Poor EVR rendering (1 Viewer)

[mtp3]

I have a strange problem that I have been trying to fix for months: Poor EVR Render performance. It occurs no matter which version of MePo I use (1.2.3, 1.3A, 1.3B) and is independant of video and audio codecs (LAV, Microsoft and FFDSHOW). It is also independent of hardware acceleration.

The problem is not consistent. There are times when everything works properly (70%) of the time. When it works properly the render time is between 2.9 and 3.1ms and the green line is absolutely solid when looking at the stats. I use dynamic refresh rate and after the initial sync (0 - 10 dropped frames), I will often go 100,000 frames without a drop. The playback is gorgeous.

When it doesn't work the render time averages 20-22ms, but the green line has a sawtooth pattern with huge variation (jitter of 14-18ms). This results in a much poorer viewing experience as this jitter is visible even if the frames are not being dropped. I will also drop more frames (1 out of 5000 or so - not too bad).

When this occurs, CPU use is low (not different), maxing out at 10 or 15% (total use across all apps) on a quad core CPU. The strange part. When it fails, it will fail for all 23.976 (and work for 29.97 or 50) fps files or fail for all 29.97 and work for the others. The logs for when it works and does not work are identical. The EVR log also does not show anything.

When it is not working, I can sometimes get it to work by either, pausing and restarting the video, or opening the catalyst control center (HD6670 with 12.4 to 13.1 drivers). In extreme cases, I shut down and restart MePo.

Sometimes, it just fixes itself ... Once it works, it keeps working, even when switching video sources.

Other strangeness (or maybe a red herring). I have multiple user accounts on the PC - it seems to happen much more frequently on one than the other (both have admin priveledges).

One disclaimer, I am running on Server 2008 R2 (with a lot of tweeks) as I need server for other reasons.

Any ideas?

Mark

 

[Owlsroost]

Single or multiple monitors ?

Is the Aero desktop enabled ?

 

[mtp3]

Thanks

Aero, Desktop experience and Ink and Writing are enabled
Various registry hacks to prioritze foreground apps and avoid audio drop outs have been applied.

Single monitor.

When it works, it works and keeps working.

 

[Owlsroost]

If you are using 1.3 Beta, try the v684 dshowhelper release from https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/threads/mp-1-3-x-dshowhelper-development.113014/#post-921629

After installation, play something just to get the registry key created, then change the following registry values in "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Team MediaPortal\EVR Presenter" :

EnableDWMQueuedMode => 1
NumDWMBuffers => 4

....and see if it helps.

Tony

 

[mtp3]

Thanks,

Will try in a couple of hours - just about to sit down to diner

 

[mtp3]

The strangeness continues ...

On the user account (which has admin rights despite being a user account) where I normally run MePo ...

With the new dshowhelper and registry changes, things seem to be worse. 24p never works. no dropped frames but lots of jitter. 50 and 29.97 both work.


HOWEVER, on another user account (the actual administrator account), everything seems to work fine.

Mark

 

[mtp3]

Upon more testing, I can confirm that it always works from the admin account, both with the new dshowhelper and the old. From other accounts, it works better with the old dshowhelper (both 23.976 and 59.94 both work, at least some of the time) while with the new dshowhelper (23.976 never works in the second account while 59.94 always works across all accounts).

For fun, I tried an old nvidia 8600GT I keep as a spare. Basically the same results although the card would not sync to 23.976 (it would lock to 23.970) - IIRC this is a known limitation of the card.

 

[Owlsroost]

When you switch accounts, do you log out completely - so there is just one user logged in - or use fast user switching (if it's supported on server 2008?).

My guess is that (somehow) Windows thinks it's running a multi-monitor system - this can cause the sort of endless stutter/long render times you are seeing (because Aero - the 'Desktop Window Manager' - tries to render video to multiple monitors with different refresh rates).

I've never used a server OS, so not sure I can help much further....

 

[mtp3]

You may be onto something about the multiple users. In the server OS, logged on means that you have a console session open. However, you do not need to have a console session open to run something as a user. In my case, I am logged onto the server as the id that I want to run MePo on, but am running apps under other user ids, much the way windows 7 will run services under different user name (e.g. system or network services).

Two things run against this however. The first is that the problem only seems to happen with MePo. MPC and graphstudio work fine. The second is that with the original dshowhelper 24p worked 70% of the time (with the new one it doesn't work) and other refresh rates work fine.

Next, playing videos that are not synced with the tv refresh rate (i.e. playing 24p video at 60Hz) works fine (or at least as fine as it can work).

Lastly, and probably completely unrelated, the dynamic refresh rate change does not work for small changes. It will not change from 24 to 23.976 or from 60 to 59.94 for example.

Thanks for your help.

Mark

I can get around the problem by running MePo on the admin account, but I would prefer not to as I do not want my 7 year old daughter to have access to it.

 

[tourettes]

I've never used a server OS, so not sure I can help much further....

No one should use server OS as a multimedia playback platform: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/larryosterm...ll-as-a-general-purpose-operating-system.aspx