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Problem with a custom PC using WX8200


Makoto

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  • Dataton Partner

Hello dear all,

My name is Makoto TOKUNAGA from Laguna Hills, Inc., Dataton's partner in Japan.
We have been facing a problem for a while with our custom PC using WX8200. We would therefore like to share details of the problem with all of you to find out solution if any.

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We are planning to update the hardware of the WATCHOUT system where our custom PC has been installed.
So, we made a prototype of a custom PC using X299 motherboard + WX8200, however WATCHOUT does not work well.

As a symptom, the H.264 movie file always gets jumpy or freezes, also a bit jumpy even with Hap and MPEG2.
It is a pretty terrible situation, so we think it is not likely a tweaking issue.
However, it works OK with Windows Media Player and VLC media player without any problems.

In case of replacing the motherboard by X200 model from other brand, the problem remains the same.

In case of replacing the graphic card by RTX4000 from NVIDIA, it works fine with WATCHOUT... Very strange.

The configuration of the custom PC is as follows;
CPU: Core i9 10920X
MB: C9X299-PG300F-O
GC: Radeon Pro WX8200
OS: Win10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2019

We want to use WX8200 because of synchronization purpose with others.

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In case you have encountered this kind of problem, or if you can share any knowledge to work it out, please advise.

Thank you and best regards,
Makoto and on behalf of our Izumi HIGASAYAMA, my boss

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i think problem could be wx 8200 driver  .i have no experience with 8200 but we use wx 7100 in our server .when we first build the system and used latest driver .we faced smilar problem.after trying various driver finally we decided 2018 q2  driver(everyone says best one is Q42017)

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  • Dataton Partner

Hi,

Additional info to our previous message;

We have already tested all of below mentioned versions by early June 2021;

Windows 10 - 64-Bit Edition/Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise, published for WX8200's Previous Drivers, Version 21.Q1.2 to 19.Q3:
However the symptom remains the same.

Anyway, we will obtain the said 2018.Q2 driver for our next test.

Best regards,
Makoto

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  • Dataton Partner

AMD introduced some sort of power management in 2018 which will throttle down the speed of the graphic card when the system thinks that there is nothing much to do. Our favorite is still 2017Q4.1. We can't rule out though that a newer version of Windows behaves differently in combination with the various graphic card drivers.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • Dataton Partner

Dear all,

Our test report;

We requested a sales distributor of graphic boards in Japan for the 18 Q2 and 17.Q4 for the Radeon Pro WX8200. However, they could not offer any of these versions, which are not open to public currently. The distributor themselves did not keep it either.

Instead, we received 18 Q3 they have. Therefore, we tested it just in case. However, the symptoms remain the same (the screen gets jumpy under H.264 and HAP format). As the launch date of WX8200 seems to be end of August 2018, 2017 Q4.1 for WX8200 might not exist.

Also, we compared MPEG2 movie (the screen gets no jumpy in this system) vs. H.264 and HAP movie (the screen gets jumpy) using log output function of the GPU-Z software and learnt that the GPU clocks were all approx. 1,135MHz +/10MHz, that means there was no big difference. We think it is not likely that the GPU clock goes down and gets into energy saving mode.

For your reference, when we played the same H.264 movie with Media Player, it was very low value such as 65MHz +/5MHz, however the screen was playing OK without getting jumpy at all.

Appreciate your comments, if any.

Best regards,
Makoto
Laguna Hills, Inc.

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  • Dataton Partner

Might be that the WX8200 is not supported in the 17Q4 driver. If you want to give it a try you can contact me for a download link to my server.

WATCHOUT uses different decoders than the Media Player which can lead to different quality. To really analyse the problem opening a ticket at the support page might help.

 

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  • Dataton Partner

Dear RBeddig,

Thank you very much for your information and kind offer. Yes, we would like to get the said link to your server to download it for our internal test! We will get in touch with you by separate email.

Regarding a ticket at the support page, we once got it and exchanged views... However, they recommended we post here to monitor advice widely from other partners.

Best regards,

Makoto

 

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  • Dataton Partner

Dear  RBeddig-san,

We just received your email letting us know the said link.
Thank you very much for your kind offer and immediate action.
We will download and test it bearing in mind it's our own risk.
 
We will get back to you, if any further.
 
Best regards,
 
Makoto
Laguna Hills, Inc.
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  • Dataton Partner

Dear Rbeddig-san,

We downloaded the 2017 Q4.1 and tried to install it. However, sorry to inform that, probably because it does not support WX8200, installation was not completed... so it did not work as expected.

