EVR Stutter - again.. but windows media centre is smooth (1 Viewer)

[spiderwheels]

MediaPortal Version: 1.1.3
MediaPortal Skin:
Windows Version: Win 7 32-bit
CPU Type: AMD x2 250
HDD:
Memory: 4GB
Motherboard: Gigabyte thingy
Video Card: ATI 5670
Video Card Driver: 11.8
Sound Card: on-board SPDIF
Sound Card AC3:
Sound Card Driver:

Sorry for bringing the subject up again but the existing EVR stutter topics don't seem to solve my problem. There is a long thread on multiple monitor refresh rates but I only have a single monitor and it's refresh rate is correct (50Hz).

If I use Windows Media Centre I have lovely smooth TV but not so in media portal.

The most noticeable stutter is on ITV1 HD that stutters ever couple of seconds. It is the only HD channel I get now they've switched BBC to DVB-S2. But SD channels stutter too in fast moving scenes. It grates!

I have tried powerDVD codecs and Microsoft ones.

There was hope when I switched to VMR9. It seemed smooth on SD channels but every now and then there would be a full screen corruption. When I tried ITV HD in VMR9 the corruption is present all the time and I can see that it appears to be reversing the interlace fields and looks a complete mess. (I am using vector adaptive - and it works fine in WMC).

I was reading about EVR at work when I was having some trouble with WPF animations not running smoothly. It does seem to get a slating by various developers. I would guess Windows Media Centre doesn't use it either as Media Centre isn't visible over ultraVNC when it's in full screen whereas Media Portal is.

So it comes down to:
Can someone help me get EVR to run smoothly?
- or -
Can someone help me get VMR9 to work properly under Windows 7.

 

[spiderwheels]

Does everyone else has perfectly smooth video on EVR?

 

[miroslav22]

Can you post logs, it might help us see any potential problems

I'd downgrade you AMD driver to 11.4 as well. Video acceleration is broken (again ) in every version after this. (11.8 isn't too bad but still gives corruption occasionally)

 

[spiderwheels]

Can you post logs, it might help us see any potential problems

I'd downgrade you AMD driver to 11.4 as well. Video acceleration is broken (again ) in every version after this. (11.8 isn't too bad but still gives corruption occasionally)

What log level would be helpful? Debug?

I only just upgraded the AMD driver to 11.8 from 10.8. I was having these problems with 10.8 and tried the driver upgrade to see if it would help. I hadn't noticed any difference in the stuttering (EVR) or corruption (VMR9) .

I will drop down to 11.4 anyway if it's more suitable for video!

Thanks

 

[miroslav22]

What log level would be helpful? Debug?

Yea please

I only just upgraded the AMD driver to 11.8 from 10.8. I was having these problems with 10.8 and tried the driver upgrade to see if it would help. I hadn't noticed any difference in the stuttering (EVR) or corruption (VMR9) .

I will drop down to 11.4 anyway if it's more suitable for video!

Thanks

There were some dodgy versions of 10.x as well for video acceleration (can't remember exactly which). It's certainly worth trying 11.4 to see if it helps

 

[miroslav22]

Have you tried this as well?

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/general-development-no-feature-request-here-48/mp1-evr-presenter-dshowhelper-community-development-81148/

Edit:

Also this if you're on 1.1.3 (if the problem is hard drive related):

https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/submit-code-patches-mediaportal-tv-server-etc-325/fix-stuttering-corrupted-streaming-live-tv-91214/



Can make a big difference

 

[spiderwheels]

Thanks for those links miroslav. I haven't tried them yet as I have just been collecting logs.

I did try AMD drivers 11.4 but no noticeable improvement

I took these logs while watching ITV HD 1440x1080. I checked CPU and GPU usage and CPU is at 33% ish while the GPU is at 25%. The CPU was jumping between 2MHz and 3Mhz occasionally (this is maximum).

I will try those links now.

 

[spiderwheels]

I tried dshowhelper and found that v0078_part_DWM has improved it by a subjective 50% - so it's heading in the right direction - 0055e didn't help at all.

When I press shift+1 and watch the stats I can still see spikes in the graph. Before I applied the patch these would almost certainly cause a frame drop (or two). Now with the patch I still have the spikes but it's less likely to drop a frame - and so doesn't stutter.

I should just say I've not tried turning on the sound yet and checking lip-sync..


Regarding the HDD patch, what should I apply to a 1.1.3 install? The thread seems to be about 1.1.2 and 1.2.0.

 

[miroslav22]

The versions for 1.1.2 will work fine for 1.1.3

 

[spiderwheels]

The download appears to contain a TvServer.exe - surely that would be 1.1.2? (are they the same for 1.1.2 and 1.1.3)

Anyway, I'm not sure I need to install it now as since I applied the DWM patch it really seems much better

I was concerned about the 11,000 IO operations you mentioned in the other thread so I fired up Perfmon and added a counter for Logical Disk Writes/Sec and pointed it to my timeshift partition (I have a dedicated partition for timeshifting - so it never gets fragmented).. and it shows a whopping 2 writes/sec on average! (and about 1MB / sec)

It also shows zero reads / sec so I'm guessing it's being read back straight from the disk cache.

But this a single seat install and I'm not streaming to any other clients.

Edit: of course if I rewind the timeshift buffer back to the start it does start reading from the disk but still only around 10 read operations a second.