2023-10-03, 05:22
I just got through building a brand new HTPC to replace my old one that's about a decade old at this point (Ivy Bridge Core i5-3570K CPU & AMD Radeon HD 6450 1GB GPU, neither of which stand a snowball's chance in hell of keeping up with current video formats); here are the specs of the new build:
========================
OS: Windows 10 Pro 22H2 / Build: 19045.3448
Motherboard: Gigabyte B760I Aorus Pro DDR4
RAM: Patriot Viper Elite II DDR4 16GB (2 x 8GB dual-channel) 4000MHz Kit
CPU: Intel Core i3-12100 w/UHD Graphics 730 iGPU
dGPU: ASRock Challenger Arc A380 6GB (Resizable BAR enabled)
SSD: Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB (PCIe Gen 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.3)
PSU: Rosewill Lepton 500W (80+ Gold)
----------------------
Kodi: 20.2.0 / Git: 20230629-5f418d0b13
----------------------
Intel Arc Control Version: 1.73.5335.2
Driver Version: 31.0.101.4824 (released 2023-09-08)
IFWI (V-BIOS): 20.1064.0
DirectX Version: 12
Shader Model: v5.1
Vulkan: 1.3.2
OpenGL: 4.6.0
OpenCL: 3
========================
I ripped and did some encoding of one of my purchased 4K movies with HandBrake to play around with AV1 bitrates so I could figure out which quality settings I want to use when I get ready to encode my entire library; however, even though the iGPU and the Arc A380 dGPU both have hardware decoding support for AV1, I cannot get 100% smooth playback on my 4K AV1 files in Kodi. I've tried playing them back across my 1Gbit network from my NAS, as well as directly from the NVMe SSD that's installed in the HTPC (to rule out any network speed/congestion issues), and it makes no difference at all. These same exact files work just fine when playing via MPC-HC, even across the network.
Below are the files I encoded using Intel Quick Sync Video on the Arc A380, along with the most important HandBrake video settings used (movie title removed, as it's not really relevant).
All files were encoded with passthrough TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack (1:1 copy of audio), with passthrough mode enabled within Kodi, then going to my home theater receiver over HDMI (receiver supports all the current audio formats: TrueHD, DTS-HD, PCM, etc.).
The h.265 versions of this movie all play perfectly in Kodi, even the ICQ 24 version with the 12.4 Mbit/s bitrate; NONE of the AV1 files play without constant stuttering:
AV1 23.976fps Constant bitrate:
<Movie Title Here> [4K 10-bit] [AV1 QSV] [Quality Preset] [ICQ 24].mkv: 18.3 Mbit/s
<Movie Title Here> [4K 10-bit] [AV1 QSV] [Quality Preset] [ICQ 28].mkv: 9.6 Mbit/s
<Movie Title Here> [4K 10-bit] [AV1 QSV] [Quality Preset] [ICQ 30].mkv: 8.2 Mbit/s
<Movie Title Here> [4K 10-bit] [AV1 QSV] [Quality Preset] [ICQ 35].mkv: 6.7 Mbit/s
h.265 23.976fps Constant bitrate:
<Movie Title Here> [4K 10-bit] [h.265 QSV] [Quality Preset] [ICQ 24].mkv: 12.4 Mbit/s
<Movie Title Here> [4K 10-bit] [h.265 QSV] [Quality Preset] [ICQ 28].mkv: 8.9 Mbit/s
<Movie Title Here> [4K 10-bit] [h.265 QSV] [Quality Preset] [ICQ 30].mkv: 7.8 Mbit/s
<Movie Title Here> [4K 10-bit] [h.265 QSV] [Quality Preset] [ICQ 35].mkv: 6.8 Mbit/s
Below are the settings I've played around with inside of Kodi (tried ALL the listed options), but none of them seem to help...DXVA & DXVA2 are typically the settings that enable hardware decoding support, but in this case it isn't working:
Adjust display refresh rate: Off | Always | On start / stop | On start
Sync playback to display: Off | On
Render method: Auto detect | DXVA | Pixel shaders | Software
Allow hardware acceleration - DXVA2: Off | On
Display mode: Full screen | Windowed
Resolution: 1920x1080p
Use fullscreen window: Off | On
Dithering: Off | On
Number of buffers used by graphics driver: 2 | 3
When I view the video info during playback, it confirms that hardware decoding is not active; Video decoder: ff-libdav1d (SW)
I did also test out a 1080p AV1 video (5Mbit/s w/Variable Bitrate, 23.976fps), and it does play back smoothly, but it also is not using hardware decoding...it uses ff-libdav1d (SW) as well.
I did try disabling hyperthreading in the BIOS, since I've seen that cause issues with some software before, but it made no difference.
This is a brand new build and a completely fresh, from-scratch install of Win10Pro, so there's no chance of older versions of drivers/software mucking things up, because they never existed.
