Picture quality terrible with Vista, perfect with MCE2005

[cbemoore]

I've been really happy with MCE2005 on my HTPC, but I thought I'd give Vista a go to see what all the fuss is about. I've set up a dual-boot system, so I can switch between Vista and MCE2005.

Watching any sort of TV picture (live, recorded, DVD), I get perfect picture quality with MCE2005. But with Vista the picture is horrible - its blurred, jerky and stuttering.

My setup is as follows:

1) ATI 9800XT 128MB graphics card. I'm using the latest (7.1) ATI drivers for both MCE2005 and Vista

2) NVidia PureVideo decoder (same version for both MCE2005 and Vista)

3) 1280x720@50Hz resolution in MCE2005, 1280x720@75Hz in Vista.

Running the Vista performance advisor, I get an overall score of 4.2 (due to the processor - a 3GHz Pentium 4) and a multimedia graphics speed of 4.8. From what I've read elsewhere, this indicates that the graphics card should be up to the task.

So what could be causing the problems? I'm beginning to think that there may be a problem with the ATI Vista drivers, since just about everything else is set up the same as MCE2005.

Anyone else seen the same performance problems when changing from MCE2005 to Vista?

Chris

[HiZ]

Originally Posted by cbemoore

I've been really happy with MCE2005 on my HTPC, but I thought I'd give Vista a go to see what all the fuss is about. I've set up a dual-boot system, so I can switch between Vista and MCE2005.

Watching any sort of TV picture (live, recorded, DVD), I get perfect picture quality with MCE2005. But with Vista the picture is horrible - its blurred, jerky and stuttering.

My setup is as follows:

1) ATI 9800XT 128MB graphics card. I'm using the latest (7.1) ATI drivers for both MCE2005 and Vista

2) NVidia PureVideo decoder (same version for both MCE2005 and Vista)

3) 1280x720@50Hz resolution in MCE2005, 1280x720@75Hz in Vista.

Running the Vista performance advisor, I get an overall score of 4.2 (due to the processor - a 3GHz Pentium 4) and a multimedia graphics speed of 4.8. From what I've read elsewhere, this indicates that the graphics card should be up to the task.

So what could be causing the problems? I'm beginning to think that there may be a problem with the ATI Vista drivers, since just about everything else is set up the same as MCE2005.

Anyone else seen the same performance problems when changing from MCE2005 to Vista?

Chris

No experience of vista just yet but I'd say make sure you are using the correct driver for the graphics as you suggest. Id also get the latest PureVideo decoder, infact I'd start there first.

[nigelbb]

Vista Premium & Ultimate (the versions that include MCE) have a built-in MPEG2 decoder. It is very decent so you could try uninstalling the Nvidia one. The ATI card/driver combo would be the other suspect. I have a Vista 64-bit MCE system with an ATI X1300 that works fine so despite the fact that your card was once near the top of the range perhaps ATI have concentrated on the newer card family.

[Stiggy]

I agree with the above. I put the latest ATI driver and PureVideo on my Vista install, and the picture quality was worse than with the MS graphics drivers and MPEG2 codec.

Try a clean install and you might be pleasently surprised.

[cbemoore]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I started off with the MS Vista drivers and the MS decoder, and the quality was just as bad. Then I updated to the PureVideo decoder, and saw no change in quality. Finally I upgraded to the ATI 7.1 Catalyst driver, and again I saw no change in quality.

So I guess there's 2 possible reasons for the problem:

1) my graphics card is too old, and can't cope with Vista's requirements.

2) The ATI drivers for Vista haven't been optimised for my card.

In both cases, it looks like I'll need to upgrade my graphics card!

Looks like I'll be sticking with MCE2005 for a while yet....

[dejongj]

Originally Posted by cbemoore

Thanks for the suggestions.

I started off with the MS Vista drivers and the MS decoder, and the quality was just as bad. Then I updated to the PureVideo decoder, and saw no change in quality. Finally I upgraded to the ATI 7.1 Catalyst driver, and again I saw no change in quality.

So I guess there's 2 possible reasons for the problem:

1) my graphics card is too old, and can't cope with Vista's requirements.

