Issues in Win7 browsers (video color range, stutter in games)

[test5362]

The washed out video issue in Firefox is still present as of 115.4.0esr. It's a problem for other users under presumably newer operating systems too, as indicated by this fairly new thread: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1421330 (though judging by severity this example may possibly be due to another issue with HDR output, which is unrelated here)

And two older bugzilla threads that also seem to pertain to the issue: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1727490 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1726186

The mentioned disabling of VAAPI hardware acceleration via media.ffmpeg.vaapi.enabled=false really seems to amount to the same as the previously mentioned media.hardware-video-decoding.enabled=false workaround, so probably nothing new there. However, I have managed to test this on an older laptop with GT 540M GPU, also Windows 7 x64 with the latest driver from 2018, and actually found that Youtube videos display correctly even with hardware decoding enabled! Using h264ify and verified by looking at video engine load of course, and the GT 540M's decoder is really only good for one 1080p60 h.264 stream at once as one might expect, but still a welcome surprise.

Comparing about:support between the two systems (the PC with washed out Youtube has a GTX 1060), the main points all appear identical, except for differences in gfx.crash-guard flags and such. Right now, I can't say if this difference is caused by video acceleration in Firefox being broken on newer GPUs, some old about:config flag tripping Firefox up (these seem to accumulate over time, but seem to be phased out and be ignored in later versions, or so my understanding anyway), or even some other factor, but it would be helpful if someone with a 10-series Nvidia GPU could check if Firefox has the washed out video issue.

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by test5362

[Dixel]

4 hours ago, test5362 said:

Comparing about:support between the two systems (the PC with washed out Youtube has a GTX 1060), the main points all appear identical, except for differences in gfx.crash-guard flags and such

Try to experiment with different drivers, but the whole 1000 generation is very bright (it's how their BIOS is written). I returned 1080ti back to the shop, it was too bright and washed out.

https://msfn.org/board/topic/185912-should-i-get-a-gtx-1080ti-or-a-gtx-titan-x-pascal-for-vista/?do=findComment&comment=1255575

[test5362]

That may be true as graphics cards always had some output differences between vendors, but that's a seperate matter as this is not about overall output but specifically Firefox video differences with media.hardware-video-decoding.enabled toggled on or off. To reiterate, videos look fine with this set to false (software decoding) but washed out set to true (hardware decoding).

[Dixel]

On 12/1/2023 at 10:41 AM, test5362 said:

specifically Firefox video differences with media.hardware-video-decoding.enabled toggled on or off. To reiterate, videos look fine with this set to false (software decoding) but washed out set to true (hardware decoding).

Well, this topic "win7-browsers-video-colour-range-stutter" doesn't specify Firefox only, try to switch to chrome then? 

[D.Draker]

"am I nuts, or do colours on GeForce are bit washed out"

https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/2x03ky/am_i_nuts_or_do_colors_on_geforce_are_bit_washed/?rdt=58706

 

[vinifera]

until you enable full color range in nvidia cpanel

[D.Draker]

16 hours ago, vinifera said:

until you enable full color range in nvidia cpanel

You forgot to include the instructions or any precise explanations. Besides, not everyone with older monitors will see that function. 

Most importantly, you forgot to tell - it's mostly HDMI.

Here. lemme help you.

Correcting HDMI Colour on Nvidia and AMD GPU

https://pcmonitors.info/articles/correcting-hdmi-colour-on-nvidia-and-amd-gpus/

[test5362]

Well, had a gfx driver crash after sleep mode on that laptop, nothing strange as sleep/hibernate would always cause issues like that for me, but since then video acceleration in Firefox has been broken just like on the 1060. Unfortunately system restore was off and I didn't think to make screenshots of the changed flags in about:support, so that doesn't help, but I think that does point to some blacklisting flag that is applied upon crashing and disables something. If there was a way to see what about:config flags are the newest...

On 12/2/2023 at 4:49 PM, Dixel said:

Well, this topic "win7-browsers-video-colour-range-stutter" doesn't specify Firefox only, try to switch to chrome then? 

I never tried Chrome, but used Chrome-based Opera for quite a while and do not recommend it under Win7, I wrote a bit about that in this thread as well.

 

On 12/5/2023 at 6:07 PM, vinifera said:

until you enable full color range in nvidia cpanel

Have had a curious bug with that actually - using a DVI monitor and TV over HDMI in clone mode with same resolution/hz (seems to be more performant than the normal mode, it tended to give microstutter in games when a browser window or video was on the other screen) almost everything under the "Change resolution" Nvidia CP tab is blanked out for me, and the color range selection is missing altogether. I know it's running in full range, so everything techncially works, but I always wondered if others experienced this as well.

Edit: video works correctly again on the laptop, not sure what caused the change. I did delete two flags, namely layers.mlgpu.sanity-test-failed=false and gfx.blacklist.video-overlay.failureid=FEATURE_FAILURE_DL_BLOCKLIST_NO_ID, but they do not seem to actually effect anything.

Edited December 10, 2023 by test5362