Blu-Ray playback broken with all non-WHQL drivers?

[cdx47]

Maybe for the 9500s you have to use one of the other 17x series. 171 "should" be ok as it is a desktop branch. Try those first.

[P.J]

Use 177.41 w/ PhysX w/ PowerDVD 8 Ultra and update your windows.

GeForce 8600M GS doesn't support H.264 :) So you should have powerful CPU -> Check your CPU usage.

Check your power plan and enable/disable Aero service.

Try disabling DxVA.

...

[cdx47]

Who told you that the Nvidia 8x00 series doesnt support h.264? They all do including my humble 8400m GS!!

If your files are not being accelerated (driver issue usually) then you will NOT be able to play the 25GB Transformers HDDVD/backup.

Disabling Aero is a good idea although I dont always do this except may for Transformers.

Having your power plan set on high performance for Transformers is a definite requirement. Not really required for others.

Edited July 4, 2008 by ®®®
Removed Full Quotation of Previous Post

[camote]

Use 177.41 w/ PhysX w/ PowerDVD 8 Ultra and update your windows.

GeForce 8600M GS doesn't support H.264 :) So you should have powerful CPU -> Check your CPU usage.

Check your power plan and enable/disable Aero service.

Try disabling DxVA.

...

so using 177.41 should let me still play bluray discs? i downloaded 174.19 and tried to use anchell's method but setup said my drivers didnt need to be updated. but i have older drivers than these. i'm not supposed to use the modded inf if i wanna keep bluray playback right?

[Guest cdx47]

No mod inf is correct. The error message tells of that you are not following correctly. Are you following Anchels description or the one you replied to?

[Guest Guest]

:) :) :P Thanks cdx47. I tried HAVE DISK method as well and it work perfectly for me. Driver version 177.39. Acer aspire 5920 GeForce 9500m gs.

[P.J]

Let me explain more. All of the 17x.xx drivers can play HD, but it's better to use the latest good driver like 177.41.

I didn't try any HDDVD/Blu-Ray or VC-1 files, but tried some H.264/MPEG2 files.

According to "PureVideo_Product_Comparison.pdf", 8400M GS/8400M GT/8600M GS support H.264 without any post-processing methods, cuz it isn't powerful.

So you may have quality/stuttering problem. For example I should check "Disable desktop composition" in PowerDVD's shortcut to turn off the Aero (not Aero Service) for MPEG2 to avoid stuttering. but for MKV H.264 files, it's not necessary. If you wanna play a mkv file, you should install Haali Media Splitter and PDVD 8 Ultra. Make sure DxVA is activated in PDVD's video tab. Then rename *.mkv to *.avi and enjoy. If you see green/black screen, tell me :)

Edited July 5, 2008 by P.J

[cdx47]

Actually not all the 17x drivers play all HD in particular I am talking about Transformers and Hot Fuzz. But I do "occasionally" have stuttering. Turning off Aero or equivalent action doesn't seem to make that much difference.

As for MKVs I actually have to turn OFF hardware acceleration for MKVs in PDVD7 because of stuttering. Maybe that has been fixed in version 8?

[P.J]

Try both 720p/1080p and tell me the result.

Edited July 5, 2008 by P.J

[Guest cdx47]

I have an LCD that gives me 1to1 pixel mapping which means no scaling issues and best possible digital pic for my screen. 720 or 1080 or 1360x768 (my screen) gives same problem until I turn off hw acceleration.

[P.J]

Do you have stuttering problem with all formats (MPEG2/H.264/VC-1) ?

Try playing some sample file, cuz HD discs have high birtare.

[cdx47]

You have to understand something. I am pretty good at this stuff (and I "really" dont mean to be big headed about this). Anyway just to close this off, Im playing standard 4-12mb 720p and 1080p MKVs h264 encoded with low enough bitrates to be played without any acceleration. As for the stuttering, on the current drivers I simply get a blank screen. The stuttering occured on the 15x drivers.

Edited July 7, 2008 by cdx47

[P.J]

Yes, w/o GPU acceleration you can play them, but your CPU usage go higher !

First try to play them with 177.41. If you get a blank/green screen, you should encode them with MeGUI DXVA HD HQ !

Tell me if you want more information about encoding :)

Edited July 8, 2008 by P.J

[Guest cdx47]

Tell me about megui. I will get 177.41.

[P.J]

Download MeGUI & ffdshow & matroska splitter from http://x264.nl/ and AviSynth 2.5 from "http://mesh.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/avisynth2/Avisynth_257.exe"

After you installed it, run it in Administrator mode, then update it and choose DXVA HD HQ profile during updating.

Next > ...

[cdx47]

Actually after reading your comments in the drivers pages Im not sure 177 is such a great idea but I do remember downloading it a few days ago and it installed and worked. But I didnt try it with MKVs so I will try it again.

*edit* Thinking about this issue I dont really care about the MKVs because even without acceleration the CPU maxes out at about 30% +-5% so there is no issue here. I just want a driver that "reliably" plays transformers. The 171 series is the closest I have come. The 177 series works if I remember correctly but it worries me that its not designed for my CPU at all. I would prefer if the 175 series worked to be honest.

Yes, w/o GPU acceleration you can play them, but your CPU usage go higher !

First try to play them with 177.41. If you get a blank/green screen, you should encode them with MeGUI DXVA HD HQ !

