Poor performance With 1080p x264/H.264 encoded content

[pirivan]

TV-Server Version: N/A Don't Use
MediaPortal Version: 0.2.3.0
MediaPortal Skin: Monochrome
Windows Version: XP SP2
CPU Type: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Orleans 2.2GHz 512KB L2 Cache
HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000KS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB
Memory: OCZ S.O.E 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Motherboard: MSI K9N Platinum AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 Ultra MCP
Motherboard Chipset: MSI nForce 570 Ultra MCP
Motherboard Bios: AMI 2.59
Video Card: EVGA 7900GT
Video Card Driver: 163.75
Sound Card: Onboard Realtek ALC883
Sound Card AC3:
Sound Card Driver: 5.10.0.5296
1. TV Card:
1. TV Card Type:
1. TV Card Driver:
2. TV Card:
2. TV Card Type:
2. TV Card Driver:
3. TV Card:
3. TV Card Type:
3. TV Card Driver:
4. TV Card:
4. TV Card Type:
4. TV Card Driver:
MPEG2 Video Codec: MPV Decoder Filter
MPEG2 Audio Codec: ffdshow audio decoder
Satelite/CableTV Provider:
HTPC Case: Silverstone LC20-B
Cooling:
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12-430 ATX12V 430W
Remote:
TV: Sony Trinitron 27" SDTV
TV - HTPC Connection: S-Video

Hi all,

As you may have guessed I’m having some serious playback issues with HD 1080p content that is x264/H.264 encoded. The file types in question that I am having issue tend to have about the same following properties:

Container: .mkv
Encoder: x264
Audio Codec: DTS
Audio Bitrate: 1.5mbps
Resolution: 1920x816 or 1920x1040
Bitrate: On one of the files it is 9002kbps
Framerate: On one of the files it is 23.976

My HTPC system specs are:

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Orleans 2.2GHz 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 62W Single-Core Processor link here
RAM: OCZ S.O.E 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory link here
Hard drive: Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000KS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive x2 link here
PSU: SeaSonic S12-430 ATX12V 430W Power Supply link here
Motherboard: MSI K9N Platinum AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 Ultra MCP link here
Video Card: EVGA 7900 GT
Display: Regular SDTV using S-Video output running at 1024x768

Basically the issue is that this HD content files ‘skip’ (IE freeze and for a while then sluggishly try to snap back to the video display), the audio is out of sync with the slow moving picture and often you see sort of a distorted picture as the camera pans and it ‘freezes’ for a bit before trying to catch up. The CPU usage based on taskmgr jumps all over the place while this is happening.

I have experienced this issue on my HTPC both playing the file from media portal and attempting to play it with the latest stable release of VLC. However, I was able to play the file back smoothly from my newer PC on VLC (a quad core Q6600, 4GB ram with an 8800GTS running Vista Ultimate x64) even over the network (the file in question is on an eSata drive enclosure directly connected to the HTPC). So I believe that this might be a codec issue or simply a performance issue with the under-powered HTPC I built about a year ago.

Thus far my codec configuration within media portal and ffdshow should be exactly as laid out in the codec guide by goose (I followed every single instruction) codec guide. I even enabled the quality enhancements he suggested during the guide to increase quality of xvid files by using sharpen/xsharpen/process whole image within ffdshow, changing raw to ‘all supported’ in ffdshow and by enabling antriscopic filtering for VMR9 rendering within media portal, which so far HAD worked fine for all files, even 720p content without any stuttering. I did try both disabling all of these enhancements as well as creating a profile within ffdshow for x264/H.264 encoded files with quality enhancements disabled but I still saw performance issues.

Would it help if I was using a different ffdshow tryout? The one I chose to install was ffdshow_beta4a_rev1723_20071224_clsid.exe from SourceForge.net: Files. Would I get performance enhancements if I tried ffdshow_rev1882_20080304_clsid_x64.exe or ffdshow_rev1370_20070722_x64.exe as I have a AMD 64-bit capable CPU (I am not running XP x64). Or based on my CPU is there another one of these versions from the ffdshow tryouts that would be worth a try? The codec guide suggested selecting a filter package here that benefits from specific instruction sets, I am just not sure which to choose to get the best performance.

