Topic: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

Dear SVP community,

I've just installed SVP with MPC-HC on my brand new Razer Blade Stealth, with Intel's new Kaby Lake i7-7500u processor and Intel HD Graphics 620, which supposedly brings hardware support for x265 with it.

However, I just can't seem to get it to work properly. The issues and my actions (according to my previous research) are as follows:

  • I get plenty of dropped frames and the audio drops every few seconds, making SVP virtually unusable.

  • None of these issues exist when I turn off SVP.

  • Issues persist with large and small files alike, although it is worse with higher resolutions (4k)

  • I have tried files encoded in x264 as well as x265, with no difference

  • I tried disabling d3d in MPC-HC

  • I tried disabling the hardware acceleration in SVP

  • I tried various hardware acceleration options in MPC-HC's LAV video filter

  • I've tried a full install first, with madvr, Reclock, 64bit and everything, but after having these issues, I uninstalled everything and did a clean 32bit install without madvr and reclock. Unfortunately, this didn't help either.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

2 Reply by dlr5668 (edited by dlr5668 04-11-2016 12:50:18)

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-U4XFg1VN8-M/WByDSfpIUsI/AAAAAAAALxo/1H1LyJcWF5Y/s0/chrome_2016-11-04_15-47-01.png

Sorry its garbage perfomance wise. Even for 1080p u have to use lowest settings possible.
Repeat Utilities -> System perfomance test and use

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_qhNv5kBhPw/WByD4CeFIYI/AAAAAAAALxs/d6oAV3nLdSE/s0/SVPManager_2016-11-04_15-49-33.png

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

Thanks for the inputdlr5668. Maybe you're right, but I'm not sure that that's the whole issue here. I've used SVP with much slower CPUs, and so have thousands of others. And older versions of SVP worked without hardware acceleration altogether, so the weak graphics card can't really be the one to blame either.

I'm not actually expecting top performance. My problem is rather that it doesn't really work at all, as in, SVP makes the video lag and the audio skip several seconds at a time, even at lowest settings and with low-res source material (just tried out a 480p video, same result).

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Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

Maphuse
Did advise dlr5668 help you?
If not then show SVP Index and CPU load graphs.

5 Reply by brucethemoose (edited by brucethemoose 04-11-2016 15:52:27)

  • Thanks: 14

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

You don't have Pro, do you? I'd be interested to see how well mpv works.


I'm 99% sure that CPU is faster than my old A8-3500m, which I know fast enough for 1080p SVP. Try a clean install, something funky might be going on.

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

No, unfortunately dlr5668's advice didn't help me. I am therefore attaching the graphs as requested: the first screenshot is taken while playing a 480p file, the second one while playing a 1080p file and the last one while playing a 2160p file. However, the index drops to N/A everytime the audio/video lags.

I don't have pro at this point. I might consider it even if it's just to support the devs, but I'd rather make sure that it works BEFORE I pay for it wink.

On a relevant note, I just realized that the issue persists even if SVP is turned OFF, so there's definitely something funky going on with MPC or my codec/filter settings. I did several clean installs, so it seems to be something that is included in SVP's auto-setup.

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7 Reply by James D (edited by James D 04-11-2016 17:28:30)

  • Thanks: 97

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

As dlr5668 said, all Intel U-type CPUs are garbage due to immediate throttling in a minute after load. It's marketing trick people get fooled by. Second screen kinda shows that first it worked good (1.0) and then throttled down to 0.3.
P.S. Try ThrottleStop. It may kill power throttling but the temperature throttling may be a problem.

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

Anyone commenting on how weak my CPU is please take a moment to read my posts and consider how unhelpful that comment is. I get that you all hate my CPU. I didn't get "fooled" by marketing, it's an ultrabook that I use while I'm not at my desktop, and there's a limit to what fits inside such a device. This is the best ultrabook processor and the best 7th-gen chip available at the moment and thus the only chance for me to even have the possibility to watch Netflix in 4K on it in the future due to the x265 support (fingers crossed that they will actually allow that at some point).

Umm... James D, thanks for your input nonetheless, I'll try ThrottleStop.

