ATI Radeon HD 2X00 (2400,2600,2900) series owners thread

[RockySpieler]

Thanks for those - looks like expansion is behaving OK then. Untweaked VMR9 doesn't expand, and smpte75% is around 180ish. Tweaked to expand, it goes to 190/191ish.

How is it with HD?

8.49 also allow unique scaling factors at each resolution / refreshrate combination. Previously my drivers (8.1 and lower) only allowed the scaling to be set at 60hz, this was then applied to 50hz and 24hz, may be useful to 1080p HDTV owners. This feature may be present in 8.2, 8.3, and 8.4 but for a few months I lost the re-install drivers bug.........:D.

[Mevlock]

8.49 also allow unique scaling factors at each resolution / refreshrate combination. Previously my drivers (8.1 and lower) only allowed the scaling to be set at 60hz, this was then applied to 50hz and 24hz, may be useful to 1080p HDTV owners. This feature may be present in 8.2, 8.3, and 8.4 but for a few months I lost the re-install drivers bug.........:D.

Hmm I don't think it has been present in any previous drivers. It's something I've wanted for a while now. However there's no 8.49 for 32bit Vista available. Ah well will have to wait.

[nbarsotti]

The best way to test a decoder without permanent changes to your setup is with DXVA Checker. Open a file with it, it'll tell you which codecs provide acceleration, and whether dxva1/dxva2. Choose a codec and play it via evr/vmr9, it'll tell you whether HA is on, what mode of deinterlacing is in use, and cpu/frame rate to boot. Pretty much ideal for quick testing :-)

Where do you download DXVA Checker from? Who created and or maintains it? Thank you.

[arfster]

Where do you download DXVA Checker from? Who created and or maintains it? Thank you.

http://bluesky23.hp.infoseek.co.jp/index.html#DXVAChecker

Just a simple little util really, but probably the most useful for decoder/driver issues out there.

[datman]

sorry to jump right in here. I have a ATI 2600XT I want to overclock it a little. When I try to make the changes in CCC it goes right bact to default (the min setting) How do I overclock?

the problem I'm having is that from the start I had this horizontal line. I have a Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H and I tried the onboard graphics at first. So I upgraded tp the 2600xt and works great in power dvd but in showtime or arcsoft TMT I still get the line. It seems to be worse when there is a lot of action. So not having any more options I want to try overclocking

[Ludvig]

Yes, it's exactly that - however you can't do that outside PDVD, even if you're using the cyberlink mpeg2 decoder. The filter's switch is either on for both, or off for both.

The best way to test a decoder without permanent changes to your setup is with DXVA Checker. Open a file with it, it'll tell you which codecs provide acceleration, and whether dxva1/dxva2. Choose a codec and play it via evr/vmr9, it'll tell you whether HA is on, what mode of deinterlacing is in use, and cpu/frame rate to boot. Pretty much ideal for quick testing :-)


Hello,

arfster,I've been reading you for a while but it's the first time I haven't understood anything of what you've said.Ok,I'm lost ! :confused:
My position:
- pwdvd 7.3 3319a
- ZP using pwdvd filters when available with Haali renderer or wmr9/r (No ffdshow installed,ever)
- x1650xt with 7.7

1) So what's at stake with this AVIVO package ?
a) When I watch dvds or mpeg2hd with the cyberlink mpeg2 filter + Haali,the dxva option is checked,an acceleration is performed and everything works splendidly.Why should I use the mpeg2 filter included in the package instead of the Cyberlink one ?
b) It has been mentionned that there is also an avc filter available in this mysterious package.What's its status right now ? Is it actually a filter ? If yes,is it exploitable ?

2) About the dxva checker:
a) How does it work ? You write "Open a file with it" but what do you mean ? When I run the checker,it gives me the gpu dxva abilities.
There's an option that says "Check Directshow filter".When I choose ,for example,"coreavc.ax",I have a message saying that the checking failed.I can't check the Cyberlink filters either because they are .dll (?).
b) You write:"Choose a codec and play it via evr/vmr9, it'll tell you whether HA is on, what mode of deinterlacing is in use, and cpu/frame rate to boot."
Choose a codec and play it ?
Arfster,I wish you were a little more pedagogic on these two but thanks for testing the drivers so extensively.This is a crucial work you are providing here.

[HT Slider]

BTW, for those of you running Vista Media Center (VMC) and want to try a different codec for Recorded and Live TV (.dvr-ms files), the easiest way is to use this utility:

http://mediacenterexpert.blogspot.com/2006/07/vista-media-center-decoder-utility.html

It allows you to see the currently assigned decoder, allows you to see a list of installed video and audio decoders that are flagged as Media Center compatible (by the codec manufacturer), and allows you to select and change the decoder VMC will use.

I haven't tried the AVIVO decoder since apparently skip/replay and/or FF/RW do not work with it.

I am now using the Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra 7.x HD/BD decoder for video and the default Microsoft decoder for audio.

It seems to work well but I haven't really compared the image quality much yet. One thing for certain, the Microsoft decoder often crashed with specific digitally recorded 720p and 1080i shows plus it often temporarily displayed a black screen when skipping and replaying content. The Cyberlink HD decoder doesn't suffer from either of these issues and skip/replay/FF/RW all work fine. BTW, while the Microsoft decoder crashes with specific content, it only crashes with systems with ATI video cards (and the HD2600XT is apparently one of the worst for crashing the MS decoder). With my other HTPCs with Nvidia video cards, the Microsoft decoder never crashes and the decoder actually works well with those same recordings (that won't work with the ATI card).

If you have a CableCard PC apparently the only decoder that will work is the Microsoft decoder, but if your recordings are not copy protected there are many different ones that can be used.

[arfster]

a) When I watch dvds or mpeg2hd with the cyberlink mpeg2 filter + Haali,the dxva option is checked,an acceleration is performed and everything works splendidly.Why should I use the mpeg2 filter included in the package instead of the Cyberlink one ?


Absolutely no reason at all, if it's working for you :-) Avivo is largely only useful for solving specific problems, and if you have things working you're already sorted. For most people, the cyberlink decoder is better for mpeg2.


b) It has been mentionned that there is also an avc filter available in this mysterious package.What's its status right now ? Is it actually a filter ? If yes,is it exploitable ?


Nah, it's completely and utterly useless. Half-finished I think.


2) About the dxva checker:
a) How does it work ? You write "Open a file with it" but what do you mean ? When I run the checker,it gives me the gpu dxva abilities.
There's an option that says "Check Directshow filter".When I choose ,for example,"coreavc.ax",I have a message saying that the checking failed.I can't check the Cyberlink filters either because they are .dll (?).


It's not very well labelled, but you should open a video file with that.


b) You write:"Choose a codec and play it via evr/vmr9, it'll tell you whether HA is on, what mode of deinterlacing is in use, and cpu/frame rate to boot."


After you open the video above, it'll give you a list of all compatible codecs for that video type, the various acceleration modes each decoder supports, and which matches dxva1/dxva2 with the card.

For example, I open a mpeg2 file, I get Cyberlink, bitcontrol, ffdshow, avivo, nero, nvidia and probably some others. Cyberlink will say it supports multiple mode_mpegA or something similar, with a DXVA1/DXVA2 next to one of them cos the card supports both (this being Vista). FFdshow will support nothing, since it doesn't do acceleration. NVidia will support DXVA1 only, because they're lazy *^^7s and never updated it.

If you then select a codec, right/click, you can tell it to play the file via VMR9, or EVR. Remember dxva2 needs EVR for acceleration.

[one_2go]

Where is the 8.4 hotfix available from. Somehow I can't find it on the AMD/ATI site.

[wyrdic]

Thanks for those - looks like expansion is behaving OK then. Untweaked VMR9 doesn't expand, and smpte75% is around 180ish. Tweaked to expand, it goes to 190/191ish.
How is it with HD?

Cata8.3/8.4/8.49 expand a HD movie colour automatically regardless of UseBT601CSC value.
(As you mentioned before there (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11659897#post11659897).:))

I had already tested HD with 8.3/8.4.
http://tirnanog.fate.jp/tmp/scan/8.4test/
cata8.3 bt601=1 (http://tirnanog.fate.jp/tmp/scan/8.4test/cata8.3%20usebt601csc=1(by%20tweak0.13)%20hd%20vmr9.jpg)
cata8.4 bt601=0 (http://tirnanog.fate.jp/tmp/scan/8.4test/cata8.4%20usebt601csc=0(default)%20hd%20vmr9.jpg)
cata8.4 bt601=1 (http://tirnanog.fate.jp/tmp/scan/8.4test/cata8.4%20usebt601csc=1(by%20tweak0.13)%20hd%20vmr9.jpg)

also, i've just tested HD movie with 8.49
http://tirnanog.fate.jp/tmp/scan/8.49test/HD/
UseBT601CSC=0:
ramp HD on overlay (http://tirnanog.fate.jp/tmp/scan/8.49test/HD/cata8.49%20bt601=0%20ramp%20HD%20overlay.png)
ramp HD on vmr9 (http://tirnanog.fate.jp/tmp/scan/8.49test/HD/cata8.49%20bt601=0%20ramp%20HD%20vmr9.png)
ColorBar75(bt.601) HD on vmr9 (http://tirnanog.fate.jp/tmp/scan/8.49test/HD/cata8.49%20bt601=0%20SMPTE%20ColorBar75(bt.601)%20HD%20vmr9. png)
ColorBar75(bt.709) HD on vmr9 (http://tirnanog.fate.jp/tmp/scan/8.49test/HD/cata8.49%20bt601=0%20SMPTE%20ColorBar75(bt.709)%20HD%20vmr9. png)

UseBT601CSC=1:
ramp HD on overlay (http://tirnanog.fate.jp/tmp/scan/8.49test/HD/cata8.49%20bt601=1%20ramp%20HD%20overlay.png)
ramp HD on vmr9 (http://tirnanog.fate.jp/tmp/scan/8.49test/HD/cata8.49%20bt601=1%20ramp%20HD%20vmr9.png)
ColorBar75(bt.601) HD on vmr9 (http://tirnanog.fate.jp/tmp/scan/8.49test/HD/cata8.49%20bt601=1%20SMPTE%20ColorBar75(bt.601)%20HD%20vmr9. png)
ColorBar75(bt.709) HD on vmr9 (http://tirnanog.fate.jp/tmp/scan/8.49test/HD/cata8.49%20bt601=1%20SMPTE%20ColorBar75(bt.709)%20HD%20vmr9. png)

test sample file
http://tirnanog.fate.jp/tmp/sample/ITU-R/
regards :)


Where is the 8.4 hotfix available from. Somehow I can't find it on the AMD/ATI site.
here:)
http://www.ngohq.com/home.php?page=Files&go=cat&dwn_cat_id=18

[one_2go]

Damn, they make it even worst to get the fix, have your PC scanned for free, no thank you. Download and update drivers ends up with a version tracker, and I don't feel like going through the registration process.

Thanks for your help.

EDIT: Well googling for 8.4 hot fix finally revealed the ATI download location but it also revealed it is for AGP cards:
http://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&questionID=31542

[Dee_NA]

@ Arfster - Let me know what you think of these settings when you get a chance...

