Losing time when watching videos fullscreen on my old CRT TV.

[antdude]

Hello.

How come my PC/Windows' clock loses a few seconds per minute (seems to pause about every four or five seconds for about a half of a second) when I use CRT TV clone and watching videos fullscreen on my old 20" CRT TV (from 1996)? If I am not watching videos on it or use single display mode to my DVI/VGA 19" LCD monitor (1280x1024) with videos, then I have no problems.

I used ATI Catalyst suite display drivers (v9.7 and v10.12) to clone to my old 20" CRT TV to show videos fullscreen. I am using an old updated Windows XP Pro. SP3, 2+ years old ATI Radeon 4870 video card (512 MB of RAM), Intel quad-core systems, etc.

What's up with that and how do I fix it? Thank you in advance.

[caveman-jim]

Why do you think this is a Catalyst driver problem?

use an internet time source for time synchronization - http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d....mspx?mfr=true

Use the 0.pool.ntp.org server as your time source.

[antdude]

Why do you think this is a Catalyst driver problem?

use an internet time source for time synchronization - http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d....mspx?mfr=true

Use the 0.pool.ntp.org server as your time source.

Because it ONLY happens when I use clone setup to my CRT TV with fullscreen videos. I already am using Windows XP's Internet time synchronization to its listed NTP servers. I even hacked the registry value to do it every 30 minutes, but I still lose a lot of minutes.

[Mystik]

what kind of videos are you watching?

what player are you using?

does the same thing happen when you flip screens (CRT main, LCD clone)?

[antdude]

what kind of videos are you watching?

what player are you using?

does the same thing happen when you flip screens (CRT main, LCD clone)?

DVB Viewers (TE and Pro.) and K-Lite Codec Mega Pack's Media Player Classic Home Cinema so far. Mostly MPEG-2 (.MPG) and .TS videos. I also watch other formats like MKV, AVI, FLV, etc.

[Mystik]

DVB Viewers (TE and Pro.) and K-Lite Codec Mega Pack's Media Player Classic Home Cinema so far. Mostly MPEG-2 (.MPG) and .TS videos. I also watch other formats like MKV, AVI, FLV, etc.

have you tried using a different codec pack?
i'm pointing towards CCCP.

K-Lite, now-a-days, seems to be causing more issues than anything when
playing back video files.

i would recommend uninstalling k-lite and giving cccp a try to see if it has any
effect.

http://www.cccp-project.net/

(i don't use any codec packs myself, but i recommend CCCP to people who
want a quick way to have the ability to playback practically everything today).

[antdude]

have you tried using a different codec pack?
i'm pointing towards CCCP.

K-Lite, now-a-days, seems to be causing more issues than anything when
playing back video files.

i would recommend uninstalling k-lite and giving cccp a try to see if it has any
effect.

http://www.cccp-project.net/

(i don't use any codec packs myself, but i recommend CCCP to people who
want a quick way to have the ability to playback practically everything today).

Hmm, if I didn't have any codecs, then how would I play my videos?

VideoLAN Client's Media Player v1.1.7 doesn't install codecs and it had the same problem. Also, DVB Viewer uses CyberLink's PowerDVD 7's decoders instead of others.

[antdude]

Maybe it's not video related.

I still see time losses even without playing fullscreen videos. Hmm!

[Mystik]

Hmm, if I didn't have any codecs, then how would I play my videos?

VideoLAN Client's Media Player v1.1.7 doesn't install codecs and it had the same problem. Also, DVB Viewer uses CyberLink's PowerDVD 7's decoders instead of others.

i mean, CCCP is also a codec pack, but it installs only what's needed for
today's videos. k-lite is almost the same thing, but it seems to install an
unnecessary amount of extra codecs for those videos that may have been
made 15 years ago using a codec built into win95.

when using VLC, are you disallowing it to use any of the codecs already
installed?

i'm finding this intriguing because i've never seen this happen before.

as a diagnostic measure, i would try disabling your soundcard in devmgr and
seeing if it still does the slow down.

