Starfield is now on GeForce NOW

Just a really quick post because I am so excited about Starfield: oddly not seen on their 'announcement' areas at NVIDIA's GeForce NOW website (GFN Thursday, etc) - it is indeed listed as playable on GFN in NVIDIA's listing of available games:

I say "odd" because I didn't see it prominently displayed on their blog page where they announced that XBOX Game Pass for PC was being added to GeForce NOW (August 24th):

GFN Thursday: Xbox Game Pass on GeForce NOW | NVIDIA Blog (page link)

It isn't listed in the 'list of newly added games', where they have Deathloop and Doom2016 listed - so at the time I didn't think it was available. Since the XBOX Game Pass for PC was added (which is totally awesome) I thought/hoped that maybe Starfield would be seen one day there, but it wasn't at the time.

I'm not sure why, but just a bit ago I wanted to download the latest version of GeForce NOW and see what's new there (I don't think you 'have to', as the app will Update itself, it seems; but I do this once in a while when I haven't played GFN for a bit - just to make sure I have the latest version). After starting GFN up, I noticed Starfield was listed in the PC Game Pass list of games - woohoo!

It is also available to play on GFN if you own it on your Steam account, so go try it now, NOW gogogo lol

Update 1: starting Starfield up on GeForce NOW, it came up with "Syncing"... and that took a while... Then, starting it up again later, going into the Main Menu and Startup areas of the game, it came up with "Building Shaders" - but thankfully, although it started out slowly, it didn't take long at all. Just give it a little time and it'll finish heh. Also, it seemed to have my updated Save Games from the XBox For PC game cloud all ready - which is great [nice job GFN team]. Have fun!

It's Not Just You™ - NVIDIA Drivers Released Today Seem To 'Reset' Notifications Back To Default (ON)

Just a quick post to say that, if you Updated your NVIDIA GPU Drivers today (2018.09.19) and think that the Notifications (Pop-Up Messages) are 'resetting' themselves back to 'ON', if you set them to 'OFF', after rebooting, etc - that It's Not Just You™...

I personally prefer them all 'OFF' (sometimes I leave the Screenshot Notification 'ON') - and so I noticed right away, that after setting them to 'OFF' and then rebooting - they appear to have 'reset' themselves automatically to 'ON' again.

Highlighting the very-helpful 'toggle all' slider, this is how the Notifications look when they are all turned OFF

(GeForce Experience, NVIDIA GPU Software)

I thought maybe I just didn't properly Disable them, so I brought up the GFx In-Game Overlay (formerly SHARE, formerly SHADOWPLAY, etc) and turned off the Notifications (there is a great one-click 'disable all' shortcut-type toggle, wtg NVIDIA!). Then I rebooted.

Restart'in Windaz (Windows 10 Power/Restart Interface)

Upon startup, I hit the Screenshot key configured and 'BLOWP', there was the pop-up Notification ["Blowp" is the sound an NVIDIA Notification makes on this Timeline].

"BLOWP! I SAVE A SCREEN THING!"
(Oh and this is what My Desktop looks like at the moment... The background Wallpaper I made from a Fallout 4 Screenshot. Some icons are made by me as well - if people start asking for them, I will release them, either as a "Pack" or separately, sometime)

I opened up the configuration for the In-Game Overlay (SHARE...SHADOWPLAY...etc) just to see if it was 'reset' back to 'ON' - and it was.

The Notifications in GeForce Experience's In-Game Overlay seem to have automagically 'reset' themselves to the 'ON' setting, after Rebooting the system (GeForce Experience, NVIDIA GPU Software)

Not a huge deal - many of us don't even turn off our systems or need to Reboot near as much anymore these days - and although there is the possibility that NVIDIA intended it to be 'resetting/defaulting to ON', as some sort of "Hey, I'm Runnin' Here" notification to Users after Restarting/Rebooting/etc; I still wanted to try help improve GFx [my abbrev.] and keep it 'free of issues' (as much as I can assist) and 'just in case' went to inform NVIDIA's Support Team that this is occurring with their latest iteration, so I opened up the Feedback and typed this in:

This seemed a lot funnier late at night and really tired... I totally thought I was going to 'cheer up someone's day' with a semi-silly little "complaint", heh (Feedback, GeForce Experience, NVIDIA GPU Software)

Then, I came to Share [pun originally not intended] with my dear readers, or Searchers of this issue/popup occurrence, that this indeed happens - hopefully making the world a little safer and happier, letting others know that if you run into this issue of the notifications 'resetting themselves' with this latest Update of NVIDIA's Drivers - that It's Not Just You™...

Quick Tip: NVIDIA "Device Not Found" Issues Possibly Fixed In Latest Driver Update [Notification]

Recently, I have been running into an issue I hadn't seen since I last owned an NVIDIA videocard** - a "Device Not Found" error. Thankfully, this problem may be seen even less now, as a recent NVIDIA Video Driver Update, released just now, may fix this issue. If you have been running into a "Device Not Found" error, or the possibly-related "No DirectX 10 or 11 adapter or runtime found" error - with an NVIDIA GPU - grab the Driver Update and see if it makes a difference for you!



I've had a few of these occur the past while, although moreso the last time I owned an NVIDIA videocard**, this 'old issue' popping up again only recently, with GTAV (Grand Theft Auto 5: "No DirectX 10 or 11 adapter or runtime found") and off/on with Playclaw [doing some testing with it for a future 'comparison/shootout' of various game recording programs, I was running into "cannot start encoder for empty frame" and "device not found" errors]. To be fair, AMD GPU's also have similar issues [such as, one which states "The Device Has Restarted", usually after a game/screen 'freezing up' on your for a few seconds]. With NVIDIA releasing an Update today, that stated in the ChangeLog/PatchNotes that an issue of this type has now been 'fixed', hopefully we'll be seeing these errors even less:

The NVIDIA Driver Patch Notes, stating an issue has been fixed that may directly solve these problems.
Click to see Full Size

The actual 'fix' states that the "Driver may get removed after the PC has been left idle for an extended period of time". I say that this may be related to the issue(s) stated above, because I found that after leaving the system on all night, going to play a game the next day, I would often run into these issues/errors (moreso than if I had been continually using the system). These errors would pop up even if I had the GPU Power Saving settings on "High Performance" or "Always On" [I live in an apartment where electricity is included in the price of the rent, so I don't mind leaving the system on 'all night' to perform tasks (backups, video compression, etc)]. A simple Restart usually 'fixes' everything, no errors come up after that, no "Device Has Been Removed" or anything - that is, until I leave the system on 'all night' again... Then these types of errors show up, once I try to utilize the system in the morning. So, hopefully this latest Driver Update from NVIDIA solves, or at least reduces, these types of errors.

