7600GT with P4 3.0 Mhz not enough for smooth VMR9 playback at 1080i?

[dmiraclejr]

I've been lurking here for 6 months but this is my first post. Sorry it took me having a problem to fix to motivate me to register but this wonderful board has answered all my questions in the past. I just now am starting to feel comfortable enough with the HTPC realm to believe I might be of benefit to others.

Anyway, my problem is that I bought a BFG 7600GT video card to add to my current computer (converted to an HTPC) to get smooth playback of 1080i OTA recordings. Playback is over component outputs to a 65" Mits RPTV with no DVI inputs. Overlay plays back smooth (if a little red at times) but VMR9 is choppy, stutters, etc. Does not matter if i use FSE or not. I have now rebuilt the entire machine with a clean install of XP Home, SageTV, hardware drivers, and Nvidia drivers/decoder, and I still have the problems of choppy VMR9 playback (not terrible but enough to be very noticeable and annoying).

I think I have performed all the recommendations that turned up on my searches of this forum like changing audio renders/decoders, FSE or not, turning off SageTV service, no anti-virus, etc, etc, but nothing seems to help. I feel like I am just missing a little checked box or other little trick and I'll have it but cannot for the life of me get it right. I even think I may have a bad card but like I said overlay seems to work well.

I see others with just the 6150 integrated graphics and 6600GT cards doing 1080i and some stating even 1080p and I am jealous. The consensus from my research is that a 7600GT should have no problem with 1080i and no post processing.

Anyone have any suggestions. PLEASE?

Thanks for all the help in the past and future.

Edited for signature (P4 3.0Mhz, XP Home, 512MB ram, BFG 7600GT, Vbox USB 3560 tuner, USB-IRT, SageTV 5.0, Nvidia decoder 91.47)

[GTwannabe]

Are you using PureVideo or a different decoder?

[Bryann]

I have the same card but it also did it on my EVGA 7800GT and be it bad driver versions or purevideo versions, I could not get smooth playback when using purevideo in Sage. Worked fine in WMP, but not Sage.

I read all the threads I could and for whatever reason, when selecting it for video I got stutters. I finally switched to using Cyberlink's PowerDVD 7 decoders, which oddly enough use purevideo acceleration, and all was fine. I know a lot of people swear by purevideo decoders and have them running perfectly fine, but no matter what settings I used, it would stutter just the slightest bit. So if all else fails with everyone's suggestions, then download a powerdvd 7 trial, hack your Sage properties file to get the decoders to show up, and give them a shot.

[polen]

What versions of software are you using?

SageTV:
Nvidia Video Driver:
Nvidia PureVideo Decoder:
Java:
Windows Service Pack:
DirectX:

Have you installed any other DVD software and what?

Is Windows patched up all the way with WindowsUpdates?

-Polen

[polen]

When I first setup Purevideo, I noticed that is was picky as to what Audio decoder you used, most audio decoders caused stutter for me. NVDVD came with my BFG 6600GT, so I found it's audio decoder worked well with Purevideo. I have seen AC3 also play nice. Some people use ffdshow's audio decoder with Purevideo. I saw stutter with Intervideo and CyberLink's audio decoders with Purevideo as the video decoder.

What's your CPU %utilization. Is it peaking above 85%?

-Polen

[blade]

You should have plenty of power. I don't have HD, but I've downloaded a few 1080 ts clips to test my system with. My 6600GT with a XP 3200 can playback 23mbps clips smoothly and uses 30-40% cpu. I do have to overclock the card from 500 to 550 mhz though. If not I get 56 fps instead of the full 60 (video). I have no problems at the default speed with film (24 fps).

Make sure in your driver settings that you have AA turned off it will really kill your frame rate with HD. If you've tried everything else and no one can offer a solution you might try overclocking the card a little if the stuttering is very slight. It could give you the last little boost you need.

[lobosrul]

I highly doubt you need to overclock at all... the geek inside me is screaming.

Right now I have a more powerful PC than you, but I used to playback HD on an AMD 3000+ (Socked 754), and a 6600GT, on a 1920x1200 lcd monitor.

Make sure you have all your system drivers installed correctly. Also you might try the new nvidia graphic drivers beta (google for purevideo HD). Despite the name its a patch to the graphic driver, not purevideo.

And id be curious to know how much cpu time your using while playing back, more than 15% should clue you in that your not actualy using nvidia purevideo.

Also be sure AA, and AF are turned to OFF and not application controlled (just to be sure theyre really off).

[blade]

Originally Posted by lobosrul

Also be sure AA, and AF are turned to OFF and not application controlled (just to be sure theyre really off).

