New video card problem

[BigSwifty]

Please be nice...I know enough to get myself into trouble but certainly not as much as most of the aficianados here.

I was running the card in my current Server/client signature to an older 1080p 47" tv and Sage ran perfectly. We recently upgraded to a 65" UHD and it seemed the ATI 5570 could not push enough for the new monitor. I replaced it with a GTX1060 (probably overkill) with 6gb and Sage PQ is currently horrible. Lots of stuttering. I haven't dove too deeply into the settings, but made a few changes with no improvement. We watch mostly R5000-HD captured programs and ripped movies. The system is getting long in the tooth; could it be it's time for a new system build? I thought the card would be able to handle most of the heavy lifting.

Help me Obi Wan.

[jchiso]

It's not the video card; as you suspected, the GTX 1060 is plenty for decoding. You might try re-installing your decoders and changing decoder filter selections in Sage.

Also, check to see if you have problems playing files with other video playback apps, like Kodi or MPC-HC, if you have them installed ...

[RedR]

I really doubt you need to change anything in SageTV to fix this..

Check your desktop resolution. Should be set to what the monitor is. Also make sure you goto nVidia's site and download the current drivers for your GeForce.

[BigSwifty]

Thank you both for your quick responses.

I will reload decoders and test some files outside of Sage when I get home later.

I am set to the native resolution and loaded the newest drivers from online when I swapped out the boards.

[BigSwifty]

Originally Posted by jchiso

You might try re-installing your decoders and changing decoder filter selections in Sage. ...

Tried this but no change.

Originally Posted by jchiso

Also, check to see if you have problems playing files with other video playback apps, like Kodi or MPC-HC, if you have them installed ...

The files do look better in MPC-HC. I installed Kodi having never tried it before. The videos play quite nice in Kodi. I'm also impressed how fast the Kodi interface responds. My Sage install seems much slower on the new monitor and card (OS and programs on SSD). I'm wondering if this is purely a software issue. Any other suggestions?

[BigSwifty]

Update:
New recordings play nice in MPC except the AV is not in synch. No video jerkiness. In WMP there is stutter. Stutter in Sage as well.

Any suggestions? Agian, before I changed monitors and the video card, Sage was rock solid. Frustrating.

[jchiso]

Check the nVidia Control Panel settings for resolution (it should default to a 4K setting, as native for your TV), but also check or experiment with other parameters. There are settings for 3D (that you can probably disable or change, if you are not gaming on this system), as well as settings for refresh rate and color depth.

I assume you are using an HDMI connection for this. Make sure it's a fully-capable (4K, 60Hz) port, with full-spec cables. I know some of this sounds rather silly, but you have understand that TV manufacturers don't really think of people using them as PC monitors, so a good deal of end-user tweaking is usually required ...

[Tiki]

Out of curiosity, if this primarily for Sage, why not leave the video card set for 1080p and let the TV upscale to UHD? I’m guessing all your Sage recordings are 1080p or less anyway. If nothing else you could try it (with either the new or old video card) and see if it makes a difference with your stuttering/ poor PQ.

[KryptoNyte]

A few things to check in the nVidia control panel;

Find settings for power management and make sure they are forced to maximum performance. This may only affect gaming performance, but worth forcing anyways. Not sure if the video card in device manager still has a checkbox for powering the device down in addition.

Make sure your refresh rate is set to 60hz, assuming your 4k TV can handle 60hz at its native resolution (worth checking).

Look for a "Video" section(s) in the control panel and search through those settings to see if the driver is trying to perform any post-processing on videos played that might be causing stutter.

[BigSwifty]

Originally Posted by jchiso

Check the nVidia Control Panel settings for resolution (it should default to a 4K setting, as native for your TV), but also check or experiment with other parameters. There are settings for 3D (that you can probably disable or change, if you are not gaming on this system), as well as settings for refresh rate and color depth.

I assume you are using an HDMI connection for this. Make sure it's a fully-capable (4K, 60Hz) port, with full-spec cables. I know some of this sounds rather silly, but you have understand that TV manufacturers don't really think of people using them as PC monitors, so a good deal of end-user tweaking is usually required ...

* Thank you. It is set for 4K. I did experiment with other settings to no avail.
* Cable is up to spec.

Originally Posted by Tiki

Out of curiosity, if this primarily for Sage, why not leave the video card set for 1080p and let the TV upscale to UHD? I’m guessing all your Sage recordings are 1080p or less anyway. If nothing else you could try it (with either the new or old video card) and see if it makes a difference with your stuttering/ poor PQ.

* When I tried this (new video card), the screen did not look good. Not very clear and no real change in Sage performance. Perhaps I should put the old card back in and try? Shouldn't the monitor have upscaled with the old card?
This is the monitor:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/reviews...oku-tv/6204551

Originally Posted by KryptoNyte

A few things to check in the nVidia control panel;

Find settings for power management and make sure they are forced to maximum performance. This may only affect gaming performance, but worth forcing anyways. Not sure if the video card in device manager still has a checkbox for powering the device down in addition.