Example of one of the errors this Driver Update may possibly fix: "No DirectX 10 or 11 adapter or runtime found"
(Experienced with an NVIDIA GPU while trying to play/startup GTAV after not touching the PC for a long time, shown Full Size)

If you are running Windows 10 and an NVIDIA GPU, be sure to grab this latest Driver and see if it helps reduce their occurrence for you - I'll try to return to this post and let you know if it does/doesn't for me, too. GL!



[Note: I apologize, but I have misplaced/lost a few Example Screenshots of the errors stated herein. Ones showing the "Device Not Found/Ready" or "No DX3D Device Found" or "d3d11: failed to create device" and similar errors, all of which I have run into when trying to use the system after not interacting with it for a while, and took Screenshots of. I will continue to look for these as I can, and once I find them, I will add them into this posting.]




** Disclaimer and Personal Veracity Statement: Although I currently own an NVIDIA GPU, I have owned both AMD GPUs and NVIDIA GPUs in the past, and will do so in the future. I have no personal preference between the two, purchasing one or the other as Upgrades depending on my needs at the time and my financial limitations at the time I need to Upgrade. I have not, and will not, receive any compensation for mentioning either companies' products herein. I am merely an enthusiastic user (of both) and try to share helpful information about them, as I can.

Quick Tip: NVIDIA 'In Game Overlay' Stopped Working? Here's How To At Least Get It Going Again [Fix / Workaround That Might Work For Some, Updated 2018-04-26]

Whether it wants to be called Shadowplay, Share or [as of the time of this post] In-Game Overlay; it doesn't really matter to most people I think - we just look for something to record our gameplay once in a while, maybe take some Screenshots, 'and just work'. Thankfully, NVIDIA's In-Game Overlay [or whatever it may be called by the time I finish this post, heh] does just that. Most of the time.


Although I rotate between a handful of different recording programs off and on (such as Bandicam, Action, Playclaw and others - just for fun and also slowly working on another 'Game Recording Comparison' for the future), In-Game Overlay [built into the NVIDIA Drivers, aka "for free"] records when I want, it records a Buffered Loop (a timed, re-recording of 'the last xyz seconds', to save when needed) - and it even takes Screenshots and more. However, sometimes this big fella has just 'stopped working' lately. No saving Screenshots, no Recording, no Error Message, Nothing; and I wasn't sure why... After only a tiny bit of Troubleshooting, I quickly figured out how to at least 'get it going again' and I just wanted to share that here for you all, in a Quick Tip™.

To be honest [I always believe in being completely honest], I am still not sure why NVIDIA's In-Game Overlay stopped working - but I did figure out how to simply get it working again - and here's what I did:

• Once I noticed the Overlay wasn't taking Screenshots, I looked to see if the Overlay itself or more of the (many) NVIDIA utilities were still running, in the Task Manager. They were. [The In Game Overlay's Executable is still called "NVIDIA Share.exe", btw]
• Thinking that something might have gone wrong with the Overlay utility, I opened up NVIDIA's GeForce Experience.
• In GFX [my accro.], I clicked on the 'gear' in the upper-right corner, "Settings".
• In the Settings area, I clicked on the switch/toggle for In-Game Overlay.
• Although it took longer than normal, it eventually turned Off. Clicking it again, it turned back On.

That's it! After those steps, the In-Game Overlay was working once again. Taking a Screenshot, for example, the notification from the Overlay came up, and the Screen was saved. It also started Recording again, without issue. Here is a 'Tutorial Image' of the steps to take:

Tutorial Image of what steps to take to 'restart' the NVIDIA In Game Overlay;
the recording utility built into the NVIDIA Drivers
(Click to see Full Size)

Although I do not have any details on why it failed, I still thought this short 'tip' would be helpful for people that might run into this ("shadowplay not recording" or "in-game overlay not taking screenshots", etc) - so I wanted to share it here. HTH!

...

Update, 2018-03-26: Just a quick Update, that as of March 2018, I have run into somewhat of an extension of this issue, where GFX is no longer responding to this simple 'toggle' of the In-Game Overlay... Doing so (which used to temporarily 'fix' the issue above), now merely results in an 'error' message box, stating "That Didn't Work. Try Restarting Your System.", which although polite, is not very informative as to what caused the error or what else can be attempted to isolate/troubleshoot the issue further:

Doing some more research online, I see many others running into this issue, as well as its' 'extension' here... However, there still is no absolute 'fix' for this problem yet [at least, none that is verifiable and repeatable, which I prefer to have as a qualification to my sharing it here as a "fix"] - therefore, I cannot say for certain what can be done to fix it, even though a wide range of things have somewhat worked for others (some early steps work, others must use further steps), such as:

• Uninstalling/Reinstalling GeForce Experience
• Installing an older version of GeForce Experience
• Utilizing a third-party 'drivers uninstaller' to completely remove NVIDIA's GPU Drivers and Reinstall NVIDIA's GPU Drivers/GeForce Experience [AMD users can get a similar utility directly from AMD]
• Reinstallation/Formatting of entire system (eg. Windows) and Reinstalling NVIDIA GPU Drivers and Reinstalling GeForce Experience

...

