HIGH CPU in WMP 11 playing VC-1 (1080) WMV files

I know it's going to take some CPU to process it,
but the picture is stuttering and jerky, CPU abot 65%
in WMP 11 XP SP3.

If I render and play the same file in Graph Edit, it plays
beautifully and CPU is down to the 30% mark.

I have an Nvidia 8600GT with recent drivers. I know that DVXA could be
a factor, I'm not sure if it's being used or not - How to tell ?
Why is WMP is doing such a poor job ?

Any info appreciated.

Thanks for responding Neil,
n general the files I've been playing are demo's and trailers - some
downloaded fro the MS
HD showcase. Not only do the files play better in Graph Edit, they look
better (clearer) and they're not
stuttering and cpu is WAY down.
I wish I understood what was going on. Perhaps it's a different rendering
mode? But how to tell?
Not much exposed in WMP.
I've got a dual boot setup, also has Vista with WMP 11. On there, they play
acceptably well. Only on XP am I seeing this rendering anomaly.
regards,
Dave


"Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media]" <> wrote in message
news:...
> On Sat, 1 May 2010 14:32:33 -0700, "Dave and Rosanna"
> <> wrote:
>
>>I know it's going to take some CPU to process it,
>>but the picture is stuttering and jerky, CPU abot 65%
>>in WMP 11 XP SP3.
>>
>>If I render and play the same file in Graph Edit, it plays
>>beautifully and CPU is down to the 30% mark.
>>
>>I have an Nvidia 8600GT with recent drivers. I know that DVXA could be
>>a factor, I'm not sure if it's being used or not - How to tell ?
>
>
> You can check if this is on, by heading to Tools -> More Options ->
> Performance; The DXVA (directX video acceleration) is the checkbox at
> the bottom of that tab.
>
>
>>Why is WMP is doing such a poor job ?
>
>
> Displaying the video is only one part of a chain of dependencies.
>
> The large volumes of data have first to get off permanent storage - a
> DVD or CD, or your hard drive. Then it has to move over the system bus
> to the CPU, before heading off to the graphics card.
>
> Any bottleneck in that chain - or unexpected high CPU background
> processes running at the same time (think virus scanners, windows
> update, games, even facebook) - can cause this sort of stutter.
>
> I can't explain why GraphEdit does an apparently better job.
>
> One thing I'd at least check though, is if your hard disk was recently
> defragmented - if not, head seek can cause large delays while the
> drive heads off for the next 20MB of data - up to hundreds of
> milliseconds, and enough to cause the video to stutter noticeably.
>
> HTH
> CHeers - Neil
> ------------------------------------------------
> Digital Media MVP : 2004-2010
> http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs

Yeah I know what you're saying. Sometimes long distance
troubleshooting can lead to an impasse, and understanding and progress
proceed
in slow-motion. . My machine meets the spec,but
I just noticed my Nvidia drivers are at last a year old. I may try updating
them and see whats' what..
I have a second install of XP on the box and it's setup a little
differently.
It has a much more up-to-date driver and WMP 11 installed.
Inside WMP preferences there is a checkbox to use DXVA or not.
With it set there is a slight difference to the good (there is no such
setting in WMP 10
as far as I can see)
On the otherhand, on either XP, using third party Media Player Classic HC,
it will play full
1080p MKV (or MP4) H.264 using about 10% cpu and it's fantastic.
There is a blurb on the MPC site that says for Nviidia adapters it is unable
to accelerate
WMV, but can do H264 just fine. For ATI video cards, it can do both.
According to Nvidia, the 8600GT supports VC-1 acceleration, so as yet I'm
none the wiser on knowing just exactly what leads to the limitation.

I saw this fix, which mention wmp.dll, wmvcore.dll & wmvdmod.dll all
al level 3293. But this fix is from 2005 - I already have SP3.
I downloaded it and installed and one file got updated.
I have these levels now. wmp.dl 4074, wmvcore.dll 4072, wmvdmod.dll 3293
I'm wondering if there might be any further updates laying around for WMP
10?

"Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media]" <> wrote in message
news:...
> I'm not sure what else to add without sitting at the PC ;-)
>
> GraphEdit uses DirectShow decoders to chain playback.
>
> Media player will use DirectShow for most playback - but for WMV
> content it uses an internal shortcut to supposedly improve performance
>
> Does the XP PC meet or exceed the minimum requirements or the
> suggested requirements on this page ?
> http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...se.aspx#sysreq
>
> Vista has a great deal of differences in rendering at the OS level, so
> it's not terribly diagnostic that it plays better on Vista on the same
> physical hardware.
>
> Conversely on one of my PCs with 768MB RAM, vista hogs so many
> resources that even opening documents can bring things to a grinding
> halt.
>
> It's always worth checking your graphics card drivers are bang up to
> date on XP in any case, as that has a strong influence on how much CPU
> is required to get decent playback. They're often overlooked during a
> system reinstall - source the drivers from the video card makers site
> (Nvidia, ATI/AMD or Intel usually) as windows update isn't especially
> up to date on drivers.
>
> HTH
> Cheers - Neil
>
> On Thu, 6 May 2010 17:01:04 -0700, "Dave and Rosanna"
> <> wrote:
>
>>
>>Thanks for responding Neil,
>>n general the files I've been playing are demo's and trailers - some
>>downloaded fro the MS
>>HD showcase. Not only do the files play better in Graph Edit, they look
>>better (clearer) and they're not
>>stuttering and cpu is WAY down.
>>I wish I understood what was going on. Perhaps it's a different rendering
>>mode? But how to tell?
>>Not much exposed in WMP.
>>I've got a dual boot setup, also has Vista with WMP 11. On there, they
>>play
>>acceptably well. Only on XP am I seeing this rendering anomaly.
>>regards,
>>Dave
>>
>>
>>"Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media]" <> wrote in message
>>news:. ..
>>> On Sat, 1 May 2010 14:32:33 -0700, "Dave and Rosanna"
>>> <> wrote:
>>>
>>>>I know it's going to take some CPU to process it,
>>>>but the picture is stuttering and jerky, CPU abot 65%
>>>>in WMP 11 XP SP3.
>>>>
>>>>If I render and play the same file in Graph Edit, it plays
>>>>beautifully and CPU is down to the 30% mark.
>>>>
>>>>I have an Nvidia 8600GT with recent drivers. I know that DVXA could be
>>>>a factor, I'm not sure if it's being used or not - How to tell ?
>>>
>>>
>>> You can check if this is on, by heading to Tools -> More Options ->
>>> Performance; The DXVA (directX video acceleration) is the checkbox at
>>> the bottom of that tab.
>>>
>>>
>>>>Why is WMP is doing such a poor job ?
>>>
>>>
>>> Displaying the video is only one part of a chain of dependencies.
>>>
>>> The large volumes of data have first to get off permanent storage - a
>>> DVD or CD, or your hard drive. Then it has to move over the system bus
>>> to the CPU, before heading off to the graphics card.
>>>
>>> Any bottleneck in that chain - or unexpected high CPU background
>>> processes running at the same time (think virus scanners, windows
>>> update, games, even facebook) - can cause this sort of stutter.
>>>
>>> I can't explain why GraphEdit does an apparently better job.
>>>
>>> One thing I'd at least check though, is if your hard disk was recently
>>> defragmented - if not, head seek can cause large delays while the
>>> drive heads off for the next 20MB of data - up to hundreds of
>>> milliseconds, and enough to cause the video to stutter noticeably.
>>>
>>> HTH
>>> CHeers - Neil
>>> ------------------------------------------------
>>> Digital Media MVP : 2004-2010
>>> http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs
>>
> ------------------------------------------------
> Digital Media MVP : 2004-2010
> http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs