brief green pixelation during resume
#1
Hello, I am a new XBMC user converting from Popcorn Hour and I have to say I am already in love. I went out an built a nice machine (specs below) and it has been playing all of my files very smoothly. I only use 1080p content except for a very small set of TV shows, and it is doing a great job. There is just one slight issue that is not a huge deal but is bothersome. Every time I resume a movie and even occasionally on starting fresh I experience a very brief (2 secs) of green pixels from what I'm assuming is DXVA. I have DXVA turned on and I have GPU acceleration turned on for the graphics card. That is really all I am using, I don't have codecs installed and I'm using the stock player. Is this something that can be fixed, perhaps with a codec. I really don't like installing codec packs, etc. but if it will fix the problem I'm game. It is particularly annoying when using PseudoTV - which I absolutely love btw. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Specs:
AMD A8 3870k with AMD Radeon 6550 HD Graphics
ASRock MB-A75M
G.Skill Ripjaws 4GB
Silverstone ML03B Case
Seasonic SS-400ET

I will also be upgrading the heatsink in the near future once I find one to fit the case, the stock one for the A8 is slightly noisy IMO.
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#2
If you are using the default XBMC built in player, installing codecs are a waste of time. XBMC does not use them. It has everything it needs built in. You only need codecs for some external players.

Best thing it to check your AMD video drviers and XBMC playback settings and find the best settings for them. Search thru the forums. There are many threads about various things AMD/ATI drivers and XBMC playback. You may find a thread relevant to your query.
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#3
Thanks for the response! I installed the dsplayer XBMC version and I have DXVA turned off and I do not get the green artifacts. I am going to test some files over the next week or so to see how playback is with DXVA turned off. Is there really any disadvantage to having it turned of in XBMC? I still will have GPU acceleration turned on in my Graphics settings.
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#4
Alright, so after doing every possible setting I could find I'm still not getting the performance I thought I would be getting. Below I have posted my exact settings that were recommended and I still have green artifacts for a few seconds. I have also included the debugger file when playing the videos.

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Note: This is just for the sake of this picture - I'm not using Windowed - My settings are (1920x1080)
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http://pastebin.com/PTBQ1D26
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#5
Sorry, I don't use AMD GPUs, so there isn't much more I can suggest. Maybe Bluray will pop into this thread. He seems to be quite familiar with AMDs drivers and settings.
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#6
@tman12-

I thought that you got everything to work in this thread- AMD A8 3870k with AMD Radeon 6550 HD Graphics. Why two threads for the same problem?

Here are some more ideas-

1. disable everything in CCC Video/Quality other than "Enforce Smooth Video Playback"
2. if you have another HDMI cable, you can try it with another HDMI cable
3. if you connected it this way- HTPC-->AVR-->HDTV via HDMI cables, you can set AVR to pass-through video
4. what is the overall temperature?

If all the above is done and still have artifact, you might want to contact AMD for help. Since this is a new APU, they might know the trick that we are not aware of.......
>Alienware X51- do it all HTPC
>Simplify XBMC configurations
>HOW-TO Bitstreaming using XBMC
I refused to watch movie without bitstreaming HD audio!
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#7
Well, I had it "resolved" with the DSplayer build but after doing some testing and playing around with different addons I really don't want to use an external player. Right now the best settings I have found with XBMC is everything off and render method set to pixel shaders. I don't get green pixelation but I do still get brief pixelation. One thing I have not tried, which I am going to try this evening is upgrading the BIOS for the A75M, keeping my fingers crossed that maybe that could be the problem. I'm also wondering if maybe it is possible to slow down the rate at which the player resumes? I notice on XBMC when resuming/playing it goes immediately into video with no hesitation. Since my files are all very high bitrate I'm thinking that maybe this is causing the pixelation. When I played these files on Popcorn Hour it would take a sec or so and then play or resume video with no pixelation. I sure hope I can get this resolved tonight, I have a nice Logitech Harmony One coming tomorow morning! Smile
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#8
Artifact problem is a difficult issue to tackle. It involves with so many variables. It's mostly involving with GPU and sometime RAM.

Here are some thought on the hardware-

1. If the GPU is overheating, it can cause aritifact. What is the overall temperature when you playback blu-ray file?

2. Is your memory listed in AsRock memory support list? If you are using two sticks 2x2= 4GB, you can try to remove one stick and try to playback blu-ray file with one stick. If it still having the same problem, remove the other stick and install the previous removed stick and try to playback blu-ray file. It's possible that one of the stick is bad or both sticks is not compatible with your AsRock mobo.....
>Alienware X51- do it all HTPC
>Simplify XBMC configurations
>HOW-TO Bitstreaming using XBMC
I refused to watch movie without bitstreaming HD audio!
Reply
#9
Overall temp is around 40-50C, but if could very well be a RAM issue as my RAM is not on that list. I think I have some other sticks laying around so I will try them when I get home from work. Thanks for the suggestions, hopefully I can post back here this evening to say everything is working 100%.
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#10
@tman12-

You can try the one stick of RAM trick first. If it doesn't work, you can try the CPU Vcore below.....

The temperature is fine. Sometime, the CPU Vcore voltage can be set too high by AsRock default settings too. If it set too high, you can try to set it to 1.225v in bios. If it is too high, CPU might not be stable.......

Rule of thumb- you need to try one thing at a time. If it doesn't change anything, you can set it back to the original setting and move on......

If all the above doesn't work, you might want to chat with AMD tech.....
>Alienware X51- do it all HTPC
>Simplify XBMC configurations
>HOW-TO Bitstreaming using XBMC
I refused to watch movie without bitstreaming HD audio!
Reply
#11
So I tried using one stick of RAM - one and then the other, and tried a different set of RAM that I had and still brief green when DXVA is chosen. I also set CPU to 1.220v in the bios and still didn't work. I think I'm just going to go with Pixel shaders for render method and leave everything else turned off. I get my best performance that way with occasional clear artifacts (not many) but no green artifacts at all. Just a shame because I really thought this build was going to be a beast and I was looking forward to being able to smoothly change channels in PseudoTV and no issues at all during resume and even on start but I'm fairly pleased. It just sucks to go from a great player with lousy interface (Popcorn) to a great interface but just OK player.
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#12
Don't blame the player for hardware/driver issues Wink but I do understand your frustration. I've never been 100% pleased with an AMD/ATI GPU so for years I've avoided them. That is jut compounded by the many reports of video playback issues with AMD/ATI reported in these forums over the years.

If I were stuck with this card, I would disable everything possible in the drivers. Such as that steady video setting and the GPU scaling and ITC processing. Does AMD/ATI still allow installing basic drivers without all that extra crap?
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#13
@tman12-

As I mentioned, it is time to chat with AMD technical staff. They're your friend and they should be able to help you on it.........
I found this thread, and maybe you can ask those guys- Fix for artifacts with ATI cards and DXVA2 decoding
>Alienware X51- do it all HTPC
>Simplify XBMC configurations
>HOW-TO Bitstreaming using XBMC
I refused to watch movie without bitstreaming HD audio!
Reply
#14
Funny you should mention AMD technical staff, just got off the phone with them... extremely unhelpful. They had no idea what XBMC was and they asked who the company was. Then they told me that I would either need to contact DirectX or XBMC because it is an application setting. I can't say I really blame them, they don't know what the limitations are of XBMC or what settings to use.

(2012-04-17, 21:23)kricker Wrote: Don't blame the player for hardware/driver issues Wink

Well when the files playback fine on VLC and Dsplayer its kind of hard not to suspect that it is a player issue. I think I'm going to try the patch suggested by bluray first and then maybe look into the card settings a little more even though I think I've tried every setting possible.
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#15
I also have the same problem.

It only occurs with XBMC.

However, after I disabled the hardware acceleration, the problem went away.

My chipset is Intel (onboard video).
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