I have AF at 16x and quality at the highest setting with my 6600GT. I never saw any performance hit except with AA. Was expecting to see one, just never did.

[polen]

Originally Posted by blade

I have AF at 16x and quality at the highest setting with my 6600GT. I never saw any performance hit except with AA. Was expecting to see one, just never did.

16x

[dmiraclejr]

Thanks for all the quick replies. I got home at midnight last night and am at work now so I'll fill in the blanks from memory as best I can and get the rest tonight when I get home. I thought I had the signature working with my HTPC info but I see it wasn't.

Details of my setup from memory:

SageTV 5.0 (not sure of build yet)
Nvidia driver 91.47
Nvidia Purevideo decoder (not sure of build and no post processing)
Nvidia Audio decoder using SPDIF pass through
Java that comes with SageTV 5.0 install (maybe 5.0 update 6 sound right?)
Windows Home SP2 with updates
Direct X: can't remember at all (will check tonight)
No other DVD software installed except WMP9

My cpu peaks at about 50% but averages in the upper 30's to 40% when playing back 1080i with VMR9.

By the way, what does "AA" and "AF" stand for?
I may try the PowerDVD7 decoder as Bryann recommended to see if that helps but I would like to get it with the straight/HD patched Purevideo first.

Thanks again for all the help.

[blade]

Originally Posted by dmiraclejr

Java that comes with SageTV 5.0 install (maybe 5.0 update 6 sound right?)

If you're using that version you should go back to 1.4.12 because 1.5.xx has a handle leak. On my system I normally have 900-1100 and after a few seconds with 1.5.xx it was over 5000 and climbing like mad.

My cpu peaks at about 50% but averages in the upper 30's to 40% when playing back 1080i with VMR9.

That sounds perfectly normal to me. I believe our cpus are similar in power and I get 25-35% with peaks of around 50% with VMR9 and 1080i. I get this with both SD and HD content. Some people get lower, but I believe most are using more powerful processors.

By the way, what does "AA" and "AF" stand for?

Anti aliasing and ansiotropic filtering

[dmiraclejr]

Originally Posted by blade

If you're using that version you should go back to 1.4.12 because 1.5.xx has a handle leak. On my system I normally have 900-1100 and after a few seconds with 1.5.xx it was over 5000 and climbing like mad.

What is a handle leak? (simple version for a simple mind )
How do I go back to 1.4.12? I see a download on the java site for J2SE 1.4.2 but no .12?

Originally Posted by blade

That sounds perfectly normal to me. I believe our cpus are similar in power and I get 25-35% with peaks of around 50% with VMR9 and 1080i. I get this with both SD and HD content. Some people get lower, but I believe most are using more powerful processors.

Thanks for the confirmation.

Originally Posted by blade

Anti aliasing and ansiotropic filtering

Thanks for the info. Man this stuff can be complicated.

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by dmiraclejr

What is a handle leak? (simple version for a simple mind )
How do I go back to 1.4.12? I see a download on the java site for J2SE 1.4.2 but no .12?

There isnt a .12. The versioning goes like this: 1.4.2_11 or 1.4.2_12. 1.4.2_11 was the one that came bundled in all of my latest sage downloads, not real sure which one is at java's site.

Now if you installed Sage and it had 1.4.2 in it already, and then upgraded to 1.5 or 1.6 JRE, and didnt UNINSTALL the 1.4.2 version, then you only need to uninstall the later versions, and everything will fall back to the 1.4.2. Make sense? You can have multiple Java versions installed at once.

[blade]

Originally Posted by Kirby

There isnt a .12. The versioning goes like this: 1.4.2_11 or 1.4.2_12. 1.4.2_11 was the one that came bundled in all of my latest sage downloads, not real sure which one is at java's site.

Yeah I got mixed up on the numbering. I'm using 1.4.2_12 myself.

Here is a definition of a handle leak. In simple terms it eats up resources and can cause performance problems and crashes. That's about as much of it as I understand.

[rsagetv99]

This happens to me too, with an AMD 3400+ and an NVidia 6800GT. I'll be interested in seeing how you work this out.

I am using the PureVideo deocoder, and the NVidia audio decoder and I get some slight stuttering especially when the camera pans from left to right or up and down quickly.

[rsagetv99]

Originally Posted by Bryann

hack your Sage properties file to get the decoders to show up, and give them a shot.

Can you expand on this? I wanted to try the PowerDVD decoder since I cannot use the Nvidia beta driver on my 6600GT.

