Weirdness in Desktop mode

[AlexWoll]

I'm in Windows XP (RC1 Build 2505) on an AMD 1200 (non-Overclocked) w/512MB RAM and a GeForce2 Pro running the new Detonator4 (v 21.81) and when I go into desktop mode and use hardware blit, almost everything is green and pink. Not exactly the most pleasing of color schemes...

A friend of mine is on a totally different system and is having the same problem.

Alex

[Ampian]

I'm using the less expensive, yet equally troublesome GeForce2 MX 400 chipset based board and V 21.81 drivers. I think the lesson here is to buy a board with the chipset that Milkdrop was written to. Oh well.

[dougieha]

I have the same problem with the green and pink colors. I'm using WinXP Final with a Geforce 2 Ultra (21.81 drivers) with hardware blit on. I'm using version .99g. I have a 1.4 Athlon with 512 MB RAM, if that matters.


Dougieha

[malhaak]

i dont know if ne body has said this yet but its to do with the expected color packing being different that what is being supplied...
if that makes ne sence....

[ExoticMandibles]

I'm using a Geforce 2 MX card, with the current Nvidia drivers (the 21.81 release) under W2K, in 1600x1200x32 bit color. I see the following behaviors when using desktop overlay mode wtih hardware blit:


1) The palette is restricted mostly to medium to bright greens, with a smattering of bright cyan now and then.

2) There seems to be some sort of vertical (!) pseudo-interlacing going on. It depends on what the color is, but in some areas of teh screen every-other-line vertically is a solid color, generally a darker version of the pixels next to it. It doesn't happen everywhere; for instance, the song timer in the lower-left is rendered with none of this funny business. But it happens a lot, and I assure you it's as clear as day.

3) Very likely related to 2) above, Milkdrop renders as if the center of the screen was actually on the right-hand-side. As if my screen were actually 3200x1200, and I could only see the left half. The song title is centered on the middle-right of the screen, and effects that should be centered are way off to the right. And I cannot see at all the preset or FPS text (shown by F4 and F5 respectively).

Switching to 16-bit color fixes 2) and 3), and as per 1) it changes the bright cyan for bright magenta. Playing with the RGB/YUV etc checkboxes doesn't change anything.

I just noticed something new. This only happens in 16-bit mode. There is a sort of tiled overlaid image over the screen... it doesn't obscure the pixels underneath it, it just darkens them. It's 32x32, and looks kinda like a 3D-ish de-maximize box. I'll try and draw it here, each X representing one pixel:

code:


XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

That's about right. Wierd, huh?


Still, I'm really enjoying Milkdrop, and I look forward to the future when it doesn't do this weird stuff.


Cheers,

larry

[malhaak]

hmmm ye i know what yr talking about.... the strange interlasing is caused when the image getting blited is being streached incroectly... and cus the color palet is wrong it is notestable.... mine was doing that... it no longer is... i tweeked it and now have it running correcly except i still beleve that the pulguin is using the wrong color packing on they pixels.... the settings i use... desktop res of 1248x1024 16 bit color (the color setting caused the interlasing thing when set to 32) in the plug-in i use Vid mode: full res a texture size of 512x512 (1024x1024 works but bigger uses too much vid ram and corrupts video display) mesh size 24x18 (i beleve this and texture size combined have something to do with the "interlasing effect" cus when i changed these the size of the interslaing" changed) and max fps unlimited ... and hardware blit is on....... i have a tnt2 ultra on a celery 466....

now for the (sligtly bizzare) explination (i think so neway) why it does this on the nvidia chips and we see no 3dfx chips complaining.... its to do with the expected pixel packing.... and i beleve that the format the Nvidias expect is different ie milk drop is supplying RGB values when it should be using YUV, or BGR (im not sure bout this but i have seen simalar things when i accedently did that while programming some DX games) if so it would be a simple fix... check for a tnt and use a different pixel packing method...



the reason i think that changeing that wont do it is that the mode isnt wrong just the packing order... ie its packing BGR and the card thinks its RGB

[ExoticMandibles]

Originally posted by malhaak
it no longer is... i tweeked it and now have it running correcly except i still beleve that the pulguin is using the wrong color packing on they pixels....

I tried your tweaks, and... well, I'm not sure what happened, but it seems to be using more colors now in 32-bit color mode. It still seems to prefer that darkish green color, but now I'm getting some blues and reds and a much smoother palette, and the vertical interlacing seems to be gone. Thanks.

However, the "centered on the right side of the screen" behavior is still there. Whack that and I'll be a very happy camper.


larry

[malhaak]

ye i just notests that "centered on the right side of the screen" ... and the only way i can get rid of it is by using 16-bit color which stuffs up the colors still...... and i dont beleve its the pixel packing anymore.... but it could be a paleting issue.... which would explain the extra colors displayed in 32bit color mode..... (im still just taking shots in the dark here)..... it could also be something to do with the way the drivers implement overlays.... it might xor the overlay with the existing pixels.... i dont know.... again its just me guessing.... oh i had an idea to test for what is wrong... but i cant get a screenshot of the thing running what do i need to do this cus print screen doesnt work

[Lord_Mortimer]

Hi,

I use the NVidia GeForce 2 GTS (32MB DDR), and I have the exact same results as mentioned above. One would hope the software writers would make the desktop mode support Nvidia Chipsets which are undoubtedly very popular.

I just want to know what Ryan Geiss is planning as far as NVidia chipset support, is it possible to have full support for NVidia chipsets in Milkdrop? If so, when can we expect to see it implemented.

I feel Milkdrop is by far the best Winamp plugin I have ever seen, and I in no way want to put Ryan Geiss down for his brilliant work.

[Krash]

Sigh...

Sometimes I wish people would do a search for their problem - this is by far THE #1 problem on this board.

Hardware blit does not work on ANY nVidia card. Get over it. Ryan has (I believe) a Matrox G400, and so he writes his code to suit that. If someone sends him a free GeForce, he might see what he can do.

It may be possible that Hardware Blit is simply not possible on an nVidia card. In terms of 2D, Matrox cards have always had a far larger feature set.

- Krash

[malhaak]

well i think that hardware overlays obviously work... or u prolly wouldnt get anything at all..... im also pretty sure that they did implement the functions cus i have seen hardware overlays used on Nvidia chipsets b4.... so i dont know... it could be a difference in implemtation methods between nvidia and matrox.. hmmm lata

[Spirale]

Got same problem... with my Geforce2

[FubbHead]

But hey. I'm sure the man is working on it..

Meanwhile, enable 'only use 3D colors' and you get only greens -- a very cyber alá matrix-and-old-green-monochrome-monitor effect. Milkdrop uses a very tiny bit of my processing power (below 0% ) when hardware blit is enabled, so I can live with cyber instead of trippy, for now on..

But god, I hope at least someone looks into the NVidia/HW blit stuff still..


Live long and prosper! \/
-- Stefan Haglund

[Ampian]

I have a spare Nvidia Riva TNT2 32 Mb card I would give to Ryan if it he thinks it could help.

[geiss]

Krash wrote:

> Hardware blit does not work on ANY nVidia card. Get over it.
> Ryan has (I believe) a Matrox G400, and so he writes his code
> to suit that. If someone sends him a free GeForce, he might
> see what he can do.

I have a Matrox G400 and a 32MB nVidia GeForce2MX. Desktop mode with hardware blit just DOES NOT WORK ON NVIDIA CARDS. I've tried absolutely everything, believe me. The problem is on their end, so everyone start mailing nVidia and pressuring them to fix their drivers (or hardware?), please!

The problem is this: the card (or driver) will let you blit from an RGB to a YUV surface, but it won't do the color space conversion (from YUV to RGB) - it just copys the bits directly. When you look at a YUV pixel and pretend that it's formatted like an RGB pixel, that's when you get the grungy green-and-blue color scheme that nVidia users are seeing.

If ever nVidia releases a driver that fixes it, please post it here!

-Ryan

[FubbHead]

Darn..

But does this also have anything to do with the fact that it only displays a part (half?) of the output when in 32bit mode?


Live long and prosper! \/
-- Stefan Haglund

[Spirale]

Hey Ryan,just a little question about presets,
The downward spiral effect is related to nine inch nails?
I tried it with The further down the spiral song and it could be better , .. ;-)

[malhaak]

Ryan said -
The problem is this: the card (or driver) will let you blit from an RGB to a YUV surface, but it won't do the color space conversion (from YUV to RGB) - it just copys the bits directly. When you look at a YUV pixel and pretend that it's formatted like an RGB pixel, that's when you get the grungy green-and-blue color scheme that nVidia users are seeing.

(oh and u said ur trying to blit from a RGB to a YUV and then u talk bout color space conversion from YUV to RGB?? ummm just thought to point that out so like im full confused there)


hmmm ok so like is there a way u can get around using the YUV surface at all.... i understand the speed implacations but it would have to be better then doing it all software..... like use a rgb surface... ok so like insted of Try for RGB could u do a force RGB would that work? cus when i had the try for RGB on it didnt.. it went straigt to U-Y-V-Y so hmmm ..... just thought to mention that..
but then again im not entirly sure on what plane ur attempting to set rgb.. so meh...

[xantus]

i use a Radeon VE, and desktop mode worked fine, but then when i upgraded to the newest drivers, it looks all green and pink, with wierd staticy noise going on.(this is in 16 bit mode with hardwareblit, try for rgb and try for yuy2 ON.(this setting worked with the old drivers)
when i change to 32 bit mode..the colors are right, but my crappy p533 (downclocked to a 400 -dont ask, long story-) cant handle doing 32 bit... any suggestions?, im using .99g, i tried 1.0, but it didnt fix anything.