Tips and Tweaks for 780G systems

[Polypro]

Thanks. It's a 4450 45w chip.

P

[m1abrams]

So I just tested my Bluray support last night. Got Departed in the mail from Netflix.

Using a Lite-on bluray drive and the OEM 2ch Powerdvd 7 software that came with it. It works very well Departed is a VC1 encoded film with bitrates ~16Mbps. It has a DD5.1 track and a LPCM 5.1 track, one thing to note even though PowerDVD is only the 2ch version that does NOT affect bitstream passthrough of the DD5.1 stream so I could get 5.1 that way. It does affect the LPCM stream because PowerDVD has to decode it so when I use the DTS Interactive with that stream I only get 2ch sound. May have to poney up the money to try that. The video quality using the IGP was very good.

Now I just need to setup the system so I can switch between SageTV and PowerDVD to be as seamless as possible. Planning on trying out Girder, currently just use SageTV to handle my USB-UIRT so with PowerDVD I have to use the keyboard. If anyone has any tips on doing this setup, they are welcome.

[bialio]

Do you have PowerDVD setup to use "SPDIF" or "6 speaker" in the Audio Properties setup? In order to get multichannel psuedo LPCM via DTS Interactive you have to send the audio to the speakers - which gets intercepted by the sound card and encoded to DTS and then pumped out the SPDIF.....

[bialio]

Vista Business - Every time I would start out with Vista I'd reach a point where the computer would freeze during windows startup. It was usually after the little green progress bar disappeared. After some trial and error , and a few re-imagings , I have concluded that the last two updates from Microsoft that it was offering were causing the issue. So beware Microsoft Update if you are using this board.

Turns out this was the Streamzap Remote software causing this. Removing it from the system when it was "locked up" caused things to start working again. I have since moved over to a MCE remote.

For sh*ts and giggles I put the 8500GT in to see how it would work in the system. And it is working a little better than the onboard IGP. I think it is because Nvidia's drivers are better - at least 169.25 NVidia are better than 8.4 ATI. YMMV.

I have decided for now to keep the 8500GT in there - not for performance reasons, but because I had my system professionally calibrated for color with the 8500GT in place - using the ATI IGP changes the color some....

[m1abrams]

Originally Posted by bialio

Do you have PowerDVD setup to use "SPDIF" or "6 speaker" in the Audio Properties setup? In order to get multichannel psuedo LPCM via DTS Interactive you have to send the audio to the speakers - which gets intercepted by the sound card and encoded to DTS and then pumped out the SPDIF.....

I am using SPDIF because I only have the OEM version of PowerDVD. With SPDIF I get the DD track and surround sound. If I do speakers the OEM limits the output to 2ch. However if I go to Ultra I will try out the DTS interactive for handling LPCM. Not sure it is worth the extra $90 unless I start seeing movies without a DD or DTS track to play.

[m1abrams]

Ok so I finally upgraded PowerDVD from the OEM version to the Ultra version so I can now get more than 2ch stereo.

DTS Interactive works very nicely for handling TrueHD and converting it to a DTS stream that my receiver can decode. Basically PowerDVD converts TrueHD to analog that is passed to the soundcard which then converts the multi-channel analog into a multi-channel DTS stream of 1.5Mbps. Yes I know you would have quality loss, but since you are starting with a lossless source the effect works very well, probably slightly better than a DD stream found on most DVDs.

Now one thing I did notice is the PowerDVD8 has a builtin option to do the same thing as the soundcards DTS Interactive. Wondering how the two compare, may play with this a bit this weekend. See if the CPU load changes much, and see if I can hear any difference between the two.

[LucidGoldfish]

Originally Posted by m1abrams

Such as do you need to buy PowerDVD ultra if you plan to use SPDIF outputs with Bluray playback? I noticed with PowerDVD BD 2ch that came with the drive plays back a normal DVD with DD and sends the DD over SPDIF just fine. Would I need ultra to use DTS Connect to downconvert TrueHD?

Although I don't have a blue ray drive, I can tell you that TrueHD most likely can't be decoded by your speakers/receiver. Very few receivers have this ability, so unless you just bought your receiver, and TrueHD decoding was a bullet point on it, you can't do that. To have the TrueHD sound it has to be decoded in the computer and be put out through analog. Another thing is, and I am not absolutely sure on this one, the TrueHD has to go through an HDMI output for it to be decoded. I am not sure if there is a technical reason for this (which I highly doubt), or if this is due to DRM. But basically, TrueHD is just like those DVDaudio discs, that no one bought. (if you remember those) There might be a setting in PowerDVD that allows you to set the audio on a BR disc to Dolby Digital, which is the best you are going to get, unless you go with analog outputs. Or when you play a BR disc, in the disc menu under one of the options there is probably a setting for Dolby Digital. I would recomend going with one of those as opposed to converting it to DTS through your motherboard. That is only going to degrade your sound, and eat up cpu cycles. Obviously if none of the above options are there, then sad to say that is what you are going to have to go with.