What am I missing? Is there some magic/voodoo/hoodoo trick to get AV1 hardware decoding on the Arc A380 and/or the i3-12100 iGPU working to ensure stutter-free video playback?
========================
OS: Windows 10 Pro 22H2 / Build: 19045.3448
Motherboard: Gigabyte B760I Aorus Pro DDR4
RAM: Patriot Viper Elite II DDR4 16GB (2 x 8GB dual-channel) 4000MHz Kit
CPU: Intel Core i3-12100 w/UHD Graphics 730 iGPU
dGPU: ASRock Challenger Arc A380 6GB (Resizable BAR enabled)
SSD: Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB (PCIe Gen 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.3)
PSU: Rosewill Lepton 500W (80+ Gold)
----------------------
Kodi: 20.2.0 / Git: 20230629-5f418d0b13
----------------------
Intel Arc Control Version: 1.73.5335.2
Driver Version: 31.0.101.4824 (released 2023-09-08)
IFWI (V-BIOS): 20.1064.0
DirectX Version: 12
Shader Model: v5.1
Vulkan: 1.3.2
OpenGL: 4.6.0
OpenCL: 3
========================
I ripped and did some encoding of one of my purchased 4K movies with HandBrake to play around with AV1 bitrates so I could figure out which quality settings I want to use when I get ready to encode my entire library; however, even though the iGPU and the Arc A380 dGPU both have hardware decoding support for AV1, I cannot get 100% smooth playback on my 4K AV1 files in Kodi. I've tried playing them back across my 1Gbit network from my NAS, as well as directly from the NVMe SSD that's installed in the HTPC (to rule out any network speed/congestion issues), and it makes no difference at all. These same exact files work just fine when playing via MPC-HC, even across the network.
Below are the files I encoded using Intel Quick Sync Video on the Arc A380, along with the most important HandBrake video settings used (movie title removed, as it's not really relevant).
All files were encoded with passthrough TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack (1:1 copy of audio), with passthrough mode enabled within Kodi, then going to my home theater receiver over HDMI (receiver supports all the current audio formats: TrueHD, DTS-HD, PCM, etc.).
The h.265 versions of this movie all play perfectly in Kodi, even the ICQ 24 version with the 12.4 Mbit/s bitrate; NONE of the AV1 files play without constant stuttering:
AV1 23.976fps Constant bitrate:
<Movie Title Here> [4K 10-bit] [AV1 QSV] [Quality Preset] [ICQ 24].mkv: 18.3 Mbit/s
<Movie Title Here> [4K 10-bit] [AV1 QSV] [Quality Preset] [ICQ 28].mkv: 9.6 Mbit/s
<Movie Title Here> [4K 10-bit] [AV1 QSV] [Quality Preset] [ICQ 30].mkv: 8.2 Mbit/s
<Movie Title Here> [4K 10-bit] [AV1 QSV] [Quality Preset] [ICQ 35].mkv: 6.7 Mbit/s
h.265 23.976fps Constant bitrate:
<Movie Title Here> [4K 10-bit] [h.265 QSV] [Quality Preset] [ICQ 24].mkv: 12.4 Mbit/s
<Movie Title Here> [4K 10-bit] [h.265 QSV] [Quality Preset] [ICQ 28].mkv: 8.9 Mbit/s
<Movie Title Here> [4K 10-bit] [h.265 QSV] [Quality Preset] [ICQ 30].mkv: 7.8 Mbit/s
<Movie Title Here> [4K 10-bit] [h.265 QSV] [Quality Preset] [ICQ 35].mkv: 6.8 Mbit/s
Below are the settings I've played around with inside of Kodi (tried ALL the listed options), but none of them seem to help...DXVA & DXVA2 are typically the settings that enable hardware decoding support, but in this case it isn't working:
Adjust display refresh rate: Off | Always | On start / stop | On start
Sync playback to display: Off | On
Render method: Auto detect | DXVA | Pixel shaders | Software
Allow hardware acceleration - DXVA2: Off | On
Display mode: Full screen | Windowed
Resolution: 1920x1080p
Use fullscreen window: Off | On
Dithering: Off | On
Number of buffers used by graphics driver: 2 | 3
When I view the video info during playback, it confirms that hardware decoding is not active; Video decoder: ff-libdav1d (SW)
I did also test out a 1080p AV1 video (5Mbit/s w/Variable Bitrate, 23.976fps), and it does play back smoothly, but it also is not using hardware decoding...it uses ff-libdav1d (SW) as well.
I did try disabling hyperthreading in the BIOS, since I've seen that cause issues with some software before, but it made no difference.
This is a brand new build and a completely fresh, from-scratch install of Win10Pro, so there's no chance of older versions of drivers/software mucking things up, because they never existed.
What am I missing? Is there some magic/voodoo/hoodoo trick to get AV1 hardware decoding on the Arc A380 and/or the i3-12100 iGPU working to ensure stutter-free video playback?
