OK so the 5000 series definitely has some problems especially with HDMI audio, but I and others have worked around them for the most part, and sometimes fixed them. [There's several of us who had been waiting for these cards for a while and have followed their progression since the beginning. You might wanna pay extra attention to what renethx, vladd, SamuriHL, Tulli and other "olds" from the original thread have to say (sorry if I forgot someone!)]
If you don't understand some terms, please search for them in order to keep this post as short and clear as possible. I will keep updating this post with other people's contributions (esp. Tulli, I hope, cause I know practically nothing about fixing EDID!).
All this is tested on Windows 7 64-bit, it should be the same on 32-bit and maybe Vista. If you got XP you might have some more trouble (you probably won't be able to bitstream HD-disc audio at all). I think it's time to let XP go.
Original thread pertaining HTPC use.
First of all, the Realtek HDMI driver is recommended as opposed to the ATI HDMI audio driver that comes with the Catalyst installation. After accepting, download the ATI HDMI Audio Device in red fonts. Current version is 2.39 as of 2010/02/06. The other ones (usually higher, newer versions) are for the Realtek analog motherboard devices. This is about the most common mistake people make. The main difference between these two drivers is that the Realtek one doesn't suffer from the " silent stream bug ".
[2010/02/14] The Realtek driver is now at version 2.42. ricabullah points out that there is a problem with the both the 2.39 and 2.42 drivers with DVBViewer.
[2010/03/12] There are other small differences. Go below (next post) to see the details please.
OK so the most common problems are:
-
1) No Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD (or both) bitstreaming to an AVR that should be capable. FIXED!
This is most probably due to an EDID error. You will need to override your monitor's driver with a driver with its EDID information modified.Tulli is the man for this, and many people have already benefited from his EDID modifications. Start with Tulli's post below.
[2010/02/15] There have been so many requests for Tulli's patches that he opened a thread just for them. Go there for info on how to do the EDID overrides. Thanks Tulli!
[2010/04/29] As reported on Tulli's thread, this issue is fixed with Catalyst 10.4.
-
2) Dropouts (or pops) with DXVA disabled. FIXED!
This was discovered at this thread at Doom9. It happens with legacy DD and DTS but it might happen with other audio too. It is caused by Powerplay, an energy-saving feature that downclocks the GPU and memory when the card isn't being stressed. This is most likely a graphics driver problem (not an audio driver one). I'm not sure if it could be a hardware problem though, let's hope not.
The workaround is here .
[2010/06/16] This Powerplay issue is fixed with Catalyst 10.6.
-
3) Channel switching (to/from fronts/rears/center) or crackling, horrible distortion. FIXED!
Channel switching happens when audio is set to5.1 and higher than 48 kHz (96 or 192 kHz) and 24-bit in the Windows mixer, and in 16-bit 176.4 kHz. I don't get it in 16/88.2 or 16/96. Also happens when using WASAPI exclusive with content with equivalent settings.
When setting it to 7.1 and similar bit-depth/sampling-rate settings, there might be crackling and bad distortion, but I'm not getting this anymore. I'm on the 8.70RC2 drivers (presumably Cat 10.2 RC2), so that may have fixed it.
This is also caused by graphics drivers. Powerplay triggers it (see above #2 on how to disable it). Or you can also just set the windows mixer to 24-bit 48 kHz or any other unaffected mode.
[2010/06/16] This Powerplay issue is fixed with Catalyst 10.6.
-
4) 23, 29 and 59 Hz revert to 24, 30 and 60 in CCC.
This is not a big problem. When you set it to 23, it will be 23 even though the number will show 24. There is a trick though. If you are switching form 23 to 24 or vice versa, it won't switch. You need to switch to something completely different first (like 59 or 60) and then back to 24 (or 23). Same goes for 29/30 and 59/60.
[vladd below points out that it's a CCC problem, you can still change at will with the Windows interface (see his post if you don't know how).]
The next two aren't as common but I suspect it's because not many people use these options. If you do please leave a post confirming, thanks.
-
5) When using CCC profiles/hotkeys, 23, 29 and 59 Hz aren't set.