Brightness: 50
Contrast: 100
Saturation: 100
Hue: -5.30
Gamma: 0

The movie looks great on the PC but I'm not sure how it will look on the TV once the UseBT601csc is applied though.

[wyrdic]

Damn, they make it even worst to get the fix, have your PC scanned for free, no thank you. Download and update drivers ends up with a version tracker, and I don't feel like going through the registration process.
I should have mentioned that sooner.
e.g.
ATI Catalyst 8.4 Hotfix <---- click here
Size: 31Mb
Hits: 242
Author: ATI
Description: CCC
Operation System: Windows XP/2000
Run a FREE Scan for ATI Catalyst 8.4 Hotfix related errors

[dufflover]

Finished the format and move up to Vista last night/early this morning, and rather unfortunately only came across the Vista details in the FAQ after finishing and sure enough, the Vista solution isn't too flash either. I guess just to point out the same things in the FAQ in different words:

- Vista runs much slower (in a general OS sense). No surprise cos it's an old system, but my point here is simply that if it doesn't do much better, there's no point and it's back to XP

- With Catalyst 8.4 and the RegTweaks 0.14, if I try and force Vector Adaptive it just automatically reverts to Bob. If I leave it on Auto, I'm assuming it just uses Bob; are there any good test videos which really show the difference between Bob and Vector?

- So I check in the mentioned DXVA tool and sure enough, for MPEG2, it only has 1920x1080 for Bob and Weave; only up to 480 (wtf!) for the advanced modes.

- Installed the K-Lite Codec Pack 3.9.0 (just what I'm use to using), and also the AVIVO pack, however Vista Decoder Utillity only has the original MS MPEG in the list

- When playing back 1080i MPEG2 in Vista MCE anyway, it hangs round 75% CPU use on BOTH cores (X2 3800+) and GPU hangs round 40%; now in XP and Bob, it's about 50% on the GPU but only 25% on the CPU cores. So you can see why it's pointless for waste of CPU power for Vista if it really is just doing Bob.


gah; backed into a corner here! In XP the FFDShow method for software decoding and hardware de-interlacing would only use Bob right? (since it's either Bob or Weave in FFDShow options).
What about the AVIVO codec then?

[arfster]

In XP the FFDShow method for software decoding and hardware de-interlacing would only use Bob right?

Nah, that ffdshow menu label is misleading - all that does is tells the graphics card to deinterlace. The actual choice of mode is down to the drivers/card.

What card is this you're using? Also would help if you posted a screenshot of what dxvachecker is showing you when a mpeg2 1080i file is loaded (both tabs).

[dufflover]

Nah, that ffdshow menu label is misleading - all that does is tells the graphics card to deinterlace. The actual choice of mode is down to the drivers/card.
Ah ok. I just thought it only did do Bob because:
- if you choose Weave it really just does do Weave
- I read the post about PowerDVD being used inside Vista MCE (not that I've used PDVD) and that you can only choose Bob or Weave in that too.


What card is this you're using? Also would help if you posted a screenshot of what dxvachecker is showing you when a mpeg2 1080i file is loaded (both tabs).

Gigabyte HD2400XT (umm, so passive, 256MB DDR3, sucky 64-bit mem bus)
atm Catalyst 8.4 drivers and the AVIVO pack, however 7.7 seems to be worth a short. Also you say 8.1 officials break Vector Adaptive, but didn't quite get the part on the Guru 3D 8.1 betas - they do or don't break VA deinterlacing?

DXVA shot
http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/7535/dxvahd2400xtnh6.th.jpg (http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/7535/dxvahd2400xtnh6.jpg)

For comparison, the DXVA shot on my main gaming rig (HD3870)
http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/6052/dxvahd3870ye6.th.jpg (http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/6052/dxvahd3870ye6.jpg)

[arfster]

Ah ok. I just thought it only did do Bob because:
- if you choose Weave it really just does do Weave


Those labels are essentially commands to the graphics card:

Weave: don't deinterlace this video stream
Bob: deinterlace it (your choice how)

They're very stupidly named - should be something like "flag as progressive" and "flag as interlaced".


By the looks of your screenshot, it seems the 2400 won't support VA deinterlacing with HD. I haven't used a 2400 in ages, but my tweaks post seems to be suggesting this was always the case in Vista (not xp though). The exception are apps that can specifically select deinterlacing mode by their GUID - the only one I know of is PDVD itself (under the video menu/advanced section somewhere, select the GUID that begins with 3C).

My comments on 8.1 you refer to will have only applied to the 2600+

If the PDVD solution above isn't useful for you (it won't work with the cyberlink decoders in other apps for example), you could possibly fiddle an inf file and convince windows that your 2400 is actually a 2600. This should theoretically open up the MA/VA modes.

[dufflover]

From the looks of things I guess XP is the way to go then cos at least that listens to you even if it means it runs crap :rolleyes: ... or getting a 2600 but it's a fair bit more :( especially for the passive ones.

Though I'll be sure to make a disk image of the Vista install so it's not a complete waste of time :p

Will a 2400 with software decoding/hardware de-interlacing be any different in quality to a 2600Pro doing it all "properly"?

[dufflover]

On a different topic I just found out my Plasma supports Component through the D-Sub/VGA port (which I'm currently using atm anyway with normal VGA). Anyone know how/if the ATI drivers support outputting Component through the VGA port? Or is it just an adapter I'll have to put together (already got the pin outs saved :) )

Cos my Plasma (Hitachi 42" 42PMA400A) doesn't seem to care about component frequency (if there is such a thing), but through VGA I need to run 1920x1080i to get 50Hz (rest is 60Hz only = mismatch judder). But I can run something more reasonable like 720p/50Hz where things are more readable then it'll be nice :) .

And with the hardware/de-interlacing I think I'm nearing the end with these 4 possibilities:

a) Run software decoding with hardware de-interlacing via Avivo or FFDshow as mentioned. Again not sure of any quality differences if the decoding was done on the card.

b) If (a) fails or looks crap; just always run it in Bob mode

c) If (a) fails or looks crap; run Vista MCE and make use of the fact that it'll switch to Bob for HD channels only :p.

d) Get an HD2600 Pro for about a net outlay of ~$15 AUS and basically have things work out of the box almost with minimum tweaks/workarounds. I've already spent a ~$10 outlay for the XT so you can kinda see the whole "paying again" thing doesn't sit well. Like (a) looks just as good for example then probably no.

[datman]

can anyone tell me how to overclock the gpu in the 2600xt

Please

[arfster]

Will a 2400 with software decoding/hardware de-interlacing be any different in quality to a 2600Pro doing it all "properly"?

Assuming the memory bandwidth isn't a fundamental limiter (don't think it should be), and you actually manage to get VA working, a 2400xt should be identical.

Struggling to remember exactly, but I almost got this working perfectly with a 2400pro, but the card just wasn't quite fast enough. A 2400xt should be fine.

[crussell1492]

Hi I purchased at 2600 so that I could connect my HTPC to my AVR via HDMI, now I want to go Component, I would like to trade my 2600 with someone for an similar quality Vista Media Center Compatible Video Card (Nvidia or ATI) that will do component out (and includes component dongle) please PM if interested thanks

[cganesh75]

Hi I purchased at 2600 so that I could connect my HTPC to my AVR via HDMI, now I want to go Component, I would like to trade my 2600 with someone for an similar quality Vista Media Center Compatible Video Card (Nvidia or ATI) that will do component out (and includes component dongle) please PM if interested thanks


why not get one of those dvi to component adapter for that card?

[DavidinCT]

Hi I purchased at 2600 so that I could connect my HTPC to my AVR via HDMI, now I want to go Component, I would like to trade my 2600 with someone for an similar quality Vista Media Center Compatible Video Card (Nvidia or ATI) that will do component out (and includes component dongle) please PM if interested thanks

I have a HD2600 512mb AGP card. It did not come with the dongle, but, has the S-video type connector between the 2 DVI ports on it. I ordered the dongle for $5 and I am now connected via component @ 1080i on my 65" RPG set.

Why not just get the dongle for it, if your happy with the card ?

Also, you do know that you lose HDCP if you go to component, right ? Ends up with problems with HD-DVD/Blu-ray discs...

[crussell1492]

actually that is a great idea and appreciate that, didnt realize that what I thought was just an s-video out was actaully component, thankfully was able to find the dongle tat came with the card

[Dee_NA]

@ Arfster or ExDeus - can either one one of you tell me if dxva_mpeg2hd will work with a hd 2400 pro?

[looneybindk]

Im Having some problem getting HW acc. of mpeg2 HD from bluray on my 2400pro running vista ult sp1.

Have latest Powerdvd 7, but it disables Aero everytime I start at Blu-ray disc. Am i right in beliving that EVR is needed to use DXVA on HD mpeg2? I have aplied the reg tweaks, and vc-1 and h.264 i accelarated fine, but mpeg2 maxes out the CPU and there are framedrops.

Any ideas? Do i need to trade in my 2400pro to something else (2600xt, nvidia gt8600gt, ect.?)

Thansk in advance.

[arfster]

Sorry,the 2400 models don't do acceleration with Bluray mpeg2.

[tetsuo55]

Sorry,the 2400 models don't do acceleration with Bluray mpeg2.

Are you sure? i think i watched a mpeg2 disc and it got fully accelerated

[arfster]

It was definitely like that a while back, and every so often someone posts saying they can't get it working.

Easy to check though, just look at PDVD properties while playing.

[looneybindk]

Sorry,the 2400 models don't do acceleration with Bluray mpeg2.

Okay, so its at clear choise then, im thinking about getting a 3450 or 3470, what would you recomend?

[dufflover]

Sorry,the 2400 models don't do acceleration with Bluray mpeg2.

I thought these cards were great for HD-DVD/Blu-Ray :confused:
Or is that because most are VC-1/H-264? (I did think MPEG2 Blu-Ray sounded a bit weird)

Also today, after forking out for a VGA-Component cable, found out that my Powerstrip crashing was due to an incompatibility with the AMD Dual Core Optimizer which I've since uninstalled, d'oh.

[djos]

Okay, so its at clear choise then, im thinking about getting a 3450 or 3470, what would you recomend?

3650 is the direct successor to the 2600 series and the 3450 is direct successor to the 2400 series - Stay clear of the 2400/3450 imo as they have less than half the stream processors on-board (40 vs 120 IIRC), half the texture units and this extra GPU processing power + double the memory bandwidth is worthwhile especially when the newer BluRay codecs are involved.

Se the specs of all the ATI card in question HERE (http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/ATI_Radeon_HD_Refresh_3650_and_3450_Arrive/?page=2).

[trazalca]

Hi all, i have a problem after installed vista sp1 and ccc 8.4, i have an ATI hd 2600 pro pci-e and athlon x2 6000, before i had hardware acceleration for H264 with cpu about 20/30% on 1080p without problem with mpc hc, after that, i lost it!! i tried also install aviva package but without results. I made a test with dxva checker and i have no filter for H264_avivo and when i try to open h264 matroska file the program said checkfilter invalid!
I applied also the ati 2400/2600 tweak 0.14 but no way!! Someone has some suggestion? Thanks in advance for reply.

