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[JONCAT]

I'm noticing an average of 20$ cpu and 50% gpu (HD3850 & Q6600) using MC to cycle through full screen cover art images at 1920x1080P. I'm scaling everything to fit the resolution. Is this normal? I just find it ironic that I can play 1080P H264 at 1% cpu, full motion video.....

DC

Media Center Registered 12.0.410 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 12\

Microsoft Windows XP 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Intel Core 2 Quad 3008 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 2095 MB, Free - 1278 MB

Internet Explorer: 7.0.5730.13 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82.2900 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.0.2900 / Shell32.dll: 6.0.2900 / wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping /   Drive E:   Mode:Normal  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Drive K: _NEC    DVD+-RW ND-3450A  Mode:ModeSecure  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Drive P:   Mode:Normal  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Drive Q:   Mode:Normal  Type:Auto  Speed:Max
  Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: Yes /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
  Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: No 

Burning /  Drive E: PLEXTOR  DVDR   PX-716AL    Addr: 1:0:0  Speed:48  MaxSpeed:48  BurnProof:Yes
  Drive K: _NEC     DVD+-RW ND-3450A   Addr: 2:0:0  Speed:48  MaxSpeed:48  BurnProof:Yes
  Drive P: LITE-ON  DVDRW SHW-1635S    Addr: 2:1:0  Speed:48  MaxSpeed:48  BurnProof:Yes
  Drive Q: LITE-ON  DVDRW SHW-1635S    Addr: 2:2:0  Speed:48  MaxSpeed:48  BurnProof:Yes
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
  Use playback settings: No /

Portable Device Info
  Removed devices:

Device info dump for 'Cea Photo Archive':

WMDMName:
DeviceUID: {B24B56B8-F58A-4837-B4F3-EDDB2507B8F3}
CanonicalName:
VendorName: ; VendorID:
ProductID: ; FirmwareVersion:
WMDMSerialNumber: NULL
WMDMWriteOurOwnPlaylists:
DeviceType: 4; DeviceID: ; DeviceName: ; UnsupportedDevice: 0
IsDrive: 1; DriveLetter: ; DrivePath: \\ALICEA-PC\Public\Pictures\Photos\Images; MainDriveLetter:
IsJanusCapable: ; IsIpod: ;iTunesDBVersion:
SupportsAlbumArt: ; AlbumArtEnabled: 1; CoverArtTagRule: 0; SaveCoverArtToFolderJPG: 0
GetPlayStatsFromDevice: 0; SupportsFolders: -1; PlaylistFormat: 0; EjectMode: ; AlwaysPumpCOMMessages: 0
SupportedFileTypes: *
ContextMenus:
MemoryTypes:
InstallURL:
ApplicationName: Media Center
ImageName:
RootBasePath:
AudioBasePath: [Artist]\[Album]\
ImageBasePath: Images\
VideoBasePath: Video\
DataBasePath: Data\
PlaylistBasePath: Playlists\
DatabaseBasePath:
AudibleBasePath: Audible\
MatchKeyExpression: If(IsEqual([Media Type], Image), [Name]
[File Size, 0]
, [Name]
Clean([Artist], 1)
[Album]
[Genre]
FormatNumber([track #, 0])
[Media Type]
)
ChangeKeyExpression: [Rating]



Interface Plugins:
  last.fm
  Library Server (Active/Enabled)
  TiVo Server
  UPnP Server
  Playing Now

[Matt]

Image slideshow transitions and sizing are done on the CPU.  During a transition, a full screen is delivered to the graphics card about 30 times a second.

All transitions are done with MMX assembly.  Sizing of images is also MMX assembly, but we use bicubic shrinking for the best possible quality which has a performance cost.

We've toyed with using the graphics card for image playback, but it has a few big drawbacks.  The main one is that we sacrifice per-pixel accuracy when stretching.  It also presents compatibility issues, as a full resolution image from a good camera often exceeds the maximum texture size of a card.  If we resize before delivering it to the card, we're throwing away the biggest benefit -- that cards can quickly (but not always with good quality) resize a texture on draw.

[glynor]

Dr. C, it's somewhat OT, but I just thought I'd mention...

I've been working all week on my new Core 2 Duo build, with a Sapphire 3850 512MB card, and I just got my new 1080p 42" LCD yesterday.  It's undergoing overclocking/stability testing right now (as I type this it's 1 hour and 6 minutes in on a dual-process Prime95 run at 3.2GHz).  Once I've pounded on it for a couple more days it's going to become my new HTPC...

I'll probably want to pick your brain a bit on what you've figured out about H264 acceleration on the 3850 so far, since I know you've been working hard at it.

[JONCAT]

So busy lately but yes I did manage to remain married, be a father, and a grad student - I'm bragging only because I'm sure I went out of mind going through one corrupt build of a brand new system.....

