[Question]: Potential HEVC 10-bit freezing issues?

[polyjitter]

Since every AMD driver version 23.12.1 (for about a year), the following behavior (the encoded stream freezing at random intervals) has been observed in Virtual Desktop (a wireless VR streaming solution) across all supported AMD cards and for all configurations, when using HEVC 10-Bit to stream video content:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/B7PrY3o3YWY

This is seen for both VR (each eye will freeze up at different intervals) and desktop content, so it's definitely something happening for all encoded streams on VD. I just don't know how I'd reproduce it on my end with only AMF SDK. I also don't have anything else that streams HEVC 10-Bit live to test this with.

I have confirmation from the Virtual Desktop developers that they use AMF SDK for HEVC 10-Bit encoding, so I'm opening a question issue here to confirm what I'd need to open a bug report for this. HEVC 10-Bit encoding working is pretty vital for me, since before this, it's what I was relying on to play VR (it's hands down the best codec for my setup).

Some guidance here would be appreciated. I've been trying to fight to get this resolved for about a year now (I've submitted multiple bug reports with AMD and have had a 4-month long ticket open with AMD support that they simply went silent on), so I'm kind of at my wits end trying to figure out what's going on here.

[MikhailAMD]

23.12.1 driver is quite old. We fixed this or similar issue a while ago. From some communication with VD the fix was in 24.2.1 driver. If you see issues with the latest driver, please open a ticket. If we missed some ticket here, please ping.

[polyjitter]

@MikhailAMD Hi, Mikhail!

Unfortunately, this issue has been ongoing since 23.12.1 - I am continuing to experience it in 24.12.1 (plus new issues with juddering in the incoming video stream, unsure if I can get a video of this as these issues tend to not show up well on VR - it's as if a previous frame is getting stuck and the view shakes a little). No driver version since 23.12.1 has functioned for this app as expected. Relevant support tickets with AMD support, if you have access to those, are 00527861 and 00570365.

May I ask if this fixed within AMF SDK, and if so, what version it was? It's possible VD has not updated their AMF SDK for a while, and I can see what I can do to urge them to update, if so.

[MikhailAMD]

The AMF SDK doesn't have binaries, just header files and samples. So SDK updates usually don't fix issues. The binaries are in the driver package so most of fixes come with driver update. Maybe it worth to ask VD (Guy) an option to enable AMF logs and dump encoder output so we could analyze it. Also you may try to change resolution so see if it makes a difference.
By the way, does HEVC 8 bit work properly?

[polyjitter]

@MikhailAMD Thank you! I will ask him if he'd be willing to do that. I will also try a different resolution to see if it's resolution based.

I can confirm HEVC 8-bit works properly.

[AGuyNamedJens]

@MikhailAMD Thank you! I will ask him if he'd be willing to do that. I will also try a different resolution to see if it's resolution based.

I can confirm HEVC 8-bit works properly.

Would you consider this a workaround, to just enforce VD to use HEVC and 8 bit? I don't like running behind this many versions as i'm on the VD recommended 23.12.1 version and newer games have huge issues (which were fixed/added in the newer drivers)

[MikhailAMD]

VD contacted me, provided logs and we are working on the fix.
It is up to VD to force 8 bit or to avoid some resolutions. My suggestion is to use AMF version returned from AMF runtime to detect problem drivers. The version is updated with every major release of the driver.

[polyjitter]

I'm so, so glad to hear that a fix is being worked on :) Also, for context, you can currently use HEVC 8-Bit in VD by default - the issue is, this results in very visible banding in gradients (and for some reason much more encoding artifacting). The request to fix 10-bit is due to these factors :)

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On Tue, Dec 17, 2024, at 4:30 PM, Mikhail_AMD wrote: VD contacted me, provided logs and we are working on the fix. It is up to VD to force 8 bit or to avoid some resolutions. My suggestion is to use AMF version returned from AMF runtime to detect problem drivers. The version is updated with every major release of the driver. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#520 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AEKJYQFDF44AZS36T5JD6MT2GCJYBAVCNFSM6AAAAABTH335Q2VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDKNBZGY3TMNBSGI>. You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[bondjpf]

I'm glad this is been looked at. Hope we can have this fix by next driver release.