Enable 10-bit support for AMD Radeon cards

Discussion in 'Videocards - AMD Radeon Drivers Section' started by Behelith, Dec 10, 2013.

  1. Behelith

    Behelith Guest

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    I noticed several people on the web are looking for a way to activate 10-bit support on AMD video cards. You can activate 10-bit on AMD Radeon Cards in Windows with a registry hack. It's possible that it also works for newer AMD cards but I 'can't check it since I don't have newer cards. Also I only checked on windows 7 x64.

    What is 10-bit support?
    Normal video cards work in 8-bit mode. With 8-bits per channel each R/G/B channel can increase in 2^8 or 256 steps from black to R/G/B. In most cases (movies/games/desktop apps) this is more than enough. For some graphical applications like Photoshop you might want to have more "color resolution" so that colors are reproduced more accurately. In 10-bit mode the R/G/B channels can increase in 2^10 or 1024 steps from black to R/G/B.

    What do you need to be able to use 10-bit mode?
    - 10-bit compatible videocard
    - 10-bit compatible monitor
    - 10-bit compatible software (Photoshop CS4 and later)
    - Dual-Link DVI cable or Display Port (no convertors)

    When should I not enable 10-bit support?
    If you play games, watch movies or use any other software that is only 8-bit compatible. In 10-bit mode these applications won't start, you'll get a black screen or even a BSOD.
    If you don't know what this is about -> forget about this post.

    ATTENTION!!!
    If you mess with your registry keys and make a mistake or do something wrong you can crash your windows and possibly destroy your computer. It's possible that this "edit" won't work for your configuration. If you don't know what you are doing don't touch the registry. I merely shared this information so that other people with enough knowledge can play around with these settings. If you need 10-bit support for your profession you should buy a video card with native 10-bit support (AMD Fire Pro or nVidia Quadro). If anything goes wrong don't come crying ... you've been warned!

    How to enable 10-bit support:
    Basicaly you have to look for:
    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Cl ass\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
    Then depending on how many video cards you have there will be folders named like [0000] [0001] [0002]
    To activate 10-bit support you have to add the following lines in the folders that are expandable:
    [Type:REG_BINARY]VisualEnhancements_Capabilities=hex:40 00 00 00
    [Type:REG_DWORD]KMD_10BitMode=dword:00000001

    Restart your computer ... done
    You will see that windows disabled Aero since it's not 10-bit compatible

    Example:
    A system with two AMD radeon HDXXXX in crossfire.
    In this case you have to add:
    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Cl ass\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0001]
    "VisualEnhancements_Capabilities"=hex:40 00 00 00
    "KMD_10BitMode"=dword:00000001
    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Cl ass\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0002]
    "VisualEnhancements_Capabilities"=hex:40 00 00 00
    "KMD_10BitMode"=dword:00000001

    How to disable 10-bit support:
    To deactivate 10-bit support you have to change the values to:
    [Type:REG_BINARY]VisualEnhancements_Capabilities=hex:00 00 00 00
    [Type:REG_DWORD]KMD_10BitMode=dword:00000001

    Have fun in smooth color world!
     
  2. miiksu

    miiksu Guest

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    What if something goes wrong? How do I fix my Windows 8.1 if my screen goes crazy?
     
  3. Espionage724

    Espionage724 Guest

    Boot into a Win8 installer with installation media, and then use the included tools to handle the already-installed OS.

    I think this would work anyway.
     
  4. miiksu

    miiksu Guest

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    Probably it would work. Someone else try it first. Be the experiment rabbit! :3
     

  5. nhlkoho

    nhlkoho Guest

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    How many of you own 10-bit capable monitors or do you just do this to say you have a 10-bit card?
     
  6. drbaltazar

    drbaltazar Guest

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    10 bit in hdtv is a cheat ! why? because they don't use the full range .in a car?it would like being able to go from 3 mile per hour to 252 .yes you get more shade between each step but not a bigger range .in fact it is less then srgb .don't sweat it if you use srgb 4.4.4 for game and srgb 4.2.2 for video you llbe set good . ycbcr use 10 bit and you need to use scrgb to use it on a computer .the best bet is to have a hdtv and a monitor ,this way both can be set at proper way and you can view video etc on hdtv and game on monitor.just make sure the screen you use can actually do 100% srgb this is most of the time the main problem.
     
  7. miiksu

    miiksu Guest

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    My monitor is PA246Q. Not sure if my graphic card support 10bit colors.
     
