AVS › AVS Forum › Video Components › Home Theater Computers › Pixel format spontaneously changes - ATI
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Pixel format spontaneously changes - ATI

post #1 of 148
2/6/12 at 11:34am
Thread Starter 
So I'm having a very frustrating issue now where my pixel format setting in Catalyst spontaneously changes. It needs to be on RGB Full, but about every day or two I noticed colors in videos are strange. Catalyst claims it's still in RGB Full, but when I change to something other than RGB Full and then change back to RGB Full, the colors look normal again.

Annoyingly, I can't seem to figure out what triggers the issue. Resetting my PC, remote desktop, opening and closing Plex, turning the TV off and on, and turning my receiver off and on do not seem to trigger the pixel format change. It seems to happen randomly.

I use Plex with DXVA on. With DXVA off, colors always look correct (so maybe Plex's handling of DXVA could be at fault?). I'm running the latest version of catalyst (12.1).
Reply
Reply

AVS Top Picks

post #2 of 148
2/6/12 at 12:38pm
When you install/update your video drivers do you remove the old ones FIRST? A lot of users simply install the drivers overtop of the old ones. This is a big no no. Completely uninstall the drivers and driver installer manager. Reboot then use driversweeper and reboot again. Then install the latest driver. If you have an AMD chipset board then you will have to use the custom removal and be sure not to uninstall the USB inf and chipset drivers. I would also use the directX webinstaller to make sure you have all the latest directX libraries.
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 148
2/6/12 at 12:54pm
ATI drivers and HTPC/HDTV.

NOT a match made in heaven.
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 148
2/6/12 at 12:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by assassin View Post

ATI drivers and HTPC/HDTV.

NOT a match made in heaven.

You're like THE expert at HTPCs right Assassin! I use ATI for HTPC and have done so for some years and have not had any of these issues other describe. As a general rule the past ten years ATI has had BETTER video decoding and PQ.

Strange

Any ideas on what causes this? Do you have a contact with the cat dev team?
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 148
2/6/12 at 12:58pm
Is it not possible that it's being reset by an EDID read and that the EDID data from the set says that the TV can't take 4:4:4

Did that occur to anybody!?!

OP dump the EDID data and post it in this thread.

Moninfo can do this for you.
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 148
2/6/12 at 1:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Solid-State View Post

You're like THE expert at HTPCs right Assassin! I use ATI for HTPC and have done so for some years and have not had any of these issues other describe. As a general rule the past ten years ATI has had BETTER video decoding and PQ.

Strange

Any ideas on what causes this? Do you have a contact with the cat dev team?

Some have many issues with ATI. Some have issues with NVidia and Intel.

It just seems like hanging around AVS there are more issues with ATI than the other in regards to annoying things like screen resolution changes (on its own), EDID problems, etc.

I do fully recognize that none are perfect. But my own personal experience with ATI drivers was abysmal.

And the PQ quality thing is baloney. Completely subjective.
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 148
2/6/12 at 1:32pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Solid-State View Post

When you install/update your video drivers do you remove the old ones FIRST? A lot of users simply install the drivers overtop of the old ones. This is a big no no. Completely uninstall the drivers and driver installer manager. Reboot then use driversweeper and reboot again. Then install the latest driver. If you have an AMD chipset board then you will have to use the custom removal and be sure not to uninstall the USB inf and chipset drivers. I would also use the directX webinstaller to make sure you have all the latest directX libraries.

Thanks for the info. I'll try doing that right now.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Solid-State View Post

Is it not possible that it's being reset by an EDID read and that the EDID data from the set says that the TV can't take 4:4:4

Did that occur to anybody!?!

OP dump the EDID data and post it in this thread.

Moninfo can do this for you.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but my TV (Pioneer "Kuro" KRP-500m) can definitely accept full RGB inputs and will detect them automatically. I've never heard of anyone having pixel format or EDID issues with their Kuros. I will post the moninfo data after I reinstall the video driver though.
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 148
2/6/12 at 1:38pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by assassin View Post

Some have many issues with ATI. Some have issues with NVidia and Intel.

It just seems like hanging around AVS there are more issues with ATI than the other in regards to annoying things like screen resolution changes (on its own), EDID problems, etc.

I do fully recognize that none are perfect. But my own personal experience with ATI drivers was abysmal.

And the PQ quality thing is baloney. Completely subjective.

