How Can I Take Advantage Of My New Graphics Card?

[jg84]

Hey everyone, this is my first post.

Let me start out by saying I'm very technically inclined but not at all when it comes to video stuff. Why? Because I have an old kinda crappy computer that had an onboard graphics card (Intel 845G) and it sucked big time so I focused my knowledge on all other aspects rather than video due to the performance from it.

OK fast forward to now, I finally got tired and bought a new graphics card because I wanted to see a performance increase in applications, image rendering, and video.

I bought a NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS (best I could find for the price and PCI). Basically I want to know what settings/other things I can adjust to make it have the best possible performance?

Any help given is greatly appreciated. (Be easy on me I'm a video n00b)


*Oh yea, I also bought CoreAVC because I read it would help too.... but that's a whole other thread I guess.

**forgot my specs:

XP Professional SP3
Intel Celeron(R) D 2.93GHz
2GB DDR PC3200 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS
100GB (System)
250GB (Slave)

[DarrellS]

I'm afraid that you should've invested in a new computer instead of an old outdated video card if your intention is to edit and play H264 video content.

[Noahtuck]

Applications, image rendering (encoding/converting/etc) are more of a CPU/system issue.

For the type of performance increases you are looking for a video card is not the solution.

[guns1inger]

A three year old gfx card (and the 8400 is almost 3 years old in design) will do nothing at all to improve the performance of any applications other than some older games, and will do very little for rendering of video as while it is supported by CUDA, it still relies a lot on the CPU, and yours is, well, rubbish. The celeron was never a good CPU for intensive calculations, and video rendering requires this in spades. So if you want to make Crysis run a little smoother on your old machine, you probably made an OK choice.

For anything else it is time to buy a new system.

[mh2360]

According to the spec sheet the 8400GS does have Purevideo HD on board, it's even listed on Nvidia's list of CUDA GPUs, but it says nothing about CUDA on the spec sheet.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_gpus.html

http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_8400_tech_specs.html


As guns1inger said, your processor could really do with an upgrade.

[jagabo]

At least normal Desktop performance with the 8400GS should be a lot better than the 845G.

[ronnylov]

I bought a 8400GS PCI card for an old PC to make it able to play HD videos in Linux using VDPAU on XBMC.
So yes, it really can make a big difference in decoding and playback of video.
It plays all HD videos (h.264 or MPEG-2 and probably VC-1 too) without problems.

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/VDPAU#Supported_Cards

In Windows I think it should be able to use nvidia Pure Video for playback.
You can try it with Windows Media Player Classic Home Cinema and enable DXVA decoding in the settings.
CoreAVC is not needed.
However you need to install nvidia graphic drivers for your new card and latest microsoft directx runtime to enable the hardware video acceleration.

[jg84]

Sorry for the late response guys,

I will not pretend or act like I know even close to as much about video and graphics stuff as all of you. BUT I already do currently notice a slight increase in performance - for instance loading of webpages and navigating webpages while playing music.

I DO NOT play games, I'm not a gamer at all. I occassionaly watch a video on my desktop (not very long ones) , and of course I frequent streaming video sites - which I do not see a big increase in performance at all sadly.

With that said, when I enter the NVidia control panel there is tons of settings to configure and to be honest I don't know what half of them do and don't want to mess anything up or even worse make the performance of my computer any worse than now.

I'm sure you guys know the config and settings like the back of your hand so if its not too much trouble just some tips on what I should tweak/disable/enable.

Thanks for previous comments and thanks in advance for future advice.

[jg84]

Anyone want to shed some light on my predicament or maybe give me a few tips?

[jagabo]

For the most part you don't need to change much of anything. Exactly what controls are available depend on the card you have and the driver version. The proc amp settings are usually right for the Desktop -- unless your monitor is way out of whack. In which case you should adjust your monitor. The video proc amp settings may need adjustment depending on what player and which renderer you're using. I don't know if your card has them but settings like noise reduction and edge enhancement (sharpness) usually make the picture worse, not better.

[DarrellS]

I found these settings yesterday doing a google search.

Desktop color settings

Brightness: 45
Digital Vibrance: 71
Contrast: 60
Gamma: 50 (I had to use 100 on mine but my brother had to use 50)


Video color settings

Brightness: 48
Contrast: 65
Saturation 60
Hue 0 (I had to use +178* but my brother had to use 0)

Under Advanced (I couldn't find an advanced on mine)

Full Dynamic range
Color enhancement
no contrast

Video image settings

65 edge enhancement
75 noise reduction


We were having problems with the input frame and output frames in Virtualdub not looking the same but after changing our settings to match the ones above, both panes now look the same.

