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[marko]

Morning all, I fall firmly into the "I just want it to work" group when it comes to video
Up till recently, that's exactly what I've been getting, but not now...

MC 33.0.15 (as library server client), Windows 11 Pro with Defender exclusions in place. Client has direct access to the media files via the 'use local file...' option in MC settings. Intel graphics drivers updated as of this morning. Display is a seven year old LG TV

I don't care about frame drops if I don't notice them, but recently, four weeks or so maybe, they've been really bad.

I look at the settings (which I don't touch anyway) and have no idea what affects what, but did find, somewhere, in the screen context menu I think, an option that offered to set everything to automatic, so I clicked on that, but it didn't help.

I noticed from the ctrl+J display that SDR content was being changed to HDR output. Going into the Windows display settings and turning off the HDR setting there fixed that, but not the frame drops, and, Theater View actually looked better with it turned on. Can I turn it back on? (Well, of course I can, but should I?)

I reckon I'm dropping around ten frames a second. The attached is the ctrl+J output. Are there any clues in there that could help somebody point me in the right direction here?

Thanks

[mattkhan]

The scaling is killing it, what is the source?

[marko]

It's an mkv file of Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid ? (Bob Dylan has a bit part and did the soundtrack )
It's not just this movie though, it's practically all of them.

The HTPC is benching at 6336:

Code: [Select]

=== Running Benchmarks (please do not interrupt) ===

Running 'Math' benchmark...
    Single-threaded integer math... 1.846 seconds
    Single-threaded floating point math... 2.423 seconds
    Multi-threaded integer math... 0.382 seconds
    Multi-threaded mixed math... 0.630 seconds
Score: 3598

Running 'Image' benchmark...
    Image creation / destruction... 0.244 seconds
    Flood filling... 0.172 seconds
    Direct copying... 0.279 seconds
    Small renders... 0.736 seconds
    Bilinear rendering... 0.359 seconds
    Bicubic rendering... 1.122 seconds
Score: 7552

Running 'Database' benchmark...
    Create database... 0.135 seconds
    Populate database... 0.604 seconds
    Save database... 0.092 seconds
    Reload database... 0.036 seconds
    Search database... 0.757 seconds
    Sort database... 0.572 seconds
    Group database... 0.539 seconds
Score: 7859

JRMark (version 33.0.15): 6336Didn't there used to be four benchmarking areas?

I don't understand what scaling is.

Attached is the analyse video section of the tag window, if that helps?

[marko]

also, if it matters, thinking about scaling, Windows desktop is set at 3840 x 2160, with scaling there set at 175%

[terrym@tassie]

I suggest that you change your JRVR chroma upscaling algo from it's current setting to something like Bicubic, the chroma upscaling is killing the gpu.
See attached screenshot

[JimH]

Is the Use Local Files a NAS?

[Hendrik]

I suggest that you change your JRVR chroma upscaling algo from it's current setting to something like Bicubic, the chroma upscaling is killing the gpu.
See attached screenshot

Actually the Image Upscaling is the biggest offender with the 21ms. Or well, at least its the rendering step that includes the Image scaling, but dithering isn't going to cost that much.
The reason is probably that the image is _almost_ 4K but not quite, which is the worst case for scaling - you have lots of input pixels and lots of output pixels - lots of data to process.

marko, in the same dialog terrym@tassie showed above, in the JRVR settings under Scaling, you are currently using Jinc as the Upscaling Algorithm, maybe move that up to a different setting - they are roughly ordered in performance/quality order. Worst case you end up with one of the two built-ins which are a lot faster.
As a second step, maybe go to the Processing tab and disable Debanding. It has little effect on high quality content but can cost a bunch of time.

If you want a single easy option, you could also swap to the Performance preset on the JRVR General page. Although swapping the upscaler should do the job.

What graphics card is that system using?
The CPU performance from the benchmark looks fine, but it doesn't measure graphics performance.

[marko]

Is the Use Local Files a NAS?

No. I want to try NAS, the theory behind them sounds really useful, but around MC and the way we use it, they seem to cause a myriad of different issues that have me believing they can't all be down to poor setup, can they? So, I decided a while back to never go there.

I have an Addonics case (thanks glynor (hope he's keeping well)) that houses five HDD that are presented to Windows (MC server) via USB3 as JBOD, and in turn, DrivePool combines them all into a single 29Tb drive and presents that to Windows. This has worked very well for me for a very long time now.

That drive is shared with, and mapped, on the HTPC, to leverage the benefit of the 'use local files...' settings there.

[JimH]

People sometimes think a NAS is better because it isn't a computer, but that's not the case.  They usually run Linux.

And they have their own set of issues. 

[JimH]

I have an Addonics case (thanks glynor (hope he's keeping well)) that houses five HDD that are presented to Windows (MC server) via USB3 as JBOD, and in turn, DrivePool combines them all into a single 29Tb drive and presents that to Windows. This has worked very well for me for a very long time now.

That drive is shared with, and mapped, on the HTPC, to leverage the benefit of the 'use local files...' settings there.

Can you test a local file without using that device?   Your problem could just be related to reading the files.

Power cycle ...

[marko]

@terrym@tassie and Hendrik...

Thank you. Where's that 'beer' emoji?

I don't understand these settings, so, I do not touch them. I am very capable of a 'wonder what happens if I click that' attitude, but not when it comes to video playback...

marko, in the same dialog terrym@tassie showed above, in the JRVR settings under Scaling, you are currently using Jinc as the Upscaling Algorithm, maybe move that up to a different setting - they are roughly ordered in performance/quality order. Worst case you end up with one of the two built-ins which are a lot faster.
As a second step, maybe go to the Processing tab and disable Debanding. It has little effect on high quality content but can cost a bunch of time.

Working through your reply, I tried this first, and things improved greatly. Render average came down to around 17ms, but there was still a steady increase in the dropped frames count.

Then, I read the next bit...

If you want a single easy option, you could also swap to the Performance preset on the JRVR General page. Although swapping the upscaler should do the job.

What graphics card is that system using?
The CPU performance from the benchmark looks fine, but it doesn't measure graphics performance.

and I was like, wait a minute...

Graphics is provided by the Intel thing on the chip (my technical jargon is impressive huh? ) so I selected that performance preset, clicked the load button, turned on that HDR setting in Windows display settings, and now, it's all good again.

Average render times are below 10ms, some dropped frames right at the beginning, then it's stable, and looks fine. Even the SDR to HDR step is stable and looks fine too.

Thank you, again, for the steer.
Final thoughts...
1. I've no idea what got changed, or when, nor how. I don't touch those settings, they're dark magic to me
2. After selecting a preset, and hitting that load button, it would be handy to know what preset is loaded. An indicator somewhere that shows "Loaded preset: [Performance]" and, if a setting subsequently changes, that should change to "Loaded preset: [Performance (modified)]"

This might have been enough to get me there on my own

-marko

[JimH]

Different problem, but try changing JRVR deinterlacing to YADIF.

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,139521.msg967839.html#msg967839