MadVR HTPC

[mechman]

Anyone here build one of these? I’m thinking about doing it just to see what it does/how it works and I’d love advice/input. Specifically, what video card would be the minimum needed to use DTM? I know that a quad core processor is needed. Does it have to be Intel or can I go with AMD? Any advice on keeping it quiet? I’d liquid cool the CPU, do you need to do the same for the GPU? And what about power supplies?

 

[ddude003]

Hey @mechman, I was just looking at MadVR the other day... I downloaded MadVR and Kodi and both install and seem to run... I have yet to config and test that they are both working correctly together on my PC... Seems like a steep learning curve... There are AMD dlls in the download package however I am using my Intel i7 de-lid build with Asus Nvidia 1080ti GFX card to start with... I am pretty sure this is a bit of overkill but its what I already have and I don't know what the minimum specs are for MadVR... If you go with liquid cooling with the CPU you will still need fans for the radiator... I have found that Noctua's fans are pretty quiet... I have had good luck with Corsair case, memory and power supplies and Asus mother boards and GFX cards... I will try and answer more of your questions in the coming days... Got a lot more reading to do...

 

[mechman]

Sounds like we’re in the same boat!

 

[mechman]

I went and looked at graphics card prices yesterday - . That right there may put this project on hold! I’m going to keep an eye out for a bargain but the price of a MadVR compatible card with HDMI 2.1 port is crazy right now! That alone is going to be like 50% of the cost or more.

ddude003- let us know when you start messing around with yours. And do you have an HDFury device per chance?

 

[ddude003]

Since we started a trade war with china and russia many computer parts components have sky rocketed as has everything else... So, yea it is a bad time to build or buy computers now... Did I really read that only Nvidia 30xx series GFX cards supports HDMI 2.1... Ouch... I guess I lucked out building my rig a couple of years ago... And my GFX cards do only HDMI 2.0 4k @ 60 fps... I bought them to do massively parallel processing of financial time series data... Re-tasking them to play with MadVR seems like a no-brainer... Except getting up to speed on Kodi and MadVR is going to burn some 1st generation gray matter... And, no, I don't have an HDFury device...

Did you find a reference to the suggested minimum specs for a MadVR HTPC somewhere?

 

[mechman]

That massive thread over at AVS is where I’ve been gleaning information but some of it is buried pretty deep. I’m sure there’s got to be write-up some where. I’m just feeling it out at the moment but I’m going back and forth with it. One moment I’m ready to give up on it and the next moment I just remind myself the cost of a Lumagen and delve back into it.

 

[ddude003]

I saw those threads... A lot to digest... My first pass on Kodi seems to fail reading/playing a standard 1080p HD DVD while VLC and Windoz Media Player reads/plays the DVD just fine... Kodi seems to bomb about 90 seconds in... FBI warning and about 5 seconds of a studio logo... Boom... Waisted 3 hours scratching my head on that one... Why does this simple stuff have to be so messed up on Windoz... Will try again tomorrow...

 

[mechman]

That’s what keeps pushing me away. It does seem like it’s a lot of work just to get it right.

I found an “affordable” setup that was posted on reddit for $160. The graphics card needs to be updated and from that thread 3 years ago there’s a link to a graphics card that cost less than $100. It’s now $360… I may just stick a pin in this.

 

[Travis Ballstadt]

I've decided to just hold out on any sort of solution like this and just upgrade the projector later to one of the newer JVCs with DTM. Seems like a lot of money (and effort) for an interim fix that would be unnecessary with the next projector upgrade, when I could just be saving up for the next projector upgrade.

 

[ddude003]

I tried the old version of Kodi with MadVR already installed, Kodi 17.6... It bombs a lot... Usually near or at the end of a ripped video... Yes, I tried both Windoz Media player and VLC on the same videos without issue... And randomly when moving around thru the menus looking at various settings... Not actually changing anything... Just looking... Also tried a new version of Kodi without MadVR and had a similar poor experience with bombings randomly... I am beginning to feel like a crash test dummy so giving up for today... Not sure if I will continue on tomorrow...