Sounds like we're using similar hardware. Due to all the problems I had with dxva on Vista x64 and x86 with the AGP 2600xt, I stuck with Windows XP on this new build. I'll have to turn off dxva in the cyberlink options for h/x264 and see what happens, it's hard to tell with the quad core at 3gHz compared to the AMD64 at 3Ghz but I suspect dxva is working on the correctly encoded material. AMD64 was at 15% cpu, now at 1% with said material with dxva turned on.

It's a monster thread, but there is the 2600xt owners thread at AVS forums which will tell you a lot about dxva, if you're eyes don't start to bleed and obscure you're vision.

I still need to fully assimilate the direct show wiki...just so busy, but I'm down with working out all the details of dxva of various formats.

Actuallu, I just posted a possible bug because I can't get .mvk playback or import in the newest version of MC...go figure. It was working the other day, and I'm pretty sure I didn't make any serious system changes. I just ran 4-thread Prime95 for 32 hours at 3gHz and also ran memtest (the one Matt suggested on these forums) concurrently in windows.

BUT, I have been seeing a grey screen lockup which is bizzarre, and I'm pretty sure I saw this on my last board with the same card. Gray screen with vertical gray/black stripes, I think it is the gpu crashing, maybe I have a bad card. It happens every now and thing, when the gpu isn't doing anything serious, in fact during stress testing the system the gpu never made it over 47 celsius. Granted I need to loop 3dmark or something....but something is fishy. Since I was so busy I used the same XP install from a 790FX board.....I booted into Windows on the DFI P35 Ut and removed all the Gigabyte  drivers, chipset, etc. and crossed fingers. Probably the root of my issues, maybe not, I was just too busy to re-install; didn't even intend on doing it, I just booted in by accident because I never hit any key to install windows....I read you can do this OS upgrade if you mess with the ACPI/standard PC stuff (remove/add) but that's prior to the upgrade. Runs smooth, snappy, and primes, but hopefully a bad card or the miniport driver which was two versions old and upgraded yesterday - I also had a bad HD hooked up externally via firewire.

anyway.......
DC

[glynor]

Mine failed the Prime95 run at 3.2 about 5 1/2 hours in... I could push the voltage up (I'm running at stock) and get it stable, I'm sure, but I've already Prime95 tested it at 3.02GHz for 30-ish hours, and I think I'll just say that's good enough for me.

I've had absolutely no issues with my build at all thus far, except for a high-pitched whine (I suspect the RAM, but I'm hoping not the GPU).  I'm dragging home some extra RAM and my 7800GTX tonight to test it out.  When running at 3.02GHz it's been absolutely rock-solid.

I seriously considered just pulling the drive out of my existing HTPC and booting it to see what would happen.  It's even the same brand of board (Gigabyte).  But, I decided late in the game that switching from an AMD Socket 939 Opteron on a Nforce 3 to an Intel Core2 on a Intel P35 chipset was pushing my luck just a little too far (and that existing Windows install on the HTPC was originally done on a Athlon XP from an ASUS Nforce2 board).  So.... I've been having "fun" for 5 days testing and installing hundreds of applications.  Ahh well, now I have a nice, clean drive image for the future!

I too stuck with XP.  No Vista for me (yet).

A great, and easy way, to push that GPU to see if it is what is causing the crash is with ATI Tool (an overclocking utility): http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/

Just set it to default and then run the Scan for Artifacts (which pushes on the GPU hard).

I'd also strongly recommend you try disabling VPU Recover, which seems to cause more crashes than it prevents.  You can do this in Catalyst CC, but I really prefer ATI Tray Tools.  ATI Tray Tools can also be set to kill the ATI Hotkey Poller when it starts up, and that stupid service also is well known for causing occasional crashes.

[glynor]

Another thing to check is a flaky PSU.  If you happen to have another lying around, try that.  A little harder is to test it with a Voltage Meter.

I had a random display corruption lockup (gray with stripes and bits of weird characters and colors) on my other (AMD) build with my X1900XT that turned out to be a bad PSU not providing enough voltage on the 3.3v rail.

[JONCAT]

Interesting, the PSU is brand new Power & PC Cooling 610watt silencer, but I guess that could be it.

Thanks for the heads up on the ATI tool, the hotkey poller, and vpu recover.....

I left home about 4 hours ago with the system looping all 3dmark tests at 1920x1080.

DC

[glynor]

Interesting, the PSU is brand new Power & PC Cooling 610watt silencer, but I guess that could be it.

Yeah.  You never know.  Mine was a brand-new Antec (which are usually good).  I got a new one via warranty of course.  I was just glad I didn't send the X1900XT back (I almost did) before checking the PSU.

It was funny too because the exact same PSU worked fine with a wimpier GPU (my older X800XL), because I pulled the X1900XT out and swapped it to test it.  Coughed up it's lung on the X1900XT though...