  8. Fox2232

    Fox2232 Guest

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    va-ips in 8 bit mode is already light years better than TN in 6 bit mode. Difference from 8to10 is not as noticeable as from 6 to 8.
     
  9. warlord

    warlord Guest

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    Amd Radeon Gaming Cards cannot support 10bit color, I'm not interested.
     
  10. rflair

    rflair Don Coleus Staff Member

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    Actually I think they do.
     

  11. Starks

    Starks Guest

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    Does this include GPU decoding?
     
  12. BenYeeHua

    BenYeeHua Guest

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    If you means H.264 10 bit, nope.
     
  13. sirDaniel

    sirDaniel Guest

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    There is no consumer hardware available that decode 10 bit video files in hardware acceleration. Anyway MPC-HC can decode 10bit h.264 videos in software and output it to your monitor. It works only in D3D Fullscreeen and 10 bit output option, after pressing Ctr-j it should show Display A2R10G10B10. You also need win 7 or above as a OS.
    Historically, only AMD proffesional cards could output 10bit as desktop (so everything, not video only), i didnt try a reg hack above since i have laptop with cheap matrix. It might work however, just guys check urself.

    Interesting but old tool you can play with is DXOverride from Humus http://www.humus.name/index.php?page=Cool&ID=6 This tool is intended for forcing a Backbuffer to a special format, including A2R10G10B10. Might work for some dx9 games?
     
    Last edited: Dec 14, 2013
  14. 10bit

    10bit Guest

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    I can confirm this did not work for my HD 7850 in either photoshop CS5.5 or CC (option ticked in photoshop preferences, 10bit display connected with displayport). Tried with radeon drivers and modded firepro drivers (missing the firepro tab in FirePro Control Center). There is a rumor ticking the 10bit option also changes your Profiles.xml file in appdata/local/ati/...

    Could you say what hardware/drivers you got it working on and maybe post your profiles.xml?
     
  15. tarkovsky

    tarkovsky Guest

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    Just tried with Radeon R9 290X on Windows 8.1. Didn't work. Screen goes black.

    Best,
    t
     

  16. DanEVO7

    DanEVO7 Member Guru

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    The hardware_settings_info.xml file of formula1 games in documents folder has this line: "<capabilities a2r10g10b10="true" a2r10g10b10_srgb="false">". Has it anything to do with it? This means that the game is working in 10bit? And that my HD5870 supports it in a way? Its a system detect file i think.

    Edit: With HD6990 it is "true" for both.
     
    Last edited: Mar 19, 2014
  17. sambul81

    sambul81 Guest

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    I can confirm these Registry settings are also present in FirePro card record when 10-bit is enabled.

    Yes, also there's a section in Profiles.xml reflecting this setting in FirePro CC. Not sure if it affects anything other than ticking 10-bit option in FirePro (or hidden Radeon) AMD CC tab settings, but it may also affect the driver behavior. Not sure though, if its enough to set the Reg, there might be a lot more serious driver code differences btw Radeon and FirePro driver lines.

    Code:
    <Feature name="10 Bit Pixel Format">
          <Property name="10 Bit Pixel Format" value="Disable">
               <Cousin name="[COLOR="RoyalBlue"]your card hardware ID[/COLOR]" />
    </Property>
    Very simple. Just boot into Safe Mode and revert the Registry settings. In Win 8-10 you need to wait until the bootloader options screen shows up, and click the right options step-by-step to reboot into Safe Mode.
     
    Last edited: Jan 17, 2016
  18. janos666

    janos666 Ancient Guru

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  19. Ninj

    Ninj Guest

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    Hi Belehit and everyone.

    I bought a Sapphire Fury Tri-X and installed Windows 7, but i could never make this hack work. Could it be because Fury line cards are on a slightly new architecture compared to previous Radeon?

    Anyone having a clue to make this work with AMD Fury?

    The error i get is pretty straight forward: blue screen on Windows Startup.

    Thank you :)
     
  20. sambul81

    sambul81 Guest

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    You may want to read this thread attentively to the end:

    Catalyst 10 btc mystery

    Short answer: "It might not be possible to get 10-bit on a modern consumer Radeon card by simply editing Registry". If it were the case, many pros would not be compelled to buy costly FirePro cards. Quite a few complex caveats are addressed in that thread, which makes the task more realistically looking compare to "just change a few reg settings".
     
    Last edited: Feb 7, 2016

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