Make sure your refresh rate is set to 60hz, assuming your 4k TV can handle 60hz at its native resolution (worth checking).

Look for a "Video" section(s) in the control panel and search through those settings to see if the driver is trying to perform any post-processing on videos played that might be causing stutter.

* Power management set to maximum.
* No checkbox for video card power options.
* Refresh rate set to 60hz.
* I don't have a "video" option in control panel (Windows7).

I appreciate all the help. I really didn't expect this monkey wrench when upgrading the monitor and card. It stings because watching the direct Netflix stream on the monitor is breathtakingly vivid without stutter.

Could the CPU not have enough horsepower? When I monitor the performance graph in TaskManager, some of the cores spike to ~60% but "CPU usage" maxes @ ~30%.

[jchiso]

Originally Posted by BigSwifty

... I really didn't expect this monkey wrench when upgrading the monitor and card. It stings because watching the direct Netflix stream on the monitor is breathtakingly vivid without stutter.

Could the CPU not have enough horsepower? When I monitor the performance graph in TaskManager, some of the cores spike to ~60% but "CPU usage" maxes @ ~30%.

When you say "direct Netflix stream" I assume you mean a Smart TV app, and not from the PC. If so, that is not surprising, since it's bypassing the HDMI processor. It seems like your problems are related to that connection and something with the PC's configuration.

If you display system info on the TV while playing content from the PC (Sage or a functioning app) does the TV display the stream as "2160p" at 60Hz, or similar (3840x2160, or thereabouts)?

That video card can produce flawless high-res output with a meager CPU. Any Pascal-equipped card is more than up to the task of hardware decoding for 4K (and above) streams at 60Hz.

One other question (for which I do not have enough insight) concerns your PC's power supply and connectors. Does the video card require a separate power connector, and/or is your power supply rated as being adequate for the card?

[BigSwifty]

Originally Posted by jchiso

When you say "direct Netflix stream" I assume you mean a Smart TV app, and not from the PC. If so, that is not surprising, since it's bypassing the HDMI processor. It seems like your problems are related to that connection and something with the PC's configuration.

If you display system info on the TV while playing content from the PC (Sage or a functioning app) does the TV display the stream as "2160p" at 60Hz, or similar (3840x2160, or thereabouts)?

That video card can produce flawless high-res output with a meager CPU. Any Pascal-equipped card is more than up to the task of hardware decoding for 4K (and above) streams at 60Hz.

One other question (for which I do not have enough insight) concerns your PC's power supply and connectors. Does the video card require a separate power connector, and/or is your power supply rated as being adequate for the card?

Thank you for your help.

Yes. The stream is 2160p @ 60hz. Power supply is adequate and the separate connector is plugged in.

I did some tweaks within sage. I increased the recording quality to the highest available. That definitely made a difference; older recordings (forgot what bitrate I changed from) are noteabley inferior. Even with the change, something is still not right. High motion (football, skiing) videos are still stuttery when watched at full screen resolution. Interestingly, when the recorded videos are played in a smaller sage window, they are much clearer with no visible stutter.

Imported movies play nicely without stutter. That would pretty much exclude the cable right?

[KryptoNyte]

Does the TV itself have some post-processing settings, or various modes that you can try? What brand and model of TV is it?

[BigSwifty]

Thank you. This is the TV:
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/reviews...oku-tv/6204551
No significant difference with the minimal other modes (sports, theater, etc) and no options for post processor settings.

[KryptoNyte]

Does the TV have a setting in it like ... PC input, or Game System, or something like that. I see it has lots of post-processing features, which probably need to be disabled for PC input, and that is often achieved by selecting a specific input setting.

[BigSwifty]

I'll take a look at the options again.

I am really starting to be confused if this is a HW or SW issue though.

I just played a recorded football game in Sage, Kodi, MPC and WMP. MPC, WMP and Sage all had stutter and weren't very crisp. Kodi was clear and stutter-free. How is Kodi handling the file?

[BigSwifty]

I had already disabled the gaming options in the TV's settings. I have the mode on "sports". Switching modes, "theater", etc didn't appreciably change the PQ.

[UgaData]

What codec are you using? I am presuming you are still running Win7, I am also presuming you are using the built in Microsoft codec.

Maybe switching to LAV Filters would help. I believe there are setting for using the cuda cores in an N'vida card.

edit: image of LAV setting for N'vida cuda.

[BigSwifty]

For mpg, I have tried LAV, Microsoft and NVIDIA. No real change. I don't have much experience with Graphedit...I just ran it. It didn't change when I changed options in sage.

[UgaData]

OK, I was wrong, it appears, according the image of your graph, you are using CoreAVC as your codec. Do you have SageTV configured to use CoreAVC?

The other options would be to redo your graph for what ever codec you have in SageTV i.e. If you configure SageTV to use LAV filters your graph should also use those filters(codecs).

I admit I don't have, and never had, an R5000 for recording. I did used to use firewire capture and tuning, but it has been several years since I last used it and longer since I configured it. One of the steps to using firewire tuning was to create the graph in graphedit. I presume this is similar for the R5000?