Yeah I agree the PQ difference is baloney these days but it hasn't been in the past BUT with hardware decode the PQ can very greatly depending on the "boxed" decoder settings. Do you follow propper practice of removing the drivers and reinstalling them on a version change? That new auto update feature causes users to install their drivers over older ones because the installer routine doesn't remove the old drivers.

OP I'd also check to see if the TV has any firmware updates. I'd also turn off any automatic aspect ratio BS in the TV. Another possibility is bad HDMI cable continuity and/or HDMI port/jack damage. I've been building HTPC since 2000 and also myHTPC that then became Meedio I was involved in. I had branding rights to it until Pedro and friends sold it to Yahoo. I also have experience with QCQ and Cinemar. In all that time and experience I've never had the ATI driver issues others describe. I've had problems with nVidia drivers though. OP what audio driver do you use for the card? The boxed one or the one from Realtek? Using the Realtek one is better and is best installed AFTER you install the onboard audio if onboard is also Realtek. Doing this will cause the Realtek control applet to now have features available for the HDMI audio port on the video card. The video card DSP will also inherant any decoding abilities from the onboard like Dolby Digital Live. That can be great for certain video games over MCLPCM.
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 148
2/6/12 at 1:46pm
Possible bug in 12.1 ? I use 11.12 with my Kuro and have no issues, and i can confirm it does support Full RGB.
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 148
2/6/12 at 1:53pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Solid-State View Post

Yeah I agree the PQ difference is baloney these days but it hasn't been in the past BUT with hardware decode the PQ can very greatly depending on the "boxed" decoder settings. Do you follow propper practice of removing the drivers and reinstalling them on a version change?

Of course. I also could confirm I had a different driver because one extremely annoying problem would be fixed but replaced by another completely different but equally annoying problem.
Reply
Reply
post #11 of 148
2/6/12 at 1:55pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenEyez View Post

Possible bug in 12.1 ? I use 11.12 with my Kuro and have no issues, and i can confirm it does support Full RGB.

I actually updated to 12.1 yesterday because of this issue. Somewhere on the forum someone had suggested that older versions of catalyst (pre 10.1) had this problem. Unfortunately, I don't know exactly which version of Catalyst I was using pre-12.1. Anyways, If 12.1 has this bug, then that's completely unacceptable. I will never buy ATI again.
Reply
Reply
post #12 of 148
2/6/12 at 2:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lockdown571 View Post

I actually updated to 12.1 yesterday because of this issue. Somewhere on the forum someone had suggested that older versions of catalyst (pre 10.1) had this problem. Unfortunately, I don't know exactly which version of Catalyst I was using pre-12.1. Anyways, If 12.1 has this bug, then that's completely unacceptable. I will never buy ATI again.

How did you update the drivers? By installing them overtop of the older ones? Have you updated directX ? Also do you have your chipset drivers installed PROPERLY FIRST before you install the video drivers.

Many many users install device drivers like video BEFORE they install the chipset drivers or they simply don't install chipset drivers at all. This is a big big no no. Don't you guys realize the chipset inf determins the DMI and IRQ etc vectoring and memory addressing for hardware devices! Not having the chipset drivers installed properly can have a PROFOUND affect on how address space and hardware resources are allocated to the video adapter or any other peripheral for that matter!
Reply
Reply
post #13 of 148
2/6/12 at 2:02pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Solid-State View Post

Yeah I agree the PQ difference is baloney these days but it hasn't been in the past BUT with hardware decode the PQ can very greatly depending on the "boxed" decoder settings. Do you follow propper practice of removing the drivers and reinstalling them on a version change? That new auto update feature causes users to install their drivers over older ones because the installer routine doesn't remove the old drivers.

OP I'd also check to see if the TV has any firmware updates. I'd also turn off any automatic aspect ratio BS in the TV. Another possibility is bad HDMI cable continuity and/or HDMI port/jack damage. I've been building HTPC since 2000 and also myHTPC that then became Meedio. I had branding rights to it until Pedro and friends sold it to Yahoo. I also have experience with QCQ and Cinemar. In all that time and experience I've never had the ATI driver issues others describe. I've had problems with nVidia drivers though. OP what audio driver do you use for the card? The boxed one or the one from Realtek? Using the Realtek one is better and is best installed AFTER you install the onboard audio if onboard is also Realtek. Doing this will cause the Realtek control applet to now have features available for the HDMI audio port on the video card. The video card DSP will also inherant any decoding abilities from the onboard like Dolby Digital Live. That can be great for certain video games over MCLPCM.

