Drivers & Software

[KevinMX]

Hi there, newcomer to the community here.

I've been using this Lenovo Thinkbook Gen5+ APO (R7-7840H / Radeon 780M) for quite some time, with a 4K60 display hooked up via the laptop's onboard HDMI 2.1 TMDS (a.k.a. HDMI 2.0).

However, it seems that hardware accelerated video decode & encode has been a huge issue here. And it's pretty annoying.

No matter it's in Chrome, Firefox, or OBS Studio, just play some random video in the web browser, or hook up my USB capture card in OBS Studio, the video codec will crash. In browsers, Chromium based for example, they will fallback to software decode, or a black screen might occur.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open a browser, both Chromium-based and Firefox are okay, or open OBS Studio

2. Play some random video (In OBS Studio you don't need to anything to trigger the issue)

3. Check chrome://gpu, or about:support in Firefox, or check logs in OBS Studio (Help -> Log files -> View current log)

Extras. It seems when there's no extra monitor plugged in, the issue is less likely to be triggered.

What I experienced:

- chrome://gpu or about:support in Firefox reports D3D11 device removed/resets. (See screenshots below.)

- OBS Studio reports Device removed/resets, or OBS Studio crashes entirely and asks for a restart.

- BSoD might happen, but very rarely.

- Video playback artifacts might happen. Or a total black/white screen in the browser.

What I have tried:

- Reinstall OS -> both Windows 10 and 11, even sometimes in Linux HW accelerated video decode can stuck for a few sec in Firefox

- Reinstall driver -> All versions up to 23.12.1 (latest by now) from AMD website, and also those provided by the OEM (Lenovo), DDU/AMD Cleanup utility were used between driver version switches

- RMA -> The new laptop returned to me still has the same issue

- Change to a different machine that has the same GPU -> Bought a Minisforum UM780XTX with R7-7840HS -> Can still reproduce the issue

(note: it's the HS suffix. AFAIK the 7840H without S is for Mainland China only but should not be that different, since they even share the same product ID according to AMD's website)

Since the OEM didn't reply me, by now AMD Community seems to be my only place left to report this issue. 

I really don't know if this is a driver issue, or it's on firmware side (UEFI fw maybe?), as I can reproduce across all machines using the same iGPU.

Some logs/screenshots attached.

Thanks in advance.

[AaronZ]

I wish I had seen this thread earlier but anyway, it's not an OEM specific issue but a 780M / driver issue in general. I have a Minisforum UM790 with 7940HS/780M, everything works fine except OBS. At first I thought it was my capture card but actually, it does seem to happen depending on the type of media that's running in OBS. If I setup a very basic scene with only a game capture and nothing else, it works fine for hours, but if you add something like a capture device (webcam, capture card etc.) or something like display capture, it will eventually start glitching and the preview will be unviewable/non interactable. This all happens with or without streaming/recording, it has nothing to do with any kind of encoding, just simply using the program.

I asked about this on OBS' forum and even filed a bug report on github to which they simply closed it and said "its the drivers", so the OBS devs were no help at all, although I'm still sort of leaning towards them needing to fix something on their end rather than AMD since this iGPU works brilliantly with everything else.

Anyway there is a solution but its not perfect; a user got back to me on the OBS forums and basically if you force OBS to use opengl as the renderer, it fixes the preview thing, albeit it uses more CPU/GPU now, but for now its the only solution we have.

Here's the OBS forum discussion on the matter (its not my thread but at the time, it was the only place discussing the issue, I was surprised more people weren't talking about it considering the 780M was 6 months old by this point):

https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/multiple-03-issues-obs-ver-29-1-3-64-bit-stale-preview-stopping...

So the problem lies somewhere with the 780M driver and OBS' D3D11 implementation.

Just some other info:

Tested both Windows 10 and 11.

Tested on 23.X and the latest 24.1.1 Adrenalin Software (tested driver only, minimal and full installations).