I am also using a gigabyte board with the 3200 integrated graphics. At the moment when watching over the air HD in sage, the video is just slightly choppy. I am looking for help on some optimal settings for sage. I tried setting the the mpeg decoder to default, which, I don't think is utilizing the graphics chip. The only options I have are default, the Haupaugge one, and sagetv. Am I missing something?

[craigap]

What are the rest of your system specs?

Are you using VMR9 or Overlay? Have you tried FSE?

[m1abrams]

Originally Posted by LucidGoldfish

Although I don't have a blue ray drive, I can tell you that TrueHD most likely can't be decoded by your speakers/receiver. Very few receivers have this ability, so unless you just bought your receiver, and TrueHD decoding was a bullet point on it, you can't do that. To have the TrueHD sound it has to be decoded in the computer and be put out through analog. Another thing is, and I am not absolutely sure on this one, the TrueHD has to go through an HDMI output for it to be decoded. I am not sure if there is a technical reason for this (which I highly doubt), or if this is due to DRM. But basically, TrueHD is just like those DVDaudio discs, that no one bought. (if you remember those) There might be a setting in PowerDVD that allows you to set the audio on a BR disc to Dolby Digital, which is the best you are going to get, unless you go with analog outputs. Or when you play a BR disc, in the disc menu under one of the options there is probably a setting for Dolby Digital. I would recomend going with one of those as opposed to converting it to DTS through your motherboard. That is only going to degrade your sound, and eat up cpu cycles. Obviously if none of the above options are there, then sad to say that is what you are going to have to go with.

I am also using a gigabyte board with the 3200 integrated graphics. At the moment when watching over the air HD in sage, the video is just slightly choppy. I am looking for help on some optimal settings for sage. I tried setting the the mpeg decoder to default, which, I don't think is utilizing the graphics chip. The only options I have are default, the Haupaugge one, and sagetv. Am I missing something?

Well first there are a number of receivers that handle decoding TrueHD on the market. Yes if order to have your receiver decode TrueHD it MUST be sent over HDMI and this is a techinical reason not just for DRM. SPDIF does not have the bandwidth to support TrueHD.

Downconverting TrueHD to DTS is very easy to do with the gigabyte board because it supports DTS interactive and this process requires little extra CPU overhead becuase it is a hardware supportted conversion and it provides a pretty nice signal. Note the discs I have come across that have TrueHD only have a 2ch. DD track so being able to downgrade the TrueHD is pretty much a requirement if you want to maintain surround sound. The sound quality is actually pretty good and most likely better than the DD track since TrueHD is lossless the conversion does not suffer a generation loss and it uses the full bandwidth of DTS.

For fixing the stuttering in HD playback on OTA, play around with the deinterlacing settings within the ATI CC.

[alfi33]

Is anyone with a 780G board able to use VMR9 with XP?

I get quite a bit of tearing with VMR9. Overlay is flawless for me.

I've seen a few mention successfully using VMR9 with Vista but not with XP....

I'd sure love to get it working but I wonder if XP + HD3200 + VMR9 is a lost cause.

[stanger89]

You tried enabling FSE?

[alfi33]

I had tried FSE a while back and I don't remember seeing any noticeable improvement. However, I tried it again very briefly last night and it did seem to help with the tearing this time. However, it seemed like the frame rate dropped a bit (that may not be what actually happened but that's what it looked like).

I didn't mess with it more than a couple minutes because I was watching the NBA Finals so I definitely need to experiment with it some more.

[dcardellini]

Desperately trying to make an Asus 780G based IGP CLIENT system work stutter-free for mostly OTA/Cable mpeg2 material in XP SP3. Pulling my hair out, but do not want to give up on this. Have been using system for 9 months, living with jerkiness, and have decided it is time to fix or upgrade.

Here is system (server is headless, so no playback issue there):


***************************
CLIENT HARDWARE

Asus M3A78-EM 780G IGP MB-latest Bios and drivers
HDMI output to Samsung DLP 720p

Athlon X2 5000+ Black

X-FI Elite Pro Analog to power amp

LG Blu-Ray drive CH08

SOFTWARE

XP SP3 updated to latest.