 

[AudiocRaver]

I read a little about MadVR last night for the first time, and wondered if someone had sneaked some MadHatter Mushrooms into my soda. This is for real, right?

 

[mechman]

I've decided to just hold out on any sort of solution like this and just upgrade the projector later to one of the newer JVCs with DTM. Seems like a lot of money (and effort) for an interim fix that would be unnecessary with the next projector upgrade, when I could just be saving up for the next projector upgrade.

The more I think openly about this, the more I draw the relatively same conclusion. The only difference between you and I is that my replacement will not be a projector. My screen is only 100” so it will be replaced by an OLED. And I think LLDV does the job nicely so there really is no need for a change until then.

I tried the old version of Kodi with MadVR already installed, Kodi 17.6... It bombs a lot... Usually near or at the end of a ripped video... Yes, I tried both Windoz Media player and VLC on the same videos without issue... And randomly when moving around thru the menus looking at various settings... Not actually changing anything... Just looking... Also tried a new version of Kodi without MadVR and had a similar poor experience with bombings randomly... I am beginning to feel like a crash test dummy so giving up for today... Not sure if I will continue on tomorrow...

I’ve run Kodi on my Shield Pro without a hiccup. Is it not stable on a HTPC? As I stated above, I think I’m out on this project as it seems too deep of a hole.

I read a little about MadVR last night for the first time, and wondered if someone had sneaked some MadHatter Mushrooms into my soda. This is for real, right?

It’s for real and Sonnie would never slip any of his stash into your Fresca!

 

[ddude003]

I fell down this rabbit hole while looking at calibrating my new PJ... Along the way, after looking at various test files and photos used to determine if the imaging was within reason, I decided that the new PJ was about as good as it could be... Maybe better... And along the way I ran across these helper hardware boxes and software like MadVR doing some extra good tone mapping... And since I already had a PC that could do some heavy lifting GFX and number crunching I thought what the heck... I have used XBMC a bit in the past and have had no issues, along with Windoz Media player and VLC... In fact, in the past 3 years I have never had any apps crash and burn like Kodi does... So I don't have any idea what or why would cause the issues Kodi does on my system... MadVR does seem to run fine but I really don't want to mess around like I have been trying to get it to work with Kodi... So... I'm done... Probably would have never really used the combination anyway as I have a full 4K UltraHD HDR video solution already and everything seems to be wonderfully vivid... Good luck to all in your quest to find AV NIRVANA... I think I have already found mine...

And no @AudiocRaver... No mushrooms here... Well except Shiitake...

Late update: I even managed to get Kodi (no MadVR) to crash on my MacBook so bad I had to reboot the MacBook...

 

[littlegandhi1199]

I may dig up my system specs. It has been very unstable for me however I was on Windows 7 at the time but I put many many hours in it.
Basically was debugging it all through Game of Thrones 4k HDR Season 1 - 4
What is your OS?

 

[littlegandhi1199]

Whatever the case if anyone pursues this further your best bet will be with Kodi DSPlayer 17.7

Kodi 17.7 DSPlayer x64 (2020 build) is a forum thread on kodi's forums with the releveant links
and there is a video of a guy installing it that was posted recently he said it's been very stable for him at least as far as tone mapping goes.
youtube.../watch?v=MGrmED0144A
Installing Kodi DSPlayer 17.7 (2020) and madVR HDR Tone Mapping


But if you wanted HDR native passthrough you would tweak MadVR settings after that. Good luck

 

[mechman]

Thanks for the info littleghandi! I know that I’m not gonna mess with this. I just wanted to check it out and see how it compared to LLDV but the cost and the headache of setting up has forced me to skip it. I’m very happy with what LLDV delivers to my projector.

