Integration of MPC-HC subtitle's engine (2 Viewers)

[1stdead]

At first I 'd like to say thanks for this solution
It has made it possible for me to have subs while watching a movie with the PowerDVD 9-codec.

But I still have a question cause I think hardware acceleration is still not working. When viewing a movie-file I get the following warning in the Windows eventviewer:

OUTOFMEMORY. HW video acceleration creation failed

It is a ati2mtag-warning that comes right after the standard ati2mtag-message that says "UVD information"

I checked my CPU-load during playback and that is about 25%. The movie in this case was a 720p mkv-file. Am I wrong if I think this should be lower when the acceleration is working? I compared it with the load when playing a regular mpeg2-file, which is 8%.

Could anybody tell my in which direction I should look for the solution? I attached a Graphedit-jpeg.


TV-Server Version: 1.0.2.0
MediaPortal Version: 1.0.2.0
MediaPortal Skin: Xface 1.8/Mediastream
Windows Version: XP SP3
CPU Type: AMD Athlon 4050e 2.1 GHz
HDD: WDC WD2500AAJS 250GB
Memory: 2x Corsair DDR2 2048MB PC-667/PC-5300
Motherboard: Asus M3A78-HEMH HDMI
Video Card: onboard
Video Card Driver: ATI Catalyst 8.11
MPEG2 Video Codec: PowerDVD7
MPEG2 Audio Codec: ffdshow rev 1972
h.264 Video Codec: PowerDVD9

I'm not sure, but I think you should use catalyst >9.3 for hardwareac

 

[tourettes]

I'm not sure, but I think you should use catalyst >9.3 for hardwareac

Also make sure that you have set up enough video RAM in the BIOS as you are using a onboard video adapter.

 

[xppx]

It is a ati2mtag-warning that comes right after the standard ati2mtag-message that says "UVD information"

I checked my CPU-load during playback and that is about 25%. The movie in this case was a 720p mkv-file. Am I wrong if I think this should be lower when the acceleration is working? I compared it with the load when playing a regular mpeg2-file, which is 8%.

If I look at your message, I assume that your onboard video card is ATI.
The solution I presented works with CUDA, which is not supported by ATI. On the other hand, there is no much difference with DXVA in HW acceleration.
For ATI the previous suggestions are indeed valid. PowerDVD checks for HDCP compliance. PowerDVD also decides what videocards and drivers are acceptable. Update to the latest Catalyst drivers to see if this resolves the problem.

What you equally could try, to pump the speed a bit up in case of MKV, is to replace the PowerDVD codec with a CoreAVC codec. This can be v1.8.5 (with DXVA) or v1.9.5, but in your case with CUDA disabled, for x264 coded movies.
In my configuration I use the PowerDVD Codec for the MPEG-2 rendering (DVD/Blu-Ray/HDDVD) and the CoreAVC for the H.264 rendering. THe CoreAVC is currently the best codec for that kind of rendering.

 

[Den70]

Tnx for the tips.

As far as Catalyst 9.3 is concerned: I assumed I could get HWA with 8.11 as well. I also read versions above 8.12 could give problems with my type of motherboard.

Video-RAM is set to auto in the BIOS and the 750MB I see when I startup Windows should be enough?

A question about CoreAVC: with my ATI-board I don't have the possibility of HWA in any version of CoreAVC?

 

[1stdead]

Tnx for the tips.

As far as Catalyst 9.3 is concerned: I assumed I could get HWA with 8.11 as well. I also read versions above 8.12 could give problems with my type of motherboard.

Video-RAM is set to auto in the BIOS and the 750MB I see when I startup Windows should be enough?

A question about CoreAVC: with my ATI-board I don't have the possibility of HWA in any version of CoreAVC?

I only got 512mb ram set in bios - not auto. And working fine

Nope only works for Nvdia.

 

[xppx]

A question about CoreAVC: with my ATI-board I don't have the possibility of HWA in any version of CoreAVC?

Nope, but the software rendering of CoreAVC outperforms the GPU hardware accelaration of some cards.

So it certainly is worth a try.

cfr: Tweakers.net on CoreAVC

The link is in dutch but it generally says: "CoreAVC has been programmed effeciently and is extremely fast, in some cases it outperforms comparable hardware-features.
And btw, I don't have any shares in the CoreAVC company

 

[thesystemera]

Hey just wanted to say thanks guys for this patch.. Beats upgrading to an ALPHA.. My system is almost 100% stable... and functional

 

[ziphnor]

Nope, but the software rendering of CoreAVC outperforms the GPU hardware accelaration of some cards.

I think that is a bit of an overstatement if you have a recent GPU and manage to get DXVA working. CoreAVC is however by far the most efficient software codec for h264. On my HTPC with an Intel X9100 (2x3.0 Ghz) "mobile" CPU i can play 1080p ripped directly from Bluray without stuttering, but the CPU usage is usually very high (40-60%), which is enough to drive the CPU fan to maddening speeds. If i use other codecs without DXVA the CPU usage can run as high as 90%!

The trick is of course to get DXVA working. I had huge problems with my Intel X4500MHD in Vista, and ended up using CoreAVC for a long time. As an additional issue, some DXVA implementations will only support h264 AVC profiles up to L4.1 (as used on Bluray), and will act weird on profile 5.1 (which is not uncommon in trailers and other files retrieved online).

However, I just installed Windows 7 recently and the built-in microsoft codec for h264 (yes they added one and it actually seem to work), provides DXVA support for my Intel X4500MHD GPU. Playing back in this manner only uses about 10% CPU for the BD rips, and i have seen it go down to 0% for playing back a 1080p mp4 file encoded using profile L5.1. Finally i can get "fanless" playback of 1080p, and with the new subtitle support i can also view subtitles without problems without having to fallback to software decoding.

 

[xppx]

I think that is a bit of an overstatement if you have a recent GPU and manage to get DXVA working. .... On my HTPC with an Intel X9100 (2x3.0 Ghz) "mobile" CPU i can play 1080p ripped directly from Bluray without stuttering, but the CPU usage is usually very high (40-60%), which is enough to drive the CPU fan to maddening speeds. If i use other codecs without DXVA the CPU usage can run as high as 90%!

The trick is of course to get DXVA working.

Thanks for your detailed feedback.

My HTPC is able to run 1080p Bluray rips with 5-40% CPU consumption.
The consumption actually depends on the degree of details/action displaying at the moment of capture
and these figures are relative to the strength of the CPU. I'm using an AMD Brisbane processor which is a lot less powerfull than the Intel X9100.

I actually used a combination of CoreAVC and PowerDVD (DXVA enabled) before I switched to CUDA.
And if I wouldn't have needed subtitles I would have sticked to the PowerDVD drivers. DXVA is (and still is) better than a software translation of course.
But now with the new CUDA architecture you can have the benefit of both. The best codec in combination with the strength of the GPU hardware, subtitles or not. (and on XP!)

The next generation of PowerDVD drivers will probably feature CUDA as well, and ATI will need to follow the market, so it is just a matter of time when this architecture supersudes the previous one (DXVA).
Again, that doesn't mean that DXVA is not doing its job, it just means that we are progressing to another standard.

 

[ziphnor]

[
Again, that doesn't mean that DXVA is not doing its job, it just means that we are progressing to another standard.

I certainly wont miss DXVA, its always been problematic for people to get it working. A programming interface like CUDA is much to be prefered, but only if it becomes standardized so that it is the same for all GPUs.