Video hardware (GPU) acceleration

[AusWolf]

Hi,

I don't mind if the thread turns into a general discussion about the topic, but I'd like to start with an issue:

I've got an HTPC: details in my signature. The thing is, the GT 710 is crap at everything, not excluding video hardware acceleration among other things. I tried to watch a film yesterday: its video is coded with H.264 in 1080p. With VLC, it's kind of choppy and GPU usage is pegged at 100% while the CPU is basically doing nothing. The 4 relatively powerful cores of the Ryzen 3 should be plenty to play the film with brute force, so I disabled hardware acceleration in VLC and restarted it, but there's no effect - GPU usage is still 100%, the CPU is still idle, and the film is still choppy. Is there something else I could do?

I know, I could buy a GT 1030 and call it a day, but I don't want to spend money on a PC that I only turn on like once a month.

 

[P4-630]

About your GT710 I read:

H.265 support is missing and 4K video cannot be output at 60 Hz either. H.264 does work, of course, but in that area it can do nothing more than almost any IGP.

I know, I could buy a GT 1030 and call it a day, but I don't want to spend money on a PC that I only turn on like once a month.

Well if you want to fix it, a GT1030 can do it:

Nvidia GeForce GT 1030 review: groene instapper

In het absolute instapsegment van videokaarten was de GT 730 lange tijd een populaire keuze. Onlangs completeerde Nvidia de Pascal-portfolio met een opv...

nl.hardware.info

 

[The red spirit]

That's odd. I know that GT 710 is low end, but it really shouldn't be this bad. I used to run 1080p x264 videos on old Athlon 64 3200+ with GeForce FX 5200. That worked fine and that's way weaker than GT 710. FX 5200 is equivalent of GeForce 2 GTS. I only had some problems with VLC, when I used some crappy Intel GMA, which was in Mac Mini with Core 2 Duo T7200 machine. For some reason it was glitchy, but performance was bearable. It did sometimes started to become blocky and glitchy if video is scrolled too fast, but otherwise playback was fine.

About your GT710 I read:

H.265 support is missing and 4K video cannot be output at 60 Hz either. H.264 does work, of course, but in that area it can do nothing more than almost any IGP.

Ryzen should be able to cope with that video fine.

 

[AusWolf]

That's odd. I know that GT 710 is low end, but it really shouldn't be this bad. I used to run 1080p x264 videos on old Athlon 64 3200+ with GeForce FX 5200. That worked fine and that's way weaker than GT 710. FX 5200 is equivalent of GeForce 2 GTS. I only had some problems with VLC, when I used some crappy Intel GMA, which was in Mac Mini with Core 2 Duo T7200 machine. For some reason it was glitchy, but performance was bearable. It did sometimes started to become blocky and glitchy if video is scrolled too fast, but otherwise playback was fine.


Ryzen should be able to cope with that video fine.

I think there's something wrong with VLC, or some setting somewhere. When I turn hardware acceleration off, it should not stress the GPU at all, I suppose. Instead, GPU usage is pegged at 100% and the CPU is idle no matter what I do.

About your GT710 I read:

H.265 support is missing and 4K video cannot be output at 60 Hz either. H.264 does work, of course, but in that area it can do nothing more than almost any IGP.


Well if you want to fix it, a GT1030 can do it:

Nvidia GeForce GT 1030 review: groene instapper

In het absolute instapsegment van videokaarten was de GT 730 lange tijd een populaire keuze. Onlangs completeerde Nvidia de Pascal-portfolio met een opv...

nl.hardware.info

It's just a H.264 1080p video. But like I said, turning off hardware acceleration in VLC seems to be doing nothing. I'd be perfectly happy to brute force the film on the CPU, but I don't seem to be able to do that for some reason.

 

[The red spirit]

I think there's something wrong with VLC, or some setting somewhere. When I turn hardware acceleration off, it should not stress the GPU at all, I suppose. Instead, GPU usage is pegged at 100% and the CPU is idle no matter what I do.

I noticed same weirdness on that GMA Mac too. It might be a bug that is never fixed. Anyway, your CPU should be plenty powerful to run such video without issues. If it comes to the worst, could try some other video player. I'm not familiar with current video players, but MPC-HC could be your another test subject.

 

[elghinnarisa]

Have you tried other mediaplayers to see if VLC is just being a bit special? Try MPCHC or something like that to see if there is a difference.

 

[AusWolf]

I noticed same weirdness on that GMA Mac too. It might be a bug that is never fixed. Anyway, your CPU should be plenty powerful to run such video without issues. If it comes to the worst, could try some other video player. I'm not familiar with current video players, but MPC-HC could be your another test subject.