Catalyst 9.9 (also 8.8... more later) vga/chipset driver.

Sagetv Client Latest 6.2.2

PowerDVD Ultra 8


********************************

If I install latest Catalyst 9.9, it looks like hardware acceleration is being used, as mpeg2 material cpu drops to 15%. Cyberlink decoder is selected, and I suspect it is being used, as the native Sagetv mpeg2, when selected, does not use hardware accelerarion, and CPU is around 50%.

Overlay looks grainy.

I must have VMR9, I cannot see compromising on this.

Under VMR9, I get stuttering, regardless of 3D settings in Sage, FSE enabled, etc.

If I exit Sage, and run PowerDVD to play a Blu-Ray disc, CPU is very low (11%), but the playback stutters terribly. In PowerDVD settings, the hardware acceleration box is checked.

*****************************

If I install an older Catalyst version (8.8), playback in Sagetv under VMR9 is GREAT, either FSE enabled or disabled. DVD's playback great. Without doing anything else codec-wise, my downloaded mkv's, xvid's etc. all playback with out a hitch (PowerDVD 7.3 did not provide these codecs, but 8 ultra does!).

So what is wrong with this picture? CPU level is 50-60%; clearly, hardware acceleration is not being used.

If I exit Sage, and run a blu-ray in powerdvd, the cpu is 80%+ often to 100%. If I go into powerdvd setup, the "use hardware acceleration checkbox is not checked and greay'ed out. Ironically, playback is pretty smooth the majority of time, even when hitting 100% cpu peaks.

Clearly, earlier versions of Catalyst break HA. I get great playback off of Sage content without HA, but blu-ray will never really work right.....and it just doesn't seem right to have to use high CPU for the majority of my material in Sage.

********************************

So...some questions:

a) With Catalyst 9.9 installed, how can I turn Hardware acceleration on and off while playing content in Sage? It is a pain to have to swtich to a old broken catalyst version to disable HA. There must be a better way here.

b) Does somebody here have a flawless 780G-IGP-only implementation running on XP for HD material, including blu-ray playback? Open to any and all suggestions.

c) Any other recommendations: 1) change operating system to Vista/Win7; 2) Plug in a 4550 or 4670 graphic card; 3) Dump the Client PC and put in an HD200??

Anticipating a rash of pluses for (3) above, the HD200, this would be very painful for me. As my PC serves as a replacement for a pre/pro (anaolg to power amp direct), I would need to buy a DVD/Blu-Ray player, and I would need to buy a pre-processor (or high end receiver) that will not only cost $1k plus, but i do not have real estate for those components. Also like to use the big screen for group surfing.

thnks in advance for any help here. It would seem that a simple PC Client with modern IGP that can play Sage HD material (OTA, cable native mpeg2, 264 variants) AND run PowerDVD for blu-ray would exist as a "Reference System" for those deciding to build a Sage system.

Likely, I just haven't found the right combination of OS, VGA driver, Codecs, and settings (I hope).

[alfi33]

I feel your pain. I've never been able to get VMR to work right on my 780G with XP. I gave up and am just using Overlay. It's interesting that Catalyst 8.8 would. I had issues with stability with a lot of the older versions of Catalyst. Like you, I've been considering changing the OS or trying a different graphics card.

[dcardellini]

Quick update: Have success with 780/785 MB on WinXP SP3

Have been playinig with both 780G motherboard and 785G motherboards with sideport memory under Win XP SP3.

Testing was on an older Samsung 61" DLP 720p native, and on a newer Sammy 67" DLP 1080p with video out at these native resolutions.

1. Best success is with Catalyst 9.8.

Catalyst 9.9, 9.10, and 9.11 all have problems with DXVA coming out of standby.

Here is a confirming link:

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=309413


2. As MPEG2 content from OTA and Firewire STB is 90% of MY experience, smooth stutter-free and tearing-free playback of 1080i content is most important, and where I spent most of my time.

Tried SageTV MPEG decoder, nVidia Purevideo decoder, Media Player Classic MPC mpg2DecFilter (DXVA only), and Cyberlink SP Video Decoder. Except as noted, tried both DXVA and no-DXVA with each codec.

Cyberlink WITHOUT DXVA consistently wins on stutter-free and nearly tear-free. All of the codecs with DXVA switched-on stuttered occassionally on panning scenes....enough that the experience was unbearable for me. (all regardless of Catalyst version....8.8, 8.9, 9.6, 9.8. 9.10, 9.11).