Even if you save your profile after setting 23, 29 or 59, when you call up the profile (via a hotkey or otherwise), it will set the refresh to 24, 30 or 60 respectively. You have to edit the xml of your profiles like indicated here .
-
6) Win 7 Media Center won't work with 29 Hz.
I use 29i with MC because my TV can only apply reverse pulldown up to 1080i, so this is a rather unique case, not many are using interlaced. In any case, MC for me automatically changed to 30i. For all other rates (including 23 and 59) it would work OK. This can be fixed with this registry settingCode:
Change theRefreshRate value to 29. This means though that MC will always change to 29 when opening full screen.
Side note: You can also erase that value to reset MC to not change refresh rates when opening (which will do if you set up your display for a certain resolution/rate within MC).
-
[2010/03/04] 7) Pixel Format Output Problems.
For the past few days, there's been a lengthy and somewhat confusing discussion about the different Pixel Format (YCbCr, RGB Full and RGB Limited), that these cards offer. As of now, this is the last post of this thread, and this the last on the subject on the main 5000 thread. You can go back a few days and see what's been going on. Basically, we have two problems:
- Pixel Format RGB Full in some systems is broken, it seems to output desktop colors at the same levels as Limited. For some others (like me) this doesn't happen and RGB Full and Limited work as expected (Full outputs 0-255 and Limited 16-235). We don't know yet if the display affects the cards' output, but we're trying to test that.
- Pixel Format YCbCr yields a greenish cast especially in the darker areas. This affects everything except video in the protected video path (PVP) such as bluray in the commercial bluray players (when playing from disc or ISO). For PVP video, it seems YCbCr is being output without conversion to RGB first, so there's no green cast. See the measurement graphs sotti posted in this thread, and here for a more visual representation of the problem.
There might be smaller problems for other people. Two things though.
First of all, none of these is resolved as of now, nor there are workarounds for the YCbCr issue or something that always works for the RGB issue. I'm putting this here cause I've been asked to by some people, but the information will be updated when we know more what's causing the RGB problem. The YCC problem seems to be straightforward, just a bad conversion.
Secondly, all this talk (especially the banding discussion therein) is not a problem everyone will notice, or everyone will care about. See if it applies to you, and if you're satisfied with what you're getting, then you don't have to worry about this.
-
[2010/04/21] 8) DXVA profiles support limitations
ter9999 explains :
If you don't understand some terms, please search for them in order to keep this post as short and clear as possible. I will keep updating this post with other people's contributions (esp. Tulli, I hope, cause I know practically nothing about fixing EDID!).
All this is tested on Windows 7 64-bit, it should be the same on 32-bit and maybe Vista. If you got XP you might have some more trouble (you probably won't be able to bitstream HD-disc audio at all). I think it's time to let XP go.
Original thread pertaining HTPC use.
First of all, the Realtek HDMI driver is recommended as opposed to the ATI HDMI audio driver that comes with the Catalyst installation. After accepting, download the ATI HDMI Audio Device in red fonts. Current version is 2.39 as of 2010/02/06. The other ones (usually higher, newer versions) are for the Realtek analog motherboard devices. This is about the most common mistake people make. The main difference between these two drivers is that the Realtek one doesn't suffer from the " silent stream bug ".
[2010/02/14] The Realtek driver is now at version 2.42. ricabullah points out that there is a problem with the both the 2.39 and 2.42 drivers with DVBViewer.
[2010/03/12] There are other small differences. Go below (next post) to see the details please.
OK so the most common problems are:
-
1) No Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD (or both) bitstreaming to an AVR that should be capable. FIXED!
This is most probably due to an EDID error. You will need to override your monitor's driver with a driver with its EDID information modified.Tulli is the man for this, and many people have already benefited from his EDID modifications. Start with Tulli's post below.
[2010/02/15] There have been so many requests for Tulli's patches that he opened a thread just for them. Go there for info on how to do the EDID overrides. Thanks Tulli!
[2010/04/29] As reported on Tulli's thread, this issue is fixed with Catalyst 10.4.
-
2) Dropouts (or pops) with DXVA disabled. FIXED!
