View Full Version : Why my NVIDIA video settings do not have any effect on XBMC?
Nazgulled
2009-02-05, 21:43
Hi,
So far, one of the things that I wasn't able to get done with XBMC that I could with any other solution was sharpening the image through the video settings of my graphics card (NVIDIA).
There's also a bunch of other video settings in the NVIDIA control panel, like contrast, brightness and all that stuff... I also have another option that I like to use that's "dynamic range". But none of these have any effect on videos played by XBMC.
Any reason for this behavior?
Can something be done about it by me to fix the problem or it's something that must be taken to ffmpeg developers?
there are specific settings in the Nvidia Control Panel
look under Video & Television
mindweaver
2009-02-06, 09:10
In the NVIDIA control panel there are two sets of settings.
1. Settings for windows - This is the one you should change
2. Settings for video - This has no effect on XBMC, it only affects video players such as MPC, wmp and such.
Nazgulled
2009-02-07, 23:27
@Livin
Those are the settings I'm talking about, they have no effect on XBMC, any reason why?
@mindweaver
I have no such thing as "windows settings" on my NVIDIA control panel. How come the "video settings" don't affect XBMC?
apanloco
2009-02-08, 01:24
My guess is that NVIDIA "video settings" affect programs using DirectShow (and XBMC doesn't).
Nazgulled
2009-02-08, 01:40
If that is indeed the case, shouldn't some NVIDIA filter be between the video decoder and video renderer? Cause I never saw one, thats why I find this strange...
Since there are no NVIDIA filters in filter graph for the videos I play using DirectShow, I thought that these "video settings" should work in any video...
But this is just a thought as I don't know exactly what I'm talking about.
My guess is that NVIDIA "video settings" affect programs using DirectShow (and XBMC doesn't).
I'm not sure if those only affect directshow players or anything using the video overlay, but since xbmc doesn't use either, I wouldn't expect to see any effect. If you create an XBMC profile in the 3D settings menu, those settings (like force Vsync) will affect xbmc, just as they do any D3D or OGL program.
Nazgulled
2009-02-08, 21:14
Too bad those "3D Settings" have no effect for video postprocessing... :(
Nazgulled
2009-02-12, 17:49
Nobody knows how to answer this in a more specific way other than a "guess"? I just wanted to understand why...
Does your control panel have an option that says "Adjust desktop color settings", if so use that. I think that's what mindweaver was referring to.
Nazgulled
2009-02-12, 21:18
It does, but the "sharpening" slider is disabled (it's the only one disabled), don't know why :/
In my control panel there's an 'Adjust video colour settings' option. From there you can adjust 'Colour', Gamma' and the 'Dynamic range' using 'With the NVIDIA settings'.
Nazgulled
2009-02-13, 00:57
In my control panel there's an 'Adjust video colour settings' option. From there you can adjust 'Colour', Gamma' and the 'Dynamic range' using 'With the NVIDIA settings'.
Like I said on my first post, those settings have no effect on any videos played by XBMC on my computer. Are you saying that they have effect on your system? Can you please double-check by changing all sliders to weird values? Just to make sure it's working, if it's indeed working...
Like I said on my first post, those settings have no effect on any videos played by XBMC on my computer. Are you saying that they have effect on your system? Can you please double-check by changing all sliders to weird values? Just to make sure it's working, if it's indeed working...
those sliders don't have any effect, tested with THX Optimizer and tried to get the drop shadow to show up on THX logo
Nazgulled
2009-02-20, 20:02
Well, I guess this doesn't work and for the looks of it, it won't ever work with XBMC.
Maybe in the future we see a "sharpening" filter cause that's really only what I wanted from the NVIDIA settings...
Thanks to everyone.
It's most likely due to the use of an "overlay." I'm not sure of the technicalities of it, but it would explain why the settings for the video card have no effect. Imagine that the video playback, or rather the rending is outside of the scope of the desktop. I've seen some cards have two sets of settings, one for the desktop, and one for the overlay.
Here is a picture of the Nvidia's older drivers allowing adjustment of the overlay settings:
https://support.dell.com/support/edocs/video/P69706/en/ap_overc.gif
Unfortunately I can't quickly find a picture of the newer Nvidia Control panel. What you're probably going to want to look for is adjusting the settings of OpenGL rendering since all of XBMC (As far as I understand) is rendered in OpenGL.