Update, 2018-04-26: Just another Update, that as of April 2018, I was looking at this issue once again [since it still occurs, where InGameOverlay/Share just 'stops working' randomly (for no apparent reason)] and found that NVIDIA has this exact symptom listed as an "Open Issue (Windows 10)" in their Driver Updates now (Change Log / Release Notes); which basically means it is 'a known issue', but that they do not have a fix/patch at this time. This was found in the Release Notes for NVIDIA GPU Driver version 397.31, found here:

https://us.download.nvidia.com/Windows/397.31/397.31-win10-win8-win7-desktop-release-notes.pdf

(USA Source of NVIDIA GPU Drivers, Release Notes)

As you can see, under the Windows 10 Section, it lists this very problem as an Open Issue. Good Luck, NVIDIA - I hope you find a solution someday!

Excerpt of the Driver Release Notes, showing this problem as an 'open issue'
Click to see Full Size

Again, once I find out what actually is a solid fix for this issue, I will state so here and post it in big, bold lettering [lol], along with a Tutorial Image (text on an example image of the solution, etc). Until then...

It's Not Just You™ - Fallout 4 Crashing with NVIDIA's SHARE Game Recorder (Possibly Relating To The High Resolution Texture Pack) [Notification, Text-Only]

Updated 2017-06-19: I found one cause of the crashes with SHARE and Fallout 4 (for me) - The HRTP

Just a quick post to say that, if you are experiencing Fallout 4 CTDs (Crashes To Desktop, where FO4 closes without any messages or anything and you are left staring at your Desktop in Windows), I want to let you know It's Not Just You™ - as I am finding I am experiencing this as well, lately...

I haven't looked into Forums specifically for this, but perusing Forii off and on over the past year or so, where many are talking about Fallout 4 and Crashing, it seems to happen a lot to people anyway, for just about any reason, unfortunately. I myself wasn't experiencing this very much though (gladly), until just recently when playing FO4 again [and spending way too much time building up Settlements instead of getting Quests done], I was testing out different Game Recording Programs and started seeing this happen.

I'm happily playing Fallout 4, getting frustrated at the Building mechanics or shooting some Raiders attacking my Settlement, when all of a sudden, BOOM - desktop image and icons. No message, nothing. Fallout 4 has closed itself instantly. I of course start it up again and begin to see where I last hit QuickSave or the game automatically Saved for me - but this has happened a few times in a row now where BOOM - the desktop greets me and icons appear. No message, nothing.

It's Not Just You™ - Mirillis' ACTION Crashing On Startup After 2.2.0 Update [My Issue Fixed with 2.2.1]

Just a quick post, to let those of you using the game and desktop recording application ACTION! by Mirillis know that a few days ago (on February 10th, 2017) the program was Updated to version 2.2.0. I enjoy testing out ACTION! as it has good performance - I purchased a License for it a while back and I want to do a 'Game Recorder Comparison' for The Blog which includes it as 'one of the contestants' here someday "Soon™" - but for now, I wanted to let other users of it know that ACTION! currently seems to be crashing after this latest Update...

Example of ACTION! currently crashing on Startup as of the date of this post.
GFX (GeForce eXperience, my abbrev.) shown in the background as having the Latest Drivers.
Click to see Full Size.

Now, this may only be NVIDIA GPU owners - I recently received a shiny new GTX 1060 GPU for Christmas from Santa and was testing out some game recording applications off and on - and found that ACTION! is crashing. Steam users are talking about it as well, as they seem to be having the same issue [my version of ACTION! is the Standalone version]. *Note, I am not "Joker5", one of the users mentioning this issue, in the Screenshot containing the Steam Activity Feed about it, I did not make a comment on the Feed at this time

While I am sorry to say that I do not have a Solution or Fix at the moment (I usually put "[Fix]" or something similar in the Title if I do), this is just a quick post to let other users of Mirillis' ACTION! know that - if you are having 'crashing-on-startup' issues at this time - It's Not Just You™...




Update 1 (2017-02-14):
I did eventually get the application to start, but it took six tries/restarts to do so. I will Update this post when a more permanent fix/update is known

Update 2 (2017-02-15 AM):
There is a new version of NVIDIA drivers released (378.66 dated 2017-02-13), but after installing them, now ACTION gives an Error 104 about half the time when starting it up... I purchased a Commercial Use License for ACTION a while ago, and made no changes to my firewall (the error is related to those aspects) so this should not be happening. I may contact Mirillis or post in their forum, etc. to see if this is related and/or notify them of this

Example of an Error that was occurring with ACTION version 2.2.0 showing NVIDIA Driver version in GeForce Experience
Click to see Full Size

Update 3 (2017-02-15 PM):

There was just now an Update released for Mirillis' ACTION (version 2.2.1, released today, 2017-02-15)

Update 2.2.1 notification message at the bottom of the ACTION! interface
Click to see Full Size

I have installed this new version and tested it - and it runs without issue - I have closed it an opened it numerous times now, without any problems. Here is a Screenshot of it starting up:

Screenshot of ACTION! version 2.2.1 starting up in Windows (including a wide-angle Desktop Wallpaper I compiled from multiple screenshots, with customized logo, I will make these available in the future)
Click to see Full Size

Using this version now, I went and looked at the Changelog for it (History of Changes and Updates to the program). Here is the Changelog for this version:

It is the first item that I find interesting, as I recently was testing out a 'Razer Surround Pro' audio device that came with my Gamepad - and as a result of porting audio through that device, there are no longer any Audio Devices listed as operational in the Recording tab of sound devices in Windows. Here is what my list of input devices look like now:

I only mention this because it is interesting to me [I wonder how related having no Input Devices was, to the issue I was experiencing (along with others, according to their forum and Steam Feeds), with ACTION - prompting this Update? I don't know the answer, of course, I am not a Developer or Programmer for Mirillis... I am merely thinking out loud. Wondering, heh].

Regardless, if you have run into this issue, it seems to have been solved by this update that 'just' came out - go get it - hopefully it will fix any issues for you too. Way to go, Mirillis - keep it up!