I installed the PowerDVD decoder software, but it is not showing as an option in Sage.

[Motofreak75]

Add in these lines to get PDVD7 to show up, also open up the dvd software and make sure you have " use hardware accel" and you'll see a difference. Also since your using Nvidia cards, make sure FSE is turned on or you will have a bad case of the studdering sydrome.

videoframe/additional_audio_filters=CyberLink Audio Decoder (PDVD7)
videoframe/additional_video_filters=CyberLink Video/SP Decoder (PDVD7)


also I use 92.91 drivers from nvidia's site with my 7600GS and plays 1080i with no problems.

[dmiraclejr]

Doing better tonight.... sitting down at the home computer at 11:30pm.

Filling in a few more of the blanks:

SageTV 5.0.1.89
Java 1.5.0_06
Nvidia Purevideo 04.02-223
DirectX "9.0 or better" (that is what it says)

I've got to get to bed but will definitely make time to try some more of your suggestions over the weekend. I'm anxious to get it going but we have 10 - eight year old boys coming for a birthday/slumber party tomorrow night and I want to try and salvage whatever WAF I have left! It's been a very very busy week!

[Kirby]

Not really related to your issues (I think), but you are going to want to change your java version at some point. 1.5.0_06 has the memory/handle leak. I would suggest getting 1.4.2_12. You can get it here: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html. You want to click the "Download J2SE JRE" link, and then accept the user agreement and download the first file listed (Windows offline installation, multi language). After installing it, you will want to remove 1.5.0_06 (via the uninstall software control panel applet).

Also, you might want to get up to Sage version 5.0.4.92 (latest released version) as I dont recall what all was changed/fixed between 5.0.1.89 and the current version. One thing to note, 5.0.4 comes bundled with Jave JRE 1.4.2_11 I believe. So keep an eye on this too, but 1.4.2_11 works well, so if you just want to remove 1.5.0_06 then upgrade Sage, it will install the new JRE as well.

As for Direct X version, someplace on these forums someone posted the direct link for the latest Direct X 9.0C 'offline' install (which just downloads the entire large file and you run it after downloading). Probably would be a good idea to search for that and download/install it, just to be sure.

[dmiraclejr]

I guess I may have lied last night when I said I needed to go to bed. I just had to try a couple of everyone's suggestions and told myself it would just take a minute. Well I ended up going to bed at 1:15am but I (I should say we) achieved an about 4 minute or so clip of stutter free, tear free, beautiful video. I then went to bed a happy but tired man. Here is how it went.

I first turned off the AA and AF in the Nvidia drivers, which had no effect.

I then downloaded the recommended Java build but am not sure the computer was actually using it. I did not remove the 1.5 version but disabled it in the Java control panel and enabled the 1.4.2_12 build. I think it took but I am not sure. Anyway this had no effect either.

Finally I downloaded and installed the beta Nvidia Purevideo HD decoder as recommended and tried that. Well it was SMOOTH with the VMR9 rendering but it had quite a bit of what I think most here are calling "tearing". The tearing was much better to take than the stuttering but I had planned on coming back to this thread this morning to talk about my tearing issue.

Then I noticed one last thing I wanted to try (really, one last thing.... no really this time ) I saw that the statue in the opening segment of CSI Miami's in Brazil premiere had jagged edges much of the time. Through researching what AA and AF were as recommended above in this thread, I said to myself "Hey that is kind of what either AA or AF fix and I turned them both off a little while ago.... maybe I should turn them back on and see if it takes care of the jagged edges of the statue." I did and not only where the jagged edges gone, not only did it play smooth in VMR9, but the tearing was gone to. It played perfect for the whole 4 minute or so segment which had the most panning scenery of any segment I have seen. Now I really had to go to bed so I took the 4 minute perfect VMR9 clip and went to bed hoping the stars would stay aligned just right so that I could gaze upon this new found VMR9 perfect goodness again. That's where the cautious optimism comes in.

So a quick summary of what I changed to get smooth playback at 1080i in VMR9 is:

Reverted back to Java 1.4.2_12 build from 1.5.6
Installed Purevideo HD beta driver 92.91
Left AA and AF on (application controlled)

Personally I think it was the Purevideo HD beta driver that did the trick for me but am not positively sure. Could have been a combination but I'm not sure. I will continue to test this configuration over the next few days and let you all know if "the stars stay aligned".

It shouldn't be this hard to figure this stuff out. I'm definitely a HTPC fan/obsessive compulsive and this has just about brought me to the point of going back to Tivo.

Thanks again for all the help. I truly appreciate it and hope to pass it on in the future.