128 replies to this topic

[Olfason]

I have a qhd (2560x1440 pixel) resolution display with an AMD A10 +16GB RAM. If i use Fullscreen navigation, for example to scroll playlist, there is a delay more than 1 second betwen changes (up, down, ecc). To eliminate the problem I have to reduce the "Navigation Screen Coverage (50-100%)" to <=87% Increasing even just 1 pixlel over fullhd resolution generates the same delay! useless "disable Scroll Acceleration" (Also in zoom player v12.1 b3).

 

...no problem in main fullscreen navigation...

 

ciaooo

[Prodromaki]

Bloody hell... I hadn't seen that option. Same resolution over here(qhd). Problem goes away in my case, if the percentage is kept under 63%. At exactly 63% and above, it skips frames like crazy. Great observation mate, ty. I hope this helps the devs pinpoint the problem.

[sheppaul]

In my case, it's about 85%. I'm using 4K resolution.

[bLight]

Can you check if you get these same slowdowns when using the playlist navigation interface instead of the file browsing navigation interface?
This may help me determine if the issue is with the graphic rendering or something in the file browsing code.

One more thing to check, under "Adv. Options / Interface / Fullscreen Navigation / Customization", do the following:
Font effect = disabled.

Does that make a difference?

[Prodromaki]

Font effect doesn't seem to make any difference whatsoever. The playlist navigation has a 1 sec delay in my case at 100%. It isn't spiking constantly like the file nav though(which, again, it completely freezes/refuse to update the interface until I release the up/down arrow). Just a delay. It also fixes completely when I adjust the coverage percentage.

 

P.S. I tried enabling the thumbnail scraper to make zp act more like kodi. But no thumbnails appear in the folders I added to media scraper(just empty rectangles). Is there a chance you could make file nav work with thumbnails, like windows file browser etc in the future? I have my PC connected to a projector and it would really help.

[bLight]

Prodromaki:

What do you mean by "The playlist navigation has a 1 sec delay in my case at 100%"?
When is the delay?
100% of what?


Check out the ZP youtube channel, it shows how to setup for scraping:
https://www.youtube....chnology/videos
There is also this short article which is probably faster:
http://inmatrix.com/...ascraping.shtml

I wont be converting the file browser to thumbnail mode, sorry.

[Prodromaki]

" What do you mean by "The playlist navigation has a 1 sec delay in my case at 100%"? "

 

100% full screen coverage.

 

"I wont be converting the file browser to thumbnail mode, sorry."

 

I meant an option to display items the way media library does, when it works the way it is supposed to work. Why must I add a folder in media library first to have it displayed in thumbnail mode? What is the point?

 

P.S. This is what Full Screen: Thumb View is supposed to be doing, right? Capture a thumbnail off of a video at the 10% position and show it instead of just it's filename/title.

 

[Olfason]

a video of the issue:
qhd resolution, fullscreen navigation delay more than 1 second betwen changes (up, down, ecc). .no problem in main fullscreen navigation...
no problem everywere when "Navigation Screen Coverage (50-100%)" set <=87%.

[deus-ex]

Greetings everyone,

 

this is my first post here. I hope it is useful to you including bLight, author of the great Zoom Player.

 

Problem:

I'm experiencing the same issue reported by Prodromaki and Olfason. I'm running Windows 10 Pro 64-bit here with a 4K Monitor in 3840x2160 native resolution. I'm a long time user of Zoom Player (Lifetime MAX Edition License) and have not witnessed any playlist stutter issues until recently after updating to the Windows Creators edition.

 

Due to some unsolvable issues after updating my Windows Anniversary to the Creators edition (Soundcard initialization errors, etc.), all thanks to the faulty Creators update, I was forced to do a fresh reinstall using a Creators USB install medium, without keeping any of my previous programs and settings. I spend quite some days to get all my apps, games and settings back to the state previous to the failed Creators update. Thus I can rule out any negative influences from a previous Windows installation, so I guess chances are the stutter issue is related to the Windows Creators release.