Tested OEM supplied Adrenalin driver but its from June 2023 and its recommended to just use the AMD ones.

Fully updated my bios although again, problem has nothing to do with OEM/manufacturer.

Tested OBS 29.1.3 (since that was working for query-01 in the OBS thread) and 30.0.2 (latest as of this post).

[NOGNOF]

I confirm that this option helped, maybe it is not perfect and the computer resources are consumed more, but in any case at least something finally! Thank you very much for sharing this:)

[KevinMX]

Not sure in OBS but in Chrome/Chromium, switching to OpenGL results in SW encoding/decoding.

(If I remembered correctly.)

[AaronZ]

I noticed there was a new beta which I'm currently testing (30.1 Beta 2 > https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/releases) with D3D11 and so far the preview has yet to mess up but its early days, others might want to try this. Looking through the changelog of both Beta 1 and 2 there's no mention of AMD so it could well have been something else within OBS causing the 780M to play up, which is what I suspected in the first place.

(still using the latest AMD Adrenalin 24.1.1)

[vekexasia]

Hey @AaronZ i stumbled upon this thread (and also read the obs forum). 

30.1 Beta 2 didnt help. got crashes with d3d. I just need to be having a scene with anything in it and open a random youtube video. Especially if i hit the recording button.

I tried the opengl trick but it prevents me to capture chromium like windows. (Ex: chrome ofc or discord).

Twitch studio works but there is a but I dont know if you noticed but the AMD encoder seems to skip frames.

For now i'm using the CPU encoder. faster preset is good enough for me.

[AaronZ]

Is this with browser source or screen capture? Seems to be related to Chrome somehow but really hard to tell. I only have one browser source which captures my chat (from streamlabs chatbox), otherwise my scene is pretty basic with a game capture, USB3 capture card and an overlay image.

Yes I did try Twitch Studio briefly, the UI is awful and I noticed it using more CPU than OBS, couldn't tell if it was skipping frames I cant remember, but I didn't like it at all so uninstalled after one stream lol

[jacky161]

Tossing in my two cents here, I've been experiencing this issue/a similar issue for a while on my laptop. My laptop has a 7940HS and 780M graphics. It's the ROG Flow X13 GV302XU. While I don't usually too many issues playing back video, I find that if I have a second monitor plugged in playing back video on it, I'll occasionally have it stop for a moment and make all my chrome windows flash before it comes back so that's probably the same issue. I've also found that twitch live streams are really laggy on my system sometimes when I have a second monitor plugged in. I've even been able to reproduce it connected to my capture card and I submitted a report within the AMD drivers about it. https://youtu.be/eboe9VmS_MA

I also am experiencing the same issues with OBS as a lot of you here are with that device remove/reset error. It makes OBS basically completely unusable for me on my laptop which is really annoying especially considering this is supposed to be a top of the line cpu. Streamlabs OBS doesn't have this issue for me in my limited testing but it's not ideal since I would like to use regular OBS for some plugins I use that aren't supported on Streamlabs. I tried using OBS with OpenGL as some have suggested but I find I get a lot of rendering lag and dropped frames even with just a simple desktop capture. Not sure why OpenGL seems to work well on other systems but not mine. In any case, I really hope AMD's driver team looks into this sometime but I'm not getting my hopes up.

[AaronZ]

Does it have OEM drivers on the Asus website? If so try using the generic AMD one instead here: https://www.amd.com/en/support/apu/amd-ryzen-processors/amd-ryzen-9-processors-radeon-graphics/amd-r...

Usually OEM ones are recommended but its worth a try.

[jacky161]

I've been using the generic AMD ones. The OEM drivers are actually a lot worse as they have a lot of random issues like when I watch Twitch, the stream looks like it's 480p even though it's set to 1080p which is really odd. The generic drivers solve a lot of issues but OBS still isn't perfect. Small update on OBS, I've figured out that adding sources as scenes in your current scene is what's causing the vast majority of my issues. If I get rid of my scene source, it makes it much better to where OBS is actually mostly usable for me. I don't know why this is causing it considering especially that I can reproduce the issue even if I add a blank scene with nothing in it as a source.

[KevinMX]

24.2.1 WHQL Driver is out.

Would anyone like to try it?

https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-rad-win-24-2-1

[sangnguyen207]

I try it and it still does not work. 

I dont know why but I only meet this problem a few day ago 25 Feb.

Now I tried everything but still can't even open a video file on computer or watch netflix. I tried disable AMD RadeonT 780M in Task Manger and can open video file/watch Netflix normally. But you can't do lots of thing without that Driver, like I can't connect to 2nd monitor when disable this driver.

Any one find out the solution please tell me

[esel]

@cluka @norti @NOGNOF @jacky161

Still having plenty of black flickers while watching videos / using hardware acceleration-demanding sites. How does it look like on your end?

[sangnguyen207]

anyone have the solution yet?

[KevinMX]

Right now the only solution is, ditch the 7040 series, buy an Intel machine, or maybe the new 8040 series (rumors said some issues were fixed on this new HW revision)

[sharkyshark]

I stumbled across this thread as I had exactly the same problem. The solution with assigning the app to the Nvidia GPU works fine. In addition, there is a BIOS update that I installed today on my Lenovo LOQ 16APH8. It seems that it solves the issue. No more freezers.

[KevinMX]

Lucky that you have an NVIDIA dGPU.

As long as you don't touch the RDNA 3 iGPU you're totally fine.

[KevinMX]

Bad news guys:

Someone just send a video clip, which is, on Thinkbook 16+ 2024 edition, Ryzen 7 8845H ver

And the video codec bug still exists!

He was playing a video in browser and then a black screen occurred.

So it appears that AMD still hasn't fixed this issue even in the latest gen Ryzen Mobile APU, either it's on silicon side or driver side.

[KevinMX]

https://drivers.amd.com/drivers/whql-amd-software-adrenalin-edition-24.3.1-win10-win11-mar20-rdna.ex...

Would anyone have a try? 24.3.1 driver is out.

[Ailuridae]

I just installed it and I don't see any difference.
Whenever I open youtube video in browser - laptop crashes with BSOD ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And each time it's different errors (I encountered SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION, IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL and DRIVER_OVERRAN_STACK_BUFFER)
Now it may be even more reproducible than before

HP Zbook Power G10 A

[zuxy]

24.3.1 is worse. Watching YouTube with older versions in Chrome led to flickering, and disablement of hardware acceleration in chrome://gpu, but this version causes the laptop to freeze.

I'm wondering if there's a registry hack to completely disable video codec across the OS. Of course there're flags to do this in browsers, but other applications do not, like Netflix or Apple Music, which more often than not will hang my laptop.

[A3di]

I was so close to getting the Lenovo Yoga Pro 7 with the 780m but now i stumble across this issue? Is this is still not resolved is this even gonna happen anytime soon? Can you just not watch videos and use OBS on those devices? Sorry I dont understand alot of the tech terms u guys use

[J-Scrizz]

I Believe this is causing issues with Moonlight streaming too, I cant use hardware decoding.. it always crashes resets and goes back to software decoding, Can anyone confirm they are having this issue with Moonlight aswell?

[A3di]

Is this an issue one would face when using these specs when i am trying to edit videos with davinci resolve, just watch videos in browser on yt etc and use obs to record my screen? I dont undestand the tech lingo unfortunately

[KevinMX]

For video editing: YES.

Anything related to video encode/decode WILL BE IMPACTED.

[kindyear]

Dear all,

I am a new user who has just purchased a new laptop equipped with an AMD R9-7940H processor (780M graphics card) and an RTX4060 Laptop with 32GB DDR5 5600 memory. I am wondering, if I use the AMD GPU for OBS streaming rendering and the RTX graphics card for gaming, will I encounter the issues this mentioned?

KINDYEAR

[kindyear]

Perhaps this question is beyond the scope of this discussion topic, but if anyone knows, please kindly let me know: Does the R9-7940H (not the HS version) support VM virtualization? I may need to use VMware or WSL functionalities. Since my new computer hasn't been delivered yet, and the OEM isn't very familiar with these technical details... Thank you all.

[KevinMX]

AMD-V is supported.

[KevinMX]

While some people report they have NOT encounter any issue at all, in theory anything related to video encode/decode WILL BE IMPACTED. Which, of course, includes OBS streaming.

Good luck. Make sure you can get a refund if anything bad happens.

[rwker03]

Can someone try this fix? I saw something at Lenovo forums regarding the 780 igpu where someone a fix for Netflix crash. Could be related. 

[esel]

Hi, I don't think it's related to this. My GPU assigned memory is way above 512 MB - and 2 GB - but that makes no difference. I remember reading this post back in November 2023 when all this started for me.

Cheers.

[clement2001]

Hello, I am facing the exact same issue with OBS studio as you. The constant artifact shown in the preview in OBS studio and also stuttering during recording. OBS studio would freeze at some point during recording and stuck at "Stopping recording" upon clicking it. It is sad to know my old Intel laptop run OBS studio flawlessly, whereas my new laptop struggle with this software. It's really affecting my productivity as I needed to record my screen and AMD is yet to release a proper driver that fix the issue with OBS studio!

[esel]

@clement2001 @rwker03 @kindyear @J-Scrizz @A3di @KevinMX @Ailuridae @zuxy @sangnguyen207 

I've started this post on Reddit to check if there's any experience with this issue between their users:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AMDHelp/comments/1c9i1uw/the_neverending_hardware_acceleration_issues_with/

It would be great if you could post something there to keep it visible to other users.

I really don't know what to do anymore. I've reported this problem 3 times through the AMD Bug Report Tool, but I haven't gotten an answer so far. I'd rather just be told that it has no solution at all than being on tenterhooks.

Have a great Sunday!

[KevinMX]

Okay seems there goes 24.4.1, wonder if there's any improvement...

https://www.amd.com/en/resources/support-articles/release-notes/RN-RAD-WIN-24-4-1.html

[AncientMammoth]

Yep, I Have been facing the same issue since the start of 2024 when the new driver update rolled out for Radeon 780M, everything has went downhill since, every thing described here is the same for except my model. HP Victus- AMD Ryzen 7840HS with Radeon 780M and Nvidia RTX 3050. Dissappointed to see that even after 4 whole months, this issue has not been fixed yet.

[richard00726]

when will this be fixed
MPO disable makes it better, but does not fix it
using dual monitor makes the thing worse

OBS crashing everytime and youtube flickering everytime
My first amd experience is **bleep**

[richard00726]

tried windows 11 24h2 26120 build to see if anything works better, but still same.

[Dano456123]

Same problem here with Lenovo Legion Go (Ryzen Z1 Extreme, 780M iGPU). It doesnt matter if i use OEM or AMD drivers. Crashes are in every program which uses HW acceleration (Firefox, Chrome, Edge, MPC-HC, iVMS 4200). Twitch site is always giving me error 3000 and YouTube is freezing or buffering sometimes. I throught that this is problem with HDMI cable, so i bought HDMI 2.1 labeled cable but no fix. Now i am pretty sure that this is problem with drivers and i hope they fix it sometimes because it seems like this is going for a long time. I can live with low performance of this GPU, but HW acceleration is basic thing, without it i am losing frames on almost every video.

[KevinMX]

Geez, so still no fix even with latest driver as now? Can't believe it.

Glad I went for Meteor Lake. Although that's a whole another dimension pile of $h*T ...xD

[Dano456123]

I fixed my problems. Turning on Dolby Atmos for home theater was issue, looks like 780M is not really friendly with Dolby Atmos sound via Dolby Access app. If i change sound to default 24 bit audio, then i have no issue with HW acceleration. Never had this issue with Intel CPU, so i think you made good decision