Nazgulled
2009-02-20, 20:18
Either the OpenGL settings or Overlay settings don't allow to change the sharpening of the image so... :(
Yeah sorry about that. Did you confirm that changing any settings effect the video playback/rendering? I don't have a Windows box so i'm not sure about that.
A similar concern was brought up recently about the image "quality" by another user in this thread here:
http://xbmc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=45425
It turns out to be a factor of filters used by the hardware on which the comparison to the XBMC video playback was being made.
In other words the playback of XBMC was raw, and the playback of other hardware (In this case an xbox360) was doctored. I'm sure that these concerns are on the list for the developers as everyone wants to have a pretty picture, but they're probably not first in line.
danillll
2009-02-20, 21:43
Nazgulled
I feel your pain and I know exactly what you are looking for. I've been there and I tried every single possible way to slightly enhance the picture to soften the background on couple of movies with no luck. I tried linux and windows, on windows I tried every single option combination in NVIDIA control panel with no change whatsoever, but as MAXIM stated, I came up to a conclusion that for now I should encode and stick to very high quality movies, XBMC will show you the movie as it is, which is something I wish dev would work on to add a sharpener, denoise ... filters
danillll
2009-02-20, 22:13
FYI http://xbmc.org/trac/ticket/5553
Does anybody know how to increase priority? no work has been done on it.
danillll
2009-02-20, 22:23
wow I am all over the place, I found this one, and it looks like it has been implemented 2 days ago for VDAPU, i wonder if this is only for linux, but I can test it :)
http://xbmc.org/trac/changeset/17795
Nazgulled
2009-02-21, 01:16
FYI http://xbmc.org/trac/ticket/5553
Does anybody know how to increase priority? no work has been done on it.
Well, the target milestone is set to 9.04, let's just hope it will be done by then... :grin:
wow I am all over the place, I found this one, and it looks like it has been implemented 2 days ago for VDAPU, i wonder if this is only for linux, but I can test it :)
http://xbmc.org/trac/changeset/17795 (http://xbmc.org/forum/../trac/changeset/17795)
Yes, that's only for Linux since it's VDAPU and since it's VDAPU, it only probably only work on movies that are decoded by the GPU cause that's what VDAPU is for (in XBMC's case). But this comes from a guy that doesn't know much about that, so, it may or may not, work on movies on hardware accelerated...
Too bad I don't use linux (yes I could change to it, but I won't), it's getting hardware acceleration and Windows not :sad:
danillll
2009-02-21, 05:39
Yes, that's only for Linux since it's VDAPU and since it's VDAPU, it only probably only work on movies that are decoded by the GPU cause that's what VDAPU is for (in XBMC's case). But this comes from a guy that doesn't know much about that, so, it may or may not, work on movies on hardware accelerated...
right VDAPU is nvidia's API for GPU decoding under linux, it supports many formats mainly x264/h264 which is the video in most MKVs (I can't find the list, but it is a link to a pdf file in the linux thread) so
hardware accelerated using the GPU + important filters = sweetness and fantastic picture.
gonna try his code right now and let you know if it's worth to switch to linux
Nazgulled
2009-02-21, 06:28
Don't bother just because of that case I will not switch my media center to linux.
Thanks for caring though :)
danillll
2009-02-21, 16:39
Nazgulled
I have 3 OS installed on my machine, i tried the live version and configured it with with vdpau, and trust me, if you have a good nvidia card 8xxx or 9xxx, it's worth the switch, the picture quality is improved a lot and this is without using the additional filters, it looks like they are broken and not taking effect (see the main vdpau thread for the filter isssue) it's just a matter of time before it's fixed
but yeah, if you want a better crisp picture, linux is the way to go now, not trying to offend the windows devs/users, I still have my windows install and hopefully someone will port the same feature to windows.
Nazgulled
2009-02-21, 17:22
It doesn't matter how much better the picture quality is improved, my HTPC machine is not used only as a media center application. I'm not going to compromise all other stuff I do with the machine just have crystal clear picture quality. The picture quality is currently not that bad, it's still HD. It could be better, yes, but not that bad.
And besides, VDPAU is not even on the main branch and when the main branch is improved or new features are added, the VDPAU branch is "left behind".
I prefer to wait until sharpness comes to Windows and the main XBMC branch :)
But I'm glad you finally got the picture quality you were looking for.