Can all Nvidia owners do me a favor please.

[xMax]

There is a strange bug with Nvidia video cards that i must figure out.

To help me out, all you have to do is play one of the following simple 1 second long 10 FPS AVI clips with any version of windows media player in any version of Windows XP.

Each clip is a plain transition from a pure black to a pure white image, much like a strobe light effect.

Just make sure to run the selected clip in 'looped' and 'Full Screen' modes while having your Nvidia card set to 32-bit true color.

Here are the Links to the clips. Just pick the one whose resolution matches your monitors native resolution:
1024 x 768 279KB
1280 x 1024 409KB
1680 x 1050 543KB
1600 x 1200 534KB
1920 x 1200 629KB

You will need this Autodesk RLE codec to play any one of the clips.

For a pure black or white image, using Run Length Encoding (RLE) reduces the size of each frame quite considerably. This 156KB codec used to come with 3D Studio Max and is extremely bug free with a simple double clicking required action to install it. It's only been discontinued because very few people are using RLE codecs anymore.

PLEASE NOTE: There are no viruses, worms, trojans, or any sort of trickery with these files. I am not here to play games. If anybody wishes to fully scan and disect these files with the aim of finding anything out of the ordinary, then by all means go right ahead. In fact, if you wish to conduct such experiments, then post your results so that everyone can see that everything is clean. And if anything harmful is found, then i give any single or multiple persons the right to ask Anandtech to kick me off this forum.


With all said and done, this is what you have to do as the clip plays out repeatedly in full screen mode:

1- Just look at the TOP RIGHT hand corner of your display and tell me what you see.

2- Tell me what Video card your using. (Assuming its not already in your signature).

Thats all. If your feeling extra kind, then tell me what Processor and Motherboard your using as well.


Thanks for your support.

Max

 

[TraumaRN]

Well besides setting me up for a seizure I saw nothing.....

7800GT 84.20 drivers, 4XMSAA/16AF, everything to high quality.

Board and proc in sig.

 

[Arkane13131]

I see...baby jesus in the sky!!!!er no wait...that is...just the corner of my monitor...
7900gt superclock

 

[Megatomic]

Odd. I can't download the codec. And searching google helps none at all. I guess I won't be helping you out xMax.

 

[TheCanuck]

There...are...four...lights!

---------------

Actually just see white and black flashing -- 6800gs. In Zoomplayer it's green to black though.

 

[xtknight]

White to black all the way through. Overlay mode could cause other elements of the screen to change (one of my system tray icons mysteriously did), but other than that I'm not sure why it would be any different. Nothing different from one corner to the other, the whole screen is black or white. I was using mplayer which has a built-in Autodesk decoder since your link didn't work (FTP too many users).

ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (2.2 GHz)
eVGA GeForce 7800GT N515-AX
NVIDIA ForceWare 84.21
MPlayer v.0.0.9.0 (20060323, arch K7), video-out device: "gl"

 

[xMax]

Damn it. There are too many users using that FTP. I'll post it myself on the YOUSENDIT Server. Give me a minute and I'll tell you guys what i see.

edited:
The link is OK now. You can click on it in the original post.

 

[xMax]

OK. Essentially, when i run these clips in full screen mode with any windows media player in any windows XP, i end up seeing this strange rectangle at the top right hand corner just flashing and changing sizes, where it then dissapears.

On the 6600GT and the 7300GT, the rectangle would never go away. This is why i got rid of my BFR 6600GT.

On my current eVGA 7900GTX EGS, that rectangle will come about once every 7 ot 8 cycles. Another words, the screen will be fine for about 7 cycles of the loop, and then it appears on the 8th cycle, as this pattern continues if i let the clip play on endlessly.

I could tell you guys that i've tried everything, different drivers, un uncompressed version of the clip running in Ramdisk (to make sure its not the RLE codec), different monitors, and completely different systems ( at a computer store).

I've tried it with media player classic and media player 9 and 10.

I cant explain it, but i think the only possible explanation is a hardware or software flaw on the Nvidia card.

But i cant be sure, and this is why i was hoping that you guys would have the same problem.

But anyhow, what could this problem be? Any ideas from anyone?

I know its not critical, but with the money i paid for my system, and with my perfectionistic nature, i just cant tolerate it when it pops up.

PS: Make sure to run the clip at full screen for at least 20 or so cycles, which should only take 20 seconds or so.

Thats all i can say for now.

 

[xtknight]

xMax: can you try 'mplayer-gui' and see if it still happens?

http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer/gui/mplayer-gui-rtm-cvs-20060323.7z

I don't think it supports looping though. Hopefully you can see it in just one run, or you could try adding it to the playlist 5000 times and that way it would loop. That's what I did with mplayer.

 

[xMax]

Xtknight, i'm still waiting on a new PSU to arrive, as my entire tower is at the computer store. Perhaps i didn't mention it, but i accidently fried my PSU.

And no, the problem was happening way before my PSU went down.

But what i can do is try out Mplayer at the computer store, where they have a wintel system with a 7300GT. I will do that tomorrow morning.

But i must ask, what's so special about this Mplayer?