[arfster]

I thought these cards were great for HD-DVD/Blu-Ray :confused:
Or is that because most are VC-1/H-264? (I did think MPEG2 Blu-Ray sounded a bit weird)


Pretty much all new releases are vc1/h264 - but a while back most were mpeg2.


Not sure why ATI did this - even the 2400pro has plenty power to do 1080p mpeg2 acceleration. Interlaced is more difficult sure, but there won't be many of those floating around in mpeg2.

[looneybindk]

I actualy dont have any blu-rays where the main feature is mpeg2, but at lot off the extras are, and i kinda like that stuff so....

I looked up the 3650 and they are reasonably priced, but the headsink on the passivly cooled models makes it take up to much space (and i dont really need the extra heating), so unless it's absolutely necessary I dont think ill go that way. wouldent the 3450 or 3470 be good enough for my needs? Blu-ray vc-1 h.265 and mpeg2 hd? anyone have real life exp. with these cards?

[DereckVD]

Sorry,the 2400 models don't do acceleration with Bluray mpeg2.

And what about a Sapphire 2600XT-agp?
according to this page, it wil do HA for mpeg2 too:
http://www.sapphiretech.com/us/products/products_overview.php?gpid=179&grp=2

I have a blueray-movie, gspot says its a mpeg2 transportstream and i cant get HA with my 2600XT-agp

system i got is:
-AMD athlon 2700 with 2 Gb ram
-Windows XP SP2
-Sapphire HD2600XT-AGP
-Catalyst 8.4 hotfix agp

What else do i need to get full aceleration with this card?
Are the registerhacks absolutely needed?
Does anyone know what i need more? Thanks for any answer:cool:

btw i got HA working with a hd-dvd movie and MPC-ht

greetz from Dereck;)

[arfster]

And what about a Sapphire 2600XT-agp?


The 2600 models do ..... but agp often seems to break things. With the PCI at least it doesn't need tweaking for mpeg2 HD to work.


ps are you using dual display? That breaks mpeg2 HD pretty thoroughly.

[dufflover]

Hey arfster, I read a (oldish I think) post a couple of days ago I think by you where you talk about the DXVA_NOHDDECODE key and how it works in XP, not in Vista, and in XP only with Pulldown disabled? (if you know what post I'm talking about and see I've remembered it wrong, well, it's because I haven't found it again to check, lol)

Anyway, I've finished re-setting up XP MCE, and with Vector deinterlacing forced, the 99% GPU problem only occurs if I check the Pulldown box. After some quick testing looks like I've got the Vista equivalent of it ignoring the setting and defaulting to Bob; but I thought it was supposed to work forced without the Pulldown checked (i.e. other way around). At the same time, can't really test if it's the pulldown rather than the deinterlacing stuffing it up.

btw this time I'm using Catalyst 8.4, and Cyberlink from K-Lite Codec Pack 3.6.0 (or 3.7.0, not sure). The previous time, before the Vista experiment and everything, it was K-Lite 3.4.5.
As stupid as this sounds, I basically want to get it lagging "properly" again before I then move onto using software decode/hardware VA.

[DereckVD]

The 2600 models do ..... but agp often seems to break things. With the PCI at least it doesn't need tweaking for mpeg2 HD to work.


ps are you using dual display? That breaks mpeg2 HD pretty thoroughly.

Right now iam using only one display but i was planning to get a fullhd-beamer as the second display;)

[sigma957]

If you want the original 16-235 (video levels) then go into CCC/avivo video/basic colour and turn "use application settings" off, brightness to 16, contrast 86 - pretty much exactly reversing the expansion.I've tried this tweak (brightness =16, contrast = 86) to reverse the automatic level expansion, but the Avivo "Basic Color" controls don't seem to have any effect in PowerDVD. They work with other apps (like watching mpeg2 HD in SageTV), but not in PowerDVD. Am I doing something wrong? I'm using a 2600XT in XP with Catalyst 8.3.

[arfster]

I've tried this tweak (brightness =16, contrast = 86) to reverse the automatic level expansion, but the Avivo "Basic Color" controls don't seem to have any effect in PowerDVD. They work with other apps (like watching mpeg2 HD in SageTV), but not in PowerDVD. Am I doing something wrong? I'm using a 2600XT in XP with Catalyst 8.3.

Weird, they work in Vista + PDVD 7.3. Are you using PDVD8 by any nchance?

[sigma957]

Weird, they work in Vista + PDVD 7.3. Are you using PDVD8 by any nchance?I have both, but I was testing this with 7.3. I was using my DVE HD-DVD which I believe is VC-1 encoded. Is it possible that the Avivo color controls only work for certain types of video? I'm not at my HTPC right now, but I will try later with an AVC disc.

[HT Slider]

I've tried this tweak (brightness =16, contrast = 86) to reverse the automatic level expansion, but the Avivo "Basic Color" controls don't seem to have any effect in PowerDVD. They work with other apps (like watching mpeg2 HD in SageTV), but not in PowerDVD. Am I doing something wrong? I'm using a 2600XT in XP with Catalyst 8.3.

I prefer to adjust the main brightness and contrast settings and leave the AVIVO settings at default. These can be found under the "color" tab.

My reason for this is I downloaded a couple of reference images (not video, but pictures) and in order to get them to display correct grey levels I needed to adjust the overall brightness and contrast. The AVIVO settings only apply to video.

After that, SP1 and Catalyst 8.3+ (8.4 now), my HTPC and our Toshiba HDTV are able to display both video and photographs using correct brightness and contrast (grey levels).

[madshi]

Guys,

I have a friendly contact at DriverHeaven. They say that after their article ATI and NVidia are now working to improve their drivers for HTPC playback. I've asked if I could collect a list of bugs for them to forward to ATI and NVidia and they told me to do just that.

So: Let's create a list of the most important bugs! I think we should concentrate on bugs that affect most cards (and not just one or two).

Let me start with the things that are most important to me:

(1) There must be an official "PC levels" / "video levels" switch in the display manager. When using "video levels" of course BTB and WTW must be correctly passed to the display.

(2) There must be official modes for 1080p23, 1080p24, 1080p25, 1080p50, 1080p59 and 1080p60. These modes must use the official EIA/CEA-861-B timings to the last letter with an as exact video clock as possible. These modes should be forcable, even if the display's EDID does not list them.

(3) There should be a way to fully turn off any fancy processing stuff (noise reduction, color changes, scaling, detail enhancement etc) without having to do any registry tweaks.

What are in your opinion the most important bugs you need to have fixed for perfect HTPC playback?

[arfster]

For ATI:

1) HD expands, SD doesn't. As you say, this should be the user's choice - defaulting to expanding maybe, because the average user has a PC monitor.

2) Using multi monitors breaks all acceleration with anything but 38xx cards.

[tman247]

I currently trying to establish which are the best of the available CAT's for a Vista32 HTPC w/PCIe 2600xt. I currently using reg-tweaked 7.11's, and although the pic is generally pretty good for SD/HD, will any of the new(er) releases make a significant improvement?

I do notice some jaggies on SD material (mainly on text), otherwise I don't want to upgrade if it's not worth it.

[madshi]

2) Using multi monitors breaks all acceleration with anything but 38xx cards.
Is acceleration broken on both monitors or only on one? And does this apply to both XP and Vista?

[arfster]

Is acceleration broken on both monitors or only on one? And does this apply to both XP and Vista?

As soon as you connect the 2nd display, it breaks for both. What's more, you can't restore it even if you disconnect the 2nd, you have to reboot :rolleyes: There are regtweaks to get around this, but they're a pita, and don't work for mpeg2 (necessitating the use of software decoding + hw deinterlacing trickery).

This is a new bug from 8.1+, maybe 7.12. I haven't tested XP, although it seems very likely it'll affect that also (most bugs are the same on both).

[madshi]

Thanks! Are there still any fancy color screw ups going on? I believe to remember that this was recently mentioned? If so, some details about that would be very helpful. Thanks!

[sigma957]

I prefer to adjust the main brightness and contrast settings and leave the AVIVO settings at default. These can be found under the "color" tab.I thought the main "color" settings only applied to the desktop and 3D graphics (VMR9?). Since PowerDVD uses overlay, they would have no effect.

[ConradWS]

As soon as you connect the 2nd display, it breaks for both. What's more, you can't restore it even if you disconnect the 2nd, you have to reboot :rolleyes: There are regtweaks to get around this, but they're a pita, and don't work for mpeg2 (necessitating the use of software decoding + hw deinterlacing trickery).

This is a new bug from 8.1+, maybe 7.12. I haven't tested XP, although it seems very likely it'll affect that also (most bugs are the same on both).

Its different for XP...hardware acceleration stills works for me...but I do have to run AnyDVD to stop HDCP compliant shutdowns caused by dual monitors. This issue is partly mentioned in the Catalyst Release notes. I don't think its a bug. It may be intentionally induced by Cyberlink and ATI has had to write theirs drivers to adapt to it...for instance...shutting down the second monitor instead of allowing it to crash your computer. Actually its more than a guess. When I emailed Cyberlink about these issues they flatly stated they will not support dual monitors which violates HDCP compliance.

I just tried installing 7.12 for grins and the stupid setup said it couldn't find the right hardware.

Later, Conrad

[sigma957]

I've tried this tweak (brightness =16, contrast = 86) to reverse the automatic level expansion, but the Avivo "Basic Color" controls don't seem to have any effect in PowerDVD. They work with other apps (like watching mpeg2 HD in SageTV), but not in PowerDVD. Am I doing something wrong? I'm using a 2600XT in XP with Catalyst 8.3.I played around with this some more, and here is what I have discovered (with cat 8.3 in XP):

1) I don't think the UseBT601CSC tweak works. Despite applying the UseBT601CSC tweak, SD is not expanding. Using the SD DVE patterns I definitely can see the btb line whether I set UseBT601CSC or not.

2) When playing HD material in PowerDVD, level expansion takes place (I cannot see the btb line in HD DVE), but you cannot correct it using the Avivo "Basic Color" controls. They appear to have no effect in PowerDVD. I tried this with VC1 and AVC material, using component and HDMI.

The only way I have found to make btb visible with PowerDVD is to bump up the brightness in PowerDVD's color controls to about +3. This is not ideal, however, because I think all this is doing is compressing 16-235 to something like 32-235 so that when catalyst subsequently expands it it goes back to 16-235. (This kind of compression/expansion will result in some loss of "color" resolution and could cause artifacts like banding.)

If the "Basic Color" controls are working for anyone with PowerDVD, can you tell me what card and driver version you are using? Thanks.

[dufflover]

(Still trying to find the best combo of drivers and Cyberlink codec to use)

Looked at the Reg Tweaks page and searches involving Catalyst, and can't find anything in the changelog of the reg tweaks referring to recent specific CCC versions. So now I'm wondering, for an HD2400, what is best CCC version to use? (like in terms of reg hacks and stuff to force Hi def stuff which is the main flaw in the 2400s)

Cos atm, I've tried 8.2 and 8.4 and both have the strange property of having Hardware acceleration (the GPU is under load), but the load doesn't change between de-interlacing methods (all around the same +/- 10% which seems normal variation even if you didn't change method). BUT, the CCC option is working cos Weave option clearly does do Weave (again, not much less GPU use!). Still not sure I can pick Bob vs Vector Adaptive, but the DXVA program shows when Vector is forced, it does go up to 1920x1080 (in DXVA program). Still, can't really confirm it is doing Vector (esp. when GPU load doesn't show it), which is why I'm always seeing if there are test videos which will expose flaws in Bob de-interlacing.