To my knowledge, there aren't any firmware updates for my TV. Honestly, I think it's extremely unlikely that there would be a problem with the TV. I follow the Kuro threads on this website closely, and I've never heard of someone having this issue. The Kuro is a professional quality TV and designed to handle all four of the major pixel formats with ease.

Also, what's wrong with the audio on the graphics card? Having to deal with switching to realtek audio would be reason enough for me to ditch this graphics card.
Reply
Reply
post #14 of 148
2/6/12 at 2:06pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Solid-State View Post

How did you update the drivers? By installing them overtop of the older ones? Have you updated directX ? Also do you have your chipset drivers installed PROPERLY FIRST before you install the video drivers.

Many many users install device drivers like video BEFORE they install the chipset drivers. This is a big big no no. Don't you guys realize the chipset inf determins the DMI and IRQ etc vectoring and memory addressing for hardware devices!

I did install 12.1 overtop the old one, but now I've just done as you've recommended with uninstalling the driver first, running drive sweeper, etc. What's the best way to update DirectX (wouldn't the ATI installation package include the most recent version?)? Also, I definitely installed the chipset drivers before I installed the graphics driver.
Reply
Reply
post #15 of 148
2/6/12 at 2:08pm
PM me op and I'll provide you with the latest intel chipset package. The one that's on Asus's website is old and the Intel portal is horrible for finding the right package.
Reply
Reply
post #16 of 148
2/6/12 at 2:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lockdown571 View Post

I did install 12.1 overtop the old one, but now I've just done as you've recommended with uninstalling the driver first, running drive sweeper, etc. What's the best way to update DirectX (wouldn't the ATI installation package include the most recent version?)? Also, I definitely installed the chipset drivers before I installed the graphics driver.

Nope the DirectX libraries are NOT INCLUDED with the ATI package. That would make the package HUGE and would cost AMD money in bandwidth.

Use this to install DirectX

https://www.microsoft.com/download/e...ils.aspx?id=35

Also worth noting is that Windows 7 only comes with DirectX 10/11 libraries depending on the release. In order to have proper DirectX backwards compatibility you need to use the web installer to get version 10 and 9 onto the system.

Many many people don't realize this nor understand.
Reply
Reply
post #17 of 148
2/6/12 at 2:14pm
Besides 11.12, i`ve also had 11.6 working fine and i think 11.9 worked ok. 11.8 had shuttering issues with XBMC, and 11.10 , 11.11 had issues with the HDMI audio going haywire when the PC was woke up from sleep and the AVR was on another input, it defaulted to 2 channel and nothing else (no bitstreaming capabilities, no 5.1 or 7.1 options), needed a restart.

This are the ones that come off the top of my head, and no, i don`t remember of any updates for our TVs (i think we have the same generation, i have the 600M, your bigger brother, awesome set btw) after 2010 or so.

I`m also in the switching to the competition camp, would prefer Nvidia since im on the 10th driver revision on my main workstation (on which i also watch movies from time to time) and still going strong (aside from some small glitches in my games), but will go to Intel since getting a discrete GPU means also changing my case, which i love and is nice & small.
Reply
Reply
post #18 of 148
2/6/12 at 2:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenEyez View Post

Besides 11.12, i`ve also had 11.6 working fine and i think 11.9 worked ok. 11.8 had shuttering issues with XBMC, and 11.10 , 11.11 had issues with the HDMI audio going haywire when the PC was woke up from sleep and the AVR was on another input, it defaulted to 2 channel and nothing else (no bitstreaming capabilities, no 5.1 or 7.1 options), needed a restart.

This are the ones that come off the top of my head, and no, i don`t remember of any updates for our TVs (i think we have the same generation, i have the 600M, your bigger brother, awesome set btw) after 2010.

I`m also in the switching to the competition camp, would prefer Nvidia since im on the 10th driver revision on my main workstation (on which i also watch movies from time to time) and still going strong (aside from some small glitches in my games), but will go to Intel since getting a discrete GPU means also changing my case, which i love and is nice & small.