[Personal Note/Declaration: I am not affiliated with Mirillis or any of their products in any way (look at the links, there are no 'affiliate links' or 'tags' in them) and have not and will not receive any compensation in any form, for talking about ACTION here. I am merely a user of their program and wanted to share this information to help others. I have also utilized other similar programs in the past (such as FRAPS and Bandicam, free recording programs like OBS and MSI's Afterburner and more) and will use any of these products in the future]

Quick Tip: Bandicam Releases CFR-capable Recording Update (for Importing into Vegas, Premiere, Lightworks, etc) [Notice of Update]

Just a Quick Tip for people having problems editing their recordings in Sony's Vegas, Adobe's Premiere, or Editshare's Lightworks, Canopus' Edius and other similar Non-Linear Editors:
Bandicam has released an Update to their software today, that allows the choice of either VFR (Variable Frame Rate) recording [Shadowplay's Default, for example] or CFR (Constant Frame Rate) recording - which is much more compatible for importing into these video editing applications, when recording with NVENC, AMDAPP or QuickSync codecs.


For a number of years now, people have been having issues with importing videos into Vegas or Premiere (to use these as an example, as two of the more common consumer editors) - mainly because many recording applications/settings use, by Default, VFR recording (Nvidia's Shadowplay, for example). As many people have already found, this can cause a multitude of problems, when trying to import these recordings into some of the video editing programs mentioned above. Problems such as:

• Audio and Video being Out Of Sync
• Recordings not showing up as Full-Length
• Audio not importing properly
• Video not being recognized
• Audio importing as only 'a small piece' of data

and other issues...

An example of one issue that can arise with VFR and some Video Editors is, 'trails' or corruption of some type; where the differences between the frames is displayed erroneously, as seen in the still-frame/screenshot just below:

While these issues are a combination of the strictness of the video editing applications and the settings that the codec is using in a recording application, these may now all be alleviated, with the latest update to the game recording program Bandicam, if they are occurring:

The Bandicam interface after the recent update, showing the Steps ("I. II. III.") for enabling CFR, which increases import compatibility with video editing applications such as Vegas, Premiere, Lightworks and more (MP4 container, GPU-accelerated H.264/AVC via the AMDAPP codec, 60fps format/settings shown as example). Click to see Full Size

Today, after updating to the latest version of Bandicam, there can be seen the option to choose either VFR (the Default for Shadowplay and many other recording applications, including Bandicam - which is more efficient for compression, but can result in problems when importing into Vegas/Premiere/etc) or CFR (which is less efficient for compression, but can alleviate the problems with importing into Vegas/Premiere/etc).

For those wanting to use NVENC, AMDAPP or QuickSync to record, for example (GPU-accelerated recording capabilities), this will allow increased importing into these editors, without the need to 're-compress' the videos into a more compatible video format (for example, adding the extra step of using Handbrake to convert the videos into CFR, making the videos importable into Vegas/Premiere/Lightworks/etc, as I wrote about here, when talking about Shadowplay). 

(As another example, if you used Plays.TV's client to record with (which can also use buffered and GPU-accelerated recording), you may have noticed audio/video desynchronization occurring, when attempting to import your recordings into video editing programs - as Plays.Tv's Support Area talks about here, it is due to the usage of VFR)



As a quick Test, I captured my Desktop in a short recording (using Bandicam with the new CFR setting), then tried to import that into Vegas, to see if the video and audio were indeed importable without problems, as a trial of this new compatibility setting.....

A short test of the CFR setting in Bandicam (Desktop portion, short recording, imported into Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 13, playing back within Vegas, output converted into GIF with Honeycam).
Click to see Larger Size

It worked great! The recording was not only imported into Vegas without complaint, it was faster (more responsive) in editing/shuttling/scrolling through the video, due to the CFR setting.

[This was with the AMDAPP (AMD GPU-accelerated) codec, in the MP4 container, using the CFR setting. This codec setup within Bandicam utilizes AAC audio as well and I would use it mainly when editing with Sony's Vegas line of video editing products, as it seems to import without issue. If I were to switch to other codecs or the AVI container, they may then not be as easily imported into NLEs such as Vegas, so I would then use something else, such as CyberLink's PowerDirector (for example), which is far less 'fussy' when it comes to codecs and formats, for importing]

VFR (Variable Frame Rate) helps increase possible compression by reducing the number of frames in a group ('groups of frames utilized per second' in the file) - literally reducing the number of frames used in a file - when less is changing/occurring onscreen. CFR (Constant Frame Rate) will increase file size moderately, due to the fact there is no longer the reduction of the number of frames in a group useable as a factor in compressing the video further - when 60fps is set as a FrameRate, it will literally write sixty frames every second into the video file, regardless of how much has changed onscreen. BitRate is still the major factor in how large the video will be, however. Also note, that this setting is independent of the "fps" (Frames Per Second) displayed output.

[TLDR: CFR will create larger files than VFR because it cannot compress the video as much, but not excessively large, as BitRate is still the main factor in video compression/sizes - and both of these do not affect "frames per second" output onscreen]

Hopefully, this new capability will alleviate the problems with importing your game recording experiences into your favourite video editing application. Try it out, have fun with it - and See You In The Game!

 N.B.: 

I discovered when editing recordings with NLEs (Non-Linear Editors) such as Vegas, Lightworks, Premiere, et al. you may need to utilize a GOP (Group Of Pictures) of "1" for editing compatibility... 

Usually, with MPEG-based video data, there are set intervals of "Keyframes". 
Keyframes are 'stand-alone' images, where all the picture data is kept within one frame (it is not dependent on surrounding frames in the file). Video editing applications use these Keyframes to begin/cut edits from. If there is a large GOP (with many frames in-between these Keyframes), the video editing program must 'key off' of these frames, rebuilding the GOP within the program, causing slowdown in edit processing and possibly causing visible corruption ('trails' or 'glitchy' output). 
Setting a Keyframe Interval of "1" makes every frame in the video a Keyframe, eliminating the possibility of this issue. 

I have written a couple of articles on this, here at the blog,
http://gametipsandmore.blogspot.ca/2013/06/and-more-how-to-record-with.html
http://gametipsandmore.blogspot.ca/2013/05/game-recording-with-mpeg-4-using.html
and submitted this occurrence to Bandisoft, the development house of Bandicam. I am proud to state that this led to the inclusion of a Keyframe Interval option within Bandicam. 