In short, WTF :confused:

[Vassag0]

Hello, I have a terrible headache with my HD2600PRO.

I live in zone PAL and the DVDs are to 50hz, for what I have formed to 720p/50hz. I have it connected to my plasma by means of HDMI.

When I reproduce DVD with the WinDVD initially everything is correct, but as it advances begins jumps give the image, skipping frames, lost sound/video synchronization...

When I try to reproduce BD with the WinDVD the image jumps, blinks. Now with the version 8.3 it can see the BD in the PowerDVD correctly, but the same thing happens to me that with the DVDs, lost sound/video synchronization.

Can anyone help me?

Thank you in advance for any input that can help solve the problem.

[arfster]

Cos atm, I've tried 8.2 and 8.4 and both have the strange property of having Hardware acceleration (the GPU is under load), but the load doesn't change between de-interlacing methods (all around the same +/- 10% which seems normal variation even if you didn't change method).

Yeah, VA deinterlacing will send the GPU % through the roof on a 2400.

Are you back in XP? If so, what HD deinterlacing modes does dxva checker say is available? Sounds a bit like the driver doesn't support HD MA/VA.

[dufflover]

Went back to Catalyst 7.10 and at least this one is behaving a bit more realistically. With my luck with drivers atm I suppose I just have to put out a disclaimer that it might not be drivers :p

Played back the same ~30 seconds or so of an HDTV Recording and used RivaTuner to monitor the GPU load.

http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/953/hd2400xtdeinterlacingww1.gif

Yeah, VA deinterlacing will send the GPU % through the roof on a 2400.
Yep that's why I was so sure something wasn't right when I was trying 8.2/8.4. As with the pic everything seems to be in order in 7.10.


Are you back in XP? If so, what HD deinterlacing modes does dxva checker say is available? Sounds a bit like the driver doesn't support HD MA/VA.
Yep back on XP. Here's a DXVA Checker shot with these 7.10s; the top left is with it on auto, the bottom right is forced VA (as I mention it looked like this with the 8.4s too though)
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/6661/dvxawith710is7.jpg

[arfster]

Yup, that looks better. DXVA Checker can tell you for sure though (if you play a video through it, will tell you what HA and deinterlacing modes it's currently using).

[HT Slider]

What are in your opinion the most important bugs you need to have fixed for perfect HTPC playback?

I totally agree with your list, but my #1 issue with our HD2600XT is how Vista Media Center often crashes when attempting to play digitally certain types of mpeg-2 used for HD Recorded TV.

I've been working with Microsoft on this one and they are still pointing to ATI saying there is a known bug causing this behaviour. My rudimentary understanding is DXVA doesn't initialize properly upon subsequent video playback requests. Unfortunately it only affects people with highly compressed, but higher quality mpeg-2 content (typically digitally captured from a satellite transmission - like we do).

What happens (with the 2600XT only, combined with certain hardware): Play a highly compressed HD show from Recorded TV, stop it and then play it or another HD recording again. There is a 50/50 chance Media Center will fail to get the card's DXVA up and running properly and will crash.

If you exit Media Center and restart it, it will always play the same HD content flawlessly the very first time.

Switching to Nvidia hardware, the problem goes away.

This same (or similar) glitch also makes it so some of Vista's 3D screen savers won't play while Media Center is running once Recorded TV has been played. Again, the DXVA initialization somehow fails to kick off properly.

I'm fairly sure Microsoft could work around the issue by doing something to reset the DXVA hooks after a "stop" (PowerDVD doesn't crash, Media Player doesn't crash, etc.), but it does sound like a bug with ATI that MS doesn't want to work around.

[Strayshot]

I played around with this some more, and here is what I have discovered (with cat 8.3 in XP):

1) I don't think the UseBT601CSC tweak works. Despite applying the UseBT601CSC tweak, SD is not expanding. Using the SD DVE patterns I definitely can see the btb line whether I set UseBT601CSC or not.

2) When playing HD material in PowerDVD, level expansion takes place (I cannot see the btb line in HD DVE), but you cannot correct it using the Avivo "Basic Color" controls. They appear to have no effect in PowerDVD. I tried this with VC1 and AVC material, using component and HDMI.

The only way I have found to make btb visible with PowerDVD is to bump up the brightness in PowerDVD's color controls to about +3. This is not ideal, however, because I think all this is doing is compressing 16-235 to something like 32-235 so that when catalyst subsequently expands it it goes back to 16-235. (This kind of compression/expansion will result in some loss of "color" resolution and could cause artifacts like banding.)

If the "Basic Color" controls are working for anyone with PowerDVD, can you tell me what card and driver version you are using? Thanks.

PDVD is not compressing when you do this. I believe the reason the AVIVO controls do not affect PDVD is because they are using their own semi-custom renderer. I checked this out a long time ago using some grey steps and Paint.NET to check values. Doing these adjustments does in fact bring the values back to 16 and 235. And the BTSC hack does work. If you don;t use the BTSC hack, you can still do the proper adjustments to see BtB and WtW, the point of the hack is to make the SD colorspace behave the same as the HD colorspace so you don;t have to have two different settings for SD and HD material.

[dufflover]

Something which I've always had on my HTPC has been very poor "red" performance. On anything with lots of remotely red spectrum, it blocks, bleeds and well, looks crap. I think the technical names are (I'm a n00b in this area): Macro-bleeding, Color bleeding, and over-modulation. I referred to this article anyway.
http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Articles/VideoArtefacts/VideoArtefacts.html

Here are a couple of screen captures of the Miss USA Pageant :D showing you what I'm seeing:
http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/5182/missusaswimsuitlegskh6.th.jpg (http://img100.imageshack.us/my.php?image=missusaswimsuitlegskh6.jpg) <-- look at the pink blocking on the legs
http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/7669/missusaheadju3.th.jpg (http://img508.imageshack.us/my.php?image=missusaheadju3.jpg) <-- blocks on the forehead, and compare the space to the right and left of his head


Struggling to remember exactly, but I almost got this working perfectly with a 2400pro, but the card just wasn't quite fast enough. A 2400xt should be fine.

I can finally refer back to your post and say, "almost fine" :o . Finally got it all together again; working VA, Powerstrip for 1080i/50Hz, etc. With the same "Before the Game" (Aus HDTV show) HD test video as I used before, it's pretty unwatchable (with VA) ... until just for the sake of this test I put on an overclock and it actually became watchable with only a few drops here and there; worth trying more anyway and testing for OC stability, hopefully can keep it, lol.
http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/8239/ocdwindowzc9.th.jpg (http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/8239/ocdwindowzc9.jpg)
The 4 GPU bumps:
1. Stock (700/700) windowed
2. Stock full screen
3. OC (760/850) windowed
4. OC full screen

Windowed size is the what you see in the screenie. Now despite how it looks on the load graph, OC'd Full Screen is actually very watchable! (much more so than both stock tests)

[HT Slider]

All I can say is "boy am I glad I didn't buy an HD 2400Pro or HD 2400XT!".

I can't believe ATI is still selling the 2400 and claiming they are HD capable cards. That is ridiculous.

Although my 2600XT sometimes crashes when trying to initiate DXVA (with Vista Media Center only), once content it playing, absolutely everything plays back flawlessly. It doesn't matter if the content is 1080i, 1080p, 720p, mpeg-2, mpeg-2 inside a dvr-ms file, VC-1, mpeg-4, Blue-ray (PDVD), HD-DVD (PDVD), etc.

Also, the image quality problem you are seeing with the reds is absolutely not there at all and hasn't been there since Catalyst 7.12 or 8.1 (somewhere around there) with the 2600XT.

Now with Catalyst 8.4, the image quality is excellent, even without the TRDenoise=0 setting and without UseBT601 set. I've also enabled the noise filter at 50% and enabled the contrast enhancement by 10% and found these settings improve SD content and don't seem to affect HD at all (not to my eyes anyway).

I do have the color enhancement and flesh color enhancement turned down to 0 and disabled.

BTW, one change I did make that I found improved the image quality considerably was to disable the noise filters for the PVR-250 video card. Once I did this, the excessive noise filtration problem with the video card went away (with recent drivers, not older ones though). On top of that, using only the ATI noise filters, the image is considerably better than when I had the PVR-250 noise filters enabled and TRDenoise disabled in the registry. Those of you still using TRDenoise should try disabling all other noise filters (with the TV Tuner/Capture card) and try leaving the ATI filters at default settings - you might like what you see.

[sigma957]

PDVD is not compressing when you do this. I believe the reason the AVIVO controls do not affect PDVD is because they are using their own semi-custom renderer. I checked this out a long time ago using some grey steps and Paint.NET to check values. Doing these adjustments does in fact bring the values back to 16 and 235.So you're saying that it's safe to use the PowerDVD color controls without affecting the image quality? I got the impression from the PDVD thread that it was best to leave all the PDVD controls at 0.

[Strayshot]

So you're saying that it's safe to use the PowerDVD color controls without affecting the image quality? I got the impression from the PDVD thread that it was best to leave all the PDVD controls at 0.

The general rule of thumb has always been to leave source settings at default and adjust the display device, but sometimes you have to mess with the source controls. I would suggest downloading Paint.NET and doing osome experimenting. That way, if I did something wrong you can correct me :P

[ConradWS]

Guys,

I have a friendly contact at DriverHeaven. They say that after their article ATI and NVidia are now working to improve their drivers for HTPC playback. I've asked if I could collect a list of bugs for them to forward to ATI and NVidia and they told me to do just that....(snip)...

What are in your opinion the most important bugs you need to have fixed for perfect HTPC playback?

VisionTek ATI HD2600XT agp. WinXP
They probably don't care about agp but some problems are the same with the PCIe versions...anyway...

1) Compatibility with Arcsoft TMT. Currently I get a few seconds of playback then blackscreens and crashes.
2) HDCP issues
3) Backup for saved profiles.
4) Ability to change pop-up to hardware acceleration usage when hovering mouse pointer over tray icon.
5) Improved VPU recover.
6) More helpful popup descriptions when hovering mouse over items in CCC.
7) Better scaling options including Horizontal/Vertical positioning adjustments for secondary display.
8) Ability to set separate resolutions on displays in Clone Mode.
9) Better skins with less overhead
10) Simple right click menu option to move programs to Extended Desktop display without having to drag.
11) Inclusion of a few simple test patterns for quickly calibrating displays
12) Utility in CCC for globally or individually changing hardware acceleration for different apps.

etc.....

Later, Conrad

[dufflover]

Also, the image quality problem you are seeing with the reds is absolutely not there at all and hasn't been there since Catalyst 7.12 or 8.1 (somewhere around there) with the 2600XT.


Just doing a lot of "Standy tests" atm; not related to the graphics card specifically. Wanting to make sure the ATI drivers and Powerstrip especially are playing nice cos I've still gotten the occasional failure to boot/wake up.
Doesn't help with many different installs and uninstalls hey :rolleyes:.