[antdude]

i mean, CCCP is also a codec pack, but it installs only what's needed for
today's videos. k-lite is almost the same thing, but it seems to install an
unnecessary amount of extra codecs for those videos that may have been
made 15 years ago using a codec built into win95.

when using VLC, are you disallowing it to use any of the codecs already
installed?

i'm finding this intriguing because i've never seen this happen before.

as a diagnostic measure, i would try disabling your soundcard in devmgr and
seeing if it still does the slow down.

I did notice playing VLC with fullscreen videos, its audio pauses/skips every other seconds. Maybe that is related?

I will try disabling the onboard audio later with clone to CRT TV.

[antdude]

... as a diagnostic measure, i would try disabling your soundcard in devmgr and seeing if it still does the slow down.

Hmm disabling onboard audio requires me to reboot which I don't want to do that yet. I tried testing with muted audio in my player and same results.

I can tell you on my other system, I did use Creative Audigy 2 ZS sound card and remember having this problem too.

[Mystik]

hmm.

i'm linking a program i'd like you to run.
run it with nothing going on for a moment, then start playing back a video.

DPC Latency Checker

[antdude]

hmm.

i'm linking a program i'd like you to run.
run it with nothing going on for a moment, then start playing back a video.

DPC Latency Checker

I hope I am doing this right.

I started this program with a clone of my desktop to CRT TV (640x480). Green and low results. Then, I started up a fullscreen MPEG-2 HD video. Then, things shot up with yellow and red.

I stopped after a few seconds with enough datas. I exited dpclat.exe and put my display back to single display to my 19" LCD monitor (1280x1024) only. I repeated the tests, but they appeared to be similiar: http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/3...gmpeg2vide.gif and
http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/3854/...gmpeg2vide.gif ...

What do you think?

[Galmok]

Do what the DPC Latency suggestion box tells you. :-/

Disable drivers to see if the problem disappears. Something low-level is using too much time in an interrupt. This causes timer-interrupts to be missed and hence your clock is missing its ticks, causing it to slow down.

I had a similar (possible same) issue on my old windows xp and I gave up searching for the malfunctioning device. I booted in my, at the time, experimental Vista64 setup and haven't really used xp since. :-/

If you find the culprit, please let us know what it was. Maybe the same thing that made my xp unusable.

[antdude]

Do what the DPC Latency suggestion box tells you. :-/

Disable drivers to see if the problem disappears. Something low-level is using too much time in an interrupt. This causes timer-interrupts to be missed and hence your clock is missing its ticks, causing it to slow down.

I had a similar (possible same) issue on my old windows xp and I gave up searching for the malfunctioning device. I booted in my, at the time, experimental Vista64 setup and haven't really used xp since. :-/

If you find the culprit, please let us know what it was. Maybe the same thing that made my xp unusable.

Ugh, this will be a pain. So many hardwares, drivers, and softwares. The thing is I don't have this problme in single display mode, but do have problems in dual display setup (clone)? Does clone setup use more power/resources or something? http://zimage.com/~ant/antfarm/about/computers.txt has my detailed custom built computer specifications (Windows primary one).

After testing a few things, playing music and WAV files don't show yellow and red bars but all the same players' videos do.

[antdude]

It looks like I isolated down to more. It seems like DVI setup and has nothing to do with clone fullscreen video on TV. If I use DVI+VGA adapter + VGA cables setup through my old four ports OmniCube KVM (from Y2K with its cables), then no time losses. This doesn't make any sense to me! What is different with DVI and VGA cables and its connectors+DVI adapter? Does DVI have something to tell my computer's timer or something?

Also, this is with a 19" Samsung 931BF LCD monitor (1280x1024) with both DVI and VGA ports on its back. I even tried unplugging VGA cable, switching to another DVI cable, and same problem. Ugh.