This setting may still be required for full compatibility with Non-Linear Editors. 

Although a GOP of 1 takes away most of the 'headroom' to work with video compression (the video file sizes will increase as it does not have the inter-frame dependency), if you are having issues with importing your videos into these types of video editing applications, even with this new CFR setting, try configuring the Keyframe Interval to "1" [you can also use PCM ("Uncompressed") audio to increase audio compatibility] and this should assist with issues with importing your recordings into these editors. 

Good luck with it!

And More, Quick Tip: HitFilm Effects 'Stop Working' or 'Not Working When Reopening Projects' in Sony Vegas 13

Just a Quick Tip, for those using Sony's Vegas line of products for editing. I was working in a recently-upgraded-to Movie Studio 13 Platinum, enjoying the new version and trying the FXHOME HitFilm Effects plug-ins that come with it. Then, the plug-in effects seemed to stop working today - they didn't show the effects in the Preview at all when I re-opened the Project. I could open the Settings Panel for the plug-ins and change them, but could not 'see' the HitFilm effects. I made a few recent changes to my System, one of them being upgrading my NVIDIA GPU drivers. So, I rolled them back, installing an older version (going back to 332.21 - a version I chose so that I could also use CUDA for Rendering, among other things) and boom - the Hitfilm effects were back ...to the future ...with a vengeance ok I'll stop. So, if anyone else runs into this problem with these HitFilm Effects and Vegas [it may help no matter what Edition you have installed], try rolling back the GPU drivers.

[N.B.: This issue was encountered and solved on my NVIDIA GPU,
it is unknown by myself, at this time, whether this issue exists with AMD/ATi GPUs]

Have fun editing your gameplay adventures - and See You In The Games!

And More: Editing NVIDIA's Shadowplay Recordings and 'The VFR/CFR Problem' (Text-Only Version)

[Updates at bottom of article]

Just a quick post on the problem many people seem to be having with editing NVIDIA's Shadowplay recordings and how to work around it, for now...

For those who don't know, Shadowplay is a free game recording capability that is included in NVIDIA's GeForce Experience utility and is accessible by anyone with an NVIDIA GPU that is a GTX 650 or higher [they state "600 Series or higher"]. Simply install the GFx utility [my abbrev.] and turn it on and Shadowplay will record a buffered period of time, overwriting that space/file again and again, until you decide to save something cool that happened in the game.

Whether FRAPS sold NVIDIA the code to do buffered/looped recording (as FRAPS has had it for many years), or NVIDIA developed it on their own, the end result is the same. The problem is, a ton of people [if technical and game forums everywhere are an indication] are unable to edit the end output correctly, when using Shadowplay.

The main reason why this seems to happen, could be due to Shadowplay utilizing VFR to record it's video data into a file. VFR stands for Variable Frame Rate, and essentially it allows the frame rate to change from slow to fast, above and below the 'set' frame rate, many times if needed, within a single video file. This helps to save space by making low-motion (or static) scenes use less frames within the video file and make complex scenes (with high-action/movements) look smoother by inserting more frames into the video file. Sounds good and test videos look fine, but the problem is when going to then edit the 'Shadowplays'.

Many video editing applications (especially NLE's [Non-Linear Editors]) may not like Shadowplay and will choke on the video, hold back sound in spurts and spit up bits of food on your screen if you try to edit the recordings. This could be due to the usage of VFR.

Note: I don't want to 'put the blame' on NVIDIA or VFR here, NVIDIA is a fantastic company with great innovations and products, and VFR is a great method for organizing frames within video data that creates a lot of 'headroom for compression' (lower file sizes by reducing the number of frames used) while trying to maintain Quality as well (by increasing the frames utilized per second within the GOP data of the file, as the codec decides it is beneficial). It merely is not as compatible, when it comes to video editing programs. As another example, Plays.Tv uses Accelerated VFR in its' Client to buffer/record with, which it notes here in their Support section, is simply less compatible and can create audio/video synchronization problems - the issue is VFR and editing compatibility -  not these companies/utilities themselves...

Fortunately, the 'fix' [which in my opinion of more of a work-around] is relatively easy, if slightly time-consuming:

Simply re-render the Shadowplay recordings into CFR (constant frame rate) video (where 60fps really is 60 frames being recorded or played back in sequence, in the video, every second, throughout the entire clip). There are many apps that can do this, but the most popular [most-popularly-used in the video-editing circles that are experiencing this problem] is probably Handbrake (it is completely free to use). Simply import your video and choose Constant Framerate in the Video Tab. That's it.

Another program you can use, is built right in (if you use Windows): Windows Movie Maker [Note: Windows Movie Maker does not seem to be bundled with Windows 10, it may however be available as a separate download]. Simply import the video and without adjusting anything, export (render) it out to MPEG-4 (MP4) format. It will produce a CFR (Constant Frame Rate) video that you can then import into programs that were having trouble with VFR - like Adobe's Premiere and other video editing applications.

[Choose a high quality setting or high bitrate, to maintain as much of your original recording detail as possible (so it won't compress it even more and lose detail). If you need to set a BitRate for the export, make sure to set it higher than the original video clip(s) BitRate ((Personal Suggestion: 2x more if you can))]

Once this is done, you'll be able to import your Shadowplay 're-renders' without problem, whether you use Premiere, Vegas, Lightworks or some other video editing application that has been having trouble importing your VFR video (for instance, some people have had problems with Shadowplay recordings using CyberLink's PowerDirector and others have not had a problem with PowerDirector at all, importing it fine - I have not used Shadowplay Recordings in PowerDirector yet [I do not have a GPU capable of using Shadowplay at this time] but I have personally imported VFR material into PowerDirector 12 without problem).

[I might come back and add screenshots to this article in the future, or create a new one talking more specifically about VFR and importing it into Premiere, but for now I wanted to bang it out and get it up here to help people who have been having this problem (many since last year, when Shadowplay first came out, with even more people having the problem earlier than that with Premiere and VFR recordings from their cameras)]

I hope that helps some people out for now, anyway. Have fun recording - and See You In The Games!