A lot of that is just software flukes due to certain left over registry keys and entries IMHO that work with certain driver version numbers. It's common knowledge in game dev circles that the nVidia drivers are very problematic compared to ATI or have at least been so for a number of years. Crossfire on ATI is another story entirely.
Reply
Reply
post #19 of 148
2/6/12 at 2:30pm
Thread Starter 
Well I've reinstalled 12.1 in the manner Solid-state recommended, and guess what! Another annoying bug that I used to have has come back to haunt me. ATI has a certain amount of overscan compensation enabled by default. When I remove the overscan compensation, the Windows desktop fills the TV. However, when I got to play a movie in Plex, the overscan compensation is there, i.e., the movie is surrounded by black bars on all sides. Also, Plex's own calibration manager thinks it's filling the whole screen, so it's not Plex doing it. I had this problem about 2 years ago and don't remember how I fixed it

P.S., my DirectX drivers were already up to date.
Reply
Reply
post #20 of 148
2/6/12 at 2:41pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by lockdown571 View Post

Well I've reinstalled 12.1 in the manner Solid-state recommended, and guess what! Another annoying bug that I used to have has come back to haunt me. ATI has a certain amount of overscan compensation enabled by default. When I remove the overscan compensation, the Windows desktop fills the TV. However, when I got to play a movie in Plex, the overscan compensation is there, i.e., the movie is surrounded by black bars on all sides. Also, Plex's own calibration manager thinks it's filling the whole screen, so it's not Plex doing it. I had this problem about 2 years ago and don't remember how I fixed it

P.S., my DirectX drivers were already up to date.

Ugh, figured it out. You have to set the overscan for each individual refresh rate in Catalyst (how the hell is that user friendly or intuitive?). Anyways, back to my original problem, I'll have to report back later whether the pixel format settings stick now.
Reply
Reply
post #21 of 148
2/6/12 at 2:49pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Solid-State View Post

A lot of that is just software flukes due to certain left over registry keys and entries IMHO that work with certain driver version numbers. It's common knowledge in game dev circles that the nVidia drivers are very problematic compared to ATI or have at least been so for a number of years. Crossfire on ATI is another story entirely.

For the record, my research has shown that Nvidia has much more stable drivers for gaming than ATI. Here's just one example (and AFAIK, that issue has not been fixed).
Reply
Reply
post #22 of 148
2/6/12 at 4:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lockdown571 View Post

Ugh, figured it out. You have to set the overscan for each individual refresh rate in Catalyst (how the hell is that user friendly or intuitive?). Anyways, back to my original problem, I'll have to report back later whether the pixel format settings stick now.


Only at first. Then the relevant reg DWORD/string values will be created. It will fall back to the last setting used for each resolution from that point forward. In other words to the layman the setting will stick. You can confirm this by using the front end to change resolution or timing and then back again. Notice it stuck. Realize that all the Cat control center is, is a program that writes values to the registry. That's IT! The driver comes with "boxed" values in those keys etc BUT in order to write certain values you have to use CCC to get the base reg values in there guys. Also the CCC exe has hard baked values it writes as a default "template". The boxed settings the CCC exe creates is with an overscan of 11% I believe. Yeah you have to change that. And as a programmer/developer it makes total sense to do that for users that have overscan in their TVs. It's better to have underscan for UI boxed interaction that overscan right! You might not be able to click CCC control panel applet UI.

So assassin what do you do with your ATI customers that are having issues?

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Control\\Vide o\\{G UID from CCC}\\0000\\UMD\\

Is where the UMD video processing settings are stored. The "\\000\\" correlates to the physical ports on the back of the video card with 0 being the first.

This is where display rez times etc are stored.

HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG\\System\\CurrentControlSet\\Control\\VID EO define the defaults.
Reply
Reply
post #23 of 148
2/6/12 at 4:34pm
Most use Intel or NVidia.
Reply
Reply
post #24 of 148
2/6/12 at 5:02pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Solid-State View Post

Only at first. Then the relevant reg DWORD/string values will be created. It will fall back to the last setting used for each resolution from that point forward. In other words to the layman the setting will stick. You can confirm this by using the front end to change resolution or timing and then back again. Notice it stuck. Realize that all the Cat control center is, is a program that writes values to the registry. That's IT! The driver comes with "boxed" values in those keys etc BUT in order to write certain values you have to use CCC to get the base reg values in there guys. Also the CCC exe has hard baked values it writes as a default "template". The boxed settings the CCC exe creates is with an overscan of 11% I believe. Yeah you have to change that. And as a programmer/developer it makes total sense to do that for users that have overscan in their TVs. It's better to have underscan for UI boxed interaction that overscan right! You might not be able to click CCC control panel applet UI.

