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[mark_h]

Is there a recommended procedure for getting the best performance available on a given PC when using RO HQ and madvr?

eg start with all settings on "low" and then how to work the way up, which are most important (chroma, scaling etc) to overall image quality, which scaling algorithms are least processor intensive, which most intensive, and so on?

In other words, how to find the "sweet spot" for a given setup that offers the best image quality within the resources of the computer?

RO SQ "works" for me but I'm dissatisfied with the picture quality of DVD rips - way too much noise reduction, compared to native DVD playback, so it seems I need to investigate RO HQ and find my own "sweet spot", but many of the best options seem too much for my PC and I see stuttering etc, so I need to find the sweet spot but am unsure about the optimal way to approach the problem.

Using native resolutions helps but there seems to be no support for 1080p25 (eg European HD)... only PAL 25, which is for DVD resolution?  So PAL DVD looks good but all my 1080p25 material is downscaled to 720x576, which is not what I want...

[6233638]

Without giving details on the hardware you're trying to run it on, it's difficult to give recommendations.

Firstly, there is no such thing as 1080p25. There is 1080p24/50/60. If you have "1080p25" as an option in your drivers, it is most likely outputting a 1080i50 signal, or a signal that very few displays will sync to.
If you are watching films, I would suggest outputting 1080p24 and using VideoClock anyway.

Unless your system can't handle madVR's scaling at all I would set your output options to 1080p24/50/60 (or just 1080p24/60 if using VideoClock) rather than outputting video at its "native" resolution. (MC18 cannot output DVDs unscaled, even if you set it to 720x576)

I would recommend not using the hardware acceleration option in MC18 if your CPU can handle the decoding, because that's a power saving option rather than a performance one in most cases. Once you have madVR running smoothly, you can try it again.


As for madVR performance, when it is running you can hit CTRL+J to view the on-screen statistics and check for dropped/delayed/repeated frames. Once playback has started (give it 10s) you should not experience any of these. (there will be some at the start and you can hit CTRL+R to reset the stats)

I would suggest starting by setting all scaling options to Bilinear, as this is the least demanding scaling option in madVR. (even less than DXVA - which is actually quite taxing on my system compared to many of the other options) If this doesn't run smoothly, start enabling the "trade quality for performance" options one at a time, working your way down from the top.


If Bilinear is running smoothly, you want to work your way up the luma/image upscaling options. Generally the performance tiers are:

Lowest complexity:
Nearest Neighbor
Bilinear
Low complexity:
Mitchell-Netravali
Catmull-Rom
Bicubic
SoftCubic
Medium complexity:
Lanczos
Spline
High complexity:
Anti-ringing Lanczos/Spline
Jinc
Anti-ringing Jinc

Anything inside those groups should have the same performance, except the high complexity where it does get more demanding as you work down the list.

While you have the option of 3/4/8-tap scaling with some of the more complex algorithms, the best results both from an image quality and a performance standpoint, are achieved at 3-taps.
Which algorithm you pick depends on your preference between sharpness, ringing, and aliasing. Most algorithms only fare well in two of those categories so you are compromising on the third.

Personally I like a low-aliasing, low ringing image, and don't mind if that comes at the cost of sharpness, so I like SoftCubic 80 for DVD playback. (most commercial DVDs are full of compression artefacts/ringing in my experience)
Others may prefer how Mitchell-Netravali or something else looks.


Once you have found the scaling algorithm that performs well and looks good to you, then you may wish to try increasing the chroma scaling options. For that, I would suggest only trying these:

• Bilinear
• Mitchell-Netravali
• Bicubic 75 Anti-Ringing
• Lanczos 3 Anti-Ringing
• Jinc 3 Anti-Ringing

I do not think the other options are a good choice for chroma scaling. (either too soft, or too much ringing)

Chroma scaling is far less than Luma (image) scaling, so you are best to leave it at bilinear if that allows you to use a better Luma option unless you are particularly sensitive to it.

There is extensive discussion of which algorithms are best over at Doom9. If you search through my post history there, you will find a number of large posts going into detail about it.

[CountryBumkin]

Very informative reply, 623....
And I did not know that Hardware Acceleration was undesirable. I'll have to turn it off.

[mark_h]

Without giving details on the hardware you're trying to run it on, it's difficult to give recommendations.

