New 7600GT - nasty issues ensue

[Keenan]

I unloaded the Sage 16x9 UI application and went back to the standard interface/UI and the stuttering seems to be gone. I'm guessing that I must not have something right with the 16x9 UI. Does that make sense? Would using that custom UI have anything to do with the problem? I know, a lot of variables, but I like the Sage application a lot and this stuttering is making me nuts.

BTW, I see folks mentioning the Smart deinterlacing setup with nVidia. Where exactly can that setting be accessed? I'm using a 7600GT and the latest PureVideo software that's available for purchase. I don't recall if it's the latest firmware version, I've had it installed for about 2 weeks.

[Keenan]

I'm about to just scrap my Sage install and restart/reload everything fresh as I can't figure out how to stop the stuttering. I'm also considering on trying a different video-card.

I can't help but think that it's a setting somewhere and/or a driver issue but I'm just not that well versed on tinkering with that stuff. If I knew where to find it and how to do it, I can get it done, I just don't know where to look for the problem.

[corykim]

Originally Posted by Keenan

BTW, I see folks mentioning the Smart deinterlacing setup with nVidia. Where exactly can that setting be accessed? I'm using a 7600GT and the latest PureVideo software that's available for purchase. I don't recall if it's the latest firmware version, I've had it installed for about 2 weeks.

An icon appears in your taskbar whenever the PureVideo decoder is in active use. The easiest way to access this icon would be to open Sage or WMP, with the window size smaller than full screen, then play a DVD. The decoder settings icon looks similar to the nVidia logo. You should also make sure you're running the newest driver, 93.71, which was released more recently than two weeks ago.

[Keenan]

Originally Posted by corykim

An icon appears in your taskbar whenever the PureVideo decoder is in active use. The easiest way to access this icon would be to open Sage or WMP, with the window size smaller than full screen, then play a DVD. The decoder settings icon looks similar to the nVidia logo. You should also make sure you're running the newest driver, 93.71, which was released more recently than two weeks ago.

Thanks, I'll give that a shot today. My video card output is run through a video processor and then on to a 73" CRT-RPTV and while the video looks great, being able to read any Windows programs and the text within is near impossible. I have to connect the feed to a little 15" LCD monitor when doing any adjustments on the PC. I played with dual monitor setups but never seemed to get anything that worked correctly, or was easy to use--again, it may be that I'm just not setting something up right.

[corykim]

Originally Posted by Keenan

Thanks, I'll give that a shot today. My video card output is run through a video processor and then on to a 73" CRT-RPTV and while the video looks great, being able to read any Windows programs and the text within is near impossible. I have to connect the feed to a little 15" LCD monitor when doing any adjustments on the PC. I played with dual monitor setups but never seemed to get anything that worked correctly, or was easy to use--again, it may be that I'm just not setting something up right.

Man, what is that video processor doing? FWIW, my 42" LCD connected via DVI displays all fonts and icons with perfect clarity. OTOH, this also means it renders film grain with perfect clarity as well.

[Keenan]

Originally Posted by corykim

Man, what is that video processor doing? FWIW, my 42" LCD connected via DVI displays all fonts and icons with perfect clarity. OTOH, this also means it renders film grain with perfect clarity as well.

It's not really doing anything other than passing the signal from the HTPC to the display. In my limited experience, I've never seen a decent looking image from a computer, such as a Windows desktop, on an interlaced CRT based display. It's always been blurry and hard to read. Maybe a different desktop setting would help, if there is even a way of doing that without disrupting the settings for Sage and video playback. I think it's a case of larger fonts among other things. Sage, and previously MCE, look great, no issues there, it's the regular desktop and Windows programs/apps that are too hard to read.

Running a 1920x1080i output resolution to the display.

[Keenan]

Originally Posted by corykim

An icon appears in your taskbar whenever the PureVideo decoder is in active use. The easiest way to access this icon would be to open Sage or WMP, with the window size smaller than full screen, then play a DVD. The decoder settings icon looks similar to the nVidia logo. You should also make sure you're running the newest driver, 93.71, which was released more recently than two weeks ago.

