&
&Aidar
Is there a way to disable Graphics/GPU Hardware Acceleration for built-in “Movies & TV” and “Photos” apps, or, speaking more broadly, a workaround that would apply to all UWP (Universal Windows Platform - Wikipedia) apps for Windows 10 downloaded from Microsoft Store?
OS: latest Windows 10 May 2019 build 1903 [Version 10.0.18362.175]
I) Problem Description and Workarounds:
1) The driver/graphics card ATI Radeon HD 4350 on my PC is incompatible with “Hardware Acceleration” feature when playing videos on Windows 10 ver. 1903.
The symptom: green screen is shown instead of videos, while audio track plays fine.
2) The problem is not unique, has existed for many years, e.g. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/musicandvideo/forum/xboxvideo/how-to-disable-hardware-acceleration-in-windows/82cae408-5885-4aa1-8d0d-76e3634248d5, https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1230977, https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/disable-hardware-acceleration-win8/956fd776-f673-49fe-9110-4defa82cee07.
3) The issue affects Internet Explorer & Edge (when playing YouTube videos), built-in “Movies & TV” and “Photos” UWP apps (when viewing video files), VLC (when playing H.264 movies).
The workaround that fixes both IE and Edge is Internet Explorer -> Internet Options -> Advanced tab -> Accelerated Graphics -> enable “Use software rendering instead of GPU rendering” (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...sable-software-rendering-in-internet-explorer).
The workaround for VLC media player is to open Tools menu -> Preferences -> Input / Codecs. Then in case of [Simple settings], set “Hardware-accelerated decoding” to Disable. In case of [All settings], go to Video codecs subcategory -> FFmpeg -> set “Hardware decoding” to Disable.
4) Buying a new graphics cards does not seem to be prudent, as quiet, fanless ATI Radeon HD 4350 fully satisfies all demands, aside from this issue; there is no need to increase waste at some landfill, when Windows 10 could just have a checkbox for UWP apps similar to the explicit one in IE/Edge, hidden one in MSOffice (see II.d below) or a registry key.
II) Troubleshooting steps that did not help:
a) Disabling an option in Photos app Settings -> “Use hardware-accelerated video encoding when available” as it does not apply to viewing/decoding.
b) Opening Windows 10 Settings -> System -> Display -> Graphics settings (link at the very bottom) -> selecting the relevant “Universal app”, then clicking the Options button does not help either, because the PC has a single ATI graphics card, so “Power saving GPU” and “High performance GPU” options both point to the same.
c) Setting HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Avalon.Graphics\DisableHWAcceleration to 1, then rebooting the system, has no effect on this problem (Graphics Rendering Registry Settings).
d) It seems that Microsoft Office team monitors these kinds of issues (Display issues in Office client applications. - Office): “The list of video card/video driver combinations that trigger this automatic disabling of hardware graphics acceleration is not documented because the list is hard-coded in the Office programs and will be constantly changing as we discover additional video combinations that cause problems in Office programs”. UWP team could use this data to help users “fix” Microsoft Store apps too.
e) Graphics driver data from dxdiag:
DirectX Version: DirectX 12
Card name: ATI Radeon HD 4300/4500 Series
Manufacturer: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Chip type: ATI display adapter (0x954F)
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_954F&SUBSYS_E990174B&REV_00
Device Status: 0180200A [DN_DRIVER_LOADED|DN_STARTED|DN_DISABLEABLE|DN_NT_ENUMERATOR|DN_NT_DRIVER]
Device Problem Code: No Problem
Driver Name: aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll
Driver File Version: 8.17.0010.1129 (English)
Driver Version: 8.970.100.9001
DDI Version: 10.1
Feature Levels: 10_1,10_0,9_3,9_2,9_1
Driver Model: WDDM 1.1
(this is the latest version, “provided as a courtesy and only available via Windows Update” - https://community.amd.com/docs/DOC-1311)
Detachable GPU: No
Hybrid Graphics GPU: Not Applicable
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 1/13/2015 3:00:00 AM, 1094024 bytes
WHQL Logo'd: Yes
Device Identifier: {D7B71EE2-D60F-11CF-9270-9AC9BEC2C535}
Vendor ID: 0x1002
Device ID: 0x954F
SubSys ID: 0xE990174B
Revision ID: 0x0000
Driver Strong Name: oem12.inf:cb0ae4148d05d541:ati2mtag_R7X:8.970.100.9001
ci\ven_1002&dev_954f
Rank Of Driver: 00D72001
Video Accel: ModeMPEG2_A ModeMPEG2_C
DXVA2 Modes: DXVA2_ModeMPEG2_IDCT DXVA2_ModeH264_VLD_NoFGT DXVA2_ModeVC1_VLD
DDraw Status: Enabled
D3D Status: Enabled
AGP Status: Enabled
As newer WDDM 1.2 introduced “video playback improvements” (Direct3D 11 video playback improvements - Windows drivers, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Display_Driver_Model#WDDM_1.2), it is possible that Green Screen hardware-accelerated video playback problem applies to all older WDDM 1.1 drivers when installed on Windows 8/10, regardless of vendor, but I do not have hardware to check this hypothesis (some evidence: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-pictures/no-video-playback-with-wddm-120-ati-drivers/47d678f7-db13-41c0-b28c-0ccfe0a4b43e). In this case it seems Microsoft could fix this by either channeling hardware-acceleration attempts to software processing on WDDM 1.1-only systems or by artificially showing hardware acceleration for video playback as unavailable to avoid Green Screens (maybe add a special checkbox for this, as did IE/Edge team).