It's still a quite recent processor and it should be more than enough for an average result. Maybe my SVPmark results can clear up the performance question before more people comment on that. According to this, I should be able to go up to medium settings on 1080p60 without major issues:


Test summary
-----------------------
  Date: 2016-11-05T10:14:04
  CPU:  Intel Core i7-7500U @2903 MHz [4 threads]
  GPU:  Intel HD Graphics 620 [ver.21.20.16.4534]
  Mode: FHD + GPU [9 threads]

Overall scores
-----------------------
  Synthetic CPU:                  MC1317
  Synthetic GPU:                  MG2256
  Real-life:                           FG1472

Details: synthetic
-----------------------
  CPU: compose (single-threaded): 691
  CPU: compose (multi-threaded):  1584
  CPU: search (single-threaded):  547
  CPU: search (multi-threaded):   1128
  GPU: system -> GPU transfer:    736
  GPU: GPU -> system transfer:    955
  GPU: calculations:              747
  GPU: total score:               3413

Details: real-life /FHD
-----------------------
  decode video:                   10.17x (244.1 fps)
  48 fps - vectors search:        0.81x (38.7 fps)
  60 fps - frame composition:     1.90x (113.9 fps)
  48 fps - [SVP] fastest:         3.60x (172.7 fps)
  48 fps - [SVP] simple 1:        2.42x (116.3 fps)
  60 fps - [SVP] good:            1.25x (74.7 fps)
  60 fps - [SVP] high:            0.98x (59.0 fps)
  60 fps - [SVP] highest:         0.46x (27.7 fps)
  72 fps - [SVP] simple 2:        2.07x (149.4 fps)

9 Reply by Maphuse (edited by Maphuse 05-11-2016 03:20:22)

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

Just to add to my previous post, I ran ThrottleStop alongside SVP with 4K video playing, and it shows that no throttling is happening whereas the CPU activity is at about 60%, so it's definitely not a CPU issue (see screenshot if you're interested).

I'd really appreciate it if I didn't have to see more CPU hate posts here. I think my screenshots and test results demonstrate that the CPU is more than sufficient for basic SVP usage and the problem must lie somewhere else.

I don't really understand why you jumped to CPU power rightaway anyways, considering how old SVP is and how slow the first machines were that it was designed for. Seriously, the U series might be a little slower than other i7 CPUs, and their marketing as i7 might go against the grain of someone performance-minded, but it's still a quite decent mobile CPU and it's certainly not appropriate to call it "garbage", if you take it for what it is, even performance-wise and in respect to SVP usage. It's not like I'm trying to render the latest Pixar movie on my ultrabook.

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10 Reply by brucethemoose (edited by brucethemoose 05-11-2016 08:48:52)

  • Thanks: 14

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

I agree, I'm 99% sure performance isn't your issue. Even if it is throttling to, say, 2ghz, it should still be faster than my 4 ancient Stars cores at their stock 1.5ghz.

On top of that, it sounds like the issue happens immediately. If it really were throttling, it wouldn't happen until a minute or a few minutes later.


There is an alternative, surefire way to test: dual boot any Linux disto, and install SVP 4 for Linux.

This not only rules out any possible Windows issues, it takes MPC, ffdshow, LAV and Avisynth SVP out of the equation. If SVP 4 on Linux doesn't work, then it's an issue with the core SVP code itself or a performance issue. If it does, then it's likely an install issue or some weird incompatibility somewhere in the chain.


If it turns out to be an incompatibility, SVP 4 Pro on Windows would likely work, as the core is essentially the same as SVP 4  Free on Linux. So think of Linux as a way of demoing SVP 4 Pro.


EDIT:

However, as someone else mentioned, that 2nd screenshot does look alot like a throttling issue... I get what you're saying, but just keep that in mind and don't rule it out just yet. SVPmark and the SVP benchmark that sets settings could be finishing before the throttling, which means the latter is setting your default SVP settings too high.

11 Reply by James D (edited by James D 05-11-2016 18:26:04)

  • Thanks: 97

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

Does free version allows to use additional settings like this? If so, enter 3 values in Performance tab 2 times smaller than mine. Close and reboot and try again.

Post's attachments

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SVP performance.PNG 72.61 kb, 560 downloads since 2016-11-05 

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

Thanks for all the suggestions.

  • James D, I'm not sure what you mean by "2 times smaller" - do you mean half? Using rough numbers, I entered 400, 150 and 500, but it didn't really change much.

  • brucethemoose, you're completely right, the problem starts rightaway, when the processor speed reads 3.4 GHz. About your suggestion, I finally bought the pro version (I've been enjoying SVP for long enough to feel justified in paying for it). MPV performance is kind of the same as MPC, it definitely doesn't fix my problem. If I find a USB stick and some time, I'll see what Linux does if we can't find another solution to this problem

Thanks everyone for your input so far. I'd be quite happy if we could solve this together.