[jagabo]

We were having problems with the input frame and output frames in Virtualdub not looking the same but after changing our settings to match the ones above, both panes now look the same.

Are you sure the Desktop settings where wrong, not the video settings? And how do you know your monitor settings were right?

If you really want accurate color and levels you need a hardware color calibration device. You can eyeball it with some test patterns and get passable results.

[DarrellS]

The video settings were wrong.

The settings were fine when I had the ATI card but I bought the Nvidia and put the ATI in my other machine.

I use Virtualdub to set up the card since the input frame should look exactly like the output frame. The default Nvidia settings were close but the input frame was too bright and there wasn't enough contrast. The colors weren't as vibrant either. With the ATI card, the default settings were right on.

The Nvidia control panel is a lot harder to use than the ATI control panel. It took me days to try and get the settings right on the Nvidia card but when I thought it looked right, I'd close the control panel and everything was way off. With the ATI card, I could see the changes in real time in Virtualdub but I had to keep closing and opening VDub to see the changes with Nvidia. I use a program called Whatcolor since I'm color blind with reds and greens but the color bars in the Nvidia control panel have overlay issues and I could not see the colors with Whatcolor, only the desktop. It wasn't until I found these settings that everything looks pretty close.

Here is a screenshot of Virtualdub with the new settings...

[DarrellS]

Well, it's not a screenshot exactly. I had to copy the input frame and paste in in to photoshop since all it shows is a green screen. I don't remember seeing that with the ATI card either. Maybe it has something to do with the Haaili Media Splitter.

[edDV]

I suggest you try what ronnylov wrote. The GeForce 8400 GS supports Purevideo HD for MPeg2, h.264 and VC-1 playback with minimal CPU load. You need a player that supports DXVA for this to work. Try MPCHC first since it self configures most of the time. If not you need to manually set DXVA in settings. Install the latest NVIDA driver and Microsoft directx runtime before installing MPCHC.

...
In Windows I think it should be able to use nvidia Pure Video for playback.
You can try it with Windows Media Player Classic Home Cinema and enable DXVA decoding in the settings.
CoreAVC is not needed.
However you need to install nvidia graphic drivers for your new card and latest microsoft directx runtime to enable the hardware video acceleration.

[DarrellS]

I found these settings yesterday doing a google search.

Desktop color settings

Brightness: 45
Digital Vibrance: 71
Contrast: 60
Gamma: 50 (I had to use 100 on mine but my brother had to use 50)


Video color settings

Brightness: 48
Contrast: 65
Saturation 60
Hue 0 (I had to use +178* but my brother had to use 0)

Under Advanced (I couldn't find an advanced on mine)

Full Dynamic range
Color enhancement
no contrast

Video image settings

65 edge enhancement
75 noise reduction


We were having problems with the input frame and output frames in Virtualdub not looking the same but after changing our settings to match the ones above, both panes now look the same.

Seems these settings caused another problem. The contrast was all messed up in MPC-HC on files with white backgrounds.

I uninstalled the driver, used driver sweeper to get rid of everything left behind and reinstalled the newest driver.

I left the desktop and video color settings at default per Tom's Hardware and under Advanced made these adjustments ...

Dynamic range - Limited 16-235 (I chose Full 0-255 since I'm using a monitor)
Dynamic contrast enhancement - enabled
Color enhancement - enabled

Under “Adjust Video Image Settings"

Use inverse telecine - enabled
Edge enhancement - 60%
Noise reduction - 70%

[jagabo]

You should never use dynamic contrast enhancement, color enhancement, edge enhancement and noise reduction on a video production machine. You need to see what the video really looks like, not what it looks like after the graphics card has mangled it.

You can force VirtualDub to use the Desktop (rather than video overlay) for both the input pane and output pane by disabling Options -> Preferences -> Display -> Use DirectX... You can then see both images screen caps. You have to save the new setting, exit and restart VirtualDub for the change to take place.

[DarrellS]

Well, with dynamic contrast enhancement turned off, my media players were showing all my videos with white backgrounds with the contrast all screwed up. These same videos were perfect with the ATI card but with the Nvidia card set to default settings, all of these videos were screwed up. This seemed to be the one setting that fixed the videos in my media players.

I've spend the last couple of days in the Virtualdub forum trying to figure out the problem. With the settings above, problem solved.

My brother has basically the same card that I have and he has the same issues with the Nvidia default settings. The reason that I messed with the settings in the first place was because there was not enough contrast but after boosting the contrast, I got way too much contrast on the videos with white backgrounds.

These videos look perfect in Virtualdub with contrast enhancement turned off but the contrast is way out of whack in the players.