Topic: Is hardware decoding required?

Specs: i5-6600k at 4.3 ghz, 16 gb ram at 2600 mhz, 980 Ti at stock, win 10. Using MPC.

A few months ago I got a 1440p 144hz monitor, and since then I've struggled with frame drops. Running both SVP and madVR with some exotic upscaling is quite taxing, but even though CPU and GPU were never above 80% usage I would sometimes get up to ~30 frames dropped every second depending on what I was watching, even if I turned a lot of settings down. My guess is that this is some memory bandwidth limitation somewhere.

Today I find something of a solution, if I turn off hardware acceleration in the LAV video decoder instead of using DXVA copy-back I get no frame drops unless I really crank up SVP/upscaling settings.

I haven't noticed any issues yet, but I'm just wondering if there's likely to be some problem with it. I thought I remembered reading somewhere that copy-back is required.

Re: Is hardware decoding required?

it's only "required" if software decoding itself eats a lot of CPU power

e.g. for 4K h.265 it's "required" big_smile

btw you can try other options - QuickSync decoder via Intel's GPU core or NV CUVID decoder (but don't use it in 32-bit video players cause it'll hang!)

Re: Is hardware decoding required?

Thanks, QuickSync is even better. It's actually crazy how much performance I'm getting.

4 Reply by brucethemoose (edited by brucethemoose 04-05-2017 02:11:52)

  • Thanks: 14

Re: Is hardware decoding required?

Also, if you have pro, using MPC-QT from the sticky post instead of MadVR will save you 15%-20% CPU.

Re: Is hardware decoding required?

Interesting thread you've got here. I just wanted to chime in with my own little question - that is, how can i force more usage of my gpu? I've got a GTX 980Ti and it never really goes above 40-50 % usage, whereas my CPU usage regularly goes into the 90% areas. I've enabled gpu acceleration, but still no luck. I would deeply appreciate it if either of you guys could help out. Thank you, much love.

Re: Is hardware decoding required?

> how can i force more usage of my gpu?

set NGU "very high quality" in madVR big_smile