 

Investigation:

So today I checked and found the playlist stutter to also occur with theses releases of Zoom Player on Windows Creators Edition:

• ZP MAX v9.5
• ZP MAX v10
• ZP MAX v11
• ZP MAX v11.10
• ZP MAX v12
• ZP MAX v12.7
• ZP MAX v13
• ZP MAX v13.1 beta 4

All these versions (up to v13.0) used to run well for me on the previous Windows editions (XP, 7, 8, 10 pre Creators Edition).

 

Findings:

By trial and error I found out that resizing the windowed playlist to a certain maximum size prevents the stuttering from occurring. Visiting this forum and trying the solution suggested by Olfason I find that setting Navigation Screen Coverage (50-100%) to 58% prevents the stuttering for me on my 3840x2160 screen, anything above 58% will have the stuttering reoccur.

 

An interesting detail I noticed while reading this thread:

 

Olafson reports to set "Navigation Screen Coverage (50-100%)" to <=87% on his 2560x1440 display.

I can set it to <=58% on my 3860x2160 display.

 

 Olafson: 2560 width * 0.87 percent = 2227.2, 1440 height * 0.87 percent= 1252.8

 deus-ex: 3840 width * 0.58 percent = 2227.2, 2160 height * 0.87 percent= 1252.8

 

Could it perhaps be that this 2227,2x1252.8 is the overall resolution limit to prevent the playlist from stuttering, or is it just plain coincidence?

 

However I don't find the "Navigation Screen Coverage (50-100%)" solution quite as satisfying because it is applied both to full screen (good) and windowed (bad) playlists. The ability to have one value for "Navigation Screen Coverage (50-100%)" full screen only, and one for windowed only, would improve this option quite a lot.

 

Solution:

Until this issue is hopefully being solved properly (if possible at all) I can present you with a different solution which I find to be quite satisfying. You might find so, too:

 

I happen to use Origin's game client to play certain games they provide. A couple month ago, right after an Origin client update was finished, its main menu font changed from well readable to tiny, hardly readable, yet the sizing of the interface remained unaltered. I could not find a fix for this on my own, so I browsed the Internet and found this: http://answers.ea.co...547545#U5547545

 

Using this fix results in a again readable menu, yet the text can appear a bit blurred, depending on your display resolution and the scaling factor setup in your Windows monitor settings. For example, my display resolution is 3840x2160 and my Windows scale and layout factor is set to 225%.

 

After using this High DPI-resolution fix for the Origin game client successfully, I figured it might be working for other applications having similar display issues. I found it to be working for some though not all of them, which is due to the different ways applications are programmed and compiled. Regarding Zoom Player however this solution works. My main attempt was trying to fix the unreadable Custom Media Key File dialog, it turned out though that this also fixes the high CPU consumption with the playlist for me.

 

Prove:

The two screenshots below show Zoom Player with the same playlist content and the Custom Media Key File dialog opened. Applying the High DPI-resolution fix rendered the Custom Media Key File dialog readable again for me. Notice the also increased size of the Zoom Player interface, which to my pleasant surprise also fixed the playlist stuttering, both for windowed and full screen mode.

 

1. Before applying the High DPI-resolution fix

 

2. After applying the High DPI-resolution fix

 

How to apply the High DPI-resolution fix:

Make sure Zoom Player is not running before applying this fix.

1. Download and extract the attached ZIP archive (see below).
2. Copy the file Zplayer.exe.manifest into your Zoom Player application folder.
3. Add the content of the file PreferExternalManifest.reg to your Windows registry (press ENTER or double-click on the .reg-file).

Attached Files

•  deus-ex_Zoom_Player_High_DPI-resolution_fix.zip   876bytes   4 downloads

Edited by deus-ex, 04 May 2017 - 02:35 PM.

[boogafreak]

That's a deep post, thanks and welcome!

bLight will read it in a day or 2 and respond too

 

Booga.

