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[haggis999]

I decided to test the video capability of a new Dell XPS 15 laptop by playing a rip of one of my Planet Earth II UHD Blu-rays. This laptop has an OLED screen, an RTX 4060 GPU, and HDR is enabled in Windows 11.

This 4K video plays smoothly on VLC, using its default settings, but I'm struggling to find the optimum configuration in MC32. I lack a detailed understanding of JRVR and therefore simply selected the 'Balanced' preset (which seems appropriate for a laptop version of the RTX 4060). This gives an excellent picture, with possibly better HDR results than VLC, but there are fairly frequent brief stutters in the playback.

Can anyone recommend any tweaks to the JRVR Balanced preset that might fix this problem?

[slerch666]

Since your Dell has a 4060, make sure you check the Hardware accelerate video decoding when possible in the main selection menus. Guessing you did but if you didn't, it could cause an issue.

Next up, go through the Taming Windows Defender thread here to ensure Defender isn't getting in your way. I usually hate recommending this as it feels stupid to have to do, but it can help.

The other issue I have with JRVR is what you are asking help on. There is no clear documentation for lay people to understand the performance impact of each setting. You can tweak and play and use thoughts and prayers to solve it and that's about the only option available.

One thing you don't mention is the resolution of the built in screen. If it is lower than 4K and you are watching on the native screen, Scaling options will be used to downscale which MIGHT cause some of your issue. Mess with those settings and see what happens.

Though honestly, I have a 12th gen Intel CPU w/ built in Iris or whatever they call it and I can use pretty much all the scaling features with no issue.

[haggis999]

The other issue I have with JRVR is what you are asking help on. There is no clear documentation for lay people to understand the performance impact of each setting. You can tweak and play and use thoughts and prayers to solve it and that's about the only option available.

I followed your advice to eliminate the JRiver folder from what is now called Microsoft Defender. However, I had already managed to tame the stutter by first choosing the 'low-end integrated graphics preset', which gave an awful result, as HDR wasn't activated. This was fixed by selecting the Advanced HDR settings 'Use HDR Dynamic Peak Detection' and 'Use Histogram to improve peak detection'.

UHD Blu-ray resolution is 3840 x 2160, while my Dell XPS 15 OLED display is 3456 x 2160. This means that JRVR is required to slightly downsize the image on my laptop. The Downscaling Algorithm was using the basic Bilinear setting. I experimented with the better downscaling options but could only use the second option (Hermite). The third option of Cubic reintroduced the stuttering.

It seems odd that you can use almost all the scaling options with only Iris integrated graphics. Are you testing your system with UHD media?

[haggis999]

I must humbly apologise to JRiver for the original first sentence of my last post, in which I said I was frustrated by the lack of basic documentation for JRVR - a claim I now know to be invalid.

That prompted me to try a little harder to find some JRVR guidance. Goodness knows why I previously failed to find all the information sources listed below. My only excuse is that my 80-year-old brain is getting increasingly forgetful and I don't always remember to look for wiki articles (I'm more used to apps with built-in help).

https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/JRVR_-_JRiver_Video_Renderer
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/JRVR_-_JRiver_Video_Renderer/Configuration
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,133480.0.html

[Hendrik]

Downscaling 4K slightly is actually the worst of the situations you can have for performance - lots of input data, and lots of output data. I'm not surprised you can't use fancy scaling options for this on an iGPU. On the other hand, a slight downscale also gives you very little quality impact to the scaling algorithm used, so its fine to stick to Bilinear.

You could start with Balanced and then reduce the scaling options to Bilinear, and see if that works. Or use the Fast preset and adjust the HDR properties as you have done. Its probably a similar outcome from the two.

[haggis999]

Downscaling 4K slightly is actually the worst of the situations you can have for performance - lots of input data, and lots of output data. I'm not surprised you can't use fancy scaling options for this on an iGPU. On the other hand, a slight downscale also gives you very little quality impact to the scaling algorithm used, so its fine to stick to Bilinear.

Rather than an iGPU, I'm using Dell's laptop version of the RTX 4060. That GPU was released in February 2023 and I was expecting it to perform better with JRVR.   

You could start with Balanced and then reduce the scaling options to Bilinear, and see if that works. Or use the Fast preset and adjust the HDR properties as you have done. Its probably a similar outcome from the two.

I tried that, but I still got some stuttering. This was a little puzzling, as all the settings of the adjusted Balanced preset appear to be identical to my previous adjusted Performance preset. Are there some hidden differences between the preset configurations?

[Hendrik]

There is no hidden settings - all is available in the dialog.

Balanced over Fast has these changes:
- Scaling
  - Upscaling: Bilinear -> Jinc
  - Chroma Scaling: Bilinear -> Mitchell-Netravali
  - Downscaling: Bilinear -> Hermite
  - Antiringing: On
- Filtering: Deband Off -> Low
- Advanced
  - Dynamic Tonemapping on
  - Tonemapping histogram on

All have a performance impact of course, you could see what causes it specifically to bring it over the limit for you.

[haggis999]

Thanks for that checklist. My old eyes had missed the difference in the Deband setting between the Performance and Balanced presets. It needed to be disabled to stop the stuttering.

Essentially, to ensure decent 4K playback, I can't set JRVR any higher than the Performance preset plus HDR.

Incidentally, my copy of MC32 simply lists that Chroma Scaling option as "Bilinear (built-in)". There is no mention of Mitchell-Netravali.

[Hendrik]

Mitchell-Netravali is a particular variant of the Cubic scaler, it shows up as a sub-option there.

Deband having such a large impact depends a lot on the GPU, seemingly. Some do it a lot better then others. Something to keep an eye on.. maybe its not worth having it on by default.

[haggis999]

Downscaling 4K slightly is actually the worst of the situations you can have for performance - lots of input data, and lots of output data.

I am a little puzzled by that statement. My assumption would have been that any degree of downscaling (or upscaling) of the same file would generate similar amounts of input and output data.   

EDIT:  Forget that question. I worked out the answer for myself just after saving this post!