But then going to look back thru the thread to get those various noise/skintone reg tweaks cos atm I've seen nothing in the way of adjusting them in CCC. I want to do it this way cos I've finally got the de-interlacing "working" and don't want to end up breaking it with a Catalyst update. Not to mention driver update = Powerstrip goes even more unpredictable!
Looking for some early feedback as to whether I'll be wasting my time after I finish my standby/suspend testing. :p

[bclare]

regarding powerstrip and the latest cat versions:

I have had several problems with my tuner card and bsod caused by powerstrip. The solution was to install the latest powerstrip version AND delete the pstrip.ini.
To do this, close powerstrip, delete pstrip.ini, start powerstrip again, answer no and then copy all your custom resolution/application settings etc from a backup of pstrip.ini

Hope that helps with your problems, as it fixed mine

[spaceman99]

Sorry if this has been covered in depth before, I've looked through the thread but can't find any concise answers...

I'm having problems with telecine judder when watching 24fps material at 50hz and 60hz refresh output. When I try setting CCC to output 24hz (my Samsung LCD is supposed to support this - it's an LE46F86BD which is the PAL version native 50hz refresh I think), it plays much smoother - apart from about once every 40 - 50 seconds, there are strange things happening for a few seconds (extreme judder, tearing at the bottom of the screen) before going back to smooth again.

Is this the difference between the tv expecting 24hz and the film playback being 23.976fps?
Do I need to use PowerStrip and/or Reclock? and if so, what settings? Would this break DXVA playback?
I have an Sapphire AGP HD 2600XT running on XP sp2 and the effect is noticed when using PowerDVD or MPC-HC. Have just moved to Cat. 8.4 hotfix, but had the same problem on Cat. 8.3 hotfix also.

Is this a driver issue that ATI may (or may not) fix in the future?

Any help appreciated.. it's driving me mad.

[dufflover]

I do have the color enhancement and flesh color enhancement turned down to 0 and disabled.

OK I've since added those extra regkeys which weren't part of the original script for the HD2400; so TrDenoise, Colour Vibrance, and Flesh tone, setting them to 0 (the same settings as when added for the HD2600), and got the two sliders in CCC Advanced Colour (nothing about Denoise though). Had a bit of a muck around and have left Colour Vibrance disabled and set Flesh tone correction to 35; seems to have done the job very nicely.
Before -> After
http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/1350/headpo9.th.jpg (http://img92.imageshack.us/my.php?image=headpo9.jpg) http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/9521/headafter2xj7.th.jpg (http://img242.imageshack.us/my.php?image=headafter2xj7.jpg)
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/7417/legsxj1.th.jpg (http://img291.imageshack.us/my.php?image=legsxj1.jpg) http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/5872/legsafterhw4.th.jpg (http://img444.imageshack.us/my.php?image=legsafterhw4.jpg)


I'm having problems with telecine judder when watching 24fps material at 50hz and 60hz refresh output.

As people can gather from my previous posts I'm no HTPC expert, but isn't this what the Pulldown option is all about? (24Hz source to 60Hz playback)

[spaceman99]

As people can gather from my previous posts I'm no HTPC expert, but isn't this what the Pulldown option is all about? (24Hz source to 60Hz playback)

I've tried ticking/unticking that in CCC, it doesn't seem to make any difference to the judder at 24hz, 50hz or 60hz. I have a feeling the TV will handle the pulldown similarly if the gfx card/AVIVO doesn't handle it. The problem with the pulldown inverse telecine stuff, is that it still has to repeat certain frames which is what I think causes the judder. The only way to make it completely smooth is to have the TV refreshing at 24hz or a multiple of 24.
I maybe wrong.

[somedude22]

As soon as you connect the 2nd display, it breaks for both. What's more, you can't restore it even if you disconnect the 2nd, you have to reboot :rolleyes: There are regtweaks to get around this, but they're a pita, and don't work for mpeg2 (necessitating the use of software decoding + hw deinterlacing trickery).

This is a new bug from 8.1+, maybe 7.12. I haven't tested XP, although it seems very likely it'll affect that also (most bugs are the same on both).

Does this happen even in clone mode or only when you have the desktop spanning across the two displays?

[Maier2505]

Asked for a Buglist of the 2600pro under vista/EVR...

I have some very nasty issue, which is very common, if you look to some of the forums...

I am in Germany looking PremiereHD.

In general everything is 100% with SD and HD TV content.

It is running smooth with good picture quality.

But as soon you are looking soccer on premiere HD and using Hardware deinterlacing, after some minutes the video starts to flicker, juddr, what ever you wanna name it.

It seems, that the deinterlacer is struggling. That last for some seconds, then it is away for a time, coming back regularily.

I have a dual boot system an with XP/ overlay this problems does not occure.

I use cyberlink PDVD 7.0 Deluxe and 8.0 deluxe, no difference...

Best regards

maier2505

[cpalcott]

I've read through this whole thread, but have yet to find a definitive answer to this question.

I am currently running a Sapphire 2600XT in dual display mode through Ultramon (VGA-800x600, Component-1920x1080i) with driver version 7.7 (with Arftser/ExDeus reg tweaks) and Vista 32/SP1.

The problem is, I am getting some jittery playback of HD .ts files and some tearing on streaming video. Blu-ray in PDVD seems to play fine.

Is their any advantage to upgrading the drivers to 8.4? Or do I need to stay with the 7.7 drivers if I hope to keep HA? Is their any benefit to upgrading the card itself? If so, what is the sweet spot? Sounds like 3450 may not be quite enough, what about 3470? Is the 38XX series the only one taht will work with dual display and HA? What combination of card and drivers is going to get me stable HD playback (Blu-ray, H.264, Mpeg2, etc)

Specs:
MB – GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3
CPU – e4300 (@ 3.0 GHZ)
RAM – A-DATA 2GB DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) ADQVE1A16K
VID: Sapphire 2600XT
SOUND: Auzentech X-Meridian

Any help would be greatly appeciated!

[Maier2505]

I've read through this whole thread, but have yet to find a definitive answer to this question.

I am currently running a Sapphire 2600XT in dual display mode through Ultramon (VGA-800x600, Component-1920x1080i) with driver version 7.7 (with Arftser/ExDeus reg tweaks) and Vista 32/SP1.

The problem is, I am getting some jittery playback of HD .ts files and some tearing on streaming video. Blu-ray in PDVD seems to play fine.


I also have stuttering as soon as I use Dual Monitor Configuration with Vista/EVR and the 2600pro.

As soon as I use only the Beamer, thats away...

8.4 does not change that behaviour.

Best regards

maier2505

[memes_be]

Yup, that looks better. DXVA Checker can tell you for sure though (if you play a video through it, will tell you what HA and deinterlacing modes it's currently using).


Hi !

I try to run Dxvachecker but it immediatly crashes (dxvachecker stopped to work) under vista (I ran it in another PC under XP and it worked). Has anybody had that problem ?
Thanks

[Rew452]

Guys,

I have a friendly contact at DriverHeaven. They say that after their article ATI and NVidia are now working to improve their drivers for HTPC playback. I've asked if I could collect a list of bugs for them to forward to ATI and NVidia and they told me to do just that.

So: Let's create a list of the most important bugs! I think we should concentrate on bugs that affect most cards (and not just one or two).

Let me start with the things that are most important to me:

(1) There must be an official "PC levels" / "video levels" switch in the display manager. When using "video levels" of course BTB and WTW must be correctly passed to the display.

(2) There must be official modes for 1080p23, 1080p24, 1080p25, 1080p50, 1080p59 and 1080p60. These modes must use the official EIA/CEA-861-B timings to the last letter with an as exact video clock as possible. These modes should be forcable, even if the display's EDID does not list them.

(3) There should be a way to fully turn off any fancy processing stuff (noise reduction, color changes, scaling, detail enhancement etc) without having to do any registry tweaks.

What are in your opinion the most important bugs you need to have fixed for perfect HTPC playback?

One very important piece of information is the ability to identify a HDCP connection. CCC should id each monitor and if it is HDCP.


Rew

[nathan118]

Just a heads up. I had to reinstall vista because my HTPC hard drive died, and I decided to install the latest 8.4 catalyst drivers and avivo. When I tried to use hardware acceleration to deinterlace 1080i mpeg2 material, the gpu usage never went over 10%, and most of the time registered around 1-3%. I could tell it wasn't deinterlacing properly.

Went back and downloaded the 7.10 drivers I had been using, did the exact same setup and install as I had done with the newest drivers, and the GPU usage went back up to 30-40% like it should, and the deinterlacing was perfect.

Something is screwy with 8.4 catalyst or the avivo package.

[arfster]

Just a heads up. I had to reinstall vista because my HTPC hard drive died, and I decided to install the latest 8.4 catalyst drivers and avivo. When I tried to use hardware acceleration to deinterlace 1080i mpeg2 material, the gpu usage never went over 10%, and most of the time registered around 1-3%. I could tell it wasn't deinterlacing properly.


Did you cvheck to see what decoder was in use? (dxva checker useful for forcing one particular one!).

When I tried Vista 8.4, it had no problem with deinterlacing - auto selected VA as usual.

[blun7]

So I got a dell desktop computer and paid more for the 2400 to make sure I could playback x264 smoothly.

I have powerdvd and I'm using its codec in media portal which allows for hardware acceleration. With hardware acceleration enabled i see a puny 5% (total, the sum of both cores) decrease in cpu usage and 1080p x264 video is choppy.

I was expecting the 2400 to offload a substantial portion of the decoding work but that is not the case. Could there be something wrong with my config, is my experience the norm?

The worst thing about this situation is I can't put a more powerful video card in the computer because it has a weak powersupply. Argh!!!!

[arfster]

So I got a dell desktop computer and paid more for the 2400 to make sure I could playback x264 smoothly.

I have powerdvd and I'm using its codec in media portal which allows for hardware acceleration. With hardware acceleration enabled i see a puny 5% (total, the sum of both cores) decrease in cpu usage and 1080p x264 video is choppy.


It's clearly not working, so probably media portal is failing to initialise it and switching to another codec. Try using MPC-HC and forcing it to use the cyberlink codec, and see what CPU figures you get.

By teh way, another issue you will probably run into is that many x264 encodes off the net break the h264 4.1 standards, and thus don't accelerate (720p and newer 1080p ones are often OK, but not 1080p ones that are >3 months). However, generally when pdvd fails to accelerate it just blackscreens.

[nathan118]

Did you cvheck to see what decoder was in use? (dxva checker useful for forcing one particular one!).

When I tried Vista 8.4, it had no problem with deinterlacing - auto selected VA as usual.

According to graph edit it was using the ati mpeg decoder. Is that not as reliable as dxva checker?

Today I was messing with a recording of the office, and for some reason that one episode would not hardware accelerate, but every other episode I have does. That's with 7.10, so now I'm wondering if I was only trying that episode last night with 8.4. Who knows. If other people are getting 8.4 to work then just ignore me. :)

[memes_be]

It's clearly not working, so probably media portal is failing to initialise it and switching to another codec. Try using MPC-HC and forcing it to use the cyberlink codec, and see what CPU figures you get.

By teh way, another issue you will probably run into is that many x264 encodes off the net break the h264 4.1 standards, and thus don't accelerate (720p and newer 1080p ones are often OK, but not 1080p ones that are >3 months). However, generally when pdvd fails to accelerate it just blackscreens.