[Shadrach]

I have the same issue as the others here. Especially noticeable scrolling through folders with a lot of files using the full-screen file navigator. I usually have my navigator coverage set at 97%. After a bit of fiddling, my *magic number* is 76%. Anything more and the file browser lags, while smooth as at 76%. Running at 1440p with 150% DPI scaling.

 

I had a look at the DPI scaling fix above. When the DpiAware setting in the external manifest is set to "false", this tells Windows the application is not DpiAware. Not really sure on the details what that implies in practice though. The current setting of this value in zplayer.exe is "True". I think it means that it's telling Windows "Yes I am aware of DPI scaling so let me handle it myself".

 

Some documentation, note the improvements in DPI scaling in the Creators Update:

https://msdn.microso...p/aa374191.aspx

https://blogs.window...reators-update/

 

Zoom player has such a specific usage, that I would think twice about letting the OS scale the application. The "System" scaling setting in Windows 10 causes a lot of blurriness, possibly also in video being played back. In Creators Update there's a new setting "System (Enhanced)" which is a huge improvement, but causes other weird issues with window size.

 

I think DPI related issues is something we have to live with the coming years, as people move to bigger and bigger resolutions and applications get smaller and smaller until they are barely usable. Personally I think it's crazy, 4k monitors are being pushed out to consumers before the OS most people have (Windows) is ready for it, and many applications do not scale at all, causing lots of issues. Of course, Mac's have the whole Retina display thing which is similar, but they also have huge control over how and what applications can run on their OS.

[deus-ex]

Hi Shadrach,

 

thank you for your reply and providing the links, really helpful to me. I wasn't aware of the new options to override the high DPI scaling behaviour on a per application basis, available only with the Windows Creators edition.

 

Activating and setting this to System for Zoom Player provides me with the same result like the High DPI-resolution fix I presented in my previous post above. I also successfully enabled this for the Origin games client, from where the High DPI-resolution fix stems from.

 

 

 

 

 

[Shadrach]

No worries deus-ex, I do find this stuff interesting enough I guess, and also there are so many DPI-related issues for various apps and especially games in Windows I had to do some research.

 

While setting the DPI override to System works and actually fixes the issue with the laggy file-browser interface, it seems to cause other issues such as:

- heavy UI blurriness (unsure if this affects the actual video rendering).

- MadVR exclusive mode seems to be disabled with it on for some reason?

 

Setting DPI override to "System (Enhanced)" looks a lot better for most applications and is recommended to do for basic Windows applications that don't support scaling natively, but for ZP it causes stuff like a really small render window. I am on thin ice here - but it looks like DirectShow (?) is not aware of the actual scaling of the window to a larger size.

 

If you have Win10 CU update try to play with the different settings and post your findings here, if they fix the file browser issue and/or cause other issues. At least while we wait for some input from the devs.

[bLight]

ZP itself is DPI aware, but MS introduced a per-monitor DPI setting that may be affecting ZP negatively.

Can anyone with the file nav not updating correctly while scrolling can confirm if the issue is resolved by enabling the DPI compatibility checkbox?

The dues-ex manifest file disables DPI awareness in ZP and lets window take care of it which can result in blurry text and performance degradation (not video decoding, that should be unaffected).

I'll check the keyboard editor dialog, it's possible I have bugs in it for high-DPI

And I still didn't get a complete debug log so I can see where it may be freezing.

[bLight]

I did a bit more research:
https://blogs.window...reators-update/

And there is a new flag in the manifest that tells windows 10 that ZP is multi-monitor DPI aware.

I uploaded an updated EXE that contains this new flag here:
http://zoomplayer.co...ayer_latest.rar

Since I don't have a 4K monitor to test against, please report if this has any affect on performance (it wont fix the keyboard editor, i'm still looking into that)

[deus-ex]

While setting the DPI override to System works and actually fixes the issue with the laggy file-browser interface, it seems to cause other issues such as:
- heavy UI blurriness (unsure if this affects the actual video rendering).