2) The ATI drivers for Vista haven't been optimised for my card.

In both cases, it looks like I'll need to upgrade my graphics card!

Looks like I'll be sticking with MCE2005 for a while yet....

I have a 9700 in my laptop with Vista Ultimate and it is perfectly fine....Aero works great etc....HD connection via DVI output to my plasma works fine as well....I just used the normal Vista driver and then there was an update through Vista Update.....But it was fine both before and after....Oh and I am running my laptop even on the ultra high 1920x1200 resolution....No probs.....How much RAM do you have in your machine? That might be the culprit as without my Readyboost things do slow down a bit....So if you have 1Gb or less....Get a Readyboost ready USB Memory stick thingy (like the Lexar Jumpdrive Lightning) and you'll be amazed by the speed increase....

[cbemoore]

I've got 1.5GB of memory, so unfortunately I don't think that's the problem...

The Aero desktop looks absolutely fine - I only see a problem when viewing TV or DVD.

Has anyone else with an ATI card noticed any picture quality issues? Or is it just me??

Chris

[D'Ohnut]

Nah, me too I posted a thread not that long ago. Sorry, but Im just so ****** off with the whole thing now, I can't be bothered to look!

Vista is excellent, desktop is sharp but DVD playback within MCE is crap. Sound has decided to work and I can't be arsed to deal with it any more. I wish I hadnt got vista to be honest.

[danpep]

Originally Posted by cbemoore

I've got 1.5GB of memory, so unfortunately I don't think that's the problem...

The Aero desktop looks absolutely fine - I only see a problem when viewing TV or DVD.

Has anyone else with an ATI card noticed any picture quality issues? Or is it just me??

Chris

I too have a dual boot MCE/Vista. At the moment I'm sticking to MCE. The Media Center interface in full screen has some corruption of the graphics and I can't get 50Hz to work in full screen (screen goes black but mouse cursor still visible). I'm using an X800XT with latest Catalyst drivers. For video decoding I have tried the MS decoder and PureVideo, both result in stuttering video in full screen. Also hardware accel. doesn't seem to work with PureVideo (CPU at about 25%). FYI I'm going DVI->HDMI->Pioneer 507XD, 1GB RAM P4@3GHz.

I think that Vista and Vista drivers are not quite ready for the huge range of hardware/devices available.

[gphillips]

Ive been using Vista for a few months. Ive used an ATI Radeon Xpress 200, a Geforce card (dont recall which!) and recenty an Intel integrated GPU on my new board. Whilst I have had results that I would consider respectable with the Radeon Xpress 200, I have never seen smoothness, colour realism, and general movments and framerate etc as good as I did in XP.

I have posted on this subject before. I cannot put my finger on describing why Vista isnt as good, but the image seems to "move" stangly. Maybe it framerate or refresh, but definitley not as good as XP which looked VERY good on the high bitrate channels such as BBC One.

[cbemoore]

I'm beginning to suspect there may be a problem with ATI's Vista drivers. The way Vista displays video is completely different to XP, and hence both ATI and NVidia have had to completely rewrite their drivers from scratch.

Catalyst 7.1 for Vista is the first Vista release, so I guess they've got a fair bit of optimisation work still to do!

[gphillips]

I fitted a GeForce 7300LE 256MB PCI-E yesterday and let Vista install it's own drivers for the device. I also reverted back to Vista's own MPEG decoder (was using Cyberlink). I am running DVI out of the PC into HDMI on my LCD.

Picture quality is great now, need to play with the TV's brightness and colour settings, but all looks comparible to what I saw under XP MCE !

I may use proper Nvidia drivers if I cannot adjust things enough with the TV's controls, but initially things are good.

Not sure if its 50Hz or 60Hz, but the ticker on the BBC News or Sky SPorts News channels is pretty much perfect!

[cbemoore]

Hmm - I'm spotting a pattern here.

I've been searching the forum, and everyone who says picture quality is worse happens to be using an ATI card. Whereas those who say there's no difference are all using NVidia cards.

My money's on the drivers.....