Should I be able to playback these files with my system specs or do I need either A) Different version or configuration of ffdshow/mediaportal? B) CPU upgrade C) Core AVC? Any help/suggestions/guidance would be greatly appreciated. Obviously, ideally it would be nice to continue with my current software and hardware setup and tweak it for performance without having to spend some money but I’m open to suggestions.

I have attached a zip of the files in my log directory. Please let me know if any additional information is necessary. I've read all the forum posts that I could find that sounded applicable by searching but nothing has seemed to really increase performance. I truly appreciate any help.

Thanks,

-Pirivan-

[milanp]

Your CPU is not fast enough to decode the 1080p content.
There are two solutions:
1. Software decoding -Upgrade the CPU to AM2 - dualcore as fastest as you can
I am capable of decoding 1080p h264 MKV Files on an dualcore AMD 4600+
2. Hardware decoding - upgrade the video card to some of the 3xxx ATI video cards. There are very possitive responses about the cheapest ATI 3450 and h264 decoding on AVS Forum. It seems that hardware decoding in the Nvidia drivers /or hardware has never worked correctly.
In theory with ATI 3xxx you should be able to decode 1080 on a single core sempron......

[pirivan]

I really appreciate the advice. On your advice I purchased a AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Brisbane 2.7GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor

5200+ was the newest CPU my motherboard had listed as supporting; I hope it is sufficient. Given the choice I might have gone with a faster 6,000 series AMD CPU but I didn't want to risk it as it wasn't listed as supported.

I considered going with a 3xxx series ATI card as it does sound like they do some tremendous offloading for h264 content (though if it is encoded in a non-standard way you are out of luck again and are depending on the CPU for decoding) but I do like the GPU I have now. I'm hoping the CPU upgrade will resolve the issue but if it doesn't I'll look at the 3xxx ATI series.

Also as a side note I did try using Core AVC and while that did improve playback so that the video actually moves along without stuttering the audio and video were out of sync and the CPU was pegged at 100% the whole time during playback; doesn't look like that is a good solution for my current hardware either.

*Update*

On further examination of the MSI website my AM2 K9N Platinum motherboard DOES support newer CPU's according to this list:

MSI -- MICRO-STAR INT'L CO., LTD.

So I canceled my old order, updated my BIOS and ordered a AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Windsor 3.2GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM2 125W Dual-Core Processor instead. It should be much more powerful!

Anyhow I really appreciate the response!

[luke16]

Originally Posted by milanp

Your CPU is not fast enough to decode the 1080p content.
There are two solutions:
1. Software decoding -Upgrade the CPU to AM2 - dualcore as fastest as you can
I am capable of decoding 1080p h264 MKV Files on an dualcore AMD 4600+
2. Hardware decoding - upgrade the video card to some of the 3xxx ATI video cards. There are very possitive responses about the cheapest ATI 3450 and h264 decoding on AVS Forum. It seems that hardware decoding in the Nvidia drivers /or hardware has never worked correctly.
In theory with ATI 3xxx you should be able to decode 1080 on a single core sempron......

I am having the same problems as orig poster was having, but I have a AM2 4000+ cpu. When playing the video, task manager tells me that I am using about 40% of my cpu, which tells me that the cpu's not the problem. Could the problem be in my video card? I have a 7300gt. I can't really think of where else the problem would be. I tried a variety of codec packs, and am using cccp right now.

[pirivan]

Hi Luke16, it sounds like Milanp is FAR more of an expert, however I can tell you this.

A) I upgraded the CPU and now I can playback 180p content without any issues (however mine WAS pegged at 100% during playback)
B) I highly doubt that it is your video card. As I learned basically nvidia cards do NOT help with the playback of h624/x264 encoded content AT ALL (the exception being the 8600 series I believe). So your video card should not be helping (at ALL) or hindering the playback. If you want a video card that does help get an ATI 3000 series (if you do be aware that it might not help on ALL 1080p files, if they are encoded in a way the 3000 series software doesn't understand the playback won't be assisted by the video card).
C) The BEST codec for 1080p content is Core AVC. Unfortunately it is a 'pay for' codec but you will get a lot better performance out of it than out of ffdshow for 1080p content. However, in my case while it improved performance on my PC the CPU was still underpowered so I had to upgrade it anyhow. So your mileage may vary even using the Core AVC.