Max

PS1: Im downloading Mplayer right now to see how it works on the computer im using right now, which of course uses an ATI 9200, which doesn't have that problem.

PS2: Thanks for the info and the link xtknight.

 

[Megatomic]

7900GT
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium
4800+ @ 2.5GHz

All I saw after watching it for almost a minute (all I could bear) was black and white flashing back and forth, no rectangles or other anomolies.

 

[Ike0069]

I see a rectangular overlay at some interval. Sometimes it's very long and skinny, and sometimes it's closer to a square.

Is this what you are referring to?

Complete specs in sig.

 

[humanure]

can you add a wav file of fingernails on a chalkboard? seriously though i don't see what you talking about either, rectangle did not appear to change sizes at all. by the way how did you discover this problem?

 

[xMax]

edited...typing....

Yes Ike0069, thats what i see. That is exactly what i see, and its happened with every geforce card ive used, a 6600GT, 7300Gt, and the 7900GTX, which is why im assuming that all Nvidia cards have it.

Although i did have a BFG 7800GTX at one point in time, and i dont recall seeing it, but i could have simply not noticed it, since i cant see why it would not have the same defect.

 

[xtknight]

MPlayer uses a different playback method than most media players. It doesn't use Microsoft's DirectShow, it uses its own library (ffmpeg). Thus, a different decoder.

 

[xMax]

Xknight...No matter what, because of its lack of full screen support, i cannot use MPlayer.

But clearly what your implying is the possibility of an issue with directshow, nvidia cards, and AVI videos.

But man, to find the right rendering API, if thats what they call it, like directX or directdraw or directshow...is just hardcore.

I could tell you that i used windows media player classic 'advanced'. This is not the one that comes with windows xp by default, but an advanced one that im sure you've all heard about. I think its version 6.4.x...

My point is that this version of media player had like 100 different possible combinations of settings, without a single one of them working out. The only settings that worked were the ones that didn't use overlay or double buffering or page flipping, which produces massive screen tearing that looks like a horizontal line sliding down the screen or a diagonal stair step.

Bottom line, any particular combination that i took that didn't have the horizontal or stair step tearing ended up having the same top right hand corner rectangle problem.

But the good news is that ike0069 has the same problem, and he is using an AMD system and a 6800gt, a card i havent used.

 

[xMax]

humanure, i discovered the problem when playing out my short clip full screen RLE AVI 1600x1200032 animations in windows media player.

But why is it happening to some and not to others. Is everybody playing those exact clips that i posted? And are you all playing them in full screen mode and allowing the to repeat numerous times?

 

[Fardringle]

Sempron 64 2600+ (Running at 2.2Ghz)
Biostar K8NHA Grand motherboard
1GB Corsair value RAM
eVGA 6600GT (running at 528/1000) with 77.72 Forceware drivers.
19" KDS CRT monitor.
Windows Media Player 9 (I don't like the WMP 10 interface).

The screen just flashes black to white rapidly. It's a good thing I'm not prone to seizures, but there's no "rectangle" in any corner of the screen for me.

 

[xMax]

Phhhhhhh...

I dont know how i will be able to find a common denominator.

I know my cards were not defective, since there is no way that i had three defective cards.

I gonna have to do some tests at my buddies computer store and see what gives.

For now, thanks to all of you that gave your input. It really does help.

Maybe ill have more to say tomorrow.

 

[BassBomb]

you have to change overlay settings i believe, the zoom

 

[xMax]

If it were that easy, i would't be here BassBomb.

I've tried every combination of overlay settings in windows media player classic, 6.4 advanced, 9, and 10.

No combination in any of the versions removed the problem without resorting to removing overlay completely. And without overlay, i get massive screen tearing, which is that horizontal line that slides down the screen as the video plays out in loops.

But what do you mean by 'the zoom' in the overlay settings?

 

[BassBomb]

overlay settings in the nvidia control panel

 

[xMax]

Really. But i dont recall seeing such settings. The only overlay settings that i can recall are ones for gaming, which doesn't work for media player.

I'm gonna head out to a local computer store to run some tests since my computer is down as it awaits a new PSU.

But im sure i would have noticed such a setting. Perhaps you can be more specific BassBomb.

I'll be back in an hour.

 

[Thor86]

Originally posted by: TheCanuck
There...are...four...lights!

---------------

Actually just see white and black flashing -- 6800gs. In Zoomplayer it's green to black though.

lol

 

[xMax]

I tried using all sorts of varying AVI codecs, but none worked. Then i tried the WMV format, and that worked out perfectly. Which essentially means that its just happening to AVI file formats.

Now i have no problems re-rendering to WMV, but the problem here is there seems to be no such thing as uncompressed or lossless WMV codecs.

I don't know why this is so. Microsoft has LOSSLESS WMA and but NOT LOSSLESS WMV. Im sure they have a rational explanation for this.

But i have to ask: Do any of you know if there is any way that the WMV format can exist in a lossless form?

That's it for now.

BASSBOMB: Changing the Overlay settings (zoom) in the Nvidia Control Panel didn't do anything.