Unfortunately it does affect the video rendering negatively, the resolution is scaled down accordingly (screenshot1).

1. Zoom Player with Override high DPI scaling set to: System

 

Setting DPI override to "System (Enhanced)" looks a lot better for most applications and is recommended to do for basic Windows applications that don't support scaling natively, but for ZP it causes stuff like a really small render window.

Confirmed, it provides a crisper image of Zoom Player's interface, but the render window does not snap to and scale with the interface accordingly. Also, like I described for the System setting above, this setting will scale the resolution of the render window down (screenshot2).

2. Zoom Player with Override high DPI scaling set to: System [Enhanced]



For reference, this is how the video is represented without overriding the high DPI scaling (screenshot3).

3. Zoom Player with Override high DPI scaling set to: Off

 

If you have Win10 CU update try to play with the different settings and post your findings here, if they fix the file browser issue and/or cause other issues. At least while we wait for some input from the devs.

There are only three different settings available to choose from: Application, System and System (Enhanced). The setting Application does not seem to have any effect on Zoom Player.

Due to the Override high DPI scaling is also affecting the video render window by scaling it down I switched it to off (= default) again.

[Shadrach]

@deus_ex: Very good observation of the actual render res, and good job on the screen shots showing the issues, especially the small render window.

 

I kind of thought the render window was a separate thing controlled by DirectShow or something so it might not be affected by the UI scaling. But if the video is scaled down, it's not good at all.

 

@blight:

I am attaching a debug log. I used the keys arrow up and down to scroll through the file browser, as well as using the scrollbar to do the same. It also hangs when updating the screen using the scrollbar, so that's interesting.

 

Oh and the zplayer_latest you posted does not launch on my system, it complains about side-by-side configuration being wrong.

 

Attached Files

•  Log.zip   23.13KB   1 downloads

[deus-ex]

Can anyone with the file nav not updating correctly while scrolling can confirm if the issue is resolved by enabling the DPI compatibility checkbox?

Please see my previous reply for details.
 

The dues-ex manifest file disables DPI awareness in ZP and lets window take care of it which can result in blurry text and performance degradation (not video decoding, that should be unaffected).

The manifest I presented above does affect the video render negatively, as well. The result is the same like setting the Override high DPI scaling to System (please see my previous post for details).
 

And I still didn't get a complete debug log so I can see where it may be freezing.

Checking back this thread you were asking Prodromaki for the log details. I did ran the debugging release just now. I preset ZP to open the file manager on pressing the ENTER key. Hope this log is of some help to you (see attachment below). Please get back if you require anything else.
 

I uploaded an updated EXE that contains this new flag here:
http://zoomplayer.co...ayer_latest.rar

Since I don't have a 4K monitor to test against, please report if this has any affect on performance (it wont fix the keyboard editor, i'm still looking into that)

I just tried it, it won't run here giving this error message.

Attached Files

•  deus-ex_filenav-debug-log.zip   1.76KB   2 downloads

[bLight]

After more research, I believe you shouldn't override any DPI setting, ZP is already set currently to be DPI Aware.
The only reason I can think of that it may improve scroll performance is that perhaps windows is telling ZP to draw the screen at an actually lower resolution.

However with all the different posts, I'm finding it difficult to track the logs/reports.

I previously asked a question if there's a difference in performance between the file browsing and playlist fullscreen navigation interfaces and I'm not sure I got a clear answer.

Then I asked for a a complete set of log files for people who have freezing (no updates at all) when holding the down arrow key to scroll through the file browser list, please help me sorting this out.

dues-ex:
I fixed the keyboard editor layout issue, that particular dialog wasn't tested in high-DPI mode.

[bLight]

One more setting to test if it impacts performance:
Try enabling the setting "Fullscreen Navigation : Customization > Do not draw the background of inactive navigation text lines".

Let me know if it improves smoothness.