Windows 8 video problem

[Bruce A. Johnson]

I have inconsistent behaviour of video when remotely controlling my Windows 8 computer (my media centre computer). Most of the time it works OK, but sometimes the video freezes for a second or two, or freezes up for much longer. Long enough that I give up, close the connection, and reconnect. Sometimes the video is just plain slow on updating. If the monitor (TV), of the Windows 8 computer is not on, then the video is always very slow to update.

I'm using both computers on a gigabit network. I have Windows 7, 64 bit on my main computer, and I use it to remote control the Windows 8 computer, which is my media centre computer.

Can anyone help?

My media centre computer:

Operating System
.....Windows 8.1 Pro 32-bit
CPU
.....Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 @ 3.16GHz.....36 °C
.....Wolfdale 45nm Technology
RAM
.....4.00GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 399MHz (6-6-6-18)
Motherboard
.....Dell Inc. 0TP406 (CPU)
Graphics
.....TSB-TV (1824x1026@30Hz)
.....512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT (NVIDIA).....68 °C
Storage
.....465GB Western Digital WDC WD5000AAKS-75YGA0 (SATA).....40 °C
.....465GB Seagate ST3500630AS (SATA).....43 °C
.....1397GB Seagate ST31500341AS (SATA).....34 °C
Optical Drives
.....Optiarc DVD+-RW AD-5170S
Audio
.....SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC

[Rudi De Vos]

poll settings ?
w8hook used ?

[Bruce A. Johnson]

It says it's using w8hook.

Poll settings:
It was just Poll Full Screen ( Ultra Fast )
I've now also check-marked Poll Foreground Window and Poll Window Under Cursor.

That change hasn't affected the extreme slowness when the TV is turned off. In fact, now not only is it slow (3-5 seconds response), after a bit it stops showing changes altogether.

I'm unable to reproduce other slowness at will.

I looked here for help:
http://www.uvnc.com/install/configuration.html

But it says nothing for all the poll settings.

[Rudi De Vos]

Normal the w8hook detect at video level the changes, this should be fast unless the hook isn't working.
If vnc isn't running as service try vncserver started as "runas admin" ,it could be that the shared memory used by the hook
requier higher permissions.

With w8hook enabled
[v] poll full screen
[v]systemhookdll
[v] low accuracy

or
without w8hook
[v] poll full screen
[v] low accuracy

Don't use the other options, they are only usefull for low bandwidth

[Bruce A. Johnson]

With w8hook enabled
[v] poll full screen
[v]systemhookdll
[v] low accuracy

Don't use the other options, they are only usefull for low bandwidth

That's exactly the settings I had. I will change the settings back to that.

Could the video driver have anything to do with my problems?

When I upgraded the computer to Windows 8, there were problems with the video driver (stopping with error, then restarting). Since the upgrade to Windows 8.1 and the most recent video driver update, I haven't had any problems. The UltraVNC video problems have been present throughout those changes.

[Rudi De Vos]

The w8hook use the desktop duplication engine.
This require wddm1.2 or higher video drivers to work proper.

To see of the w8hook ( duplication engine) is working you can enable/disable the systemhook
and watch a youtube video. Normal the difference is visable.

You can also try to manual select the encoders.
u2 is fast for video ( this act like mjpeg)
hextile offer a better screen quality for normal window screens

[Bruce A. Johnson]

The w8hook use the desktop duplication engine.
This require wddm1.2 or higher video drivers to work proper.

Windows 8 has WDDM 1.2 and Windows 8.1 has WDDM 1.3.
I can find no information about WDDM for my video card, so have asked nVidia about it.
I can find no way of learning or testing to see if WDDM is working on this computer.

To see of the w8hook ( duplication engine) is working you can enable/disable the systemhook
and watch a youtube video. Normal the difference is visable.

If I disable "System HookDll", then it says it is using vnchook. Either way, YouTube video plays just fine.

You can also try to manual select the encoders.
u2 is fast for video ( this act like mjpeg)
hextile offer a better screen quality for normal window screens

It doesn't matter which encoding I use, when the TV is off, the screen updates are very slow.

I'm kicking myself now, because I forgot to mention something important. With the TV on, the resolution is 1824x1026 (less than 1920x1080 because of adjustment for the TV screen), but when the TV is turned off, the resolution provided to VNC is 1024x768. I figured that shouldn't make a difference in the speed of screen updates, but maybe it's another symptom of the problem?

So far in all my testing recently, I have had no problems at all with the speed of screen updates while the TV is on, though I did before. As usual with an inconsistent malfunction, it doesn't happen when I'm looking for it.

[Rudi De Vos]

Resolution changes...while vnc is running.
A temp resolution change disable the hook and switch to pure polling mode.

Try to test by reconnection the viewer after a resolution change.

[Bruce A. Johnson]

I got a response from nVidia:

"From the email, I understand that you would like to know if we have a driver that is WDDM v1.2.
I will be more than happy to help you with the query that you have.
Unfortunately the last driver we have is 331.82 which is again WDDM v1.1.

I don't know if newer nVidia video cards have WDDM 1.2 or 1.3, but it looks like mine doesn't.

Looks like case closed. I updated from Vista to Windows 8, then 8.1. I skipped over the good version of Windows on this computer...

[Bruce A. Johnson]

More info from nVidia:

We checked further on this, WDDM and NVIDIA drivers are independent of each other. There shouldn't be a need to have a specific hardware or driver to get WDDM driver working. However, we have a Windows 8.1 working with a GTX 680 set up with WDDM 1.3 here.

So no matter what video card or drivers you have, if you have Windows 8, you have WDDM 1.2, and if you have Windows 8.1, you have WDDM 1.3.

I'm going to give up on this issue for now.