16 replies to this topic

[jsmooth]

I recently switched to MadVR renderer and have been impressed with the picture quality.

Unfortunately I have an intermittent error: When waking from S3 standby no content will play and I must end task on zoom player.

Strangely when this happens I can still use the File Browser and select files and the timeline indicates the file is playing but there is no audio/video. I cannot switch from full screen mode and alt-f4 will not close the player (these normally work). I must use task-manager end task and restart of zoom player resolves the error.

This does NOT happen with any other renderer and it does not happen every time (maybe 1/3).

Relevant tech specs: ATI Radeon HD6670 video card using HDMI (1920x1080) to LCD panel.

Any suggestions?

Thank you

[ehathgepiurhe]

Hi,

Open madVR's options and go Rendering-->General Settings. Disable the "Enable Automatic Fullscreen Exclusive Mode" option you will find in there. Click Ok to exit from madVR's options after you have disabled that option, and then close and re-open Zoom. Then see if the problem still occurs.

Regards,

ehat

[jsmooth]

Ehat,

Thanks for the quick reply. I've changed the setting. I will report results asap.

[jsmooth]

Hi I reviewed the setting options here: http://www.homecinem...m/madvr_en.html

Do you know what impact will disabling D3DFullscreen will have on picture quality/cpu?

Thanks

[jsmooth]

With "Enable Automatic Fullscreen Exclusive Mode" disabled the error still occurred.

I am running XP and I noted by that "use a separate device for prentation (visa /win 7 only) was checked. I have unchecked it and rechecked Automatic Fullscreen.

[jsmooth]

That didn't help either. Looks like I am going back to the Haali renderer

[ehathgepiurhe]

Those are the only two options in madVR that I know of that may have an effect on something like this. The fullscreen exclusive option has no effect on visual quality - all it does is to make madVR behave like a video game does, which is to deny resources for other processes when it is in that mode. Its sole function is to stop the tearing that plagues some systems.

The 'use separate device' option is mainly for people who have display glitches I believe - in that it gives a chance for these glitches to be removed by having madVR do things in a different way. From reading the madVR thread on Doom9 though, it seems to causes a lot of problems however (some people need it disabled, some need it enabled - it depends on the system).

If the problem only happens with madVR, it is likely to be a madVR bug unfortunately. You can report it in the madVR thread over on Doom9, but otherwise, I don't think there is anything you can do. To rule out something in Zoom, what you could do would be to reset your Zoom settings to the installation defaults (via the option in the Start Menu folder Zoom creates), then open Zoom, change nothing except to select madVR as the renderer, and then repeat the test and see if the problem still occurs.

ehat

Edited by ehathgepiurhe, 07 August 2012 - 08:49 AM.

[jsmooth]

Yeah, Nothing worked for me and I found a similar problem with Haali's (no problem with any of the VMRs). I managed a work around. I have been using a batch process that monitors Zoom Player and when it detects no activity for X# of minutes it puts the computer to sleep (S3). I've modified the process to first close ZP on sleep and restart it as soon as it wakes up. Problem solved albeit a little awkwardly. I'm not much of a programmer but I write a mean batch file.

[ehathgepiurhe]

Hm, if it happens with another renderer as well, that is a bit of a worry There is only one known bug with sleeping in Zoom at the moment, but that is where Zoom won't resume from where you paused it (http://forum.inmatri...showtopic=13353) - not what you are describing. What operating system do you run, and how do you put it into s3 mode?

ehat

Edit: Some more questions as well:
1. Are the files being player from a local hard drive, or over a network?
2. Does this happen with all files, or only files of a certain type? If only of a certain type, a screenshot of the right click Filter Properties menu when the file is playing may be helpful.

Edited by ehathgepiurhe, 08 August 2012 - 05:39 AM.

[jsmooth]

Resume from pause/standby/restart works fine.
OS is XPsp3
Standby (s3) using "psshutdown -dc -t 300" (http://technet.micro...s/bb897541.aspx)
1. Files are on local disk/disc
2. Any type of file or disc (dvd/bluray)

Note: I have been using this successfully with VMR9 Windowless for a long time. This error did not occur until I switched renderer to MadVR/Haali

ATI Video Driver & FFDShow are current.
Average CPU during playback is ~18%

ZP is TCP enabled. I determine state using tcp port 4769 calls, if state is not "playing" for 5 consecutive minutes it kicks off a psshutdown dialog box that user has 5 minutes (300 seconds) to cancel (by pressing "ok" on remote) otherwise standby.