Tell me if you want more information about encoding :)

Edited July 8, 2008 by cdx47

[P.J]

DxVA just increases the battery life and make your lappy cooler :)

[cyclone93]

yes should do that (TBH i know toss about blu-ray discs, anyway they should be spelt blue-ray!! SONY CANT SPELL!! HAHA TEH SUCK ITS SPELLED BLUE-RAY HAHA TAKE THAT SONY

[cdx47]

Something weird has just happened.

I installed a driver which this site says is WHQL but Vista says isnt :) .

I removed and reinstalled PowerDVD but didnt install the patch to make it Vista compatible.

Yet Transformers and Hot Fuzz works flawlessly. :) :P

[cyclone93]

good for you

SONY I PWN YOU AND YOUR ULTRA EXPENSIVE LAPTOPS THAT HAVE X3100S!! TEH SUCK! YOU CANT SPELL!

[Guest mundocani]

I have an LCD that gives me 1to1 pixel mapping which means no scaling issues and best possible digital pic for my screen. 720 or 1080 or 1360x768 (my screen) gives same problem until I turn off hw acceleration.

I have a Alienware m17x with 8700M-GTs in SLI and was able to use the Update Drivers method to get 177.83 (which are WHQL) to install by selecting the 8600GT as the processor. It locked up once each time while updating the two video cards in the Device Manager, but after a restart I was able to repeat the attempt and had it succeed. 177.83 works much better for gaming in SLI mode than the one Alienware is currently dist'ing for the m17x and BluRay playback seems to be working fine.

[Guest mario64]

All,

Here's a REAL solution to this issue. No need to use 'have disk' or any other workarounds just so you can continue to play Blu-Ray discs with new drivers. Unfortunately the problem is with the inf files from laptopvideo2go.com. Something in the way they mod their inf breaks high-def playback. There is a new tool from the folks behind ATI Mobility Modder called Nvidia Mobility Modder which does not have this problem. You simply download and extract the official drivers then run mobility modder to mod the inf. You are then free to install using setup.exe (after uninstalling old drivers of course and preferably running driver cleaner too).

I'm writing this on an Asus G50V-A2 using the brand new 177.92 drivers on Vista x64 and can watch Blu-Ray movies with no issues at all. I installed the drivers using setup.exe as described above.

Here's the link: http://www.driverheaven.net/nvmodtool.php

mario64

P.S. No I'm not a member of their team. I'm just a satisfied end user. :)

[numlk]

All,

Here's a REAL solution to this issue. No need to use 'have disk' or any other workarounds just so you can continue to play Blu-Ray discs with new drivers. Unfortunately the problem is with the inf files from laptopvideo2go.com. Something in the way they mod their inf breaks high-def playback. There is a new tool from the folks behind ATI Mobility Modder called Nvidia Mobility Modder which does not have this problem. You simply download and extract the official drivers then run mobility modder to mod the inf. You are then free to install using setup.exe (after uninstalling old drivers of course and preferably running driver cleaner too).

I'm writing this on an Asus G50V-A2 using the brand new 177.92 drivers on Vista x64 and can watch Blu-Ray movies with no issues at all. I installed the drivers using setup.exe as described above.

Here's the link: http://www.driverheaven.net/nvmodtool.php

mario64

P.S. No I'm not a member of their team. I'm just a satisfied end user. :)

you are my hero!!!!!! it works now thanks a million!

[jackspades]

My card is a GeForce 8600M GS, and I did get it working. I'm using drivers 169.25 WITH WHQL and Blu Ray movies work (HD DVD ones should work as well).

You just have to download the drivers either from here or from nVidia WITHOUT USING ANY MODIFIED INF!!

Then use the HAVE DISK method of installing drivers (Go to PC -> Properties -> Device Manager -> Graphics Adaptor -> Properties -> Update controller software ----> from there just choose that you will specify where the drivers are in and then select "Choose from a list of drivers" and finally USE DISK).

This will show you a list of all the compatible graphic cards for that driver. Yours won't be listed, but you can choose a similar desktop one like the GeForce 8600 GT and choose OK. It will install those drivers with the WHQL certificate and everything will work fine.

Thank you again cdx47 for your discovery! It is being of great help!

My card is a GeForce 9500M GS and I downloaded 177.98 that are whql. I tried to choose driver for 8600 GT too but it give black monitor. What I should select?

[jackspades]

All,

Here's a REAL solution to this issue. No need to use 'have disk' or any other workarounds just so you can continue to play Blu-Ray discs with new drivers. Unfortunately the problem is with the inf files from laptopvideo2go.com. Something in the way they mod their inf breaks high-def playback. There is a new tool from the folks behind ATI Mobility Modder called Nvidia Mobility Modder which does not have this problem. You simply download and extract the official drivers then run mobility modder to mod the inf. You are then free to install using setup.exe (after uninstalling old drivers of course and preferably running driver cleaner too).

I'm writing this on an Asus G50V-A2 using the brand new 177.92 drivers on Vista x64 and can watch Blu-Ray movies with no issues at all. I installed the drivers using setup.exe as described above.

Here's the link: http://www.driverheaven.net/nvmodtool.php

mario64

P.S. No I'm not a member of their team. I'm just a satisfied end user. :)

Yes but I can't find official drivers, from nvidia they send me to acer website (my laptop is an acer aspire 8920g). On the acer website there aren't driver for vista 32 service pack 1 for my 9500M GS. What I should do?