ASRock's High-End Vision 3D 252B HTPC Review
by Ganesh T S on May 7, 2012 6:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Home Theater
- Sandy Bridge
- HTPC
- GT 540M
- NVIDIA
We have discussed madVR in extensive detail in the Discrete HTPC GPU Shootout piece. In all our HTPC reviews dealing with madVR, we restrict ourselves to the high quality settings suggested by Mathias Rauen (4-tap Lanczos for luma scaling and SoftCubic (softness 70) for chroma scaling). There is no quality tradeoff for performance, and deinterlacing is enabled (and forced to be active in doubtful cases). Full Screen Exclusive works better on the whole compared to Full Screen Windowed, and all the queues had to be put at the maximum value. In v301.24 of the NVIDIA drivers, madVR doesn't work if the presentation is done on a separate device. So, that option had to be turned off.
LAV Video Decoder can connect to the madVR renderer under the following hardware decode settings:
- None (Software decoding using avcodec)
- QuickSync (QS Decoder on supported systems - Intel Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge)
- NVIDIA CUVID
- DXVA2 Copy-Back (DXVA2 CB)
Note that the native DXVA2 mode doesn't connect to the madVR renderer. In our experiments, we tried out all of the above except QuickSync. The relevant graphs are presented below.
Resource Usage Comparison - Software Decode vs. DXVA2 Copy-Back vs. LAV CUVID (FSE & FSW) with madVR
In both software decode and DXVA2 CB mode, the GPU core utilization shot up over 90%. Generally, whenever there were sudden spikes above 90%, we saw that the presentation and the render queues in madVR dropped to alarmingly low levels, resulting in dropped frames. DXVA2 Copy-Back mode resulted in an increase in the memory controller load. LAV CUVID in FSE (Full Screen Exclusive) mode had the lowest GPU core utilization (around 83% was the maximum for the 1080i60 VC-1 clip). In FSW mode, the utilization went up slightly, but still remained below 90%. In any case, the take away from this section is that if the end user is going to use madVR as the renderer, CUVID should be the video decoder of choice, particularly for high frame rates and resolutions.The CPU utlization when using madVR is slightly more than what is seen when using EVR.
An important point to note with respect to the settings is the fact that both LAV Video Decoder and madVR have deinterlacing options. It is best to turn off the deinterlacing in LAV Video Decoder (set Hardware Deinterlacing to Weave (none)). Performing the deinterlacing closer to the presentation stage (i.e, in the madVR renderer) reduces the memory / controller loading and is generally easier on the GPU (lesser chance of dropping frames).
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LoneWolf15 - Wednesday, May 9, 2012 - link
As nice as it looks, I'll pass.Cool PC, bro --but there are options that will get this job done equally well, for far less. Ones that don't have Asrock's track record for awful customer support if something goes wrong (having owned one of their high-end mainboards briefly, I experienced that personally).
Less expensive options have desktop CPU upgrade options too. The mobile Sandy Bridge systems currently out aren't upgradeable to mobile Ivy Bridge, so I doubt this is, either.
cjmccarthy72 - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
I almost dare not admit to owning one of these- I can imagine the comments especially from the build your own brigade....But I got one just before Christmas and it is a real box of joy. I stuck a SSD from my previous HTPC inside it and this goes like the wind. Large photo, music and movie collection load really quick in WMC. Streams HD media with ease. Extremely quiet- the fans on my plasma are more audible!
Very small- and yet it is truly a one box solution- despite this review I can play most games like Street Fighter IV at full spec on it.
I live in tiny city centre flat and so yes it is expensive, but it beats having a laptop or desktop on the floor, taking up space. Paired with a soundbar and HD tv it means very little space is taken up with my equipment and so my wife is happy. It means that my AV cabinet is now taken up with more family friendly boxes- Scrabble, Monopoly, Battleships!
Last, but not least, it has Blu-Ray- now if only Windows 8 supported it natively....
allensays - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
I can do the same things with my similarly spec'd Asus K73S laptop, then unplug it, go out on the deck or take it to the beach......For much LESS $.
What a waste.
cjmccarthy72 - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
I'm happy for you- no beach or deck where I am I am afraid- & lots of rain at the moment here unfortunately... but also no USA Amazon so no "similarly spec'd Asus K73S laptop". Our Amazon has listed only an Asus K73S- but this only has an i3 cpu, dvd only, 4gb ram only, 320gb hard-drive only - all for $852 equivalent price in dollars. So you clearly have the better deal your end.I have a company laptop which sounds like a jet taking off so I like the silence of this HTPC but I also use it as my PVR so want it hooked up all the time- yet hidden away without my family needing to plug it in and hook it up. + I can do some limited upgrades with it. My last HTPC, a Sony VGX-XL, was also relatively expensive- but I had it for over 5 years before I sold it and so thought that was a reasonable investment.
But clearly for some people this would be a waste- I agree- no argument. However as an owner I thought I would add an opinion about this HTPC, as the majority of comments here only deal with the price.
iq100 - Thursday, May 24, 2012 - link
There are better alternatives to the $50 JRiver MediaCenter game. Did you know that JRiver will charge you again and again for each new release? Worse is their censorship. Criticize them, post about alternatives, and you will be BANNED for life. And they will get their 'commercial friends' to do the same. These folks are NOT like anandtech. They are not about sharing ideas. They add on free GNU softward without embracing the spirit of open source code. They are about commercial money wars. If they were Egypt, or Iran, or Iraq, the would kill your right to speak.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltoQwSpHQBA
iq100
the best way to delete an idea is to post one of your own.
ix400 - Sunday, June 3, 2012 - link
Or is there an alternative tool for finding out the exact refresh rate of the display?iq100 - Monday, June 4, 2012 - link
With MPC-HC:http://www.homecinema-hd.com/autofrequency_en.html
iq100
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltoQwSpHQBA
ix400 - Thursday, June 7, 2012 - link
... but this tool doesn't show me a precise value of the refresh rate that is actually set.iq100 - Friday, June 8, 2012 - link
>http://www.exampledepot.com/egs/java.awt/screen_Sc...You can do this in java:
http://www.exampledepot.com/egs/java.awt/screen_Sc...
iq100
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltoQwSpHQBA
shurik_1 - Thursday, August 2, 2012 - link
try to create couple of dozen gig archive on another PC. create a parity set. corrupt a few bits. transfer to Vision 3D. try to repair and see for yourself what happens...I have complained to ASRock about this and was forced to send entire PC for repairs (no they do not refund shipping costs you have to swallow it). Only change is that BIOS now is 1.10c instead of 1.10. A friend of mine managed to get from their support the actual BIOS without shipping back and indeed it solved his issues as well.
Now I try to update memory to 16GB and the issue is back. Had to go back to 8GB. It's been over a month since I reported this new issue to them and still no fix.
Note that they never acknowledged the issue and never posted updated BIOS to their site. Customers data gets silently corrupted meanwhile...
Other than that is has everything I wanted in HTPC.