Struggles when playing back certain 4K files in MPC-HC

[Greaseddog]

When I play back some 4K files, my CPU usage is pinned at 100%, frames are dropped, and the video lags. When I play other 4K files, everything works just fine. I've established that everything plays smoothly when I play 4K H.264 files, but my computer starts struggling when playing 4K HEVC files. This might just be because playing back HEVC is a bit tougher than playing back H.264 files, but my CPU usage doesn't go much higher than 35% when playing H.264, so I should be fine playing HEVC files?
I think I might have discovered what is causing these issues though, and that is that even though I use the same settings to play both videos, MPC-HC seems to be unable to use hardware acceleration to play the HEVC files, while it has no problem doing that with H.264 files. This is shown in these images: https://forum.videohelp.com/images/imgfiles/LGvt1vN.png and https://forum.videohelp.com/images/imgfiles/SmQRxeK.png . I've also noticed, that despite using the same settings, both videos are played using different decoders: https://forum.videohelp.com/images/imgfiles/liMuRai.png .
So my question is, if anyone knows why this is happening, and if/how I can possibly fix this? Here are some images of my settings in MPC-HC, write a comment if you want me to screenshot something else: https://forum.videohelp.com/images/imgfiles/lPPaYpz.png and https://forum.videohelp.com/images/imgfiles/qaLsDPk.png . One thing I might want to add is that the video that I can't play properly is a .ts file, while the file that works well is a .mp4. I Don't know if this matters.
Furthermore my PC specs are this:
- Core I7-3570K @ 4.20GHz
- GTX 970
- 16 GB Ram
Any help/advice/ideas are appreciated, and sorry if this is a stupid post/question, I don't know too much about video players/formats/codecs/playback
Thanks!

[davexnet]

see if this helps
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/379461-H265-videos-lagging-in-Windows-XP-SP3?p=2451...=1#post2451833

[Greaseddog]

see if this helps
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/379461-H265-videos-lagging-in-Windows-XP-SP3?p=2451...=1#post2451833

Thank you for the help. I managed to get the decoder working, but unfortunately it didn't help, if anything it made things worse When I do this, it still says DVXA: Not using DVXA.

[poisondeathray]

It doesn't help because GTX970 doesn't support HEVC decoding . It's "VP6" , you need "VP7" with feature set "F" for HEVC support (pure video hd 7) .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_PureVideo

The less expensive GTX 950,960 support it because they have VP7

[davexnet]

It doesn't help because GTX970 doesn't support HEVC decoding . It's "VP6" , you need "VP7" with feature set "F" for HEVC support (pure video hd 7) .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_PureVideo

The less expensive GTX 950,960 support it because they have VP7

Thanks for the clarification pdr. In the above thread an old xp laptop was being used and the OP reported some success. I assumed it was a light-weight
decoder, giving *some* relief , even though, in that case, it was limited to CPU decoding only.

[Greaseddog]

It doesn't help because GTX970 doesn't support HEVC decoding . It's "VP6" , you need "VP7" with feature set "F" for HEVC support (pure video hd 7) .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_PureVideo

The less expensive GTX 950,960 support it because they have VP7

Thank you very much for that. It's actually quite funny, I was researching if the GTX 970 would support HEVC decoding, when I found out that the 950 and 960 supported it, so I just assumed the 970 had to support it as well - guess I was wrong, unfortunately. For now I will have to encode the videos to H.264 until I upgrade my GPU

[AllisOne]

Have you tried to repack/remux your video from .ts to for example .mkv with MKVToolNix GUI? It should take a few seconds - no converting/transcoding involved.

[Greaseddog]

Have you tried to repack/remux your video from .ts to for example .mkv with MKVToolNix GUI? It should take a few seconds - no converting/transcoding involved.

That didn't work either

[KarMa]

It doesn't help because GTX970 doesn't support HEVC decoding . It's "VP6" , you need "VP7" with feature set "F" for HEVC support (pure video hd 7) .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_PureVideo

The less expensive GTX 950,960 support it because they have VP7

Even my ancient ATI 4670 (2008) card helps with decoding HEVC, via LAV Filters and DXVA2.


You are also using LAV Filters 0.66, but the current version is 0.68.

[sneaker]

Even my ancient ATI 4670 (2008) card helps with decoding HEVC, via LAV Filters and DXVA2.

It doesn't. Just because you can select tick the "HEVC" check-box it doesn't mean it's actually being used. Play an HEVC video an look at "active decoder".

[Greaseddog]

It doesn't help because GTX970 doesn't support HEVC decoding . It's "VP6" , you need "VP7" with feature set "F" for HEVC support (pure video hd 7) .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_PureVideo

The less expensive GTX 950,960 support it because they have VP7

Even my ancient ATI 4670 (2008) card helps with decoding HEVC, via LAV Filters and DXVA2.