PC is:

Intel Core i5 3450S Processor 2.80 GHz
Integrated Intel Graphics (HD4000)

Experimenting with a silent PC, hence the integrated graphics chip.

Firstly, there is no such thing as 1080p25. There is 1080p24/50/60. If you have "1080p25" as an option in your drivers, it is most likely outputting a 1080i50 signal, or a signal that very few displays will sync to.
If you are watching films, I would suggest outputting 1080p24 and using VideoClock anyway.

The Wonders of the Universe [BBC UK] Blu-Ray that I'm testing with is listed in MC as 1080/25.  Pretty certain I have a bunch of UK blu-rays at 1080p25 also...?

Unless your system can't handle madVR's scaling at all I would set your output options to 1080p24/50/60 (or just 1080p24/60 if using VideoClock) rather than outputting video at its "native" resolution. (MC18 cannot output DVDs unscaled, even if you set it to 720x576)

OK, thanks

I would recommend not using the hardware acceleration option in MC18 if your CPU can handle the decoding, because that's a power saving option rather than a performance one in most cases. Once you have madVR running smoothly, you can try it again.

Interesting.  Will try.

As for madVR performance, when it is running you can hit CTRL+J to view the on-screen statistics and check for dropped/delayed/repeated frames. Once playback has started (give it 10s) you should not experience any of these. (there will be some at the start and you can hit CTRL+R to reset the stats)

CTRL+J displays nothing on my screen.

I would suggest starting by setting all scaling options to Bilinear, as this is the least demanding scaling option in madVR. (even less than DXVA - which is actually quite taxing on my system compared to many of the other options) If this doesn't run smoothly, start enabling the "trade quality for performance" options one at a time, working your way down from the top.

If Bilinear is running smoothly, you want to work your way up the luma/image upscaling options. Generally the performance tiers are:

Excellent, this is the sort of info I'm looking for.

Lowest complexity:
Nearest Neighbor
Bilinear
Low complexity:
Mitchell-Netravali
Catmull-Rom
Bicubic
SoftCubic
Medium complexity:
Lanczos
Spline
High complexity:
Anti-ringing Lanczos/Spline
Jinc
Anti-ringing Jinc

Anything inside those groups should have the same performance, except the high complexity where it does get more demanding as you work down the list.

While you have the option of 3/4/8-tap scaling with some of the more complex algorithms, the best results both from an image quality and a performance standpoint, are achieved at 3-taps.
Which algorithm you pick depends on your preference between sharpness, ringing, and aliasing. Most algorithms only fare well in two of those categories so you are compromising on the third.

Personally I like a low-aliasing, low ringing image, and don't mind if that comes at the cost of sharpness, so I like SoftCubic 80 for DVD playback. (most commercial DVDs are full of compression artefacts/ringing in my experience)
Others may prefer how Mitchell-Netravali or something else looks.


Once you have found the scaling algorithm that performs well and looks good to you, then you may wish to try increasing the chroma scaling options. For that, I would suggest only trying these:

• Bilinear
• Mitchell-Netravali
• Bicubic 75 Anti-Ringing
• Lanczos 3 Anti-Ringing
• Jinc 3 Anti-Ringing

I do not think the other options are a good choice for chroma scaling. (either too soft, or too much ringing)

Chroma scaling is far less than Luma (image) scaling, so you are best to leave it at bilinear if that allows you to use a better Luma option unless you are particularly sensitive to it.

There is extensive discussion of which algorithms are best over at Doom9. If you search through my post history there, you will find a number of large posts going into detail about it.

Many many thanks, for this.  Very helpful stuff.

[6233638]

Very informative reply, 623....
And I did not know that Hardware Acceleration was undesirable. I'll have to turn it off.

Well it's not undesirable, but it's easier to get performance sorted out when your GPU is only handling the scaling rather than all video processing - you're removing one of the variables.
And I don't like the Hardware Acceleration option inside MC18 as it seems to use CUVID, whereas I prefer DXVA2 Copy-Back in LAV Video, as that performs better and lowers power consumption. (only applies to Nvidia)

The Wonders of the Universe [BBC UK] Blu-Ray that I'm testing with is listed in MC as 1080/25.  Pretty certain I have a bunch of UK blu-rays at 1080p25 also...?