This was discovered at this thread at Doom9. It happens with legacy DD and DTS but it might happen with other audio too. It is caused by Powerplay, an energy-saving feature that downclocks the GPU and memory when the card isn't being stressed. This is most likely a graphics driver problem (not an audio driver one). I'm not sure if it could be a hardware problem though, let's hope not.
The workaround is here .
[2010/06/16] This Powerplay issue is fixed with Catalyst 10.6.
-
3) Channel switching (to/from fronts/rears/center) or crackling, horrible distortion. FIXED!
Channel switching happens when audio is set to5.1 and higher than 48 kHz (96 or 192 kHz) and 24-bit in the Windows mixer, and in 16-bit 176.4 kHz. I don't get it in 16/88.2 or 16/96. Also happens when using WASAPI exclusive with content with equivalent settings.
When setting it to 7.1 and similar bit-depth/sampling-rate settings, there might be crackling and bad distortion, but I'm not getting this anymore. I'm on the 8.70RC2 drivers (presumably Cat 10.2 RC2), so that may have fixed it.
This is also caused by graphics drivers. Powerplay triggers it (see above #2 on how to disable it). Or you can also just set the windows mixer to 24-bit 48 kHz or any other unaffected mode.
[2010/06/16] This Powerplay issue is fixed with Catalyst 10.6.
-
4) 23, 29 and 59 Hz revert to 24, 30 and 60 in CCC.
This is not a big problem. When you set it to 23, it will be 23 even though the number will show 24. There is a trick though. If you are switching form 23 to 24 or vice versa, it won't switch. You need to switch to something completely different first (like 59 or 60) and then back to 24 (or 23). Same goes for 29/30 and 59/60.
[vladd below points out that it's a CCC problem, you can still change at will with the Windows interface (see his post if you don't know how).]
The next two aren't as common but I suspect it's because not many people use these options. If you do please leave a post confirming, thanks.
-
5) When using CCC profiles/hotkeys, 23, 29 and 59 Hz aren't set.
Even if you save your profile after setting 23, 29 or 59, when you call up the profile (via a hotkey or otherwise), it will set the refresh to 24, 30 or 60 respectively. You have to edit the xml of your profiles like indicated here .
-
6) Win 7 Media Center won't work with 29 Hz.
I use 29i with MC because my TV can only apply reverse pulldown up to 1080i, so this is a rather unique case, not many are using interlaced. In any case, MC for me automatically changed to 30i. For all other rates (including 23 and 59) it would work OK. This can be fixed with this registry settingCode:
Code:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Media Center\\Settings\\DisplayService
Side note: You can also erase that value to reset MC to not change refresh rates when opening (which will do if you set up your display for a certain resolution/rate within MC).
-
[2010/03/04] 7) Pixel Format Output Problems.
For the past few days, there's been a lengthy and somewhat confusing discussion about the different Pixel Format (YCbCr, RGB Full and RGB Limited), that these cards offer. As of now, this is the last post of this thread, and this the last on the subject on the main 5000 thread. You can go back a few days and see what's been going on. Basically, we have two problems:
- Pixel Format RGB Full in some systems is broken, it seems to output desktop colors at the same levels as Limited. For some others (like me) this doesn't happen and RGB Full and Limited work as expected (Full outputs 0-255 and Limited 16-235). We don't know yet if the display affects the cards' output, but we're trying to test that.
- Pixel Format YCbCr yields a greenish cast especially in the darker areas. This affects everything except video in the protected video path (PVP) such as bluray in the commercial bluray players (when playing from disc or ISO). For PVP video, it seems YCbCr is being output without conversion to RGB first, so there's no green cast. See the measurement graphs sotti posted in this thread, and here for a more visual representation of the problem.
There might be smaller problems for other people. Two things though.
First of all, none of these is resolved as of now, nor there are workarounds for the YCbCr issue or something that always works for the RGB issue. I'm putting this here cause I've been asked to by some people, but the information will be updated when we know more what's causing the RGB problem. The YCC problem seems to be straightforward, just a bad conversion.
Secondly, all this talk (especially the banding discussion therein) is not a problem everyone will notice, or everyone will care about. See if it applies to you, and if you're satisfied with what you're getting, then you don't have to worry about this.
-
[2010/04/21] 8) DXVA profiles support limitations
ter9999 explains :