FYI, it is not onboard audio since I disabled it, rebooted (required as it told me), and played more fullscreen videos to CRT TV.

[kn00tcn]

the time messing up is a side effect of some huge bottleneck, which you're seeing in dpc latency checker... 2 whole miliseconds lost every second, which adds up quickly over time

not sure what to do... disable fancy video stuff in CCC, or forced AA, maybe try another driver (possibly as far back as 8.12 or 9.1)

XP itself could be some part of the problem due to how it handles displays & screen rendering vs vista/7

is the cpu throttling itself? check with cpuz or something

am i reading your txt properly, what exactly are you doing to your 6gb ram?
try just 1 stick fully available for windows? or a bios feature that might be called something like 'memory remap'

[antdude]

the time messing up is a side effect of some huge bottleneck, which you're seeing in dpc latency checker... 2 whole miliseconds lost every second, which adds up quickly over time

not sure what to do... disable fancy video stuff in CCC, or forced AA, maybe try another driver (possibly as far back as 8.12 or 9.1)

XP itself could be some part of the problem due to how it handles displays & screen rendering vs vista/7

is the cpu throttling itself? check with cpuz or something

am i reading your txt properly, what exactly are you doing to your 6gb ram?
try just 1 stick fully available for windows? or a bios feature that might be called something like 'memory remap'

Yes, I have 6 GB of RAM. On the other system, it was 2 GB and without RAM disk cache software so I highly doubt it is a memory issue.

As for CPU throttling, I did change from "minimal power management" to "always on" but that did not help. Is there something where else to check for it? Anyways, here's CPUZ v1.57: http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/50/cpuz157.gif

I am still puzzled on this DVI losing time and not VGA. It just doesn't make any sense to me. Is DVI software dependent or something?

[kn00tcn]

what about different 'output modes' for the video player, for example here's MPC's:


the player needs to be restarted when these are changed

does ati still have theater mode or something, where when you play a video (at least if it's hardware accelerated, like overlay output mode) it would be displayed full screen on the secondary monitor?

check options like that with dpc checker opened

[antdude]

what about different 'output modes' for the video player, for example here's MPC's:


the player needs to be restarted when these are changed

does ati still have theater mode or something, where when you play a video (at least if it's hardware accelerated, like overlay output mode) it would be displayed full screen on the secondary monitor?

check options like that with dpc checker opened

I can try fiddling with them, but DVB Viewers did not have those video settings. I do use CyberLink decoders in them. MPC uses overlay mixer.

Yes, to ATI's theater mode or something for v9.7 and v11.12 suite drivers. Why do you say that?

I noticed no time losses if fullscreen video is in pause mode during DVI clone fullscreen setup.

http://pastebin.com/nfAG7kt9 for my ATI event logs. I don't know if those are good or bad.

So far, DVI + video (no need to go fullscreen) = time losses. It makes no sense why VGA doesn't have this problem!

[antdude]

My test results so far ...

Playing videos in DVI slows down clock/time.

When playing videos:
DVI + CRT TV clone = slow down
DVI only = slow down
VGA = no problems

Players:
-DVB Viewer TE and Pro
-K-Lite Codec's Mega Pack's MPC-HC
-VLC (pauses in DVI with MP4, but not VGA)

Tried, but didn't help/work/fix:
Disabled onboard audio, both onboard networks, and both PCI HDTV tuner cards.
Played audio only showed no problems.
Another DVI cable.
Disconnected VGA cable.

[Mystik]

wow, i'm glad i got the ball rolling on this one.

although this is an entirely weird problem.

i know it's not an XP issue as i've never encountered this when i was using
XP (basically the same hardware, i only jumped from XP to W7 a few months
after W7 was out).

what kind of monitor is it?
and, as a long shot, do you have another DVI cable to try?

output settings, codec settings, etc., i don't believe will affect this issue.

what drivers are you using?
in CCC, do you have "Alternate DVI operational mode" or "Reduce DVI freq
on high resolution displays" checked or unchecked?

