User experience with AMD 780G and MediaPortal (1 Viewer)

KRA

Portal Pro
July 5, 2005
145
5
46
Home Country
Norway Norway
I didn't do my research, I read some reviews and got some feedback that 780g based mobo was the best thing for a htpc solution. Well when it comes to Mediaportal it isn't. I'm using vista home prem sp1, so far there are some problems:

1. Flickering gui when using hardware accelerated codec
2. "bad" deinterlacing options
3. Problems with HD channels
4. "gfx stopped responding" problem.


1. The flickering GUI problem was scheduled to be fixed for RC2, however it has been moved back to RC3, and it seems the devs are at a dead end trying to fix it. (this is not limited to 780g though, just listing the problems I'm experiencing with this mobo)

2. CCC only gives 2 deinterlace option, weave or bob. It seems the only way to get more options is to use a phenom cpu with HT 3.0. Since this board was supposed to handle HD with ease even on a sempron cpu I opted for one of those new 45w dualcore cpu's - bad choice as it doesn't have HT3.0.

3. At first I was unable to get HD working with MP at all (works fine with other software) Trying to playback HD with a HA codec in MP would result in only sound playback, and both the MP gui and windows gui would become corrupted. Currently I'm able to playback HD within MP, I'm using PowerDVD8 codec, I have the latest bios, cat 8.7 and the a fresh svn of MP. This for the first time give me the option to watch live HDTV, however it's dropping frames like crazy, anywhere from 10-15 frames pr second!! Both cores on the cpu are at about 50%, so it must be gpu limited ! (this is @ 1360x768!!)

4. quite often I get a black screen, MP stop playing video and sometimes crash, because the graphics card gets resets because of a problem. Havn't found much info or possible fix for this.

I'm guessing the "advanced" MP gui and HD may be to much for this gpu to handle.

Everything in my system is running at stock speed and all drivers, software etc is updated.

INPUT TO THE PROBLEMS ARE WELCOME!
 

jmbillings

MP Donator
  • Premium Supporter
  • June 9, 2008
    128
    20
    Ely
    Home Country
    United Kingdom United Kingdom
    My experience of this chipset has been ok. My first Media PC and it works ok for the most part...

    1) I get the menu overlay flicker if using EVR(?) but VMR9 is OK and still HW accelerated.
    2) Not sure what you mean here, I don't seem to have problems though.
    3) Admittedly I've only really watched BBC HD (ITV is only ever the test screen) but it works fine. I've had a "slowdown" a couple of times where it seems to go into a weird slo-mo, but restarting MP cures it. Rare though.
    4) Not had this at all.

    Doornjoostje - I got 1360x768 using Powerstrip. Even then it was off the side of the screen by an enormous amount. Powerstrip *just* offered enough adjustment to center it ok though. I gave up on the 720p modes (even though my TV is supposedly 720p) as they either didn't work at all, would overscan a huge amount, or just looked awful. Using 1360x768 makes MP look lovely, and HD playback is pin sharp.
     

    gloomyandy

    MP Donator
  • Premium Supporter
  • September 15, 2006
    424
    14
    63
    Home Country
    United Kingdom United Kingdom
    If you are running Vista I found that (with both an ATI 3450 and 3650 card) you get much higher cpu usage if you run anything other than EVR with Vista Aero enabled. So to reduce your cpu usage you may want to ensure that you have Aero turned on (so you have the "glass" look to window titles etc. and that within MP you use EVR for output).

    Andy
     

    KRA

    Portal Pro
    July 5, 2005
    145
    5
    46
    Home Country
    Norway Norway
    TV-Server Version: 19843
    MediaPortal Version: 19843
    MediaPortal Skin: Indigo
    Windows Version: Vista home prem SP1
    CPU Type: AMD 4050e
    HDD: Samsung 500g
    Memory: KINGSTON DDR2 HyperX PC6400 2048MB CL4
    Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H
    Video Card: IGP
    Video Card Driver: 8.7
    Sound Card: Integrated
    Sound Card AC3: Integrated
    1. TV Card: FlopptyDTV
    1. TV Card Type: DVB-S
    1. TV Card Driver: 4.8.0 ?
    2. TV Card: Hauppauge HVR4000
    2. TV Card Type: Analog/DVT-T/DVB-S/2
    2. TV Card Driver: 4.6
    3. TV Card: Hauppauge PVR350
    3. TV Card Type: Analog
    3. TV Card Driver: 4.6
    MPEG2 Video Codec: PowerDVD 8
    MPEG2 Audio Codec: MPA
    h.264 Video Codec: PowerDVD 8
    Satelite/CableTV Provider: Thor 2/3
    HTPC Case: Antec
    Cooling: default
    Power Supply: Mist 500w
    Remote: MCE/Hauppauge
    TV: LCD
    TV - HTPC Connection 1: DVI
    TV - HTPC Connection 2: VGA