  • Thanks: 14

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

Maphuse wrote:

Thanks for all the suggestions.

  • James D, I'm not sure what you mean by "2 times smaller" - do you mean half? Using rough numbers, I entered 400, 150 and 500, but it didn't really change much.

  • brucethemoose, you're completely right, the problem starts rightaway, when the processor speed reads 3.4 GHz. About your suggestion, I finally bought the pro version (I've been enjoying SVP for long enough to feel justified in paying for it). MPV performance is kind of the same as MPC, it definitely doesn't fix my problem. If I find a USB stick and some time, I'll see what Linux does if we can't find another solution to this problem

Thanks everyone for your input so far. I'd be quite happy if we could solve this together.

MPV is significantly faster for me. I can decrease the motion vectors grid by 1 or 2 notches over what my CPU can normally handle.


Anyway, you should try manually decreasing settings too. Start with a large motion vector grid and 2 pixel precision, just to see if it works.

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

You know, many of the interpolation settings available in SVP 4 Pro are present in SVP 3.1.7 (which is free).

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

Start with a large motion vector grid and 2 pixel precision, just to see if it works.

Sorry for the n00b question, but I'm not sure how to do that. I see the entry for mv_grid in my settings, but I can't change it.

16 Reply by James D (edited by James D 08-11-2016 00:28:35)

  • Thanks: 97
  • Thanks for the post: 1

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

Maphuse wrote:

Start with a large motion vector grid and 2 pixel precision, just to see if it works.

Sorry for the n00b question, but I'm not sure how to do that. I see the entry for mv_grid in my settings, but I can't change it.

Sheesh, it hurts me seeing how this troubleshooting still continues while everything was cleared since the beginning and real answer was already posted.
Your own screenshot clearly shows 28% CPU load at playback resulting 0.3 index score (which is literally what means throttling) while your title claims it's "high load" and you say you were not mislead by marketing? The real CPU clocks were even less than 20% because overall score is miscalculated due to Hyperthreading and you still look for a magic fix which is not related to this issue?
Did you follow my advice about ThrottleStop? Where you could see CPU behavior while playback and possibly tinker with adjusteable TDP settings? Because another real advice aside this would be... don't buy ultrabooks for SVP.

UPDATE: after brucethemoose mentioned that you wrote an update I suggest you to launch ThrottleStop again, uncheck BD Prochot box, check if you can uncheck TDP Throttle or it just show you that TDP throttle was turned on on your system, Turn ON Throttlestop itself (button) and look if you can adjust TDP to higher values (TPL if I am correct).

17 Reply by brucethemoose (edited by brucethemoose 07-11-2016 23:13:19)

  • Thanks: 14

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

James D wrote:
Maphuse wrote:

Start with a large motion vector grid and 2 pixel precision, just to see if it works.

Sorry for the n00b question, but I'm not sure how to do that. I see the entry for mv_grid in my settings, but I can't change it.

Sheesh, it hurts me seeing how this troubleshooting still continues while everything was cleared since the beginning and real answer was already posted.
Your own screenshot clearly shows 28% CPU load at playback resulting 0.3 index score (which is literally what means throttling) while your title claims it's "high load" and you say you were not mislead by marketing? The real CPU clocks were even less than 20% because overall score is miscalculated due to Hyperthreading and you still look for a magic fix which is not related to this issue?
Did you follow my advice about ThrottleStop? Where you could see CPU behavior while playback and possibly tinker with adjusteable TDP settings? Because another real advice aside this would be... don't buy ultrabooks for SVP.

Except throttlestop was already tried, and didn't work.

From what I understand, the real problem is that SVP doesn't run the benchmark long enough for ultrabook CPUs to reach their stable, non turbo speeds.

The solution isn't to try and lock the CPU in a power state it can't safely sustain under a constant load, or to buy a new computer. The solution is to manually configure SVP's settings.

  • Thanks: 14

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

Maphuse wrote:

Start with a large motion vector grid and 2 pixel precision, just to see if it works.

Sorry for the n00b question, but I'm not sure how to do that. I see the entry for mv_grid in my settings, but I can't change it.

Did you buy pro? You have to reinstall it if you do, I believe.