 

[ddude003]

Thanks for the above information @littlegandhi1199 running Windoz 10 with all updated online patches... My 2 year old pc build is an Asus mother board with an i7700k de-lid, 16gb RAM with a pair of Asus Poseidon Nvidia 1080ti GFX processors... A bit of overkill for Kodi + MadVR... Reinstalling your suggested Kodi 17.7 DSPlayer x64 (2020) build only seems to make things worse on my system... Kodi 17.6 at least bombed at the end of a video... The new Kodi 17.7 bombs about 5 seconds in... Tried SLI and not... The videos work on Windoz media player and VLC and the system is very stable running R+CUDA and Lisp for other processor+GPU intense workloads... I have a full 4K UltraHD HDR video solution already so I'm done with Kodi and MadVR...

 

[Michael Boeker]

My current HTCP is now 5 years old and has a liquid cooled CPU and GPU. The GPU is a 1080 Ti. In February I reached 12 years of using madVR on an HTPC, but probably won't be using it anymore going forward. JRiver Media Center now has their own JRiver Video Renderer (JRVR) that does dynamic tone mapping and is much easier to use and configure. It works on Windows, MAC, and LInux. For anyone wanting to get into tone mapping, I would recommend it vs madVR. It doesn't currently support 3D or 1D LUT's, but it was stated April 2 that this feature will be added next.

JRVR has much lower requirements than madVR and has even been able to be used on a Raspberry Pi.

 

[ddude003]

Thanks for the heads up @Michael Boeker ... It looks like the JRiver Video Renderer (JRVR) uses the excellent libplacebo rendering library for all heavy lifting... Libplacebo being from VideoLAN / VLC and includes Dynamic HDR tone mapping... VLC has been my goto cross platform player for years... “We keep moving forward, opening new doors and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” or around in circles...

 

[mechman]

Very interesting!

 

[mechman]

With the price of GPUs finally dropping back to MSRP levels (or lower) by the end of this year, I’m going to have to revisit this then.

 

[natty]

Wow, I had no idea jRiver was getting into the dynamic tone mapping game. But it makes sense. Thanks for posting this!

I've been hesitating to go with madVR since it would mean building a purpose built windows pc from scratch, and especially when it comes to video cards, that's no small investment these days.....all for something that I might find underwhelming or overly complex for everyday use.

I'm assuming the jriver forums are the best place to learn more?

My current HTCP is now 5 years old and has a liquid cooled CPU and GPU. The GPU is a 1080 Ti. In February I reached 12 years of using madVR on an HTPC, but probably won't be using it anymore going forward. JRiver Media Center now has their own JRiver Video Renderer (JRVR) that does dynamic tone mapping and is much easier to use and configure. It works on Windows, MAC, and LInux. For anyone wanting to get into tone mapping, I would recommend it vs madVR. It doesn't currently support 3D or 1D LUT's, but it was stated April 2 that this feature will be added next.

JRVR has much lower requirements than madVR and has even been able to be used on a Raspberry Pi.

View attachment 50969

 

[mechman]

Wow, I had no idea jRiver was getting into the dynamic tone mapping game. But it makes sense. Thanks for posting this!

I've been hesitating to go with madVR since it would mean building a purpose built windows pc from scratch, and especially when it comes to video cards, that's no small investment these days.....all for something that I might find underwhelming or overly complex for everyday use.

I'm assuming the jriver forums are the best place to learn more?

There’s a ton of info over at the JRiver forums on this. I’ve done a little initial reading there but haven’t delved too deep into it. I’m planning on waiting until GPUs drop, which is supposed to happen in the next few months.

 

[VoidX]

I've been hesitating to go with madVR since it would mean building a purpose built windows pc from scratch

Only upscaling takes up entire high-end video-cards, but if you pass on it (it doesn't make that much of a difference from a distance with moving picture anyway), you can use the best features, like HDR to SDR conversion on a 10 year old potato like I do.

 

[ddude003]

What about HDMI 2.1 ??? So far as I can tell only Nvidia 30xx series GFX cards supports HDMI 2.1... Yea, those aren't cheap...