Disabling enhancement Options for ATI card

I use an integrated motherboard graphics: ATI Radeon HD 4200.

I disable the following options using "AMD VISION Engine Control Center":

• Edge-enchancement
  
• De-noise
  
• Enable dynamic contrast
  
• Enforce Smotth Video Playback
  

Is that correct for so I can achieve better quality and performance?  Should I disable "Use automatic deinterlacing" and/or it's sub option "pulldown dectection"?

A bit off-topic but is there a guide for upgrading graphic card (i.e. finding out if it's compatible and able to run on my PC and maybe good sources to buy it) possibly posted by someone on a message board or from a site with decent merit.

You can leave deinterlacing and pulldown enabled.
If you have an option called "Mosquito Noise Reduction", then you can also disable that to improve performance.

There are two things that you need to pay attention to when upgrading a card:
1) Connection type. Most modern motherboards and graphics card use PCI-Express. So that is not much of an issue.
2) Does a potential graphics card need an extra power connection? High-end card often need one (or even two). If your power supply (PSU) doesn't have such a cable, then it would be a problem.

Hardware sites often do comparisons of cards. Just search for a recent comparison to get a good overview of the differences between cards. Mid-range card have the best performance/price value.

For basic video playback you do not need a powerful card. Only if you want the absolute best quality. But differences are relatively small and most people don't even notice or care.

I just notice another setting in "AMD VISION Engine Control Center" at Video > Quality:
Apply Current Video Quality Settings to Internet Video.
^ Would that increase the quality and performance of videos I stream online?

Thanks for answering my second question, I'll probably buy a mid-range card.

No, that would apply the other settings to Internet video. It is best to leave it disabled and apply no enhancements at all.

I forgot to say that "Apply Current Video Quality Settings to Internet Video" at Video > Quality is also the place where I unchecked all the options I mentioned at the first post.

If I unchecked "Apply Current Video Quality Settings to Internet Video" that means no enhancements is apply to internet video right? No additional options is require to turn off enhancements for internet video?

Yes, that should be correct.

Thanks for helping me all the way through!

@ Crab

You may want to re-enable "Enforce Smooth Video Playback" if you run into issues later.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3601/the-final-word-on-the-best-radeon-htpc-card

Thanks ocyl!

I'll just turn it back on as it only disable post-processing features on my card & situations where there are known issues. It has no or little impact on the performance and quality (I think  ).

@admin
Is it require for AMD VISION Engine Control Center to be running in the background (icon in notification area) for my settings to be remember?

That should not be needed.

Alright, I'll remove this from launching at computer startup.

Hi was going to start a new post but I think Crab won't mind me bumping and asking a question.

First off, thanks to Codec guide/Admin website !

It is hard to find simple guides regarding tweaking and enhancing Video playback, but your small article "tips on improving video quality helps. I have Shark007 Codecs+64bit addon and MPC_HC_madVR86.11 installed, have yet to play with MadVR settings but I hear it offers the best video quality playback to date.

I have a question from what I can gather so far I have changed these settings like above:

(under ATI control panel>video>video quality)

Unchecked the following:
Edge-enhancement
De-noise
Mosquito noise reduction
De-blocking
enable dynamic contrast

I have then left enabled (ticked)
Deinterlacing:
Use automatic setting
pulldown detection

Video playback:
Unchecked the following:
Enforce smooth video playback

Enabled (ticked)
Apply current Video quality settings to internet video


I was confused by crabs question and Admin's reply back to him regarding the "internet video" should this be Ticked or not ticked ?

It should be disabled. Then I assume it won't apply any enhancements at all to Internet video.

Btw, if you switch to the K-Lite Codec Pack then you'll have all that stuff in a single package.

@Dexter54

ocyl wrote:
You may want to re-enable "Enforce Smooth Video Playback" if you run into issues later.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3601/the-final-word-on-the-best-radeon-htpc-card

The above link ^ explains what "Enforce Smooth Video Playback" does.

thanks guys will leave the tick "off" for internet video.

And re-enable enforce smooth video playback.

Good to know k-lite has all the options also, am happy with sharkcodecs for now

One more thing that people may want to disable is "Brighter Whites" under the Video section in Catalyst Control Centre.  It's turned on by default and its description suggests that it manipulates colour temperature for videos.  Yikes!

Thanks ocyl have turned this option off since brighter whites was left on by default, I was wondering why things still looked bright.

But I have also noticed 2 other settings above brighter whites in the colour ati settings:

colour vibrance
flesh tone correction

I assume its best to switch these all off?

Also if people want to optimise and tweak the best settings for there TV set check out this website here:

http://www.avforums.com/pages/pictureperfect/

It teaches you how to best edit and fine tune your TV settings, really can make a difference in visual quality took me an hour but then I wrote down all the settings in my diary to make things quicker if I ever need to do it again !

Dexter54 wrote:Thanks ocyl have turned this option off since brighter whites was left on by default,  I was wondering why things still looked bright.

But I have also noticed 2 other settings above brighter whites in the colour ati settings:

colour vibrance
flesh tone correction

I assume its best to switch these all off?

Yeap~

thanks did switch them off and noticed colours now appear natural and not overly powered and bright....

While its nice to see a sky blue, super blue when you see the normal intended colour you reclaim much detail !

Absolutely.  Warmer colour temps also make plastic and neon colours look more artificial than they are supposed to, which can be quite distracting.