Update 1:

Bandicam has now implemented an option in their game recording software (as of July 2015), which allows choosing CFR recording or VFR recording. Since it also uses GPU-accelerated codecs such as AMDAPP, NVENC, QuickSync (and can be made to use CUDA, if you still have that), it seems to have become a viable alternative to this problem. As a Registered User of Bandicam, I shall test out this latest version of the software and perhaps write a post about it Soon™


Update 2:

I have done some quick testing with this new version of Bandicam (with the ability to choose CFR as well as use VFR if desired) and have written a short post about it at this blog, here.


Update 3 - 2018.06:

NVIDIA's Game Recording Utility seems to have changed names a few times, known as Shadowplay, then Share, then In-Game Overlay. Whatever it is called today, while this issue with editing VFR might remain, on some older video editing applications; it seems to be less of an issue on the most recent versions of video editing apps (as of 2018) - tested personally with a few programs, such as Sony's Vegas Pro 14 (now taken over by MAGIX), CyberLink's PowerDirector 16, and Corel's VideoStudio 2018 - all three video editors did not have an issue Importing and Editing VFR material (as of June 2018 when I did these short tests) [I do not own and did not test Adobe's Premiere/Elements, at this time, sorry]. So, if you are having an issue editing Shadowplay/NVENC recordings circa 2018 or later, try updating your video editing application(s), if you can.

TestRun, Quick 'End Of The World' Edition Answers: Does SLI Really Make A Difference? and Where Should I Put PhysX for NVIDIA Videocards? (Text-Only Version)

Update: Added more Tests and Results - Hitman: Absolution Benchmark, Unigine: Valley Benchmark, Left 4 Dead 2 Unscripted Gameplay Test, Tribes: Ascend Gameplay Test and Rollercoaster Tycoon 3: Platinum Gameplay Test

Recently becoming the proud owner of another NVIDIA card, I swapped out my trusty AMD/ATi Radeon HD 6870 from ASUS that has served me so well and lovingly joined together two GTX 560 Ti videocards in electric matrimony to try out some SLI. I share now my experiences, the results of many tests and answers to questions I have seen in many places online, including one I had myself.

This is also a 'Quick' Edition, a version of the testing and results that are text-only for now, where I may do a full version as time permits in the future, with screen recordings, graphs and other materials that I would like to share and would help people out.

The Experiment

For this TestRun, with two NVIDIA videocards, I try answer the question: "Does SLI really make a difference?" and also "Where to put PhysX?". Sure, the answer of 'if it makes a difference' is answered other places online, with pretty graphs and numbers; but I am one of those people that, although accepting, don't 'truly believe' things unless I can test it out myself. This is a human stubbornness I know, but it also helps me explore many things I would not have otherwise experienced and allows me to share those results and experiences with others. "Does it really double performance?" is probably a more specific question of what I'm feeling, as of course it should make a difference, after all I am putting another 384 processing cores towards throwing around colorful shapes on my screen. I want to know if it even 'doubles' the awesomeness of games that I play. There are two cards in there now, so what's the difference in performance?

Another aspect I plan to explore is regarding PhysX, NVIDIA's lovechild of bouncing balls and splattering sparks. Does it affect game performance? Which card should run it if I have it on? Is it better to run it on a dedicated card [that only uses it for that] or off of the CPU? These are my own questions as well since finding a second NVIDIA gpu on sale... PhysX is only in a hamfisted-handful of games - and is only going to be found on NVIDIA GPUs, but it is supposed to improve visual/perceived quality in the games that do use it, due to the fancy waving flags, shattering glass and splattering blood [and the like]. I am going to test the options of having it on the first or second SLI card and how PHysX runs off of the CPU, too.

The Test

For this TestRun, I used utilities such as FurMark and FluidMark, Unigine's Heaven Benchmark and a handful of games to benchmark and test with, such as Just Cause 2, Alien Vs. Predator, Lost Planet 2, Battlefield 3, Unreal Tournament 3 and Batman: Arkham City (all but the first two utilize PhysX). I am currently running an AMD 6-Core CPU and two GTX560Ti's in SLI mode on a GIGABYTE 990FXA chipset mainboard.
I assume this is still an average-to-above-average system at the time of this writing (perhaps upper midrange but definitely not top-of-the-line) and it would help out anyone with a similar rig in the future as well with examples of some of the performance difference they will see [if they add a second videocard].

The Data

Here are my benchmarking test results and average framerates, comparing SLI mode with a single GPU:

FurMark: Score (2127), Average Framerate (40fps)
FurMark: Score (3959), Average Framerate (65fps) SLI
Lost Planet 2 - Benchmark B: Average Framerate (44fps)
Lost Planet 2 - Benchmark B: Average Framerate (103fps) SLI
Just Cause 2: Concrete Jungle Benchmark, High Settings, Average Framerate (28fps)
Just Cause 2: Concrete Jungle Benchmark, High Settings, Average Framerate (51fps) SLI
Alien Vs. Predator: Benchmark Run, 1920x1200, x16 Filtering, Average Framerate (44fps)
Alien Vs. Predator: Benchmark Run, 1920x1200, x16 Filtering, Average Framerate (90fps) SLI
Unigine Heaven Benchmark: 1080p, x4x4 Filtering, Score (960), Average Framerate (38fps)
Unigine Heaven Benchmark: 1080p, x4x4 Filtering, Score (1717), Average Framerate (68fps) SLI

Unigine Valley Benchmark: 1080p, Ultra Settings, 8xMSAA - Score (1077), Average Framerate (26fps)

