NVidia Tweaks For Smooth Playback

[valerio]

After the upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium final version, I noticed that if many times the GUI highlight transitions were not as smooth as before and the playback was kind of jerky as well.

After searching the Web for some clue, I came across some game users experiencing the same issues with some NVidia video cards (I have a GE Force 9800GT). The solution is to apply some tweaks in the NVIdia control panel:

3D Settings
Max Pre-Rendered Frames = 0
Mulit-Display/Mix GPU Acceleration = Sigle Display Performance Mode
Texture Filtering Quality = High Performance
Antialiasing Mode = Off

This did it for me.

Valerio

[Thomas Wischgol]

There are a few more settings you can tweak with depending on how fast your graphics card is:
Anisotropic filtering = off
vertical sync (vsync) = force-on (gets rid of tearing, a must if you ask me)

Thomas

[Polypro]

This has always been an area that never gets discussed. Do driver settings matter and can they be tweaked for HTPC applications. Other than IVTC and deinterlacing options, I've never messed with the driver other than setting "Let 3D Application Decide".

P

[valerio]

Thank Thomas Wischgol I checked the other settings and I had Anisotropic filtering already off and now I set vertical sync to force-on.

[Thomas Wischgol]

Originally Posted by Polypro

This has always been an area that never gets discussed. Do driver settings matter and can they be tweaked for HTPC applications. Other than IVTC and deinterlacing options, I've never messed with the driver other than setting "Let 3D Application Decide".

P

Tweaking these settings becomes important if you use a slower graphics card. Back when I was using my server to also watch TV, which only had an Nvidia 7600 GS, I had to disable anisotropic filtering and antialiasing to get smooth playback. If your graphics card is plenty fast it may not matter that much. However, I noticed that when I changed to a Vista-based SageClient that I definitely had to change v-sync to force-on because otherwise I would get tearing issues.

Thomas

[GollyJer]

Originally Posted by valerio

After the upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium final version, I noticed that if many times the GUI highlight transitions were not as smooth as before...

This is interesting. What do you mean by GUI highlight transitions? Do you mean navigating from screen to screen and item to item within the UI? I don't have any problem with playback jerkiness and don't really think the UI it's bad. But, it could always be better. Have you guys read about any ATI settings that might speed up those transitions?

Thanks.

[jptheripper]

Just gave these a try. I am amazed that i get freezing with a 1gb 9600gt and a 2.6ghz dual core, but so is life. Hopefully these will help.

[GollyJer]

Originally Posted by jptheripper

Just gave these a try. I am amazed that i get freezing with a 1gb 9600gt and a 2.6ghz dual core, but so is life. Hopefully these will help.

There's no way you should have stuttering. I used an 8600GT for two years without issue. There's a configuration that will work. You just have to find it.

[jptheripper]

I know its a config issue, i just cant find it. Very frustrating. Almost buy an hd300 frustrating.

[Malfunction]

Originally Posted by valerio

After the upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium final version, I noticed that if many times the GUI highlight transitions were not as smooth as before and the playback was kind of jerky as well.

After searching the Web for some clue, I came across some game users experiencing the same issues with some NVidia video cards (I have a GE Force 9800GT). The solution is to apply some tweaks in the NVIdia control panel:

3D Settings
Max Pre-Rendered Frames = 0
Mulit-Display/Mix GPU Acceleration = Sigle Display Performance Mode
Texture Filtering Quality = High Performance
Antialiasing Mode = Off

This did it for me.

Valerio

I can't find a way to set max pre-rendered frames to 0. Now it's 1,2,3,4 or let the software decide. :P

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by Malfunction

I can't find a way to set max pre-rendered frames to 0. Now it's 1,2,3,4 or let the software decide. :P

Wow... You are aware that you're responding to a thread which occurred before SageTV was bought by Google, back when this place was hopping... right? It's likely many in this thread ditched SageTV like 5+ years ago...

[Malfunction]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

Wow... You are aware that you're responding to a thread which occurred before SageTV was bought by Google, back when this place was hopping... right? It's likely many in this thread ditched SageTV like 5+ years ago...

True. I posted about this issue in Windows 64 bit Installer news. I was a little surprised nobody rebuffed me for that. It is still the last post in there! I was able to get the 64-bit version working passably by changing back to my old HIS 6570 Silent card and using VMR9 and Full Screen Exclusive mode. That 6570 isn't half as good as the EVGA GT 1030SC, but the driver isn't giving me as much grief. I'm also missing EVR in the 64-bit version.