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[Trumpetguy]

I have just installed my first UHD projector (Epson EH-TW9400, not true 4K, but really good!), and I want to take the step from playing blurays to UHD material. my computer is from 2012, i7-2600, with ASUS P8Z68 Deluxe MOBO, nvidia 660Ti graphics card. It plays bluerays and blueray rips without breaking a sweat with MC at ROHQ standard settings.

The question is - can I simply replace the graphics card with something newer that supports HDMI 2.2? Like a nvidia RTX 2xxx of some sort?

The motherboard only has PCIe 2.0 x16 slots, no PCIe 3.0. Would that be a showstopper?

[rec head]

My HTPC is an i3 (2105?) with an Nvidia 6GB 1070 video card. I can upscale HD to UHD without a problem with some pretty high madVR settings. Playing UHD rips works fine. The GPU is much more important than the CPU.

You should be good.

[Trumpetguy]

Thanks, I am quite certain, yes. Still a bit unsure about the PCIe2.0 and if it is a bottleneck. Do you have PCIe 3.0?

[Awesome Donkey]

I'd guess the CPU would be more a bottleneck in this case but you should be fine for 4K UHD even with PCI-E 2.0.

[Trumpetguy]

Ok, so I will simply try then, and maybe the new video card ends up as the first component in a totally new rig....

Why would the cpu be a bottleneck, by the way?

[Manfred]

i7-2600 has a CPU passmark of 5371. I have an i3-7100 with a CPU passmark of 5781 and I can play all video content I have. I have some 4K UHD test files. The HDR files could be difficult If you use madVR and you cannot passthrough HDR to the TV/Projector. The alternative is to use pixelshader math to do this but this drives my i7-4770T on my PC to its limit. The new NVIDIA cards supports all modern video codec's:
https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-video-codec-sdk

[Trumpetguy]

HDR is a cruicial point for me. So you are saying the HDR needs to be processed by the CPU? Think I need to read up on 4K terminology...

[Trumpetguy]

Would AMD/Intel make any difference for HDR handling, e.g. AMD Ryzen 9 3900X vs Intel Core i9-9900K?

[tij]

Would AMD/Intel make any difference for HDR handling, e.g. AMD Ryzen 9 3900X vs Intel Core i9-9900K?

Reason HDR needs to be “handled” - it’s because none of current display technology can fully cover its color nor brightness range. This is especially true for projectors (except maybe Christie Eclipse ... but that it’s out of reach for most of us).

So you need to map HDR content into color/brightness range that your display can handle. This process is called tone mapping. And of course their will be sacrifices in quality. What is even worse - there is no standard for doing this.

You have basically 3 choices where to do tone mapping - let display do it (if it’s rated HDR), let special box do it (Lumagen or MadVR Envy) or let PC do it via MadVR

Second option is expensive. First option usually is lowest quality (most of displays have simple tone mapping limited by its processing power that often introduce color/hue shifts).

Last option is what most ppl use if they go HTPC way. But you need powerful GPU for it as MadVR uses GPU for both scaling and tone mapping.

I cannot say for other GPUs ... but 1070 handles HDR fine with scaling set to very high lvl (not maximum though) ... only issue I have is 4K 60fps content (Gemini man and Billy Lynn) ... for those titles I have to turn off setting that preserve hue/color ... so possible there are color/hue shifts there but I have not noticed it

With MadVR sky is the limit ... more money you spend on GPU ... higher settings you can crank up ... there is diminishing return though ... minimum I would go is 1060 equivalent ... when I have money will switch to 2080ti ... but atm I am pretty happy with 1070

EDIT: CPU is not a bottleneck playing movies on the same machine. It becomes bottleneck if you transcoding video to be played on mobile devices. It’s also bottleneck if you converting DSD audio

[rec head]

I made a mistake I have a 6GB 1060. Not 1070.

I just use madVR HDR pass through and let the display deal with it. Seems pretty good.

[tij]

I made a mistake I have a 6GB 1060. Not 1070.

I just use madVR HDR pass through and let the display deal with it. Seems pretty good.

You cannot use MadVR tone mapping with 1060? What are your rendering times if you enable tone mapping? Are you using native 23fps?

[Trumpetguy]

Thanks a lot for the crash course!
I started by ordering a 4K UHD friendly drive (ASUS Blu-Ray Writer BW-16D1HT), and a new GPU that can physically fit in my machine (MSI GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER VENTUS OC - 8GB GDDR6 RAM). I just hope RTX2070S is the cost/benefit efficient choice that can be the motor in my system the next years... (only local movie BD and soon UHD playback, no gaming).

According to the company that sold the Epson EH-TW9400 to me, this projector is quite good at tone mapping. I guess I will try different processing paths.

[tij]

2070S does not support 3D frame pack ... unless you use modified NVidia drivers

With official NVidia drivers you can output under/over at 4K ... so theoretically no resolution loss

[rec head]

You cannot use MadVR tone mapping with 1060? What are your rendering times if you enable tone mapping? Are you using native 23fps?

Honestly, I never looked into it. When setting up for UHD/HDR I was also trying to keep 3D working too. You and others helped me out a ton. Thanks for that. I thought that tone mapping was more for displays that didn't handle HDR. Meaning going from HDR to SDR. Sometimes there are rabbit holes I try and stay out of but no reason I can't play with tone mapping. I will do some backing up first.

Edit to add: I need to try the over/under 3D too. I haven't had 3D working for a while.

[tij]

My 3D and HDR work fine ... reason I went with MadVR tone mapping is cause my LG E6 tone mapping introduced hue/color shift on very bright scenes (for example green was having subtle green hue added)

New TVs and Projectors might have improve since 2016 ... but since I am sticking with E6 till bitter end - MadVR was my only option for better HDR

Start a new thread if you have problem @rec head .... surely we will be able to help you again

[Trumpetguy]

2070S does not support 3D frame pack ... unless you use modified NVidia drivers

With official NVidia drivers you can output under/over at 4K ... so theoretically no resolution loss

With 3D frame pack, is it 3D view on screen, you mean or is there some 4K processing for 2D viewing you refer to? Sorry, total n00b on this...

3D playback is not really my thing, by the way.

[rec head]

Its cool that new projectors are still doing 3D. It must be very easy to include in a PJ vs a TV. I beleive tij and I have the last (and best) 3D TVs.

[tij]

With 3D frame pack, is it 3D view on screen, you mean or is there some 4K processing for 2D viewing you refer to? Sorry, total n00b on this...

3D playback is not really my thing, by the way.

3D frame pack is the way 3D is encoded on Blu-ray ... and it’s a standard by which display recognize that it’s been fed 3D signal so display can switch to 3D mode automatically.

NVidia dump support for 3D in their drivers ... so ppl who still want frame pack 3D have to stick with older drivers.

Super series came after this ... so older drivers will not install on them ... however, there are communities that modify NV drivers to support 3D.

MadVR can output frame pack 3D if GPU driver supports it. If it does not, MadVR can output in Over/Under format (basically 2 images are cramp in one frame). For HD display, this means half resolution loss, but for 4K display there are no quality loss.

If 3D system is good, it’s joy to watch it. As rec head said ... LG 2016 OLED TVs were pinnacle of 3D quality (no ghosting, no headache, no eye strain ... just pure wonderful 3D)