[Attachment 37943 - Click to enlarge]

You are also using LAV Filters 0.66, but the current version is 0.68.

I just tried updating the LAV filters, but that didn't fix it.

At this point I'm definitely not expecting anything to work, as my GPU obviously doesn't support HEVC decoding.

[AllisOne]

Just to clarify:

- your processor Core I7-3570K @ 4.20GHz - isn't it I5 (not I7) 3.40GHz, overclocked to 4.20GHz, 4 cores, no hyper-threading?
- what operating system - Win7, Win10, Home, Pro, x32, x64 etc?
- why so fixated on hardware acceleration on your GPU? I suppose you might use DXVA Checker to check what GTX 670 is capable decoding-wise (ask google or somebody more knowledgeable than me about the results - anyway the answer is probably in the thread already)
- what version of MPC-HC do you use (number and bits)? Use latest nightly: https://nightly.mpc-hc.org/
- MPC-HC uses LAV Filters as internal decoders. You said that you'd tried updating the LAV Filters - what does it mean? Did you install latest LAV Filters (keeping in mind that if x32 player then x32 decoders?) , switched the internal ones in MPC-HC and added the external ones set to Prefer? Or you copied latest files to LAVFilters in your MPC-HC folder? Did you checked what filters/decoders are used when playing your video? (right-click on player window - Filters and left-click there on specific filter to get to its settings?). Did you check it with Strongene/Lentoid as well?

Latest LAV nightly:
- official: https://files.1f0.de/lavf/nightly/
- modded: http://tmod.nmm-hd.org/LAVFilters/
Descriptions of the mod: https://astrataro.wordpress.com/2014/10/22/lavfilters-tmod/ and https://astrataro.wordpress.com/2015/04/15/lavfilters-tmod-update-for-hw-decoder-options/

- why MPC-HC?
I personally use PotPlayer latest dev/nightly x32 with Strongene/Lentoid for HEVC and LAV (modded) for everything else. What helped me to lower CPU usage (and to remove stuttering) for HEVC was turning off Built-in Video Codec/Transform (PotPlayer's internal intermediate codec) and changing renderer from default in Win7 EVR (CP) to VMR9 (renderless). In MPC-HC - Options - Playback - Output - DirectShow Video.

I'm sure you know that for MPC-HC for changes to kick in you need to restart it.

- maybe it's time to post log from MediaInfo or upload a small sample of the video and post here a link, so people can check it.

[Greaseddog]

Just to clarify:

- your processor Core I7-3570K @ 4.20GHz - isn't it I5 (not I7) 3.40GHz, overclocked to 4.20GHz, 4 cores, no hyper-threading?
- what operating system - Win7, Win10, Home, Pro, x32, x64 etc?
- why so fixated on hardware acceleration on your GPU? I suppose you might use DXVA Checker to check what GTX 670 is capable decoding-wise (ask google or somebody more knowledgeable than me about the results - anyway the answer is probably in the thread already)
- what version of MPC-HC do you use (number and bits)? Use latest nightly: https://nightly.mpc-hc.org/
- MPC-HC uses LAV Filters as internal decoders. You said that you'd tried updating the LAV Filters - what does it mean? Did you install latest LAV Filters (keeping in mind that if x32 player then x32 decoders?) , switched the internal ones in MPC-HC and added the external ones set to Prefer? Or you copied latest files to LAVFilters in your MPC-HC folder? Did you checked what filters/decoders are used when playing your video? (right-click on player window - Filters and left-click there on specific filter to get to its settings?). Did you check it with Strongene/Lentoid as well?

Latest LAV nightly:
- official: https://files.1f0.de/lavf/nightly/
- modded: http://tmod.nmm-hd.org/LAVFilters/
Descriptions of the mod: https://astrataro.wordpress.com/2014/10/22/lavfilters-tmod/ and https://astrataro.wordpress.com/2015/04/15/lavfilters-tmod-update-for-hw-decoder-options/

- why MPC-HC?
I personally use PotPlayer latest dev/nightly x32 with Strongene/Lentoid for HEVC and LAV (modded) for everything else. What helped me to lower CPU usage (and to remove stuttering) for HEVC was turning off Built-in Video Codec/Transform (PotPlayer's internal intermediate codec) and changing renderer from default in Win7 EVR (CP) to VMR9 (renderless). In MPC-HC - Options - Playback - Output - DirectShow Video.

I'm sure you know that for MPC-HC for changes to kick in you need to restart it.

- maybe it's time to post log from MediaInfo or upload a small sample of the video and post here a link, so people can check it.