In case anybody has an older graphics card with WDDM 1.1 driver (launch built-in dxdiag.exe, go to Display tab, see Driver Model in Drivers section), it would be interesting to see if the problem exists.
Thank you.
Continue reading...
OS: latest Windows 10 May 2019 build 1903 [Version 10.0.18362.175]
I) Problem Description and Workarounds:
1) The driver/graphics card ATI Radeon HD 4350 on my PC is incompatible with “Hardware Acceleration” feature when playing videos on Windows 10 ver. 1903.
The symptom: green screen is shown instead of videos, while audio track plays fine.
2) The problem is not unique, has existed for many years, e.g. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/musicandvideo/forum/xboxvideo/how-to-disable-hardware-acceleration-in-windows/82cae408-5885-4aa1-8d0d-76e3634248d5, https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1230977, https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/disable-hardware-acceleration-win8/956fd776-f673-49fe-9110-4defa82cee07.
3) The issue affects Internet Explorer & Edge (when playing YouTube videos), built-in “Movies & TV” and “Photos” UWP apps (when viewing video files), VLC (when playing H.264 movies).
The workaround that fixes both IE and Edge is Internet Explorer -> Internet Options -> Advanced tab -> Accelerated Graphics -> enable “Use software rendering instead of GPU rendering” (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...sable-software-rendering-in-internet-explorer).
The workaround for VLC media player is to open Tools menu -> Preferences -> Input / Codecs. Then in case of [Simple settings], set “Hardware-accelerated decoding” to Disable. In case of [All settings], go to Video codecs subcategory -> FFmpeg -> set “Hardware decoding” to Disable.
4) Buying a new graphics cards does not seem to be prudent, as quiet, fanless ATI Radeon HD 4350 fully satisfies all demands, aside from this issue; there is no need to increase waste at some landfill, when Windows 10 could just have a checkbox for UWP apps similar to the explicit one in IE/Edge, hidden one in MSOffice (see II.d below) or a registry key.
II) Troubleshooting steps that did not help:
a) Disabling an option in Photos app Settings -> “Use hardware-accelerated video encoding when available” as it does not apply to viewing/decoding.
b) Opening Windows 10 Settings -> System -> Display -> Graphics settings (link at the very bottom) -> selecting the relevant “Universal app”, then clicking the Options button does not help either, because the PC has a single ATI graphics card, so “Power saving GPU” and “High performance GPU” options both point to the same.
c) Setting HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Avalon.Graphics\DisableHWAcceleration to 1, then rebooting the system, has no effect on this problem (Graphics Rendering Registry Settings).
d) It seems that Microsoft Office team monitors these kinds of issues (Display issues in Office client applications. - Office): “The list of video card/video driver combinations that trigger this automatic disabling of hardware graphics acceleration is not documented because the list is hard-coded in the Office programs and will be constantly changing as we discover additional video combinations that cause problems in Office programs”. UWP team could use this data to help users “fix” Microsoft Store apps too.
e) Graphics driver data from dxdiag:
DirectX Version: DirectX 12
Card name: ATI Radeon HD 4300/4500 Series
Manufacturer: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
Chip type: ATI display adapter (0x954F)
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_954F&SUBSYS_E990174B&REV_00
Device Status: 0180200A [DN_DRIVER_LOADED|DN_STARTED|DN_DISABLEABLE|DN_NT_ENUMERATOR|DN_NT_DRIVER]
Device Problem Code: No Problem
Driver Name: aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll
Driver File Version: 8.17.0010.1129 (English)
Driver Version: 8.970.100.9001
DDI Version: 10.1
Feature Levels: 10_1,10_0,9_3,9_2,9_1
Driver Model: WDDM 1.1
(this is the latest version, “provided as a courtesy and only available via Windows Update” - https://community.amd.com/docs/DOC-1311)
Detachable GPU: No
Hybrid Graphics GPU: Not Applicable
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 1/13/2015 3:00:00 AM, 1094024 bytes
WHQL Logo'd: Yes
Device Identifier: {D7B71EE2-D60F-11CF-9270-9AC9BEC2C535}
Vendor ID: 0x1002
Device ID: 0x954F
SubSys ID: 0xE990174B
Revision ID: 0x0000
Driver Strong Name: oem12.inf:cb0ae4148d05d541:ati2mtag_R7X:8.970.100.9001
ci\ven_1002&dev_954fRank Of Driver: 00D72001
Video Accel: ModeMPEG2_A ModeMPEG2_C
DXVA2 Modes: DXVA2_ModeMPEG2_IDCT DXVA2_ModeH264_VLD_NoFGT DXVA2_ModeVC1_VLD
DDraw Status: Enabled
D3D Status: Enabled
AGP Status: Enabled
As newer WDDM 1.2 introduced “video playback improvements” (Direct3D 11 video playback improvements - Windows drivers, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Display_Driver_Model#WDDM_1.2), it is possible that Green Screen hardware-accelerated video playback problem applies to all older WDDM 1.1 drivers when installed on Windows 8/10, regardless of vendor, but I do not have hardware to check this hypothesis (some evidence: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-pictures/no-video-playback-with-wddm-120-ati-drivers/47d678f7-db13-41c0-b28c-0ccfe0a4b43e). In this case it seems Microsoft could fix this by either channeling hardware-acceleration attempts to software processing on WDDM 1.1-only systems or by artificially showing hardware acceleration for video playback as unavailable to avoid Green Screens (maybe add a special checkbox for this, as did IE/Edge team).
In case anybody has an older graphics card with WDDM 1.1 driver (launch built-in dxdiag.exe, go to Display tab, see Driver Model in Drivers section), it would be interesting to see if the problem exists.
Thank you.
Continue reading...