    This wasn't a cry for help but a warning, but I'm interested in finding solutions.....

    doornjoostje:
    - Read the thread
    - Bios is F5
    - Memory is set to 512
    - Powerstrip fix the res (it's really 1360x768)

    jmbillings:
    1- wmr9 is not HA i vista
    2- if you go into Catalyst Control Center you will see that you only have bob and weave as deinterlace options, there are other alternatives that are better.
    3- Press ! (shift+1) when watching a HD channel and see what happens, although if you are using WMR9 it's really the CPU that's doing all the work so it doesn't really matter.

    Andy,
    you are correct EVR is the only way to get HA, and I have Aero enabled, disabling aero would also lead to a lot of tearing!
     

    doornjoostje

    Portal Pro
    December 6, 2007
    432
    14
    Home Country
    Netherlands Netherlands
    Hi Kra,

    Can you give a little more detail? What are the exact settings you done in powerstrip?


    Grtz,
    joost
     

    disaster123

    MP Donator
  • Premium Supporter
  • May 14, 2008
    3,558
    434
    Home Country
    Germany Germany
    As i remember, if you use Powerstrip - you lose the HW Acceleration and some other things...
     

    jmbillings

    MP Donator
  • Premium Supporter
  • June 9, 2008
    128
    20
    Ely
    Home Country
    United Kingdom United Kingdom
    TV-Server Version: 19843

    jmbillings:
    1- wmr9 is not HA i vista
    2- if you go into Catalyst Control Center you will see that you only have bob and weave as deinterlace options, there are other alternatives that are better.
    3- Press ! (shift+1) when watching a HD channel and see what happens, although if you are using WMR9 it's really the CPU that's doing all the work so it doesn't really matter.

    Andy,
    you are correct EVR is the only way to get HA, and I have Aero enabled, disabling aero would also lead to a lot of tearing!

    I must admit to finding this hard to believe. My PC doesn't have a high power CPU (AMD 4450e) but HD playback is smooth-as pretty much all the time. In fact, I just connected in to a remote session, played a bit of HD movie back (not visible via a remote session of course!) and then stopped it, all while task manager was in the background. Checking task manager on exiting MP showed the CPU history graph as trickling along at ~20% - lots of which could be attributed to me being connected remotely.
    I'll do a better test tonight with BBC HD when actually sat in front of the thing to confirm it, but I find it hard to believe my 4450e can decode an HD stream with only 20% cpu...

    Set to VMR9 and the H.264 codec is the powerdvd7 one.

    Haven't tried Shift 1, but will do so tonight as well.

    Interlacing - I had to leave this on "auto" from what I recall, as VMR9 won't work if manually set in the driver. In any case I don't have a problem with what it's doing, but I acknowledge there may be better options!

    In Powerstrip I simply added a new monitor driver based on the settings in the manual for my TV. This gave a picture that was half off the right hand side of the screen. I then used the advanced timings page to move it back and centralise it, although if I went to far I lost the picture and had to reboot. It was a definite bit of trial and error but got there in the end. Can't think why Powerstrip would disable HA though?
     

    mironicus

    Portal Pro
    March 9, 2008
    688
    44
    1. Flickering gui is a unique Mediaportal problem (happens with ATI and NVidia cards), other DVB-applications don't flicker and you have low cpu usage with hardware acceleration (like DVBViewer) ==> Mediaportal gui is old (not coded efficient) and a CPU/GPU hog.

    2. Disable Aero and you have 4 deinterlacing options up to 1280x720 and 3 up to 1920x1080. If you have a Phenom processor you'll have 5 deinterlacing option for all resolutions (I wait for low-power 45nm Phenoms).

    3. I have no problem with HDTV channels (using Vista Ultimate x64). Have you tried CoreAVC as decoder? It is fast enough to soft decode HDTV channels on a AMD Dual core without stutter.

    4. Make a clean install of Catalyst drivers. Use Driver Cleaner to delete all stuff related to older drivers. That might help.
     

    Users who are viewing this thread

    Top Bottom