Thank you so much for all this advice, I really appreciate it. I've read through all of it and tried to see if it worked. Here is what I experienced:

Isn't it I5 (not I7) 3.40GHz, overclocked to 4.20GHz, 4 cores, no hyper-threading?

- Yes, sorry, I5.

What operating system?

- Windows 10 64-bit.

I suppose you might use DXVA Checker

- Looking at DXVA checker, it says my device supports "DXVA for HEVC_VLD_Main", but when I google around, I see that there's also something called "HEVC_VLD_Main10" which I believe refers to 10-bit HEVC, which is also what the file I'm trying to play is. My DXVA checker doesn't show this, so that probably means it is because the GTX 970 doesn't support it, which would be exactly in line with what my theory is based on what MPC-HC says, as well as what others have said earlier in this thread.

What version of MPC-HC do you use (number and bits)? Use latest nightly: https://nightly.mpc-hc.org/

- I was using 1.7.10 64-bit, but now I uninstalled that and installed the latest nightly (MPC-HC 1.7.10.252 64-bit).

You said that you'd tried updating the LAV Filters - what does it mean?

- I copied the latest files to LAVFilters in your MPC-HC folder (and made sure they were 64-bit).

Did you checked what filters/decoders are used when playing your video?

- Yes, and it uses LAV filters as it is supposed to. But what confused me was that it was using the avcodec decoder when playing HEVC files, while it uses cuvid as the decoder with other files, despite the settings not changing.

Did you check it with Strongene/Lentoid as well?

- Yes, I've already tried that, but Lentoid didn't fix anything (and I confirmed that Lentoid was indeed active.)

- Modded: http://tmod.nmm-hd.org/LAVFilters/

- Reading up on that mod, it sounded really promising, but after installing the filters and confirming they're were working, things were unfortunately still the same.

I personally use PotPlayer

- I've tried Potplayer, but that didn't help. I just tried using Strongene/Lentoid, but that yielded exactly the same result as when using it in MPC-HC.

What helped me to lower CPU usage (and to remove stuttering) for HEVC was turning off Built-in Video Codec/Transform (PotPlayer's internal intermediate codec) and changing renderer from default in Win7 EVR (CP) to VMR9 (renderless). In MPC-HC - Options - Playback - Output - DirectShow Video.

- Didn't help either

I'm sure you know that for MPC-HC for changes to kick in you need to restart it.

- Naturally.

Maybe it's time to post log from MediaInfo or upload a small sample of the video and post here a link, so people can check it.

- Here you go:

General
ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : MPEG-TS
File size : 1.65 GiB
Duration : 7mn 5s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 33.4 Mbps

Video
ID : 256 (0x100)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : HEVC
Format/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile : Main 10@L5.1@Main
Codec ID : 36
Duration : 7mn 5s
Bit rate : 31.3 Mbps
Width : 3 840 pixels
Height : 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 60.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 10 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.063
Stream size : 1.55 GiB (94%)
Writing library : ATEME Titan KFE 3.5.1 (4.5.1.2)

Audio
ID : 257 (0x101)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 7mn 5s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Frame rate : 31.250 fps (1536 spf)
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : -245ms
Stream size : 19.5 MiB (1%)

Menu
ID : 4096 (0x1000)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Duration : 7mn 5s
List : 256 (0x100) (HEVC) / 257 (0x101) (AC-3)
Service name : Service01
Service provider : FFmpeg
Service type : digital television

But at this point I'd say I'm 98% sure it's because my GPU doesn't support hardware decoding of these 10-bit HEVC files.
Thanks a lot again though

[AllisOne]

Yes. It looks that main culprit is 10-bit. 4K and high bitrate don't help either . I've found a video sample similar to yours. MPC-HC plays it better than PotPlayer with the same decoder. Both Strongene and LAV are really choppy, but Strongene works better plus it gives lower CPU usage (i7-3740QM @2.70 GHz with HD4000 graphics, GTX 675MX not used).

Option is a graphic card with proper 10-bit support or to wait till magicians from China optimise their HEVC software decoder (they did it quite well for regular 8-bit HEVC). Or maybe some commercial decoder/player will do the magic.

If you have some more time to waste you can check this thread: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=171219 . Having 10-bit in mind probably it's better to start with post closer to the end.

[clivepot]

I have spent many many hours trying to solve the problem of MPC-HC or MPC-BE using madVR juddering when playing videos, especially 4K videos to my 4K Samsung TV. AFter hours of experimentation it comes down to unmatched refresh rates that makes it jump every so often. My TV runs at 60fps and most films are 23.976fps.
However, I have now discovered SMPlayer using mpv engine and without having to spend hours configuring as with madVR it woks smoothly on HD and 4K videos. Using the GPU (mine's an nVidia GTX1050 Ti) as the output. 4K HDR 10bit is no problem for SMPlayer.