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Macroblocking with new sandy bridge build, dxva2 enabled. - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: Macroblocking with new sandy bridge build, dxva2 enabled. (/showthread.php?tid=98037)

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- accountabc - 2011-07-10

Already tried that. didn't work unfortunately. When i enter full screen mode playback stops and won't resume. I can still see the osd and press play/pause, but screen stays black... Using the latest xvid.ru build btw. But it's not really an issue, using an external player isn't a proper solution anyways.

Looking forward to the new intel driver. I hope it will fix some issues, but to be honest I doubt it...


- Elyl - 2011-07-11

Just for reference/comparison I have:

- Sandy Bridge i5 2300 on an Gigabyte H67 MicroATX board
- 6gb memory
- SSD drive
- Win7 Home Prem. 64bit
- using Intel graphics (no discrete video card)
(edit) - also running XBMC 10.1

meridius Wrote:I am building a new system soon and was going to go for the i3 but does this problem hppen on the i5 as well ?


Yes, the h/w acceleration issue is there with the i5 as well. I built mine back in February and when I first fired it up I was like WTF! regarding the pixelation. Then diddled with the settings and flipped it to "software" and all was good. Didn't think much of it as to me h/w graphics acceleration is about handing off the video from the cpu to the discrete video card...but since the Sandy Bridge setup does it's video with the cpu...h/w acceleration would be the cpu anyway. So I just figured that was how it went with Sandy Bridge configs...

meridius Wrote:if it does and turning off HW acceleration would it handle high bitrates as some people said the i3 can not handle some high bitrates.

Yes, my i5 system is just fine running in "software" mode instead of DXVA h/w acceleration. No performance issues, no pixelation or macroblocking whatsoever on anything I've played on it for the past 6 months in SD or HD (and I have an extremely extensive media collection...LOL).

I just sampled a few 1080p BD rips (MKVs) playing through their heavy action scenes with lots of on screen activity and performance traces average about 12-15% cpu with the occassional momentary spike to 20% during these heavy action scenes (across 3 of the 4 cores, the 4th core is minimal 2% usage during the same period).

Note: All my HD content, I've ripped from my BD using Handbrake and such to smaller 6 - 15 Mbps bitrates (works for me, my eyes can't see the difference from the higher/native BD bitrates...LOL)...so I can't speak to the native higher bitrates (25Mbps+).

So for me, I've no issues whether the h/w acceleration problem gets worked out...it doesn't impact me at all. I'm actually glad the guy at my local computer store pointed out it was only $40 more for the i5 part versus the i3 (also with not much of an increase in heat he said)...'cause I was gonna get the i3... Smile


- Cfishy - 2011-07-20

Any updates? :x:


- Balinus - 2011-07-21

I'm wondering if the i3 is enough power to not only decode HD content but also do de-interlacing of HD content in XBMC?


- orion2001 - 2011-08-01

accountabc Wrote:Sorry for the late response. Kinda lost track of this topic since there are quite a few out there. But to answer your question: yes, i'm quite sure the CPU isn't being throttled. I haven't checked temps, but I instead of the 2100t stock cooler I used the cooler that comes with the 2500k (which is nice and quiet most of the time). Most videos play fine, but I have a few with quite high bitrates. A 25GB rip of Avatar drops frames quite often for instance. I'm not the only one in this thread with this problem. I discovered Xbmc uses just one core for decoding video. The 2100t doesn't have turbo, so I think that's the reason why frames are dropped sometimes in high bitrate scenes.

Right now I am looking at ways to work around this problem. The only option I have found so far is using an external player. I'm trying to get MPC-HC to change the refresh rate to 23.976, but somehow that won't work. 24.000 does. I know SB has 24p issues, but I also know XBMC manages to output 23.98hz. Somehow MPC-HC won't do that... Orion2001 (or anyone else), did you run into this problem?

If I manage to get this to work, there is still one (for me) mayor issue. I just realized the XBMC menus won't work when using an external player (doh...). This means the XBMC subitle addon (which I use a lot) won't work... Anyone knows a way around this?

Haha, well the reason I'm back at this thread is because I ended up coming to exactly the same conclusion as you yesterday! I finally watched my 25+ GB RIP of Avatar yesterday and was quite annoyed with the frame dropping in the action sequences. When I looked at the processor utilization, it was quite disappointing to see that only a single core was being used.

It's also quite disappointing to see that there still isn't any support for Sandy Bridge, not even in the nightly builds Sad. SB has been out for a while now and the MPC-HC devs got hardware acceleration support into one of the nightlies almost immediately. I wish I knew anything in this area to help contribute, but unfortunately I can't...and it doesn't seem like this is a priority at all with the folks who are developing XBMC.

I'm thinking of ditching XBMC altogether at this point as I really need DXVA for my HTPC. MPC-HC works like a charm for now and I've been using it as an external player. However, as you mentioned, that doesn't work too well and it isn't the best way to have it setup when others in my family try to use XBMC.


- Valkyrie743 - 2011-08-02

My 25GB rip of saving private ryan plays silky smooth on my i3 2100 with ht off (only 2 cores 2 threads)

With media info it says bitrate is 18.9 and overall bitrate is 20.9.

If you like I can rip one of my videos and do a 2 pass set to 26Mbps and post back how it plays ?

My system specs are in my sig.


- orion2001 - 2011-08-02

Valkyrie743 Wrote:My 25GB rip of saving private ryan plays silky smooth on my i3 2100 with ht off (only 2 cores 2 threads)

With media info it says bitrate is 18.9 and overall bitrate is 20.9.

If you like I can rip one of my videos and do a 2 pass set to 26Mbps and post back how it plays ?