The tearing is completely eliminated on the 785G with sideport and a Phenom or AthlonII processor. Only very minor tearing (can live with it) with 780G (no sideport) and Phenom or AthlonII. A bit more tearing, but live-able with a 780G and non Phenom/AthII CPU. Again...DXVA is OFF!

3. AVC/264 from Blu-Ray rips (makemkv) will likely be more and more important on my system. Tried CoreAVC, Cyberlink AVC/264, Media Player Classic MPCVideoDec decoders. To use any of these, you need to install the Haali Splitter filter (need for VC-1 too!).

CoreAVC does not have DXVA, played well, but ate 44% CPU on my PhenomII 720 (X3 @2.8ghz). Looked good though.

MPC VideoDec did well without DXVA, but occassionally broke into weird pixelation patterns with DXVA enabled.

Cyberlink AVC/264 did well with or without DXVA. Without DXVA, it still had lower CPU than CoreAVC.

I went with Cyberlink AVC/264 because of good 5% CPU DXVA. After two weeks of using these systems with my family, I ended up turning the DXVA OFF on the Cyberlink AVC/264 due to occassional flakey things happening. Sage would black screen with circle-of-death occassionally when starting playback.

I am sure this has nothing to do with SagetV. I can completely emulate SAGETV playback in Media Center Classic, and same problems show up there.

4. VC-1 is also important for Blu-ray rips. I tried the windows built-in WMV DMO decoder, the Cyberlink VC-1 decoder, and the Media Player Classic MPC VideoDecoder (same as AVC decoder).

I could not get the Cyberlink VC-1 to hookup in a Graph, so it was not used.

Windows WMV DMO decoder does not have DXVA, so I went with the MPC VideoDecoder in order to get to low CPU usage.

*******************************************

Summary:

good- 780G with Phenom or AthlonII
or
best- 785G with sideport and Phenom/AthlII
(never tested a 780G with sideport, sorry)

Win XP SP3

Catalyst 9.8

1080i/720p MPEG2 - Cyberlink SP/DXVA off

480p DVD - Cyberlink SP/DXVA off

AVC/264 (mkv's) - Cyberlink AVC/264 -DXVA off

xvid/dvix - Cyberlink AVC/264- DXVA off

VC-1 - MPC Video Decoder- DXVA-ON


*******************************

Other thoughts:

1. Disappointed that ATI IGP DXVA does not seem stable and robust under Win XP. I have my eye on the Dell Zino, and do not think there will be enough processor there to handle no-DXVA operation.

2. Curious if Vista or Win7 allow for stutter-free 1080i with DXVA. Anybody?

3. ATI does seem to have some issues with their DXVA (after reading outside forums). Wonder if nVidia 9300/9400 fares any better?

4. I mentioned earlier emulating Sagetv playback entirely thru Media Player Classic-Home Cinema. I emulate by turning off ALL MPC-HC internal filters (to force use of directshow external filters), adjusting output to VMR-9 windowed, and adding the Sagedemux filter as a "preferred" codec.

By right-clicking during playback in MPC, you can see which filters are in use, and also change their properties (would be great if SageTV worked the same way!!!!). It was a great tool, as you can change merits in filters too from this program.

When installing, MPC-HC ONLY installs internal filters, so that it will not mess up your system with a bunch of directshow filters. You can then play with its internal filters, and if you like any, download the free external filter kit and register only those ones you want in directshow for Sagetv.

5. SageTV is set up for ALL directshow filters (default settings), AND, sagetvclient properties has added:

always_use_dshow_player=true

5. Now I am going to completely discredit myself: Determined to really see for myself, I plugged a discrete ATI 4670 card into system (disabled IGP, reinstalled Catalyst 9.8 drivers). Throughout my testing, I had two or three 1080i mpg files with specific scenes that had problems (like Dexter- John Lithgow doing crossword puzzle in outdoor cafe, and a 1080i football game...certain panning scenes).

With Cyberlink SP decoder, I STILL had stuttering when I turned DXVA on. With DXVA turned off, I swear, I could NOT see a difference in quality on my difficult scenes (played with deinterlacing settings!) between discrete and IGP.

Just wanted to share.....and want to hear conflicting experiences.....

[B-Figgy]

That's a nice writeup there, Cardellini, thank you. I've lived with the jitter-after-fast-forward and no VMR9 for a while now. Perhaps there's a solution for my 780G system somewhere in there after all.