[antdude]

wow, i'm glad i got the ball rolling on this one.

although this is an entirely weird problem.

i know it's not an XP issue as i've never encountered this when i was using
XP (basically the same hardware, i only jumped from XP to W7 a few months
after W7 was out).

what kind of monitor is it?
and, as a long shot, do you have another DVI cable to try?

output settings, codec settings, etc., i don't believe will affect this issue.

what drivers are you using?
in CCC, do you have "Alternate DVI operational mode" or "Reduce DVI freq
on high resolution displays" checked or unchecked?

Yes, I have another DVI cable and already tried replacing it as shown in my last reply's test results.

I actually tried CCC's setting for DVI I swapped the defaults options, stretch/centering options, etc. None of them helped/fixed.

I doubt it is codec settings and output settings since VLC v1.1.7 doesn't have and use them and showed the same problem.

Does ATI video driver have acceleration options?

FYI:
I use an over four years old Samsung 931BF 19" LCD monitor only has VGA and DVI only (both connected at the same time [already tried disconnecting VGA for DVI test, and I tell my video driver/monitor to switch between them -- most of the times it is VGA, but newer video driver won't let me use VGA with CRT anymore).

My over two years old video card is a MSI R4870-T2D512 OC Radeon HD 4870 512 MB (S-video+composite cables and adapter connected to Toshiba W-627 VCR to a January 1996 20" Sharp CRT TV). According to
http://us.msi.com/index.php?func=pro...0&prod_no=1509 ...

[Mystik]

Yes, I have another DVI cable and already tried replacing it as shown in my last reply's test results.

ehe, sorry -- i sort of skimmed through the replies and didn't see that part.

also, i see from the first post you've said you've used both 9.7s and 10.12s..
have you tried any from the 8 series?

i have a 4870 as well and have used it back when i was still using WinXP, too,
but i never had this problem. connected via DVI and HDMI for my TV.

what.. motherboard are you using?

[antdude]

ehe, sorry -- i sort of skimmed through the replies and didn't see that part.

also, i see from the first post you've said you've used both 9.7s and 10.12s..
have you tried any from the 8 series?

i have a 4870 as well and have used it back when i was still using WinXP, too,
but i never had this problem. connected via DVI and HDMI for my TV.

what.. motherboard are you using?

No for v8, but isn't that too old? I do play computer games and I don't think the newer games will work on that old version. v9.7 had problems with the newer games like LEGO Batman.

http://zimage.com/~ant/antfarm/about/computers.txt for my detailed computer setup (primary).

[Mystik]

hmm, alright. i see your motherboard there.
i was hoping there was a download for the manual so i could take a look at
what BIOS options there are, but they aren't clearly showing if it's available
or not on the EVGA website.

when you have the chance, could you check if you have (and you should,
with an X58 board) something called HPET. it's usually enable/disable and has
the option of 32/64bit.

if it's enabled, disable it.

[antdude]

hmm, alright. i see your motherboard there.
i was hoping there was a download for the manual so i could take a look at
what BIOS options there are, but they aren't clearly showing if it's available
or not on the EVGA website.

when you have the chance, could you check if you have (and you should,
with an X58 board) something called HPET. it's usually enable/disable and has
the option of 32/64bit.

if it's enabled, disable it.

Manual: http://www.evga.com/support/manuals/...32-BL-E758.pdf and searching HPET showed only glossary as the hit. I will check later when I do a reboot (don't feel like doing that right now). I hope I can find it (so many options when I saw CMOS heh).

[antdude]

... when you have the chance, could you check if you have (and you should,
with an X58 board) something called HPET. it's usually enable/disable and has
the option of 32/64bit.

if it's enabled, disable it.

OK, I found HPET when I rebooted into CMOS. I disabled it since it was enabled. I also changed my KVM to a two ports to see if that helps. Both did not fix it.

I am changing the CMOS setting back later when I reboot again.