My system specs are in my sig.

I'm curious about why you turned HT off. Is it so that XBMC could better use one of the cores as HT is making things worse by having it see 4 virtual cores and use only one of them? Perhaps that is why it is working better for you?

In anycase, I spent an hour today and I've managed to get MPC-HC working very well with XBMC. It is only called for 1080p videos (using the videoresolution flag in the rules) and I even managed to get my MCE remote to control MPC-HC with the same keypresses that perform similar functions in XBMC.

So far so good, and it all works really well. I might try turning off HT to see if it helps, but to be honest, hardware acceleration in Sandybridge using MPC-HC is just so much smoother and nicer than software rendering, even when playing scenes that don't have a very high bitrate. The other nice advantage ofcourse is that my CPU is only being utilized around 3-5%. This means my CPU fan continues to stay at the lowest RPM and is completely silent. That low-profile stock HSF that comes with the i3-2100T has one of the most annoying high pitched whines once it is at even half of the max RPMs.


- accountabc - 2011-08-04

Somehow I doubt disabeling HT will help much... At least not for the 2100t. But it's worth a shot ofcourse. Will try and report back.

@orion, mind sharing your extendedplayer and MPC-HC settings? Did you manage to get MPC-HC to output 23.98hz? I don't seem to be able to get it working properly Oo.


- Senaxx - 2011-08-04

Why does nobody consider to buy a separate videocard for their blocking issue? It's clearly a problem with the sandy bridge processors, but with a separate card (don't has to be expensive for true 1080p content) it all solves the problem.


- twelvebore - 2011-08-04

Senaxx Wrote:Why does nobody consider to buy a separate videocard for their blocking issue? It's clearly a problem with the sandy bridge processors, but with a separate card (don't has to be expensive for true 1080p content) it all solves the problem.

Because we want to use small-form-factor cases that can't accommodate a discrete graphics card?


- accountabc - 2011-08-04

In my case: not really. My Htpc sits on a shelve in the cupboard Smile. I bought the 2100t mainly because it's very energy efficient; Idle it's even better than an atom, yet it's much more powerfull. Using a discrete graphics card would kill the energy efficiency. Since my htpc also acts as a server and is on 24/7 I don't want to have a much, much higher power usage because of a component that isn't really needed in the first place.

About HT: I've managed to disable it, but haven't tested playback yet Tongue.


- Valkyrie743 - 2011-08-04

Senaxx Wrote:Why does nobody consider to buy a separate videocard for their blocking issue? It's clearly a problem with the sandy bridge processors, but with a separate card (don't has to be expensive for true 1080p content) it all solves the problem.

We can but the point some are trying to get is a small footprint computer. Just a CPU with integrated gpu should be able to do dxva2 and some very light post processing with out having to add 70 bucks for an other part. Adding the video card will not only add 70 bucks or so to a build but more heat and more power draw. My case only has a 150watt psu. So I have to factor my 65tdp CPU (even though it won't ever hit that high) the ram hdd and fans. I was looking in getting a 430 gt for my HTPC but the tdp is around 45 I just don't want to push this small psu to hard. I don't expect it to last long. As well as I want the computer to be quiet and not throw out allot of heat

As for why I disabled ht. I Though it would help a tad with heat and power consumption. I have my CPU off set set to -.175 and is linX stable and runs cool. Plus when I have ht off I see the two real cores being used properly rather than once real core part of the ht core and part of a real core working. Ht only helps with multi threaded programs and all I do is watch videos so no point having it on wasting power and put out a slight more heat

I am running just stock xbmc. No external player but I may give the external mpc hc a shot. But to be honest, how it's running now is perfect. Yes I would like to have my CPU usage down and be able to have more post processing options but it's all good. I don't notice the 24p bug so I just leave my tv refresh rate ad default 60. I'm not that much of a video file to notice any issues .


- poofyhairguy - 2011-08-04

accountabc Wrote:I don't want to have a much, much higher power usage because of a component that isn't really needed in the first place.

A lower-end dedicated GPU really doesn't take up that much power. You are probably using more power if your box is playback content often, as the CPU has to be ramped up to full speed during playback.

The best reason to avoid a dedicated GPU is a difficult form factor. For this reason I am glad that AMD is producing decent boards with GPUs so we can all leave this Intel GPU garbage in the trash where it belongs.


- accountabc - 2011-08-05

Yes, during playback using CPU will be less efficient. But most of the time the PC will be (just about) idle. When idle the whole 2100t platform uses about 10 watts (from the power supply). Even a low end descrete card easily doubles that. (keep in mind that the HD1000 uses less power than the HD3000).


- zleepr - 2011-08-09

poofyhairguy Wrote:so we can all leave this Intel GPU garbage in the trash where it belongs.

Come on, you can't be serious. Especially the i3-2100T is an absolutely fantastic CPU. With the efficiency and power it delivers it is the absolute 1st choice for energy saving HTPCs right now. And it has a very capable GPU onboard. Well, not for gaming, but for HW acceleration for video playback it should be close to perfect in terms of performance.

I don't unerstand what the problems are here exactly, but DXVA works 95% fine for me with the latest MPC-HC nightly builds. So my workaround for playing movies via XBMC is to configure MPC-HC as an external Player. Works pretty good for me right now.

But I still hope that the XBMC and/or MPlayer devs find a way to get DXVA working with the Sandy Bridge processors as least as good as it works with MPC right now. Maybe Intel can give some support through better drivers or advice to the devs. I don't now. But it's really a pain, that this great CPU can't live up to its heights just due to some software issues (I just assume the HW is doing fine...).