The settings menu looks like this:


https://imgur.com/a/R8nld

19 Reply by James D (edited by James D 08-11-2016 00:38:41)

  • Thanks: 97

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

brucethemoose wrote:

Except throttlestop was already tried, and didn't work.

I see checked TDP Throttle on the screenshot as well as BD Prochot too and ThrottleStop wasn't even turned ON LOL. How could it work then? But yeah, after you pointed that I updated my original post with further actions to do.
P.S. And yeah, you got something right. It's possible to disable Turbo by Throttlestop and run SVP performance test... as well as to always keep CPU without turbo if temperature or TDP starts lowering clocks below default clocks.

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

James D, just a quick question before I get the time to try your suggestions: Shouldn't the throttlestop monitor SHOW that throttling is active by displaying values less than 100 in the CMod or Chip column?

Also, I already mentioned that I even have issues playing files without SVP, in MPC, VLC and MPV. I'm currently stuck using Windows Media Player because it's the only player that plays everything smoothly. Everyone seems to be ignoring that so far.

21 Reply by brucethemoose (edited by brucethemoose 08-11-2016 09:29:47)

  • Thanks: 14

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

Maphuse wrote:

James D, just a quick question before I get the time to try your suggestions: Shouldn't the throttlestop monitor SHOW that throttling is active by displaying values less than 100 in the CMod or Chip column?

Also, I already mentioned that I even have issues playing files without SVP, in MPC, VLC and MPV. I'm currently stuck using Windows Media Player because it's the only player that plays everything smoothly. Everyone seems to be ignoring that so far.

Oh, I missed that bit in the 3rd post. Something else is screwed up if things don't work without SVP.

Kaby Lake is really new, so my first suspicion is that your video decoders aren't up-to-date enough to use it. SVP's versions are a bit out-of-date, so the newer version may add Kaby Lake support.

1st, uninstall SVP and everything else it installed. Then try manually downloading the latest MPV build:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/mpv-pl … ows/files/

And/or the latest MPC (which should use the latest version of LAV to decode):

https://mpc-hc.org/2015/11/14/1.7.10-released/




If playback is still buggy, that suggests video decoding/playback is borked on your system. I would suggest a clean Windows install.

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

OK, so first I tried all the suggestions that I hadn't tried yet, i.e. the large motion vector grid setting, which did nothing to help my performence.
Just for the heck of it, I used ThrottleStop to disable turbo and did another SVPmark, and while the results were worse than before, they were enough for 60fps at "good" settings.

After that I uninstalled all my video players and codecs, including SVP, restarted, and installed the latest version of mpv, and the playback is flawless.
I haven't reinstalled SVP yet, because I fear that it will mess everything up again and I maybe you guys have other ideas.

23 Reply by brucethemoose (edited by brucethemoose 09-11-2016 08:04:55)

  • Thanks: 14

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

Maphuse wrote:

OK, so first I tried all the suggestions that I hadn't tried yet, i.e. the large motion vector grid setting, which did nothing to help my performence.
Just for the heck of it, I used ThrottleStop to disable turbo and did another SVPmark, and while the results were worse than before, they were enough for 60fps at "good" settings.

After that I uninstalled all my video players and codecs, including SVP, restarted, and installed the latest version of mpv, and the playback is flawless.
I haven't reinstalled SVP yet, because I fear that it will mess everything up again and I maybe you guys have other ideas.

Good, so playback is OK! It's an SVP issue then.

"and codecs"

You said it before, but just to be clear... you aren't installing anything besides SVP, right? "Codec packs" are a relic of the past, you shouldn't install anything beyond what SVP installs.

Try a clean install of SVP 4 Pro, including MPV and LAV Filters for now. If MPC and MPV with SVP still don't work, that will narrow down the issue considerably.

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

brucethemoose wrote:

"and codecs"

You said it before, but just to be clear... you aren't installing anything besides SVP, right? "Codec packs" are a relic of the past, you shouldn't install anything beyond what SVP installs.

Yeah I'm just referring to ffdshow, since svp doesn't uninstall that automatically.

Will try to reinstall later tonight or tomorrow and report back.

Re: Dropped frames, dropped audio, high CPU load - Kaby Lake issue?

May I suggest to turn off GPU acceleration in SVP?

I don't like that:

HD Graphics 620 ... Base clock (MHz) 300 ... Boost clock (MHz) 1000-1050

May it's a GPU part that throttling somehow hmm