[ehathgepiurhe]

Thanks - I will see if I can replicate it. If it is a bug in Zoom, and it can be replicated, there is a good chance it can be fixed. If it is hardware specific (video card I am thinking in particular), I might not be able to replicate it though - I only have NVIDIA cards in my systems.

ehat

(post 2700 - wow, the time has flown by)

[ehathgepiurhe]

Ok, I can replicate on my XP system with madVR. I was in windowed mode (not fullscreen), and used PsTools to send my PC to sleep. A few seconds after shutting down, my PC automatically re-awakened - just at the Windows 'lock' screen (I didn't expect it to wake up automatically, but I think that is irrelevant as I was only going to wake it up manually anyway). When I put my password in and returned to the Windows desktop, Zoom Player was still open - but was displaying a black screen instead of the video picture. When I clicked the Play button to un-pause Zoom, I heard the audio, but the black screen continued to display (no video). The Zoom window at this time seemed to be fully functional - however, when I hit Shift+J to refresh Zoom, it then became mostly non-functional. The right click context menu still worked, but Zoom itself was effectively frozen. At this point, I tried to use the 'x' close button to close Zoom - which did not work. After this, any time I right clicked Zoom, an 'access violation in zplayer.exe' error was produced. The only way to exit Zoom was via Task Manager.

Now, this system has a NVIDIA card as mentioned in my post immediately above - so we can rule out an ATI issue. I need to try this on my Win 7 box (which is my main system) just to check if it is a Windows XP only problem. It may still be a Windows issue, but I will log it into the Zoom bug tracker for the dev's to look at. It is possible that Zoom is not handling something in the shutdown event correctly. I will post back here in an edit to this post with the results when I have a chance to try it on my Win 7 box.

ehat

Edit #1: #326 in the tracker refers. Will close out of my XP system and go try this on my main system now.

Edit #2: Looks like Win 7 is not affected.

Edited by ehathgepiurhe, 08 August 2012 - 10:23 AM.
Added tracker number and Win 7 test results.

[jsmooth]

Wow! Awesome, thanks! If we're taking suggestions how about an option for ZP to goto S3 itself after X minutes of inactivity? Either way It would be great to have this fixed under XP. I have had no others problems with this box and my remote (that I love) is not supported on Win 7.


EDIT #1: I just did another test on another computer also XP with ATI (different model) and it failed. Even using start shutdown - standby causes the issue same as you described.

It's nice to know I'm not crazy!

[jsmooth]

Found this:

http://forum.team-me...-standby.15535/

Not sure about this:

Pre-Vista and Vista+ handle sleep mode requests differently. For example, XP will send a sleep request in a WM_POWERBROADCAST message with the wParam set as PBT_APMQUERYSUSPEND. The app may choose to accept or deny the request. In Vista/7, however, this PBT_APMQUERYSUSPEND message is not supported. Instead, SetThreadExecutionState(ES_CONTINUOUS) must be used. Apparently, this method can be used on XP as well, making it preferable to the PBT_APMQUERYSUSPEND message anyway.

[ehathgepiurhe]

If we're taking suggestions how about an option for ZP to goto S3 itself after X minutes of inactivity?

I suggest putting that one into the features request forum - the dev's go through it every so often to check the new requests in there:
http://forum.inmatri...hp?showforum=17

It may not be too much work for the dev's to add - Zoom already has an internal screensaver you can activate in Advanced Options-->System-->Screen Saver and Capture, and I *think* Windows itself may have a built-in method that can be called by apps to send it to sleep (I am not 100% certain about that - the Zoom dev's would know for sure though).

Found this:

http://forum.team-me...-standby.15535/

Not sure about this:

Pre-Vista and Vista+ handle sleep mode requests differently. For example, XP will send a sleep request in a WM_POWERBROADCAST message with the wParam set as PBT_APMQUERYSUSPEND. The app may choose to accept or deny the request. In Vista/7, however, this PBT_APMQUERYSUSPEND message is not supported. Instead, SetThreadExecutionState(ES_CONTINUOUS) must be used. Apparently, this method can be used on XP as well, making it preferable to the PBT_APMQUERYSUSPEND message anyway.

Thanks - I've added that into the bug report for the dev's to check

Regards,

ehat

[ehathgepiurhe]

Ok, bLight's response to bug #326 was:

The problem may be with S3 standby killing off Direct3D resources used by Haali and MadVR.

Windows 7 (because of Aero) is better at restoring the Direct3D resources than XP, I don't believe I can fix this, only Madshi or Haali can.

[jsmooth]

Thanks. My batch file is working great. Normally I had to reboot every couple of weeks due to memory issues but since stopping/restarting ZP pre/post standby that issue seems to have gone away as well. It's also convenient if you press power off accidentally you have 5 seconds to change your mind and if you pause you also get a warning. No point in paying for a Windows 7 license to fix this minor issue.