[JONCAT]

I've got some software tools, but I assume sticking a multi meter in there would do it right. If I can't establish something is obviously wrong via the software, I'll try the multi-meter. I'm going to apply the tweaks you suggested first, wait until I see the lockup again. I wonder if 3dmark will still be running when I get home......

Thread:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12844770#post12844770

DXVA Checker:

"Some ideas:

-Run DXVAChecker and post a screenshot where it mentions anything about VC-1: http://bluesky23.hp.infoseek.co.jp/DXVAChecker_1501.zip

-Run this VC-1 file (http://rapidshare.com/files/79943655/VC-1_clip.ts.html) with Power DVD and show a screenshot where the Avivo checkbox under "Configuration/Video" is checked during playback.

-Play the file with Windows Media Player 11 (+Haali Splitter) and use WMV9 PowerToy (http://www.citizeninsomniac.com/WMV/) to enable DXVA logging. The file "C:\dxva.log" will be created during playback. Show that it isn't empty.

Use any drivers and PDVD versions you please. Good luck.

EDIT: I just reread your post. What exactly are you saying? VC-1 is broken but supported? WTH is that supposed to mean? You mean a GPU manufacturer can claim Hardware capabilities even when they don't intend to implement the feature into their drivers?"

DC

[glynor]

EDIT: I just reread your post. What exactly are you saying? VC-1 is broken but supported? WTH is that supposed to mean? You mean a GPU manufacturer can claim Hardware capabilities even when they don't intend to implement the feature into their drivers?"

Huh?  I didn't say anything like that...  Did you mean to post that at AVS?

(But, yes, they can and do.  Nvidia is particularly bad at this.  Offloading Firewall activity to hardware anyone?)

[JONCAT]

Sorry man, I should have nipped that part off, just wanted to post some of those links in case you needed them. I was just reading the DirectShow wiki, good stuff, really really useful stuff I didn't know about, like the Real Alternative and some of the tools.

thanks,

DC

[glynor]

Sorry man, I should have nipped that part off, just wanted to post some of those links in case you needed them. I was just reading the DirectShow wiki, good stuff, really really useful stuff I didn't know about, like the Real Alternative and some of the tools.

Gotcha.  I thought it might have been that.

Great links.  I'll be digging into that nasty stuff tomorrow.

(BTW -- Typing this message on my fancy new 42", though still using the old HTPC.  I'm psyched for tomorrow though... She should be going live tomorrow!)

[JONCAT]

So you have all the parts for your new build? Sounds good. I too picked up at 42"....at about 7-8ft.....so much better than the 32" than got stolen and smashed up in a car trunk when the thieves crashed their car into a tree during a high speed chase.......sometimes, we miss Maine.

DC

[glynor]

So you have all the parts for your new build? Sounds good. I too picked up at 42"....at about 7-8ft.....so much better than the 32" than got stolen and smashed up in a car trunk when the thieves crashed their car into a tree during a high speed chase.......sometimes, we miss Maine.

Yep... Typing this on it as we speak (just not hooked up to the new TV yet).

Where in Maine?  I'm also typing this from downeast Maine (just near Mount Desert Island).

[JONCAT]

I spent 4 years in Portland. Good times; spent time on the Sheepscot too, quite a bit.

I'm going to give the tagging script system another whirl soon......hopefully no strange issues this time.

How's the new system?

DC

[glynor]

I'm finally enjoying it tonight...

(and right now... I'm just enjoying it.)

[JONCAT]

I started some work and after a week long hiatus, the gray screen lockup is back.

BIOS and hardware monitor in Windows report 3.26 on the 3.3v.

...so frustrated right now.

DC

[glynor]

That's close enough, so it probably isn't that.  Hard to test those buggers under a load, but then you'd see the crash be repeatable when you put GPU load on the system.

I think I smell a clean install in your future.

Gotta say... I'm loving this.  I just got through playing Portal for a bit on it.  If you haven't seen that game at all, it's really pretty cool and it's only $20 on Steam.  Good to exercise your brain for a little bit.  I hope they come out with another one soon, as I figure I'm going to finish this one pretty quick.

[JONCAT]

That game looks really interesting. I have Crysis, new MOHAA, and others but never install. Don't have the time or patience to dive in, but Portal looks ....intellectual, and no slouch in the graphics department. I guess I need a break from all the 1st person shooters...haven't played in years actually, although I did check out Bioshock when my brother came down and forced me to buy it for his birthday. Crazy game, he always used to rave about System Shock 2 back in the day.

Anyway, fingers crossed here, minor tweaks recently which are hopefully leading me to stability. Turns out ATI hotkey poller never got disabled until I manually did it in Services.

btw - what LCD did you pick up?

DC