ATI/AMD Drivers and Hardware Overlays

PirateNinja

A user of the software I develop (a video editor) recently reported that they could not see video playback. Since my software uses hardware accelerated playback that requires essential d3d9 support, some older systems just can't see video playback such as Intel's 845g chipset which is about 12 years old if I recall.

What was unique about this user's report was they use a modern chipset. The user has an AMD 880g chipset, which if I researched correct has onboard Radeon HD 4250. The user is on Windows 7.

Now this is what's weird, after having the user update their drivers and reporting they still can't see video playback I had them send their dxdiag output. This is the output of their dxdiag:
D3D9 Overlay: Not Supported
DXVA-HD: Not Supported
DDraw Status: Not Available
D3D Status: Enabled
AGP Status: Not Available

No D3D9 Overlays!

I've been trying to do research and find data on ATI's official standing on this but I can't. Is there simply not support for this in ATI's drivers? Is there any planned support for it? Or is there some weird issue with this specific computer that is causing hardware accelerated video playback to shut down?

I'll keep researching in the mean time and write back here if I find an answer. It's important to me though since so many people have onboard ATI/AMD chips that I either modify my software to work with them or be able to tell people how to modify their computer if necessary.

Thrax

I assure I you that d3d9 overlays are supported, as it is impossible to perform DXVA (a core strength of Radeon products) without it.

PirateNinja

Thank you, I was thinking because it was a lower end display adapter that this might have been left out of it's feature set.

I'm having the user go in to their display settings in Win7 to see if they can manually re-enable hardware acceleration. I'm assuming it got turned off at some point.

PirateNinja

Alright - I'm sorry in advance, but are you sure? Maybe just this specific chipset doesn't have it. Given the number of people that have this chipset and for some reason have d3d9 overlay disabled I'm still a bit worried about it.

If you perform the same google search and remove the word not nothing valid shows. In fact there are more posts with it showing as unsupported. It seems unlikely to me that with all the dxdiag outputs posted on the net regarding the Radeon HD 4250 that at least some would show that this feature is enabled if in fact the driver and hardware supported it.

I'm know I'm questioning your word here and you are doing me a favor by responding, but I just wanted to make sure before I get deep in to diagnosing this user's system. I naturally want the simple answer but I just can't find any whitepaper or documentation on this chipset that gives it to me straight.

Thrax

I admit my knowledge of the 4250 is somewhat hazy, as it's a side of the business I don't work with.

For shits I fired up DXdiag and it shows d3d9 overlay as unsupported on my 6000 and 7000 Series card, but I question the validity of that answer because Media Player Classic and VLC both correctly enable hardware accelerated video playback via DX9.

PirateNinja

I am now convinced the 4250 does support dxva 1.0 which is what the software requires in order to render with vmr9 renderless mode. It would make no sense for a 2009 chipset of any type not to support that. It is likely that I just do not understand the out dxdiag output.

I think I am finding my answer here
http://us.generation-nt.com/vmr9-ati-graphics-how-render-frame-immediately-help-28861802.html

My fear now is that most AMD chipset users are not able to see the playback are of my app due to some obscure bug with directshow and vmr9.

Well thank you Thrax for the info, this post was mostly put here in hopes that I could get your answer and I think you are absolutely correct now. That chipset has to support dxva 2.0 and an in turn dxva 1.0. DXVA hd does not matter in my situation.

Thanks again, I will figure something out. First things first, test on more AMD hardware.

Thrax

Have you looked into the EVR Custom mode that media player classic uses? The code's open source, so you could take a look, but it's one of the most versatile hardware overlay renderers I've encountered.

PirateNinja

I will have to check it out, thank you for the heads up. Our app is 100% WPF, no winforms, and we had a write a massive custom allocator that put the vmr9 renderer on to a pure WPF control. I am going to do more testing to find out how widespread this issue is, and if it is widespread enough I can use that as evidence to help acquire funding to write a new allocator for a different renderer such as EVR.

____
On that note, anyone who has access to AMD hardware that can test my app for me I will pay you to quickly install my app and tell me if you see playback or not. Please PM me if interested.

Thrax

I can test for you. I don't want money.

AlexDeGruven

Same here. Rockin an FX-6100 on a 990X board with a 6870.

PirateNinja

If you guys really want to and you have the time you sure can, I'm happy to pay though. If not I'll add you to the list of Icrontians I owe coffee/beer/beverage of your choice to.

Just head over to ezvid.com and download/install. Add a picture or video to the editors timeline and see if you can see it in the playback area. If you can then let me know what gpu you have and what the result was it would be extremely helpful.

Much appreciated.

Straight_Man

Well, it works here with WIN7 and a picture, though the GPU is not a Radeon (Quadro 100M) and the CPU is not an AMD thing (it is an Intel i7 thing). Please remind folks that you have to move the timeline marker over the pic in the show timeline to see in playback. I am new at this, had to figure that out.

I put text in first, picture second, could see each if the time marker was over the right one. My DxDiag does not mention DSD9 at all, uses the the DSD which comes with DX11 gotten with Windows 7 updates.

Maybe this success data will help to narrow things some. Not stock DX11, not Windows 7 probably either.

Thrax

Just head over to ezvid.com and download/install. Add a picture or video to the editors timeline and see if you can see it in the playback area. If you can then let me know what gpu you have and what the result was it would be extremely helpful.

Video appears in the playback area correctly, but the timeline is wack. The app also doesn't play the imported video's soundtrack (if it's supposed to), and instead defaults to one of the several built-in music files.

AMD Radeon HD 5870, 6970 and 7970.