Those are just my 2 cents based on all the research I did trying to resolve my problem. In the end, throwing money at it resolved my problem.

[captin]

Your CPU is not fast enough to decode the 1080p content.

I dont agree.

I too have the AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Orleans 2.2GHz 512KB, with 2gb pc5700 ddr2 memory and an nvidia 8600 gts graphics card, on an old gigabyte ga-m55 AM2 motherboard.

I have no problems playing full 1080p videos out to my samsung full HD tv @ 1920 x 1080 res, using the graphic cards HDMI socket, when I use the media centre built into Vista home Premium.

I do have playback problems using media portal to play the same video files.

Whats weird is that windows media player has the same problem as media portal, the video plays fine but the audio is well out of sync.

[aureliusm]

I experienced very similar symptoms as described in first post - even with 720p video.
I am using ffdshow for both video and audio
It turned out that if I was trying to pass DTS directly to my amplifier by setting S/PDIF as decoder on codec list in ffdshow audio configuration the problems appeared.
If I am using libdts the things work mostly fine - but my amplifier recognizes the signal only as dolby-digital

[luke16]

I switched to coreAVC, which solved my problems and tells me that the efficiency of the codec is also partly responsible for bad framerates. It also explains why the HD content works in some media players, but not others. I still believe that the graphics card is also partly responsible for the video playing process, as from what I've learned about graphics cards and drivers from linux. Maybe one of the things that coreAVC does is offload some of the cpu load onto the gpu?
So whatever codec ffdshow is using for hd content such as mkv files just isn't efficient.

[pirivan]

Originally Posted by captin

I dont agree.

I too have the AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Orleans 2.2GHz 512KB, with 2gb pc5700 ddr2 memory and an nvidia 8600 gts graphics card, on an old gigabyte ga-m55 AM2 motherboard.

I have no problems playing full 1080p videos out to my samsung full HD tv @ 1920 x 1080 res, using the graphic cards HDMI socket, when I use the media centre built into Vista home Premium.

I do have playback problems using media portal to play the same video files.

Whats weird is that windows media player has the same problem as media portal, the video plays fine but the audio is well out of sync.

Just in an effort not to spread any misinformation I think it should be noted that, if I understand correctly, the reason why you do NOT have any problems with playing back 1080p content is because you have an Nvidia 8600GTS. As I noted above, almost ALL NVIDIA GPU's do not properly help the CPU with x264 content the EXCEPTION being the 8000 series and according to my reading SPECIFICALLY the 8600. So, if I understand correctly if you had say a 7000 series graphics card (as I do) that CPU would NOT be powerful enough to playback the content and it would be an issue (in which case you could upgrade the GPU or CPU).

I don't mean to complicate things further, I just want to make sure people who read this thread in the future and have similar issues understand what is affecting their poor performance and what they can do to resolve it.

[captin]

Originally Posted by pirivan

Just in an effort not to spread any misinformation I think it should be noted that, if I understand correctly, the reason why you do NOT have any problems with playing back 1080p content is because you have an Nvidia 8600GTS. As I noted above, almost ALL NVIDIA GPU's do not properly help the CPU with x264 content the EXCEPTION being the 8000 series and according to my reading SPECIFICALLY the 8600. So, if I understand correctly if you had say a 7000 series graphics card (as I do) that CPU would NOT be powerful enough to playback the content and it would be an issue (in which case you could upgrade the GPU or CPU).

I don't mean to complicate things further, I just want to make sure people who read this thread in the future and have similar issues understand what is affecting their poor performance and what they can do to resolve it.

Ah I see. I still need to find a way to make it work in media portal it's pain having to load MCE to play 1080 stuff and back to media portal to play everything else.