I'm back, and I regret to admit that I have switched to Red October Standard, due to issues relating to madVR's deinterlacing and film mode.
The problem I am having is that I cannot seem to enable NNEDI3-16 in chroma along with artifact removal and all the other recommended goodies (within reason) in SD interlaced content and expect to avoid frame drops without forcing film mode. The problem with
that is that it introduces cadence breaks which, regardless of my newfangled processing power, lead to what I can best describe as hung frames. Essentially, the video "chops" every once in a while. This occurred before I installed the new cooling solution and overclocked. I used to think that it might be a source issue, or a shortcoming in processing power. I suppose it technically still is the latter, considering that I cannot upscale interlaced content outside of film mode without it looking like complete ass.
If anybody has any recommendations on tweaks I can make while retaining NNEDI3-16 in chroma, I'd appreciate it, if only as an experiment at this point. Until then, Red October Standard actually looks rather indistinguishable.
To that end, is there a way to export my madVR settings for review here?
I suppose that's another question: does anybody actually notice any real difference between ROS and a properly-configured ROHQ? I know intuitively that the latter is "better" from a quality standpoint, but I also wonder if it's one of those cases in which JRiver's default background LAV configuration is special and matches it anyway (where madVR is really only better if you're using something like Media Player Classic - Home Cinema).
For the record, I'm still happy with the cooling--HTPC is so quiet that my roommate didn't even know that I had left it on all day while I was out.