Had some time today to look at this.

It was set for "hardware" acceleration, deinterlace control was set at "Smart" and deinterlace mode was set to "VMR default", and Enhanced nView support was set at "Prefer overlay".

93.71 is loaded.

Is there a recommended setting for each of these, or is it a trial and error thing?

Thanks

[corykim]

Originally Posted by Keenan

Had some time today to look at this.

It was set for "hardware" acceleration, deinterlace control was set at "Smart" and deinterlace mode was set to "VMR default", and Enhanced nView support was set at "Prefer overlay".

93.71 is loaded.

Is there a recommended setting for each of these, or is it a trial and error thing?

Thanks

You should change deinterlace control to "Automatic". The difference between "Smart" and "Automatic" is that Automatic relies on the data stream to tell it what media type it is, while Smart attempts to determine it from the data itself. Smart, unfortunately, is not so smart.

[blade]

Originally Posted by corykim

You should change deinterlace control to "Automatic". The difference between "Smart" and "Automatic" is that Automatic relies on the data stream to tell it what media type it is, while Smart attempts to determine it from the data itself. Smart, unfortunately, is not so smart.

I'll disagree and say you should in fact be using smart. If you use automatic all of your analog captures (I have no idea about HD) will be treated as video and played back at 60fps where as the majority (+90% in my experience) of your content should actually have IVTC applied and be played back at 24 fps. In other words if you use automatic your recordings will not be handled properly.

The only time I wouldn't use Smart is if you experience the "flicker bug" where a frame is played out of order. If you have it you'll know because you can't miss it.

[Keenan]

I tried both, didn't make a difference. I don't really know what else to try, maybe a different video card? Could it possibly be an IO problem, maybe a different hard drive?

P.S. I'm not concerned at all about analog captures, all I care about is HD.

What I get is what seems like missed frames, it doesn't stutter per se, it's more like a skip, or a jerk. It will be smooth for a bit, then a quick stop and start, especially noticeable on horizontal pans.

[corykim]

Originally Posted by blade

I'll disagree and say you should in fact be using smart. If you use automatic all of your analog captures (I have no idea about HD) will be treated as video and played back at 60fps where as the majority (+90% in my experience) of your content should actually have IVTC applied and be played back at 24 fps. In other words if you use automatic your recordings will not be handled properly.

The only time I wouldn't use Smart is if you experience the "flicker bug" where a frame is played out of order. If you have it you'll know because you can't miss it.

Yes, we were trying specifically to resolve the "flicker bug." Thanks for insight, though.

[corykim]

Originally Posted by Keenan

I tried both, didn't make a difference. I don't really know what else to try, maybe a different video card? Could it possibly be an IO problem, maybe a different hard drive?

P.S. I'm not concerned at all about analog captures, all I care about is HD.

What I get is what seems like missed frames, it doesn't stutter per se, it's more like a skip, or a jerk. It will be smooth for a bit, then a quick stop and start, especially noticeable on horizontal pans.

OK, this may be different. When you view a horizontal text crawl, like those on news and weather channels, does the text jump a few pixels on occasion? I was experiencing this exact problem, but I don't remember what fixed it. I didn't have to rebuild my system though. You should tweak your settings until either you stumble upon the solution or somebody remembers the solution.

[blade]

Originally Posted by corykim

Yes, we were trying specifically to resolve the "flicker bug." Thanks for insight, though.

Maybe I missed it, but I saw nothing in Keenan's posts referring to the "flicker bug". The only things I saw were poor PQ and stuttering.

[Keenan]

Originally Posted by corykim

OK, this may be different. When you view a horizontal text crawl, like those on news and weather channels, does the text jump a few pixels on occasion? I was experiencing this exact problem, but I don't remember what fixed it. I didn't have to rebuild my system though. You should tweak your settings until either you stumble upon the solution or somebody remembers the solution.

