Software rendering?

[therock003]

What's the significance of software players using rendering feature for video playback?

Is there any advantage for choosing overlay mixer over windows default?

[jagabo]

System Default in XP usually is the Overlay Renderer.

VRM7 and VMR9 can use the graphics cards hardware to process the image before display (offloading the CPU from that task).

[therock003]

I am using Vista and i'm not sure it uses overlay as default.

At least on media player classic i had the system default and then manually switched it to overlay mixer, and now each time I play a file for the first time after i launch the player, a notification pops up on the system tray saying something about the color template being modified. That didnt happen when the default was selected.

-And anyway, what about all other options? And most importantly, does overla mixer have any advantages over vrm7/9?

[jagabo]

Vista's default isn't Overlay Mixer because the Aero interface doesn't support it (Aero is switched off every time you play a video). I believe the default is Vista is VRM7 or VRM9 depending on which your graphics card supports.

In general, the VRM modes are better than Overlay. There are cases where overlay works better. But these are usually driver specific. What exactly are you concerned about?

Here's something you can try that will show you what can be done with VRM9. Start MPCHC and set the output to "VMR9 Renderless". View -> Options -> Playback -> Output -> VMR9 Renderless. Press OK and close MPCHC (the change doesn't take effect until the next time you start the player).

Now play a video with MPCHC. Select a shader filter by selecting Play -> Shaders -> Emboss (or whatever you want to see). The effects are done by the graphics card, not the CPU.

Normal:


Emboss:

[poisondeathray]

And most importantly, does overla mixer have any advantages over vrm7/9?

Overlay mixer has much lower cpu usage than vmr7/9 (renderless) , so if you have an older system, it may help playback with higher bitrate/HD videos. But in MPC/MPC-HC vmr7/9 is required for things like subtitles when using DirectVobSub. There are luminance variations when you use different renderers as well. vmr9 will generally look the most "washed out"

This is actually quite a big topic, and there are dozens of pages discussing this:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=134735&highlight=renderers
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=144296
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=143689

Cheers

[therock003]

Yes you're right, vista are using aero and when i use a player with overlay mixer it switches me automatically to vista basic.

How will i know which vmr my card supports? I have a crappy on-board card (must be intel) on an ASUS laptop i'm using at the moment.

Ok will look into it guys, thanx for the information and the links.