[brainbone]

I have never been able to get SageTV to place nice with my ATI cards (under XP, vista or 7), and have finally given up.

Under vista/7 SageTV appears to be forcing a deinterlace mode that does not work well with ATI. Nvidia drivers do appear to be able to override the setting.

Putting in a Geforce G210 has resolved the issue (using Windows 7 and Microsoft Decoders) until SageTV is able to work it out.

The ATI cards ARE able to play the same recordings outside of SageTV using Windows Media Player. There is some random "jerkyness" here in WMP, probably due to errors in the Mpeg2 stream, but, creating a graph in GraphStudio, using the SageTV Demux, Microsoft Decoder and EVR shows that it is possible to get smooth, quality 1080i from the same recordings with ATI hardware/drivers under Windows 7. SageTV, however, just can't yet do it.

[dcardellini]

Originally Posted by brainbone

......Putting in a Geforce G210 has resolved the issue (using Windows 7 and Microsoft Decoders) until SageTV is able to work it out...........

SageTV has acknowledged the issue and is working on a fix?

How did hardware acceleration (DXVA2 for vista/7?) affect your playback quality?

Looks like there could be hope with vista/7 in near future for DXVA on ATI graphics hardware!

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by dcardellini

SageTV has acknowledged the issue and is working on a fix?

How did hardware acceleration (DXVA2 for vista/7?) affect your playback quality?

Looks like there could be hope with vista/7 in near future for DXVA on ATI graphics hardware!

What they have said so far is:
"The developers are looking into making this situation better."

If you are having this problem, I suggest you contact them, as it may help press the issue:
http://sagetv.com/request.html

For me, this problem is easily reproducible. Any CPU/Motherboard + 3xxx/4xxx/5xxx ATI graphics card (or ATI IGP) + SageTV + 1080i Mpeg2 material + Vista/7 = bad quality video.

Replace SageTV with WMP, and you have good quality video.

[dcardellini]

Originally Posted by brainbone

....Replace SageTV with WMP, and you have good quality video.

As I haven't used Vista nor Win7, I am unsure of a few things. In XP, WMP is forced to VMR7. VMR7/Overlay looks terrible to me and is a non-option, so Sagetv is set up for VMR9, and therefore is really is not possible to compare Sagetv to WMP (in XP).

I assume that this story is different in Win7? Also, if you Graph a 1080i file, it shows the same exact filters that the Debug Log in Sagetv throws?

In my case, under XP, problems expose themselves equally under both Sagetv and Graphedit, and MPC-HC (setup to fully emulate Sagetv).

In general, ATI DXVA implementation seems very problematic (at least under XP). When turned on, strange things happen when resumng from standby (on Catalyst latest versions 9.9, 9.10, 9.11). Also, when turned on (even without standby/resume thing), playback sometimes hangs when starting a file, or picture breaks into ugly major pixelation for a period.

So I have to wonder, if/when Sagetv fixes your Win7 problem, and you really start cranking on watching 1080i material often for a period of time, will these same problems I am seeing under XP expose themselves? Or is it an XP implementation issue.

****************************

Your revelations are pretty shocking to me. It makes me wonder if all of the hardcore users that I see/respect in these forums have thrown towel in and just use the HD200 as a client. How else can one explain the absence of any posts about ATI hardware w/hardware acceleration that is problematic on ALL Windows operating systems AND Sagetv, and probelmatic even without Sagetv under XP?

Why isn't there a "reference system" (or several) detailed either by Sagetv corporation or posted on these forums that is a minimum required to do what I have to believe are the most basic HTPC duties:

MPEG2-1080i, 720p, 480p dvds
MPEG4- AVC/264 for blu-ray rips and HD-PVR, and lower res mkv downloads
MPEG4- VC-1 for blu-ray rips
MPEG4- xvid/divx

Doesn't that nearly cover it all?

I know that every user has different needs, and has a different focus for the use of their PC. But with HD-OTA mandatory today in usa, playback of 1080i mpeg2 material must be an essential part of any HTPC setup? What am I missing?

Sorry for rant. I just will not give up on using PC clients: I am a minimalist, want the smallest/least power solution with least number of components. The PC IS capable of video and audio perfection. All I want is a TV monitor, a power amp/speakers, and the PC (and preferrably a small one without ANY plug-in cards).

I love SageTV, but will begin looking elsewhere the minute I suspect that they are focusing on hardware clients for their business model, and not putting full resource into a great PC client experience. (sorry...no indication of this yet, but .....follow the money....).