Please provide comments, if any.

Best regards,

Makoto

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  • Dataton Partner

Dear Rbedding, dear Bambam, dear Jochri,

We just discussed internally and came to conclusion that, we should give up to use WX8200 and replace it by RTX4000 instead.

Thanking you very much once again for all your advice and kind support extended to us in recent days.

Best regards,

Makoto

Laguna Hills, Inc.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • Dataton Partner

Dear MatzeLe-san,

Major problem here  is that, we do not know exactly, with which parts it should work or not.
So far, the cause is unknown.

In early days, we purchased X299 motherboard + WX8200 and tested, however, it did not work.
After that, we tested several parts combination, but never got good results when using AMD.
For your information, our test results as attached.
We did not try other combinations, unfortunately.

Best regards,

Makoto
Laguna Hills, Inc.

WATCHOUT Video Playback Test by Laguna Hills, Inc..png

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  • 3 months later...

Actually, I think this issue is serious.

To work with WATCHOUT I have to keep using 4 year old drivers that don't support the latest hardware.

  It is even more fatal when supply of graphics cards is difficult due to semiconductor issues like these days.

What I am curious about is why is the graphic card changing to low power mode when WATCHOUT is decoding content?

It is a graphics card that works normally even in a basic media player.

But with advanced solutions like WATCHOUT, you don't know what's going on and you'll get poor performance.

It's been known for years, but why hasn't it been fixed?

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  • Dataton Partner

One option is to use the high performance workstation graphic cards from Nvidea.

AMD introduced some power saving functions in their drivers a while ago and when you play a HAP file for example, you'll notice that the CPU load is around 2%. This tells Windows that actually nothing really important is going on and the graphic card gets to know about this and throttles down to save the planet.

I've been in contact with the AMD technical support about a couple of issues over the years and this question would be one to ask them too.

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thanks for the reply

As Makoto said, it's not just the HAP codec that uses less CPU power, but other codecs are also affected. H.264 decoding uses CPU enough, but the symptoms are the same

We mainly use Nvidia products. However, Nvidia does not have a product that outputs more than 5 channels. WO v6 supports 6 channels, right? So, I use WX9100 for projects that use 5 or 6 channels.

It is said to be an AMD driver issue, but it is regrettable that symptoms that do not appear in other players only appear in WO. It's even more regrettable if it hasn't been fixed for several years.

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  • 1 year later...
On 12/17/2021 at 7:37 AM, RBeddig said:

One option is to use the high performance workstation graphic cards from Nvidea.

AMD introduced some power saving functions in their drivers a while ago and when you play a HAP file for example, you'll notice that the CPU load is around 2%. This tells Windows that actually nothing really important is going on and the graphic card gets to know about this and throttles down to save the planet.

I've been in contact with the AMD technical support about a couple of issues over the years and this question would be one to ask them too.

Dear RBeddig,

if it is like you said, then why it is no problem to play HAPs with other programs and AMD cards? What did the AMD technical support told you about this?

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  • Moderator
5 hours ago, MatzeLe said:

… why it is no problem to play HAPs with other programs and AMD cards? …

Because the other methods use different technologies. In order to maintain compatibility with older WATCHPAX, WATCHOUT still requires Microsoft DirectX 9. That is the newest version available in Windows 7. Most (but not all) issues arise from modern gpu drivers issues with DX9.

Don’t worry, the next major release of WATCHOUT will remove dependence on DirectX. It will require Windows 10 or above (outdating a lot of servers in use today).

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • Moderator
14 hours ago, Alex Ramos said:

So, it’s a fact and we all agree that WO fails to play HAP files smoothly regardless of the hardware used ? …

No.

As Rainer states above, he builds servers that handle the task. Your struggles point out the challenges of building and certifying PC computers for  the dedicated media server task. That is the principle reason Dataton builds WATCHPAX - to remove that burden from media producers.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 1/11/2023 at 2:44 PM, jfk said:

Because the other methods use different technologies. In order to maintain compatibility with older WATCHPAX, WATCHOUT still requires Microsoft DirectX 9. That is the newest version available in Windows 7. Most (but not all) issues arise from modern gpu drivers issues with DX9.

Don’t worry, the next major release of WATCHOUT will remove dependence on DirectX. It will require Windows 10 or above (outdating a lot of servers in use today).

DX9 is not the newest version on Win 7, it is even possible to have dx12 on Win7: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/world-of-warcraft-uses-directx-12-running-on-windows-7/

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