It should be... if it bothered playing it instead of offloading the whole thing to the poor GPU even with hardware acceleration disabled.

Have you tried other mediaplayers to see if VLC is just being a bit special? Try MPCHC or something like that to see if there is a difference.

I've just looked it up. Its webpage says development has finished in 2017, and the download link is not working.

I've tried Windows Media Player, and it's even worse. I'm not really familiar with other programs. VLC has been pretty good to me so far.

 

[elghinnarisa]

It should be... if it bothered playing it instead of offloading the whole thing to the poor GPU even with hardware acceleration disabled.


I've just looked it up. Its webpage says development has finished in 2017, and the download link is not working.

I've tried Windows Media Player, and it's even worse. I'm not really familiar with other programs. VLC has been pretty good to me so far.

Then try MPCBE or any of the hundreds and hundreds of media players out there. Windows Media Player isn't worth even mentioning because it couldnt display a picture if you glued it over the application.

 

[The red spirit]

Then try MPCBE or any of the hundreds and hundreds of media players out there. Windows Media Player isn't worth even mentioning because it couldnt display a picture if you glued it over the application.

Oh come on, it's not bad at all. It's not VLC, but it is a solid video player.

Edit: I have googled a bit about players. It seems that after VLC and MPC-HC, third most popular free player is Pot Player. I just tried it and it's quite nice, indeed it does have great controls of everything and there's a SW/HW toggle visible on any video. That's great for troubleshooting.

If you need to try some other player, then believe it or not, but Wikipedia has a great guide to video players:

Comparison of video player software - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[QuietBob]

Hi,

I don't mind if the thread turns into a general discussion about the topic, but I'd like to start with an issue:

I've got an HTPC: details in my signature. The thing is, the GT 710 is crap at everything, not excluding video hardware acceleration among other things. I tried to watch a film yesterday: its video is coded with H.264 in 1080p. With VLC, it's kind of choppy and GPU usage is pegged at 100% while the CPU is basically doing nothing. The 4 relatively powerful cores of the Ryzen 3 should be plenty to play the film with brute force, so I disabled hardware acceleration in VLC and restarted it, but there's no effect - GPU usage is still 100%, the CPU is still idle, and the film is still choppy. Is there something else I could do?

I know, I could buy a GT 1030 and call it a day, but I don't want to spend money on a PC that I only turn on like once a month.

The GT710 should be more than capable of decoding H.264 @ 1080p. Do you have the latest GPU drivers installed? Did you enable any post-processing filters in VLC? Could you post screenshots of your VLC settings: the video tab and the input/codecs tab?

 

[Athlonite]

I've just looked it up. Its webpage says development has finished in 2017, and the download link is not working.

It was forked by a new group who've been keeping it upto date you can get it from here

MPC-HC Latest development build: 1.9.15.42 (August 30th 2021)

 

[AusWolf]

I seem to have found the root of the problem:

Since my TV is 4K, the graphics card defaulted to 3840x2160 @ 30 Hz. I changed the desktop resolution to 1920x1080, and voilá, it's working as it should. I never thought the desktop resolution would have any effect on 1080p video playback, but it looks like it does.

Now another weirdness surfaced: I get some awful screen tearing in full screen mode, sort of like playing a game at sub-60 fps with Vsync off. Is it possible to eliminate it somehow?

 

[ArdWar]

If you're comfortable with lots of settings and options (and I mean lots of them), maybe try KLCP and see if there's something you can tweak. It can play almost everything, but I admit it can be overwhelming even for technically savvy.

 

[claes]

I’m pretty sure the integrated GPU is better than your 710 for video. I’d just ditch the card.

 

[_UV_]

I seen such situation few years ago then i setup another PC with some outdated hardware, somewhere in 2019 maybe. Downgrading VLC to 2.0.1 as in my other PC solved it, a version from 2012 works much better with little quirks like rewind to a desired time may take up to 5 seconds depending on file.

 

[AusWolf]

If you're comfortable with lots of settings and options (and I mean lots of them), maybe try KLCP and see if there's something you can tweak. It can play almost everything, but I admit it can be overwhelming even for technically savvy.

Some tweaking is fine, but I wouldn't want to dive too deep in the details. I'd just like to watch a film.

I’m pretty sure the integrated GPU is better than your 710 for video. I’d just ditch the card.

My HTPC has no integrated GPU - specs below in my signature.

 

[claes]

My bad, posting from mobile

 

[AusWolf]

My bad, posting from mobile

No worries.