with most Apple products, it's probably wiser to wait for 2nd or 3rd generation.

[SamuriHL]

Originally Posted by Andy o

I've always contended that Apple is not overpriced in general, but they make you think you need unnecessary expensive hardware. The upgrades, though, they ARE very overpriced. With this one, you can't upgrade your own stuff for the most part, but on the other hand, the base model is pretty powerful as it is. I would only upgrade the 8GB to 16, though that's a rather expensive (but manageable) $200 for a total of $2400.

But as with most Apple products, it's probably wiser to wait for 2nd or 3rd generation.

If I was going to go with a glued together machine, I wanted a fairly beefy spec from the outset. My laptops typically last about 4 years before I replace them. I'm coming up on that with this one. So I upped the CPU, mem, and SSD. I could probably build a comparatively fast alienware for cheaper. And it'd have NO problem with madVR. We'll see. I'm a ways away from a new machine sadly. I'm REALLY pleased with my new HTPC's though.

[Andy o]

Originally Posted by Hypernova

Slightly off topic: Still, I don't see a reason why you'd want a high dpi screen for movies. I'm a pixel junkies when it comes to works. I've been waiting for high DPI monitors to come out in "consumer" price range for years. Hopefully this MacBook pro would start the trend so I can get high DPI monitor later (Don't use a mac, and have no plan to). But for movies, anything higher than the movies' resolution itself is a waste IMO. And from what it looks like, we're going to stuck with 1080p for years to come. Well, you could say you buy for the future I guess, but I think by the time I have something bigger than 1080p to watch, the matching resolution screen/projector would be much cheaper and better option than buying that MacBook now.

With high PPI screens, aliasing is much less of a problem when scaling, so you can use a faster algorithm and relax the aliasing/softness compromise.

[Hypernova]

Originally Posted by Andy o

With high PPI screens, aliasing is much less of a problem when scaling, so you can use a faster algorithm and relax the aliasing/softness compromise.

Really? My experience is the opposite. I need a better (sharper) resizer when go to higher DPI. Given the same source resolution, I find it easier to see the jagged line when resized to higher resolution.

[Andy o]

If you use sharper scaling, generally speaking you will see more aliasing. So what you need might be a softer scaler if you don't want to see aliasing. It might not be related to the high PPI setting, just your scaling algorithm. But in any case, I'm talking about "retina" resolutions here, which was probably not your example.

[Hypernova]

Originally Posted by Andy o

If you use sharper scaling, generally speaking you will see more aliasing. So what you need might be a softer scaler if you don't want to see aliasing. It might not be related to the high PPI setting, just your scaling algorithm. But in any case, I'm talking about "retina" resolutions here, which was probably not your example.

I understand the tradeoff between sharpness and jaggedness. What I'm saying is the if the DPI is higher, you'll be able to see the jagged lines which you can't see in the lower one. If I instead choose a softer algorithm, the blurriness is also increase compare to lower DPI screen. Thing is, IMO, higher DPI actually make thing worse for raster image when the resolution is beyond the source. Retina is nothing but high DPI screen, so that doesn't make any difference.

In any case, after (and if) you reply I'll drop the topic. It doesn't really related to madVR.