So assassin what do you do with your ATI customers that are having issues?

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\\CurrentControlSet\\Control\\Vide o\\{G UID from CCC}\\0000\\UMD\\

Is where the UMD video processing settings are stored. The "\\000\\" correlates to the physical ports on the back of the video card with 0 being the first.

This is where display rez times etc are stored.

HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG\\System\\CurrentControlSet\\Control\\VID EO define the defaults.

I appreciate the technical insight you provide into Catalyst, but to me it just seems really frustrating from the end user's perspective. I understand there being underscan by default. That makes sense in case you do have a TV with overscan. However, I just want to tell Catalyst, "Hey, my TV doesn't need overscan compensation" and "hey, like many other TVs, my TV can handle multiple refresh rates." Even though I've changed the refresh rate, Catalyst still knows I'm outputting to the exact same monitor because of the EDID. It should 'know' that I don't need overscan compensation for the other refresh rates. Surely it could be programmed to do this.
Reply
Reply
post #25 of 148
2/6/12 at 5:16pm
There is no mechanism in EDID to report TVs video processor overscan state. So no it can't be programmed.
Reply
Reply
post #26 of 148
2/6/12 at 5:18pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by assassin View Post

Most use Intel or NVidia.

That's to bad because the latest chips and UVD support hardware acceleration even with DivX and Xvid via MPEG-4 Part 2. The new TMDS xmiter is also rated to 300Mhz so it support 4k and frame sequential 120Hz 3d and is a first in the industry and ONLY AMD support these features. None of nVidia's products support this and their video processing and decoding engine is more primitive compared to AMDs.
Reply
Reply
post #27 of 148
2/6/12 at 5:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Solid-State View Post

That's to bad because the latest chips and UVD support hardware acceleration even with DIVX now.

This is HTPC. NVidia and Intel are just fine.
Reply
Reply
post #28 of 148
2/6/12 at 5:23pm
AMD have arguably the best HTPC platform IMHO and it's only going to become more OBVIOUS once their SoC comes out. BTW the Intel video drivers are HORRIBLE. I don't understand the logic in going small form factor but using an i processor. Doesn't make any logical sense what so ever. You taking money and spending it on the CPU when this isn't needed and then neglecting the video card. Why would anyone spend more money on the CPU and less on the video card for HTPC use!

This is HTPC. Bravos and Ion are just fine.
Reply
Reply
post #29 of 148
2/6/12 at 5:30pm
If you want a 1U HTPC then the only solution is AMD IMHO as the chipset includes decent video card/decoding. Going i processor and Intel mobo just so you can say it's an i based platform is stupid. You'd be much better off with a low power AMD processor and the mobo chipset's video card as it simply blows away Intel's video solution even on Sandy Bridge. And don't bring up the hardware encoding BS.

BTW I didn't know nVidia had a chipset video solution outside of Ion that's been made in five years. Also having an nVidia video card built into the motherboard is a very bad idea in terms of engineering and heat and many other reasons. It's like buying a TV back in the day with a bloody VCR built into the TV's chassis.

STUPID IMHO
Reply
Reply
post #30 of 148
2/6/12 at 5:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Solid-State View Post

AMD have arguably the best HTPC platform IMHO and it's only going to become more OBVIOUS once their SoC comes out. BTW the Intel video drivers are HORRIBLE. I don't understand the logic in going small form factor but using an i processor. Doesn't make any logical sense what so ever. You taking money and spending it on the CPU when this isn't needed and then neglecting the video card. Why would anyone spend more money on the CPU and less on the video card for HTPC use!

This is HTPC. Bravos and Ion are just fine.

Completely disagree. No idea how any of that is relevant for HTPC?

Show me some screenshots --- any screenshots --- that ATI is objectively better than the others.

And as demonstrated here and in numerous other ATI threads on AVS the ATI drivers are among the worst drivers for bugginess and reliability for HTPC and HDTV. I don't care what ATI/NVidia/Intel fanboys purport to be the best if I can't use the damn hardware because of horrible drivers.

There simply is no noticeable difference in PQ for Intel vs ATI vs NVidia for 1080p HD Video. For gaming - sure - but the vast minority on AVS game on their HTPC.

Spending it on the CPU? A G620 is $50 and the i3 2100 is $99 (and prices are dropping very soon).
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Home Theater Computers

AVS Top Picks

AVS › AVS Forum › Video Components › Home Theater Computers › Pixel format spontaneously changes - ATI