I don't think the Blu-ray specification allows for 1080p25, only 1080i50. Even so, if the videos you have are 1080p25, 1080p25 is not a valid output format over HDMI - you would output it at 1080p50. (or 1080p24 if you want to use VideoClock for film content)

[kstuart]

The Wonders of the Universe Blu-Ray is 1080i, according to a google search.

[mark_h]

Making some progress.  If I bring madvr into focus I can get the OSD up and see the stats.  So I am now able to experiment with various settings.

Not sure why the keyboard doesn't work when it's not in focus.

Any suggestions for the Rendering options in madvr?  general/windowed/exclusive...

Or any pointers to where I can read up on all this stuff?

[kstuart]

" RO SQ "works" for me but I'm dissatisfied with the picture quality of DVD rips... "

By "DVD" do you mean SD DVDs ?   Or are you using "DVD" to mean "Disks containing video" ?

As you can see from the numerous above details of scaling, most of the difference in madVR comes in upscaling lower resolution material.

1080 material is already the same scale as an HDTV, so there should be no difference in Blu-Ray playback.

madVR should indeed help for upscaling SD DVDs, if that is what you are asking about.   (However some recent HDTVs contain sophisticated processors and upscaling firmware... Toshiba comes to mind, among others)

Ultimately, free video software development on the web is 90% about watching anime on PC gaming monitors (very high resolution) in Europe. So, there is a lot of attention paid to scaling and reclocking, and all the quality issues that arise with that.  Nothing wrong with that.  But that's most of the impetus.

[kstuart]

" Or any pointers to where I can read up on all this stuff? "

Google.com

Enter madVR

First result.

Which is the link already given by Mr. Number (he's not a free man, I guess).

[mark_h]

Was hoping for something more concise than a 907 page thread  

Point is, these vast array of options are available in MC but there seems to be little formal documentation, making it very difficult to make informed decisions.  For people who spend their time tinkering with filters I'm sure it's all very obvious, but for the average user it's very much not.

I know that RO SQ is there to hide much of this, but as I'm somebody who spends a lot of time worrying about image quality in my home cinema I want to ensure I also get the best available from the HTPC under my TV screen.  Right now I'm a little bewildered, but getting there slowly.

I'll start running my test pattern DVDs/Blu-Rays through the various options and combined with the information above can hopefully find my "sweet spot".

[mark_h]

Just to say also that this isn't purely about madvr but the many video related options in MC (hardware acceleration, VideoClock, display settings etc)

[mark_h]

" RO SQ "works" for me but I'm dissatisfied with the picture quality of DVD rips... "

By "DVD" do you mean SD DVDs ?   Or are you using "DVD" to mean "Disks containing video" ?

Here I mean DVD rips (I have some mkv and some IFO based stuff - experimenting here too to try and find preferred format).  In my cinema I play my hard formats, discs, tapes whatever, but this HTPC will be all ripped formats; very rarely physical product.

As you can see from the numerous above details of scaling, most of the difference in madVR comes in upscaling lower resolution material.

Yep.

madVR should indeed help for upscaling SD DVDs, if that is what you are asking about.   (However some recent HDTVs contain sophisticated processors and upscaling firmware... Toshiba comes to mind, among others)

I'm just asking for help on the best practice in setting up the video options in MC for optimal playback of any source material.  As above, the amount of options is bewildering and there's very little official documentation it seems to help.

[6233638]

Any suggestions for the Rendering options in madvr?  general/windowed/exclusive...

I would generally suggest leaving those settings at the defaults. Messing with the queue sizes/backbuffers/flush controls usually does more harm than good, and should largely be unnecessary in the current version of madVR.

You may want to enable the "delay playback start until render queue is full" option, as it means less dropped frames when starting playback or seeking through a video, but introduces a slight delay.

Windowed Overlay should give you better performance, but means you can't take screenshots with PrtScn, and looks a bit ugly with some of the MC18 UI.
Fullscreen Exclusive mode can perform considerably better, but due to how MC18 renders the UI, it means the screen flickers every time it's brought up, so I prefer to have it disabled to have a more seamless experience.

1080 material is already the same scale as an HDTV, so there should be no difference in Blu-Ray playback.

Chroma upscaling has to be performed on all video.