[kn00tcn]

wait did you ever try without a KVM, just the 2 monitors alone?

[antdude]

wait did you ever try without a KVM, just the 2 monitors alone?

Uh, isn't my disconnected/unplugged VGA cable from the video card and connected/plugged only DVI connection enough?

Anyways, I tried moving VGA cable to my video card to bypass the KVM. I retested and got the same results as I expected.

[Mystik]

alright, time to figure out what's causing this.

this is a more in-depth latency monitor -- i had forgotten about this until now.
i usually only use the one i linked above, so this one sort of sat in my tools.

Resplendance Latency Monitor 2.02

it doesn't start automatically like DPC does, but all you'll have to do is click
the "play" button to start monitoring. the rest of the tabs are sort of self
explanitory.

[antdude]

alright, time to figure out what's causing this.

this is a more in-depth latency monitor -- i had forgotten about this until now.
i usually only use the one i linked above, so this one sort of sat in my tools.

Resplendance Latency Monitor 2.02

it doesn't start automatically like DPC does, but all you'll have to do is click
the "play" button to start monitoring. the rest of the tabs are sort of self
explanitory.

Hmm, it won't let me run it due to "LatMon.exe - Entry Point Not Found." "The procedure entry point GetProcessIdOfThread could not be located in the dynamic link library kernel32.dll." error. http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon and http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon_os say Vista and higher.

[Mystik]

Hmm, it won't let me run it due to "LatMon.exe - Entry Point Not Found." "The procedure entry point GetProcessIdOfThread could not be located in the dynamic link library kernel32.dll." error. http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon and http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon_os say Vista and higher.

damn, of course.
this would've worked well -- it displays what drivers are causing high latency.
i didn't know it didn't work on winxp. i guess, that would've been too easy.

i'm running out of ideas here.

[antdude]

damn, of course.
this would've worked well -- it displays what drivers are causing high latency.
i didn't know it didn't work on winxp. i guess, that would've been too easy.

i'm running out of ideas here.

Oh well, thanks anyways. I will keep following up with new test results. For now, I am taking a break.

[kn00tcn]

this monitor is free? i think i remember seeing a payware (with trial) latency monitor that's also powerful, but i dont remember the name or link or if it runs on xp either

although, in xp with my agp card, i remember running some app where you can change the amount of time different devices take up... like agp would be 255 or was it 230, ethernet would be like 20, sound familiar to anyone?

[Mystik]

this monitor is free? i think i remember seeing a payware (with trial) latency monitor that's also powerful, but i dont remember the name or link or if it runs on xp either

although, in xp with my agp card, i remember running some app where you can change the amount of time different devices take up... like agp would be 255 or was it 230, ethernet would be like 20, sound familiar to anyone?

yes, the monitor is free for private use. (the ones i've linked).

and you might be thinking about the PCI Latency Tool?

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=951

[antdude]

yes, the monitor is free for private use. (the ones i've linked).

and you might be thinking about the PCI Latency Tool?
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=951

Does this work for newer hardwares like PCIE? That tool is old from 2005.

[kn00tcn]

indeed i am, so what if there's some setting either in bios or with a newer app that can adjust a similar type of timing that could possibly affect the weird bottleneck

[friskyolive]

I noticed in VLC Media Player, that you can speed up/slow down video speed with a click of a button; not sure if it was already tried with you, but it'll work

[antdude]

Disabling all Windows XP's display/video accelerations seems to fix it. At the same time, videos won't play or play badly, performance is bad, etc. Slow downs are still there, but a way slower rate.

Also, it is not related to videos too since I saw the slowdowns in other places like watching graphic demos. And yes, I still have this problem. :P Now, I don't see any pauses with VLC v2.0.3 even with fullscreen TV.

It is interesting to see DVI affecting time a lot and not old school VGA.

Anyways, I started a new thread in http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?p=1337032751 since this old one is too long and confusing (already narrowed down a bit too).