Unigine Valley Benchmark: 1080p, Ultra Settings, 8xMSAA - Score (1741), Average Framerate (42fps) SLI Hitman: Absolution Benchmark: 1080p, Ultra Settings, Average Framerate (32fps) Hitman: Absolution Benchmark: 1080p, Ultra Settings, Average Framerate (33fps) SLI (Hitman: Absolution does not appear to take advantage of SLI and/or is not Optimized for it, despite double-checking that SLI mode is enabled and trying to utilize NVIDIA's 'Custom Game Profile' for it, as well - the following two games also do not appear to take advantage of SLI mode) Tribes: Ascend - 1920x1080, Very High Settings, Average Framerate (51fps) Tribes: Ascend - 1920x1080, Very High Settings, Average Framerate (53fps) SLI Rollercoaster Tycoon 3: Platinum - 1600x900, 8xAA, Reflections and other (17fps) Rollercoaster Tycoon 3: Platinum - 1600x900, 8xAA, Reflections and other (19fps) SLI Here are some unscripted, raw gameplay framerates, averaged: (multiple samples taken of each with FRAPS' built-in benchmarking utility) Alien Vs. Predator: Marine Storyline, Average Framerate (47fps) Alien Vs. Predator: Marine Storyline, Average Framerate (89fps) SLI Battlefield 3 : Multiplayer with 64 Players, Average Framerate (33fps) Battlefield 3 : Multiplayer with 64 Players, Average Framerate (61fps) SLI Left 4 Dead 2 - 1920x1080, Very High Settings, 4xMSAA, 4xAF, Extra Film Grain (128fps) Left 4 Dead 2 - 1920x1080, Very High Settings, 4xMSAA, 4xAF, Extra Film Grain (185fps) SLI *Planetside 2 : Multiplayer with many players, BioLab, Average Framerate (36fps) *Planetside 2 : Multiplayer with many players, BioLab, Average Framerate (37fps) SLI [*Game does not appear to be fully optimized currently, article with more detail here: http://gametipsandmore.blogspot.ca/2012/11/planetside-2-and-ultra-settings-quality.html) Here are the PhysX tests, done with FluidMark: FluidMark: Score (5338) single-card mode, PhysX on the card, Average Framerate (87fps) FluidMark: Score (5449) SLI, PhysX set to (GPU1), Average Framerate (89fps) FluidMark: Score (7512) SLI, PhysX auto-selected (GPU2), Average Framerate (123fps) FluidMark: Score (7379) SLI, PhysX set on (GPU2) Dedicated, Average Framerate (121fps) FluidMark: Score (1291) SLI, PhysX set on (CPU), Average Framerate (21fps) The Conclusion So, does putting in a second videocard practically 'double' your gaming performance? Dang right it does. Now, I have read that it 'should' in many other articles online, but again, I had to test it out for myself. Almost across the board, in every game I threw at it, the performance was almost doubled. Wonderful stuff. For those about to spend money on a second GPU for SLI because now they know it 'will definitely make a difference', I should mention as a Tip here that the more cards you add in (for 3-way or 4x SLI or Crossfire, for instance) the lower the rate-of-return you actually get on the investment. In other words, adding a third card won't 'double the performance again' and adding a fourth card won't 'double that performance yet again' -  it won't even give you 300% and 400% performance [for the third and fourth videocards added]. You will actually see diminishing returns as you add more cards. Still, if you have enough money for only a second GPU that matches your 'old' one, but not enough money to splurge on a new, faster one, clearly SLI/Crossfire is the way to go, it really does make a huge difference. The PhysX tests are interesting, as they answer a question that I myself was wondering: does it matter whether you set PhysX on GPU1, GPU2 or the CPU, and should a GPU be dedicated to it? It seems to make sense, that although a powerful, complex 6-core processor, my CPU is nowhere near the raw number-crunching [if 'simpler'] streamlined data-geyser that the 384-core video card is. The difference can be clearly seen in the results. On the CPU, PhysX calculations [alone/isolated] gave a 23fps output of gushing blood on the screen, while even just one videocard running PhysX by itself put out 87fps of crimson data. Adding another card and telling that GPU instead [of utilizing the first card] to 'calculate the physics if you please' took the framerate up to over 120fps. Clearly, NVIDIA is showing that the videocards were made to handle the floating leaves, sparks and bouncing balls of PhysX ...and ball handle they did. What is interesting is the difference that was made, depending on which card you chose to handle PhysX. When the PhysX was set to GPU2 (the card not plugged directly into the monitor in my case), the highest score was achieved. When the PhysX was set to GPU1 (the card plugged directly into the monitor), it scored almost exactly the same as if there was no second card in the system at all. Now, the utility (FluidMark) does test 'only' PhysX and there isn't much to see on the screen other than some bouncing baubles, but it seems to show that if you put PhysX on the same card that you are using as your display card (that your monitor plugs into), then it might in fact affect performance of that card to display the pretty images on your screen slightly - or at least, to 'deal with PhysX and show pretty colors on your screen' at the same time. Either way, they are both better than utilizing the CPU, as the pitiful performance when on the CPU (at least for 'mainly PhysX only' calculations) is over 500% slower than the performance seen when PhysX calculations are put on the second video card, and still calculated at over 400% slower compared to when PhysX is put on the first video card in an SLI setup. Clearly it is better to have PhysX calculations done on a GPU - and perhaps not put it on the main display card if you can. Testing the ramification of this in actual gameplay, I played some Unreal Tournament 3 and Batman: Arkham City, while juggling the PhysX of both games to be calculated on the CPU, GPU2 and GPU1 (the main display card where the monitor is plugged in). Using FRAPS for collecting benchmark data in Average Frames Per Second, I saw no more than a few frames difference between all modes. That is, playing with PhysX set to GPU2, PhysX set on GPU1 or putting the PhysX onto the CPU, I saw only a few frames of difference in actual gameplay performance. Mind you, it can be argued that I didn't see as many sparks, blood, snow or leaves float across my screen at times; but overall, if you are concerned with only "the game performance ramifications" of where to put PhysX, The Answer Is: playing a game, it doesn't really matter (but the CPU calculates PhysX slower than putting it on any card, as seen in the data). Overall, if you can't afford that fast, newly-released videocard you want, but you can afford to get another GPU of the same type as the one you have now - and your motherboard and powersupply can support it - it's totally worth it to get a second videocard for SLI/Crossfire performance (and if you're going the NVIDIA route, it doesn't really matter where you put PhysX). Have fun upgrading and See You In The Games If The World Doesn't End Soon!

Star Wars: The Old Republic Gets Anti-Aliasing - NVIDIA vs AMD/ATi Still Image and Video Comparisons

I haven't played SWTOR in a while and it was great to see when logging in that a patch installed a much-asked for anti-aliasing capability to the game engine (which came out only days after our post poking fun at it, but it was something asked for since Beta). Great job listening to your customers, devs!

To turn it on, simply open up the Preferences in SWTOR and under Graphics, it's a pulldown menu that allows Off, Low and High settings.

The HERO engine was said to not have this capability, so either they injected it, programmed it, or it must be a post-processing filter, similar to Skyrim's FXAA (Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing) and BF3's Post Filtering, where the calculations (the detecting and blurring of the edges) isn't done at the drawing stage but afterward.
It works well:

Having now a set of good mid-range video cards, one NVIDIA and one AMD/ATi, I thought I'd see what the difference was in-game, when each was set to High.
Here is a short video showing the two side by side, in a short clip speaking with an NPC, and a pan and still shot of a FRAPS captured frame from the game:

There aren't really any big differences by the look of it, unless you really want to nit-pick. Both do a great job. Textures seem to be slightly crisper with ATi, slightly clearer, and NVIDIA seems to use higher-quality settings for AA from the get-go, just picking High makes it look great. I find with the newer ATi cards that forcing Higher Quality Anti-Aliasing (Supersampling, HQ A.I., etc.) results in a higher-quality picture overall versus the NVIDIA, using a GTX560 as a comparison against an HD6870. Again, both do a great job though - if you have those cards or higher the game is smooth as silk to play. Hopefully your video card can handle turning on Anti-Aliasing. If it can, things will run a little slower but the sometimes-distracting jaggies are heavily reduced with this great addition to the game.


To celebrate this new option from the developers and my upgrade of a monitor (Thanks, P!), I present a larger size Star Wars Loading Screen Desktop Wallpaper at 1920x1200, from us to you:

The Star Wars: The Old Republic Loading Screen Desktop Background Wallpaper at 1920x1200

See you in there!

Forcing Anti-Aliasing In Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) with Video and Screenshot Example

Since Beta, I have been attempting to force Anti-Aliasing in Star Wars: The Old Republic. I see that many many people are also trying to do the same. I have read that Bioware themselves states that with this game's HERO Engine, there is no such capability (I am guessing to allow possible merging with consoles, allowing console play in the far future, I see few other reasons other than keeping the gaming overhead low for older machines, to increase marketability).

I have a GTS250 and Santa gave me an ATi/AMD Radeon HD 6870 for Xmas. I want to share here, my findings:

Nvidia AA set in the Nvidia Control Panel VS Amd-Ati AA set in the Catalyst Control Panel.
Unedited (cropped and pasted only) other than the 3 logos put in, FRAPS capture, same area, same NPC.
Either one is stretching or one is squishing, take your pick. I always wondered why all the females seemed to have huge butts in the game. Actually, I think it's just the character models are different (randomly generated), the main thing to notice is the difference in the aliasing ('stair-stepping' on the edges of the lines/models)
Click to see Full Size.

With the Nvidia GTS 250, I was unable to, in any way, shape or form, enable or force Anti-Aliasing. I tried Ntune and other applications that work with Nvidia brand video cards, I tried initialization tweaks (.ini file editing), everything. Nothing worked and judging by the images on the internet of people who 'HAVE IT ENABLED LOOK AT THE SCREENSHOTS', it is never really enabled and there are still jagged edges all over the screen.

For those who don't know, a Tip of what Anti-Aliasing (A.A.) is:
When a graphic adapter (video card for example) talks to the monitor to draw dots and objects so you can see things with your human eyes on the screen and attempts to draw a straight line at an angle, it cannot do so properly, due to the fact that the screen is made up of dots. The result on the screen can only 'resemble' or 'imitate' a straight line at an angle. Thus, the result is termed an 'alias' or 'fake version' of a line at an angle. This is fine, but the jagged edges are distracting to the human eye, especially as they move and jiggle when there is movement on the screen.
Because of this, we have the option to try to get rid of them (which is impossible, but we can try to 'hide' them) via a technique that blurs the jagged edge over and over a few times and blends it with the surrounding dots - and that very "attempt to hide the problems of the jagged imitation of a line at an angle" is termed Anti-Aliasing. Literally, we are against and trying to get rid of, the jagged representation of a straight line at an angle that is being displayed by dots on a screen by blurring it over and over. That's it. 

[Hey, that means we can have rallies and find members by asking them "ARE YOU AGAINST ALIASING??" and they can shout back "HELL YA I AM" and then we can high five each other and all drink and shoot guns together to loud music, celebrating our brotherhood of jagged-free-ness.] 

I had planned on recording a New Series for the Game Tips And More blog, using SWTOR (it actually began with the game Bully, but I haven't uploaded those videos yet) it was to be a series that I entitled "Let's Play Without Talking" (because...well....I don't talk - other reasons for this name will be explained with that Series of uploads/videos/posts). In recording my gameplay and annoyed at not being able to get Anti-Aliasing working with the Nvidia card, I threw in my shiny new Radeon and attempted to force AA in the Control Panel (as I did with the Nvidia Control Panel for the GTS). What resulted was AntiAliasing in SWTOR. Wonderful.

The 4xAA difference can be clearly seen, especially in the front of the brown armor, along the neck and down the bars of the holding cell behind. There is really nothing more I can add, this video is proof: As of Christmas 2011, The Way To Fully Enable Anti-Aliasing In SWTOR is to buy an AMD/ATi video card!


See you in there!



**Update 2012-01-22:
There has been a patch that enables AA within the game itself.
Creating testing videos and will post em once compiled...
Compiling.............
.......................................
Done!
Article and new video can be found here:
http://gametipsandmore.blogspot.com/2012/01/star-wars-old-republic-gets-anti.html