@Arfster. I have old 720p and 1080i mkv's that doesn't accelerate, so I can't read them as smoothly as latest standards ones (amd 3200+ processor too slow). Is there a way to read them with HA without reencoding them completely ?
Thanks a lot

[arfster]

According to graph edit it was using the ati mpeg decoder. Is that not as reliable as dxva checker?




Hrrrm, if that is what mediaportal is actually using (any way to check in real time w/ mediaportal, properties box or whatever?), it should really be fine - the ati decoder is quite well behaved w/ deinterlacing normally.

Using dual monitors by any chance?

[arfster]

@Arfster. I have old 720p and 1080i mkv's that doesn't accelerate, so I can't read them as smoothly as latest standards ones (amd 3200+ processor too slow). Is there a way to read them with HA without reencoding them completely ?
Thanks a lot

720 ones: you can fix almost all of them with IDC Changer and they will accelerate with the PDVD decoder. Or just use MPC-HC's internal decoder (you can get it separate from mpc-hc too), it doesn't need IDC-changed. This is a separate bug to the main one though. A very few 720 files can't be fixed, but that's really rare - at this resolution they need to use a stupidly large number of ref frames to be incompatible with dxva.

1080p: there is no fix - the number of ref frames is completely integral to the structure of the encoded file.

[subcell]

Hardware:

AMD Dual X2 4600+ 2.4Ghz
3 Gigabytes of RAM
Radeon 2600 HD512Mb (PCIe)

HDCP:

DVI to HDMI 1.1 connection (Sharp 1080p LCD)


Softwares:

Vista Ultimate 32-bit, CoreAVC Pro, FFdshow 2008


Voilà!

[grubi]

Another one for the list:

Enabling denoise introduces ghosting.
There should be decent denoising without introducing such artifacts.
IMHO Catalyst 7.11 is much better than 8.3 here.

grubi.

[Mine82]

I think De-noise is way to aggressive thus introducing artifacts to be of any use.

[HT Slider]

I think De-noise is way to aggressive thus introducing artifacts to be of any use.

The overly aggressive denoise issue is a function of the source video.

If I bring in a digital mpeg-2 transport stream, untouched, using the R5000HD USB port on our ExpressVu STB, the denoise capability of the ATI HD2600XT is fantastic. It truly improves the image quality by an enormous amount. Turning it on and off, you can really see how it cleans up the image and removes the very noticeable mpeg-2 compression artifacts. With denoise off, the image is "blocky" and full of noticeable flaws. With denoise on, the image looks great and although slightly softer, it still includes all of the image detail.

On the other hand, if my STB takes the mpeg-2 stream, decodes it, denoises it to get rid of the mpeg-2 compression artifacts, outputs it through the s-video port, the Hauppauge PVR-250 then captures it, does all of its own default denoise processing on it, and then it re-encodes it to mpeg-2 and then finally I play that back using the HD 2600XT, ATI's denoise is too much and the image ends up with ghosts and all sorts of junk in it.

Due to an audio bug in VMC, we are forced to get a lot of our SD content through the PVR-250 so I wanted to find a way to be able to play content captured with the PVR-250 and leave ATI's denoise on.

What I found was the PVR-250's denoise is controlled by registry settings:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Globesp an\Parameters\ivac15\Driver]
"FltDnrMode"
"FltDnrSpatFltLevel"
"FltDnrTempFltLevel"

I changed these to:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Globesp an\Parameters\ivac15\Driver]
"FltDnrMode"=dword:00000000
"FltDnrSpatFltLevel"=dword:00000000
"FltDnrTempFltLevel"=dword:00000000

and all future recordings didn't have the problems with "ghosts". There is still a little too much denoise done to work perfectly with the ATI denoise cranked up (the raw mpeg-2 transport stream plays back the best with ATI's default settings), but this is the best compromise I have found.

I've also done some back to back tests, comparing ATI's denoise to the Hauppauge denoise and the image quality is actually better with the ATI's denoise on and the PVR-250's denoise off. If I turn off the ATI denoise and leave the PVR-250 denoise on (as most of you do), there are a greater number of compression artifacts visible and at the same time the image is missing detail.

BTW, the PVR-250 registry settings also include controls for edge enhancement and by default they are on. I played with these and at the time left the edge enhancement set to default but turned off ATI's edge enhancement. With the latest drivers including a slider for edge enhancement, I suspect the best approach would be to turn off the PVR-250's edge enhancement and use "just a little" of the ATIs.

[nathan118]

Hrrrm, if that is what mediaportal is actually using (any way to check in real time w/ mediaportal, properties box or whatever?), it should really be fine - the ati decoder is quite well behaved w/ deinterlacing normally.

Using dual monitors by any chance?

No dual monitors, but I'm using vista media center (vmcd and deccheck to force use of the ati decoder in media center). But I did my tests outside of media center also.

Sorry, but I'm too lazy to put 8.4 back on and check it, haha.

[HT Slider]

Another one for the list:

Enabling denoise introduces ghosting.
There should be decent denoising without introducing such artifacts.
IMHO Catalyst 7.11 is much better than 8.3 here.

grubi.

BTW, taking a raw mpeg-2 transport stream and playing it using ATI's default DXVA denoise, 8.3/8.4 does a much better job on denoise than 7.11 did. Also, with the sliders available in 8.3/8.4, we can fine tune how much denoise is performed (although I don't think the denoise truly turns off unless TRDenoise is set to 0 in the registry).

If you try to imagine the mathematics behind these denoise algorithms, it is fairly easy to imagine that when you add up multiple denoise processes being run on the same video, that eventually it will start screwing up the image.

You'll probably find there is some denoise type processing in the original digital compression performed by your cable company (or whoever compressed it), then more performed by the STB, then losses in the analog conversion, then more denoise in the video capture and mpeg-2 re-compression (done by your capture card), followed by even more done by the ATI video card. If you consider the configuration where you use the TV Tuner in the PC, there are still multiple sets of denoise algorithms run on all the video.

ATI has their denoise set by default to just about right for the mpeg-2 found on a typical DVD and it is just about impossible for them to get it right for every other video source.

What ATI needs IMO, is additional and easier to use denoise control. I also feel that their default should be less, but you have to understand from their position they are trying to ensure they pass HQV DVD denoise tests. They need a lot of denoise in order to provide the best image quality from DVD and other compressed sources.

Maybe ATI could develop some way of analyzing the video being played and try to figure out how much denoise processing has already been done and then tune their own filters accordingly?

[HT Slider]

One more BTW...

You'll also find controls for brightness and contrast in the registry for your TV tuner card. For the PVR-250, they are found in the same path as the PVR-250 denoise controls.

If you find grey levels are inconsistent between DVD playback and content recorded through your TV tuner, you can fine tune the TV tuner so the grey levels match DVD levels.

In my case, the PVR-250 captured content brightness was a little to high vs DVD.

[memes_be]

720 ones: you can fix almost all of them with IDC Changer and they will accelerate with the PDVD decoder. Or just use MPC-HC's internal decoder (you can get it separate from mpc-hc too), it doesn't need IDC-changed. This is a separate bug to the main one though. A very few 720 files can't be fixed, but that's really rare - at this resolution they need to use a stupidly large number of ref frames to be incompatible with dxva.

1080p: there is no fix - the number of ref frames is completely integral to the structure of the encoded file.
Thanks Arfster, yes, I read them with mpc-hc, but it seems there are again some of recent mkv's encoded at 720p (the last one I had is The Bourne Ultimatum) wich cannot be accelerated even with mpc-hc internal decoder. Is there then nothing to do but reencode them completely in a standard format ?

[arfster]

Thanks Arfster, yes, I read them with mpc-hc, but it seems there are again some of recent mkv's encoded at 720p (the last one I had is The Bourne Ultimatum) wich cannot be accelerated even with mpc-hc internal decoder. Is there then nothing to do but reencode them completely in a standard format ?

Seems so - pretty odd for recent 720p files to be incompatible though. Are they anime by any chance?

[mgl]

Is there any chance to get the denoise silder in Xp ? Or has someone the regkey for adjusting the denoise-level in xp?

[Mine82]

The overly aggressive denoise issue is a function of the source video.


That's exactly why the slider should comprise a wider range, starting from a very light denoise for sources with the worst quality like analog tv for instance.
DVDs and better don't need denoising anyway if you're not extremely close to the display usually.

[swallman]

I have a new VisionTek 2400 HD PCI (not -E) card I just installed to replace my on-board video card in my old Dell.

Trying to get HW acceleration to work. Don't have a HD DVD or BR drive, just downloading sample H.264 videos.

So far no luck. PC CPU is at 100%. How do I check the card GPU % ?

Have tried Media Player Classic Home Cinema edition and Nero as well. Any suggestions ? Are there any "guaranteed" sample videos I could try to make sure the ones I'm testing are encoded correctly ?

My specs are:

XP Pro SP2
P4 2.0 GHz
1.5 GB RAM

Thanks in advance.

[Baldone01]

I have a new VisionTek 2400 HD PCI (not -E) card I just installed to replace my on-board video card in my old Dell.

Trying to get HW acceleration to work. Don't have a HD DVD or BR drive, just downloading sample H.264 videos.

So far no luck. PC CPU is at 100%. How do I check the card GPU % ?

Have tried Media Player Classic Home Cinema edition and Nero as well. Any suggestions ? Are there any "guaranteed" sample videos I could try to make sure the ones I'm testing are encoded correctly ?

My specs are:

XP Pro SP2
P4 2.0 GHz
1.5 GB RAM

Thanks in advance.

Are the software/drivers you have loaded the ones from the Visiontek site? The page that pertains to your card is @ http://www.visiontek.com/teksupport/drivers/8.3_XP_driver.html. Good luck.

[RussKingUK]

Hi there,

Does anybody know if there is any way to configure the mpc-hc decoder to be the preffered decoder whilst having it kick back to CoreAVC if mpc-hc can't establish a dxva connection? mpc-hc does a great job when it is used on a compatible video file but struggles badly if it can't establish a hardware accelerated connection.

Cheers,

Russ.

[memes_be]

Seems so - pretty odd for recent 720p files to be incompatible though. Are they anime by any chance?

What do you mean by "anime" (sorry I am french) ? All I can say is I can read them with mpc-hc with many "little stops" as my cpu (amd 3200+) is at 100% so no HA. Another thing, I have also that with some hd divx at 720p, we speak a lot of hd mkv's and hd mpeg2 but I can't have HA with hd divx movies (avi container) neighter. Is that possible with my 2400 pro ?

[Dee_NA]

I was doin some browsing here recently and was wonderin what some of your thought are about what this site had to say about HA... http://www.deskshare.com/resources/articles/dmc_turnoffhardwareacceleration.aspx

[memes_be]

Hi,

I have an htpc very slim (Acer L200) and have put a pcie Ati 2400 pro to improve performances for HD, but it is a low profile and fanless gc as I have no space to put a full size. But this card doesn't satisfy me so much, to much manipulations to have HA and no HA at all for mpg2 hd files for example. I have heard the 34xx gc works better and easier, but the only model I know compatible with my htpc is the 3450 wich exists fanless and low-profiled. Has anybody this model and does it give easily full HA for all hd files ? Or does anybody know another gc low-profiled (not sure it has to be fanless for space but maybe for power needed) with equal or better performance FOR HD abilities (I am not a gamer).