Here's a comparison between some of the chroma scaling options available in madVR: http://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=1606910&postcount=16513
Note: this is not a recommendation of Jinc 8 - Jinc 3 is better 99% of the time.

Was hoping for something more concise than a 907 page thread 

As I said, search through my posts in that topic and you will find a lot of detailed posts comparing the scaling algorithms etc. While there is some information you might find useful to read going further back, only go with my latest recommendations, as what is "best" in madVR has changed as development has gone forward.

[JimH]

Red October HQ solves the "average user" problem.  Set it and forget it.  Don't change settings unless you consider yourself a DirectShow master.  It's not necessary.

[6233638]

Red October HQ solves the "average user" problem.  Set it and forget it.  Don't change settings unless you consider yourself a DirectShow master.  It's not necessary.

Does ROHQ change the settings based on your hardware? When I installed MC18 on a clean install of Windows, madVR had four or five other displays set up in there already, so it seemed like it was just using someone else's preferences.

[Hendrik]

Red October HQ solves the "average user" problem.  Set it and forget it.  Don't change settings unless you consider yourself a DirectShow master.  It's not necessary.

That may be true for RO Standard, but especially with madVR, there is no one set of settings that work for everyone AND provide the best quality available.
It starts with hardware, which may or may not be auto-detected and then tuned for, however it also comes down to personal preference - some people like a sharper scaling algorithm and accept some ringing for this, and some prefer no ringing and accept a slightly softer image.

Its unrelated to DirectShow, you don't need to mess with custom filters or anything like this, just with madVRs quality and scaling settings.

[glynor]

Without giving details on the hardware you're trying to run it on, it's difficult to give recommendations.

...

I would suggest starting by setting all scaling options to Bilinear, as this is the least demanding scaling option in madVR. (even less than DXVA - which is actually quite taxing on my system compared to many of the other options) If this doesn't run smoothly, start enabling the "trade quality for performance" options one at a time, working your way down from the top.


If Bilinear is running smoothly, you want to work your way up the luma/image upscaling options. Generally the performance tiers are:

Lowest complexity:
Nearest Neighbor
Bilinear
Low complexity:
Mitchell-Netravali
Catmull-Rom
Bicubic
SoftCubic
Medium complexity:
Lanczos
Spline
High complexity:
Anti-ringing Lanczos/Spline
Jinc
Anti-ringing Jinc

Anything inside those groups should have the same performance, except the high complexity where it does get more demanding as you work down the list.

While you have the option of 3/4/8-tap scaling with some of the more complex algorithms, the best results both from an image quality and a performance standpoint, are achieved at 3-taps.
Which algorithm you pick depends on your preference between sharpness, ringing, and aliasing. Most algorithms only fare well in two of those categories so you are compromising on the third.

Personally I like a low-aliasing, low ringing image, and don't mind if that comes at the cost of sharpness, so I like SoftCubic 80 for DVD playback. (most commercial DVDs are full of compression artefacts/ringing in my experience)
Others may prefer how Mitchell-Netravali or something else looks.


Once you have found the scaling algorithm that performs well and looks good to you, then you may wish to try increasing the chroma scaling options. For that, I would suggest only trying these:

• Bilinear
• Mitchell-Netravali
• Bicubic 75 Anti-Ringing
• Lanczos 3 Anti-Ringing
• Jinc 3 Anti-Ringing

I do not think the other options are a good choice for chroma scaling. (either too soft, or too much ringing)

Chroma scaling is far less than Luma (image) scaling, so you are best to leave it at bilinear if that allows you to use a better Luma option unless you are particularly sensitive to it.

There is extensive discussion of which algorithms are best over at Doom9. If you search through my post history there, you will find a number of large posts going into detail about it.

Awesome stuff here.

Thanks.

[nwboater]

Awesome stuff here.

Thanks.

+1 for sure!!!

Thanks very much 6233638. Now I might even consider doing a little tweaking.

Have a great weekend!

Cheers,
Rod

[mark_h]

"Sweet spot" found.  Thanks for the help above, it was *invaluable*

I guess I've been spoiled in the home cinema, where everything "just works" (ignoring calibration issues); as always, the PC requires more user effort.

And how wonderful that JRiver MC, my go to audio software for the past decade also turns out to be my video solution too! 

[Daveyravey]

Great information here guys some more things for me to tweak now. :0)