Playback Questions (780G & VMR9)

[JBreits]

I'm new to the whole HTPC setup and have been reading these forums like crazy, but still have some questions.

My machine: ECS A780GM-A (780G IGP), AMD 4850e, Hauppauge 2250, Win XP SP3.

My initial goal is to record and playback ATSC HDTV. I did a fresh install of XP. Installed all the updated drivers for everything. Installed AC3Filter and GB-PVR. My tuner is working great (pre-release drivers from Hauppauge found ALL channels now!) and I can record with no problems. My questsions are about playback.

I have installed the lastest catalyst drivers from ATI (8.12). If I use Overlay as the renderer and ATI MPEG Decoder things seem to work OK and I get 10-20% (~35% with OSD showing) CPU usage when playing back HDTV. When I use other decoders, the CPU usage is in the 40-60% range.

First question: Is 10-20% typical for my setup, or should I be expecting less CPU usage? Does this mean my full hardware acceleration is working?

Now for the problem. If I switch to VMR9 (or VMR9 Exclusive), the playback is terrible. Jittery, skippy, colors seem to misregister (i.e. the green channel may be slightly off from other channels creating a green ghosting effect), and eventually it will just freeze the application. The application then needs to be killed via task manager. This sometimes forces a reboot.

Anyone know a fix for this, or should I just stick with Overlay? I really don't care if the OSD is semi-transparent, however I'm wondering if the inability to set an aspect ratio outside the screen dimensions will show the nasty overscan junk that is sometimes on the top of the videos.

I did actually download .NET 3.0 and tried EVR on XP but CPU was back to 40-60% usage.


Last question (a stupid one), my settings set to show in windowed mode in 16x9 aspect ratio. However, I somehow resized my window (I think by double clicking the border) and it has switched itself to 4x3 and I can't get it to switch back. Even re-installed and nothing.


Thanks,
JBreits

[sub]

Last question (a stupid one), my settings set to show in windowed mode in 16x9 aspect ratio. However, I somehow resized my window (I think by double clicking the border) and it has switched itself to 4x3 and I can't get it to switch back. Even re-installed and nothing.

The 4:3/16:9/16:10 settings have no say over the size of the window. It just controls how the video is shown within that window.

The actual size of the window is always proportial to the desktop, ie if you drag the window to 1/2 the width of your desktop, it'll also be 1/2 the height.

I'll leave the other part of your post for other users to answer.

[JBreits]

Thanks for the info, but when I try to resize the window by dragging the border, nothing happens - it won't let me change its size. Is the window size remembered in a setting file or something that I could edit?

Thanks,
JBreits

[teookie]

I'm running a 780g board as well and seeing similar CPU utilization (although I'm on Vista w/ EVR). But I should mention that after hosing my system countless times trying to get it lower I've decided it doesn't matter as long as the picture looks good.

Good info in this thread on the 780g.

[sub]

Thanks for the info, but when I try to resize the window by dragging the border, nothing happens - it won't let me change its size. Is the window size remembered in a setting file or something that I could edit?

I'm not aware of anything, but it will try to retain the proportions of the desktop, so try dragging from the bottom-right corner, towards either the bottom-right or top-left direction.

[JBreits]

I'm running a 780g board as well and seeing similar CPU utilization (although I'm on Vista w/ EVR).

So it sounds like these CPU usages are probably typical and what I should expect.


Any ideas on VMR9 vs Overlay?

Thanks,
JBreits

[pBS]

try the cat 8.11 drivers and see if any changes...somethin not quite right about the 8.12's...
[plus it's a whole new rewrite, 'supposedly' added new features]

i couldn't get 8.12 to work right on any of my cards...but the 780g is a unique beast..
not quite a 3400, it has it's own driver section...tho i've heard others w/good results with 8.11 with a 780g mb...

also try ffdshow...latest versions are really smooth and decent on cpu as they offer half-accell..
10-20% is typical for full hw accell, but as you can see, it's not always the solution to good looking tv...[a must! for h264/vc1 tho]

[JBreits]

OK. I tried the catalyst 8.12, 8.11, 8.9, and 8.7 drivers. All do about the same. I don't seem to have that ghosting issue anymore, I wonder if that was related to not having a good lock on that particular channel. I downloaded a signal meter for my card so I can tell if I've got a strong signal.

However, I still get jerky playback on VMR9 custom. Almost like I have a really terrible frame rate, but I'm not sure how to check this. VMR9 Exclusive seems to be quite a bit better but still get little "flashes" in the screen sometimes. Maybe this is the tearing issue that others seem to have.

Overlay works ok, but seems to have a bug. When I watch in overlay mode and hit the stop button (on remote), the software does not go back to the menu. Instead, it just kind of "locks up" and has to be killed with task manager. If I hit the "back" button on my remote it goes back to the menu ok. Does this every time.

JBreits

[sub]

Overlay works ok, but seems to have a bug. When I watch in overlay mode and hit the stop button (on remote), the software does not go back to the menu. Instead, it just kind of "locks up" and has to be killed with task manager. If I hit the "back" button on my remote it goes back to the menu ok. Does this every time.

Make sure you've got all the patches from the survival guide thread installed. One of them can cause something like this.

[gazoo]

You're not getting acceleration with those CPU %. Should be less than 3-5%.

I've given up with DXVA with the 780G chipset for now. I can get it out of Vista for h.264, but I haven't been successful with anything else (including any on xp, although others have had success here on this board.) Also, when h.264 was functional, I would occasionally download an improperly formatted .mkv h.264 file that would crash or not be in harmony with DXVA (I got a blank screen and sometimes a BSOD with reboot.) I gave up and finally put coreavg (a software based h.264 codec) on all my HTPCs and allow the CPU to do the work. YMMV..

I have started several threads regarding this and I think user member 'Pob' also has, do a search on our threads by name.