Any comments greatly appreciated.

[arfster]

What do you mean by "anime" (sorry I am french) ? All I can say is I can read them with mpc-hc with many "little stops" as my cpu (amd 3200+) is at 100% so no HA. Another thing, I have also that with some hd divx at 720p, we speak a lot of hd mkv's and hd mpeg2 but I can't have HA with hd divx movies (avi container) neighter. Is that possible with my 2400 pro ?

I don't think so, but might be wrong - never tried accelerating divx.

Anime is just animated stuff/cartoons. Apparently these encode slightly differently, cos it's efficient for them to use large numbers of ref frames, and thus could break the limits.

[ExDeus]

I was doin some browsing here recently and was wonderin what some of your thought are about what this site had to say about HA... http://www.deskshare.com/resources/articles/dmc_turnoffhardwareacceleration.aspx
Disabling hardware acceleration would completely defeat the purpose of having an HD2000/3000 card.

That site discusses speeding up 2D graphics (GDI, GDI+) for windows, menus, etc. It is something you can do if you have a very old or very weak graphics card (the screenshot on the page you referenced shows an integrated GeForce2). This does not apply to the situation here, where we are using powerful cards specifically for their DXVA capabilities (using video overlay or 3D graphics, not 2D).

Disabling acceleration in Windows would allow your CPU to handle the graphics in lieu of your graphics card, but it would also disable access to all the acceleration features of your card, including DXVA.

That article is poorly titled, because "Turn Off Hardware Acceleration to Improve Video Quality" isn't really what you're doing there. You're disabling access to features on a weak video card to prevent them from being used (because the card isn't powerful enough for them to work correctly), but if you have a video card that does good hardware decoding, scaling, deinterlacing, etc, then you're actually reducing video quality by disabling access to those features.

[bobbyrr]

I've run through all the basic troubleshooting with ATI support and they've now told me to come to the forums to find a solution...

The problem:

Over the HDMI connection:

1) Colours appear washed out, or overly bright.
2) Text is difficult to read/ annoying/ blinding after long use.


Here's the story:

I've had this problem since December when I bought a new Westinghouse L2410NM 24" monitor:

http://www.westinghousedigital.com/details.aspx?itemnum=105

The monitor has both HDMI and DSUB connections, and I noticed that the DSUB looked strikingly better at reproducing colours and also made fine text much more readable when hooked up to my HD2600XT.

Interestingly, the same problem occurred with a Nvidia 8400GS i also had around. (The HDMI connection had the exact same poor image quality as the hd2600xt). However, I was able to fix this using the following driver hack:

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=58483&view=findpost&p=330319

Which involved editing an .inf file before installing the Forceware drivers.

Finally the Nvidia 8400GS was displaying perfect image quality over HDMI, unfortunately, my more expensive HD2600XT is still not capable of giving me good HDMI image quality.

Can anyone offer a suggestion how I might modify the Catalyst drivers to get my HDMI quality on par with my Nvidia card, or even the DSUB from the same card?

I have uploaded a full size demonstration of the difference between the HDMI image quality vs the DSUB image quality here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CXNIHYOS

Smaller versions can be found below

Take notice to:

1) How the colours change within the different lands on the map.

2) How the black text on the left side is much easier to read on the DSUB picture.

I've also found another person who is having the exact same issue with this same combo of video card and monitor:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=13142644#post13142644

DSUB
http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/1928/dsubsmallkj3.th.jpg (http://img170.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsubsmallkj3.jpg)

HDMI
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/1709/hdmismallsy3.th.jpg (http://img291.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hdmismallsy3.jpg)

[clicq]

I've run through all the basic troubleshooting with ATI support and they've now told me to come to the forums to find a solution...

The problem:

Over the HDMI connection:

1) Colours appear washed out, or overly bright.
2) Text is difficult to read/ annoying/ blinding after long use.



I had a somewhat similar problem, though it was with an actual HDTV and not a monitor (the text was overly sharpened and not very readable). I fixed it by using Powerstrip and choosing one of their custom resolutions, which fixed the text problem, though I didn't have the color problem you're having.

I'm not entirely sure if it'll work for you, but you should give Powerstrip a try (I can't post links yet, so you'll just have to google for it). Once you have it installed, you'll want to right-click the system tray icon, go to "Display Profiles", then "Configure". Click "Advanced timing options", then the "Custom resolutions" button. Scroll around until you find the setting that says "1920x1200p (LCD)" -- this matches what my LCD uses. Click "Add new resolution". Reboot, then select the resolution again in Powerstrip. You can try some of the other 1920x1200p resolutions, as they have different timings.

[bobbyrr]

I had a somewhat similar problem, though it was with an actual HDTV and not a monitor (the text was overly sharpened and not very readable). I fixed it by using Powerstrip and choosing one of their custom resolutions, which fixed the text problem, though I didn't have the color problem you're having.


Thank you for the suggestions. I already had powerstrip installed, and following your instructions I tried all available predefined 1920x1200 resolutions. None of them fixed the poor quality over HDMI, and a few of them made my monitor show no signal over HDMI but all worked just fine over dsub.

[memes_be]

I don't think so, but might be wrong - never tried accelerating divx.

Anime is just animated stuff/cartoons. Apparently these encode slightly differently, cos it's efficient for them to use large numbers of ref frames, and thus could break the limits.

No, none of them were anime, the last one I couldn't read accelerated is "The Bourne Ultimatum" (12/2007), so it seems it still happens not so rarely (for me 30% more or less)...Anyway, I have the 70% others...better than nothing with my small amd 3200+, it helps me to wait until prices of new htpc with BDR(W) are shutting down to upgrade.

[jong1]

There has been a discussion raging over the last week in the "Review: AVIVO HD vs Purevideo HD" thread and, for some reason(!) the "NVidia users: List the most important HTPC driver bugs" thread about whether ATI cards/drivers can output YCbCr and at what levels.

I believe we have reached conclusion, at least a logical consistency, that could do with some further verification!

It has been suggested I bring those following this thread in on the act.

If you are interested see here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=13752310#post13752310

p.s. there is mention of this also happening with a 2600. I cannot verify this and I know it comes with a different dongle to the 3xxx series. However, it certainly seems to happen with my (and another poster's) 3850.

[oilisgold]

I am having an issue with the drivers for the Radeon 2600 XT. I have the following setup:

- Radeon 2600 XT 256 MB.
- Westinghouse L2410NM native 1920x1200 resolution. Available inputs are HDMI, VGA, component, composite.
- Dell Inspiron 530 dual-boot XP Pro and Vista Ultimate. Connected to the Westinghouse via DVI-HDMI adapter.

I got the Inspiron from the factory and the max resolution available to me out of the box was 1600x1200, so I wanted to update the drivers to get to 1920x1200. At a resolution of 1600x1200, colors appear natural and normal. All I needed was more resolution. I am connected via the DVI-HDMI adapter.

When I updated the graphics drivers, it gave me the option for 1920x1200 (good) but at that resolution the colors are too bright/sharp (bad). I know it is not the monitor, because it displays my PS3 content (over HDMI) perfectly. And I know it is not a certain version of Windows because it happens in both XP and Vista.

Changing brightness/contrast, either in the monitor menu options or in XP/Vista settings, does not do anything. I have tried uninstalling and re-installing the drivers, but that does not do it either. I have tried third-party Omega drivers with no luck.

I have uninstalled and reinstaller the drivers, as well as XP itself. Every time I uninstall the drivers, the colors look great, but I can only go up to 1600x1200, and I need 1920x1200.

I then tried the DVI-VGA adapter that came with the Dell, and that works perfectly at 1920x1200. Colors are as natural and normal as they are at 1600x1200 resolution via DVI-HDMI.

Based on what I have read, it is the drivers, but identifying the problem is only half of it. Does anyone know any old driver versions that fully work with the DVI-HDMI connector? It could also be an HDCP issue, but I am not sure how to fix it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. It took me about five hours to get it to work, and the "solution" was to use the DVI-VGA cable, which is not optimal.

Does anyone have any input? Another user is having the same issue. I have been using the DVI to VGA adapter and it works fine, so I am just wondering why the HDMI connection is not performing properly.

[originalsnuffy]

With the 2400 and 2600, one must use the ATI adapter dongle.

[Pagali]

I'm using a Sapphire HD2600XT card with Catalyst 8.4 (which finally lets me set up an optimized 1080p profile!) No registry hacks, Windows XP SP2, Gigabyte P35 DS3L CTD MB, 2 GB memory, Everything seems to be working beautifully, except... (This problem also happened with 8.3, btw...) Every couple of days, while playing a DVD or video with ZoomPlayer/FFDShow, a dialog box appears on the screen that says:

"Catalyst Control Center: Host application has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."

Followed by the usual 'you may lose data...' 'Do you want to report...' stuff.

Strangely, if I just click on OK it goes away and my video, which never stopped playing, continues happily. There was one time that the computer froze however, needed a hard restart to get back in operation. Naturally, I was showing a movie to company. LOL!

Any clues what might be causing this? What other information would be helpful?

[clicq]

Thank you for the suggestions. I already had powerstrip installed, and following your instructions I tried all available predefined 1920x1200 resolutions. None of them fixed the poor quality over HDMI, and a few of them made my monitor show no signal over HDMI but all worked just fine over dsub.

Are you using the ATI DVI-HDMI adapter, or another kind?

I actually found that using a non-ATI DVI-HDMI adapter provided better quality on my HDTV, so it may work better for you too. It seems that the drivers do something different when the ATI adapter is used (on my TV, text looks MUCH better with the non-ATI adapter).

On my machine and TV:
ATI adapter (http://picasaweb.google.com/artitj/Tmp/photo#5194819620634767874)
Generic adapter (http://picasaweb.google.com/artitj/Tmp/photo#5194819650699538962)

[clicq]

I'm using a Sapphire HD2600XT card with Catalyst 8.4 (which finally lets me set up an optimized 1080p profile!) No registry hacks, Windows XP SP2, Gigabyte P35 DS3L CTD MB, 2 GB memory, Everything seems to be working beautifully, except... (This problem also happened with 8.3, btw...) Every couple of days, while playing a DVD or video with ZoomPlayer/FFDShow, a dialog box appears on the screen that says:

"Catalyst Control Center: Host application has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."

Any clues what might be causing this? What other information would be helpful?

No idea what's causing it, but if it makes you feel any better, it happens on my computer too (Vista x64 SP1, 4GB RAM, Abit IP35-E). I haven't had it crash my machine yet, though.

[bobbyrr]

Are you using the ATI DVI-HDMI adapter, or another kind?

I actually found that using a non-ATI DVI-HDMI adapter provided better quality on my HDTV, so it may work better for you too. It seems that the drivers do something different when the ATI adapter is used (on my TV, text looks MUCH better with the non-ATI adapter).

I'm using the ATI supplied adapter (black with "ATI RADEON GRAPHICS" and "REV. A" molded on it), and I don't have another one around to try.

Do you know where I can get the cheapest DVI-HDMI adapter to test this?

It's too bad because if this fixes the problem, I will not be able to send sound through the HDMI without the special ATI dongle.