That's a good example, when viewing a scrolling text like the espn ticker, it will jerk quite a bit. It will run smoothly, but then stutter, then smooth, then stutter. There's a lack of fluid, smooth motion. I have eliminated the source device, a Star Choice sat STB--when viewing direct everything is nice and smooth.

The problem could possibly be with the R5000 software, but I won't have a chance to check that until this weekend, but I tend to doubt it as others are using the same setup and have no problems.

Thanks again to both of you for helping, hopefully someone will remember what it took to fix.

[Keenan]

Originally Posted by blade

Maybe I missed it, but I saw nothing in Keenan's posts referring to the "flicker bug". The only things I saw were poor PQ and stuttering.

I'm not sure what the flicker bug is, if it's like interlace artifacting, or pulsing of the image, I'm not having that problem.

The stuttering ticker scroll is probably the best example, like it's missing a frame here and there, gives the sense of robot-like movements.

[Keenan]

Something else, it's a passively cooled card, and I haven't checked the temp, but I'm not overclocking, and I didn't think video would put a lot of strain on the video card, but it's something I can check this weekend.

Would the size of the actual image have anything to do with it? It's being displayed on a 73" CRT-based RPTV.

[blade]

Originally Posted by Keenan

I'm not sure what the flicker bug is, if it's like interlace artifacting, or pulsing of the image, I'm not having that problem.

It happens when a frame is played out of order. You see a ghostly image of a scene that was played a few seconds early. For example someone is standing still talking and the shot pans to someone else and then a frame is played from a few seconds earlier and you see a brief flash of when the other person was in the shot. I didn't think you described anything like that.

The stuttering ticker scroll is probably the best example, like it's missing a frame here and there, gives the sense of robot-like movements.

I don't recall if anyone has asked or not, but is your recording drive formated to 64k clusters? Also does the ticker stutter with both "live TV" and recorded shows?

The scrolling ticker is the best test of smooth playback. Overlay is very easy to do and shouldn't be a problem. If you get stuttering with overlay then the problem shouldn't be with playback. If the problem only occurs with VMR9 (which is usually the case) then it should be a playback issue.

To do VMR9 with Nvidia cards you almost always need FSE enabled. I usually enabled it then shutdown Sage and restart and then verify that it is still selected. Sometimes it doesn't get properly enabled when switching it on and off.

Another thing is to check your 3d settings. For example having antialiasing and other 3d settings turned on in the drivers can cause stuttering when running VMR9.

In my experience the deinterlacing is the most demanding thing and is what usually causes the Nvidia cards to choke when using VMR9. Your's should be more than powerful enough, but if nothing else works then switching to another type of deinterlacing other than VMR default or VMR Pixel Adaptive usually works. You shouldn't need to do that though.

[Keenan]

How do I tell what size cluster my HDD is using? The machine was originally setup with MCE using NTFS file system.

I turned off antialiasing and anisotropic filtering. The other settings are as I indicated above. Set to FSE, and checked.

Hasn't seemed to help.

I'm watching a football game currently which is a good source for exhibiting the problem. I'm also recording it so I can check to see if the problem is on playback as well.

What's interesting is that commercials don't seem to have the problem. I can't say that with 100% certainty, but for the last 15 mins or so they look fine. Once it goes back to the game I get the problem.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by Keenan

How do I tell what size cluster my HDD is using?

One of the easiest ways is to open a command prompt window & run 'chkdsk'. It will report the number of bytes in each allocation unit.

- Andy

[Keenan]

Originally Posted by Opus4

One of the easiest ways is to open a command prompt window & run 'chkdsk'. It will report the number of bytes in each allocation unit.

- Andy

It reads "4096 bytes in each allocation unit", so I'm assuming I need to re-setup everything? How do I reformat the HDD for 64k clusters? I'm also assuming this is critical for smooth video playback?

I noticed in another thread someone mentioned that using an earlier version of Java, a 1.4.x release as opposed to 1.5.0, which is what I'm using solved their stuttering problem. I also notice a thread where a poster indicated polling of his video card temperature was causing a stuttering problem.