[clicq]

I'm using the adapter from Monoprice (http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10419&cs_id=1041902&p_id=2029&seq=1&format=2).

You can check my previous post for the difference I see between the adapters.

I guess I should also mention that my TV resolution is 1368x768 (common 720p LCD res). I don't think that'll make a difference, but be aware.

[millerbrad]

I decided to give the 8.4 drivers a whirl. Unfortunately, for the life of me, I can't get the scaling options to work...

Luckily, the default 720p overscan settings fit my TV just fine. But, 1080p has too much overscan.

Any tips on getting scaling working withut using Powerstrip?

EDIT: Got it working by unchecking the Add 1080i30 and 1080p60 Formats to Display Manager (under HDTV Support in CCC)..

[bobbyrr]

I'm using the adapter from Monoprice (http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10419&cs_id=1041902&p_id=2029&seq=1&format=2).

You can check my previous post for the difference I see between the adapters.

I guess I should also mention that my TV resolution is 1368x768 (common 720p LCD res). I don't think that'll make a difference, but be aware.

I found a cheaper one here (free shipping):

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1279

But it has more pins than that monoprice one. What effect does it have to have those extra pins in the middle of the DVI connection ?

[clicq]

I found a cheaper one here (free shipping):

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1279

But it has more pins than that monoprice one. What effect does it have to have those extra pins in the middle of the DVI connection ?

I think the only difference is whether it's dual link or single link, judging from the Wikipedia page on DVI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVI#Connector), so I imagine it would work.

As an aside, the ATI dongle/driver does seem to be doing funny stuff for HDTV use that is probably not ideal for computer monitor use, based on this other thread (http://www.theatertek.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=9451&page=4)

[Shoey Peachew]

An FYI for anyone with a Visiontek HD2600 Pro agp version card and is thinking about replacing the loud vga heatsink / cooler with the Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 Rev. 2 (http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga2.php?idx=147) as I was. It seems like it won't work without a mod as I found out from here (http://www.watchuonline.com/video/IP2lN7f5UeA/ati-visiontek-2600-pro-agp-hack-heatsink-accelero.html).

Does anyone know of a working alternative cooling solution for this card? The fan is too loud and there isn't a lot of info on the www. about the AGP version that I've been able to find.

[Al Sherwood]

My HD2600Pro looks to be acting up, after it gets warm it will not allow a system restart, if I let the PC remain off for about 15 minutes it will again boot without issue. I have tried the memory etc, but it keeps coming back to the card... anyway back to the reason for the post! :)

Since I don't want to be without a machine during the RMA process, I was going to buy a second card, but which one? the 2600Pro or 2600XT?

The XT will cost me $30 more then the HD... is it better?

BTW I don't really use the HTPC for gaming, mainly HD movies.

Thanks!

[jong1]

Now I'd get a 3450 or better a 3650 (depends on how much you trust that the 3450 will always be up to the job with later Blu-ray discs. It's capable of 1080p, but probably only just).

[Al Sherwood]

Now I'd get a 3450 or better a 3650 (depends on how much you trust that the 3450 will always be up to the job with later Blu-ray discs. It's capable of 1080p, but probably only just).

I see where you are going with this, but the 2600HD worked fine, I know there are better/faster cards out there, but are they really necessary? (all 512MB local prices)

HD2600HD $109
HD2600XT $139
HD3850 $199
HD3870 $299

[arfster]

The discs aren't going to get any harder to decode - the graphics limits for Bluray are already set in stone. What may get more complex is the interactive stuff, but that's nothing to do with the card.

[Al Sherwood]

The discs aren't going to get any harder to decode - the graphics limits for Bluray are already set in stone. What may get more complex is the interactive stuff, but that's nothing to do with the card.

that figures and makes sense, so what's your take, is the 2600XT worth the upgrade from the 2600HD or should I get the same card?

thanks!

[jong1]

I see where you are going with this, but the 2600HD worked fine, I know there are better/faster cards out there, but are they really necessary? (all 512MB local prices)

HD2600HD $109
HD2600XT $139
HD3850 $199
HD3870 $299But I did not recommend those.

HD3450: $68
HD3650: $109

They will relieve a lot of effort from the processor, for me that has meant my cpu cooler and case fans can slow down nicely. They arguably produce a better quality result, and run at lot cooler. Good for an HTPC.

The discs aren't going to get any harder to decode - the graphics limits for Bluray are already set in stone. What may get more complex is the interactive stuff, but that's nothing to do with the card.I accept what you say and you probably are right, Especially now, when things are more mature. However, I certainly felt the need to upgrade from my 7600GT, which in theory was just sufficient and proved, for me, not to be.

Studios do seem happy to add some increased encoder complexity to new discs. There seems a somwhat cavalier attitude to early adopters and their already out of date machines (e.g profile 1.1, profile 2.0). It just would not surprise me completely if some future discs, whilst meeting the same standard, pushed the complexity to the point where first gen players and some old PC hardware could not cope (smoothly). That seems to be what happened with my 7600GT at least.

I just don't like being without headroom in my config and the 3450 is pretty much in that category. It can do 1080p resolution, but not more. Other cards can go further. However, I respect those who are happier living closer to the edge!

[arfster]

Yeah, don't get me wrong, I'm always on the headroom side of the argument too. However, the reason is that ATI cut it too close with the shaders, and you find (like the 2400pro) it can't do something like 1080i mpeg2 interlaced.

However for pure decoding purposes, ie ignoring deinterlacing/postprocessing (shader) issues, none of the cards will ever be troubled by anything progressive on a Bluray disc. Even the 2400pro can handle way beyond Bluray graphics specs. I've run 60mbit h264 1080p 60fps through one of them, while Bluray graphics peak is 40mbit (and average more like 25mbit), usually at 24fps. Basically the decoder (ie the UVD) is way overspecced because it's a common part throughout the series, but the shaders are underspecced on the cheap models.

In practice, I wouldn't buy a 2400 now, or a 34xx. Guessing that a 36xx should have enough though (anyone tried 1080i mpeg2?).

[jong1]

Interesting. Thanks for that valuable experience. Thing is we always think "ah that's what they got wrong, it'll be fine next time". Then there is a new way to screw up that comes and bites us!

Sounds like we agree in the end though :).

p.s I don't have too much 1080i MPEG-2, but do have a couple of test clips. I will give them a go.

[gtfoltz]

that figures and makes sense, so what's your take, is the 2600XT worth the upgrade from the 2600HD or should I get the same card?

The 3450/3650 are slightly updated versions of the 2400/2600 series. Unless you got a KILLER deal on the 2x00 (like the $25 I paid for my 2600 pro :D ), you should definitely get a 3650 over a 2600 pro or 2600 XT. I would specifically NOT opt for the XT, however, since the faster memory is completely wasted on HTPC tasks (you said you weren't interested in gaming, right?).

The short answer is a 3650 will do any HTPC task as good or better than a HD 2600 series card. And consume less watts and run cooler at the same time. And I'm not sure where you are getting your video card prices--$109 for a HD 2600 pro??? YEOW! They are $25-$60 at places like Newegg--and there are several flavors of the 3650 in the $50-$80 range. (some after rebate of course).

So, if price is a major consideration, get a cheap 2600 pro (not the XT). If you want to future proof just a bit more, the 3650 is the way to go.

[jong1]

This may be irrelevant as I have a 3850, but I tried playing my 1080i .ts stuff through PDVD8 and the PQ was great, but slow panning performance not great to be honest. Definitely not fluid. Not obvious interlacing artifacts or tearing but 'jittery' . It was like each line or small group of lines we being moved independently! Probabaly sounds worse than it was, but definitely not as good as I get with TheaterTek. Maybe a Cyberlink issue though.

[Al Sherwood]

Wow, excellant fedback you guys! :)

The prices I quoted are local, I live in an area that has the most expensive prices for PC hardware I know of, and yes I know that there are a lot of online places to buy frombut, if they are in the US, I have to worry about shipping and duty/brokerage fees which make this a "no go". If the place is in Canada then it is just shipping, a bit better but definitely slower and very problematic if there is any problem and a return is required...

As gatherd, almost exclusivley HD Movies, little to no games.

So a HD3650... 512mb? or is 256MB enough?

The reason I ask is there a local source for a HD3850 256MB at $149...

[gtfoltz]

The more RAM, the better for games, but the more watts consumed at all times. In other words, completely wasted and not even desired on a non-gaming HTPC.

[memes_be]

Yeah, don't get me wrong, I'm always on the headroom side of the argument too. However, the reason is that ATI cut it too close with the shaders, and you find (like the 2400pro) it can't do something like 1080i mpeg2 interlaced.

However for pure decoding purposes, ie ignoring deinterlacing/postprocessing (shader) issues, none of the cards will ever be troubled by anything progressive on a Bluray disc. Even the 2400pro can handle way beyond Bluray graphics specs. I've run 60mbit h264 1080p 60fps through one of them, while Bluray graphics peak is 40mbit (and average more like 25mbit), usually at 24fps. Basically the decoder (ie the UVD) is way overspecced because it's a common part throughout the series, but the shaders are underspecced on the cheap models.

In practice, I wouldn't buy a 2400 now, or a 34xx. Guessing that a 36xx should have enough though (anyone tried 1080i mpeg2?).

It would be very very interesting to have a feedback from 34xx and 36xx owners what kind of movie file they can get with HA (mkv,mpeg2,wmv,divx in1080i and 1080p). Could somebody post that (in my case, I'm interested in the 3450 only for hd movies) ?
Thanks

[bobbyrr]

As an aside, the ATI dongle/driver does seem to be doing funny stuff for HDTV use that is probably not ideal for computer monitor use, based on this other thread (http://www.theatertek.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=9451&page=4)

Clicq and Oilisgold,

Can you please check and report back what revision your DVI-HDMI dongle is?

I am using a black dongle with "ATI RADEON GRAPHICS" and "REV A" molded on it.

Is yours also a Rev A? I know that Rev B exists and I wonder if it would make a difference in our cases.

[jong1]

Yep. If what we discovered yesterday is correct then the ATI dongle (at least the 3xxx series one, maybe the 2xxx series one) causes the card to output video level (16-235) YCbCr instead of PC level (0-255) RGB.

I personally think that is right and proper for a TV, although there has been some debate on this point! But this would certainly not be good for a PC monitor used e.g. for photo editing.

Much better if we got to choose in CCC.

[Al Sherwood]

Comparing only the HD2600Pro to the HD3650, they look very similar, but I did notice mention of UVD with the HD3650:

Improved Unified Video Decoder – Enjoy Blu-ray and HD DVD movies with a dedicated hardware video decoder (UVD) that leaves your CPU unbound to do other tasks.

The 3650 mentions both UVD and ATI Avivo™ HD technology?

Does the HD2600Pro have this as well? I couldn't find it mentiond, is it necessary?



thanks

[gtfoltz]

yes, the 2x00 series does have the UVD engine, but like the 3650 ad said, it was "improved" on the 3x50 series. However, from what I've read it's fairly minor--and mostly apparent in the improved ability of the 3450 to handle HD decode, which the 2400 pro struggled with.

Again, the 3650 is clearly the better HTPC choice over any 2x00 series card. Only price would jus