This would probably make more sense if you showed some screenshots of what you're talking about. The renderer is usually just EVR, there's no option to force D3D9 or D3D11. HW acceleration can work with either but it's unlikely that a GPU maker would implement AV1 support for a dead API like D3D9.

At some point after one of the windows updates, I couldn't get MPC-HC to play smoothly anymore and the only settings that worked was using the MPC Video Renderer, D3D11 and exclusive fullscreen. I had the same issue on an 8th gen NUC and AMD 780M.

MS is constantly messing with stuff, it wouldn't surprise me if the D3D9 DXVA2 interface is gone and it falls back to a CPU based pathway.

jmarsh wrote on 2026-03-02, 06:27:

This would probably make more sense if you showed some screenshots of what you're talking about. The renderer is usually just EVR, there's no option to force D3D9 or D3D11. HW acceleration can work with either but it's unlikely that a GPU maker would implement AV1 support for a dead API like D3D9.

This:

I tested with 4K youtube videos now on AV1 vs VP9. AV1 returns NONE in HW decoder when the video is running, while VP9 returns my device name. Does that mean my driver doesn't support DXVA2 AV1 acceleration?

Ok, that's the LAV decoder properties rather than the renderer.
It could be that the GPU driver doesn't support AV1 using DXVA2, or the supported resolution might be capped below 8k.

jmarsh wrote on 2026-03-02, 12:15:

Ok, that's the LAV decoder properties rather than the renderer.
It could be that the GPU driver doesn't support AV1 using DXVA2, or the supported resolution might be capped below 8k.

As I wrote above, it seems AV1 isn't supported at all in DXVA2. D3D11 works fine regardless.

Anyways, I saw VMR-7 again turns everything to Software rendered for some reason

VMR-7 is ancient, pre-vista tech. It definitely didn't support DXVA2, not sure if it even supported DXVA1. I don't think win10/11 supports that using hardware any more, it's purely software rendering.

MPC-HC is unsupported garbage-ware, so you shouldn't be using it. It stopped development in 2017 and should no longer be used by anyone, anywhere, at any time.

Hasn't this guy here taken over the project and been routinely maintaining it?
https://github.com/clsid2/mpc-hc/releases

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2026-03-02, 17:36:

MPC-HC is unsupported garbage-ware, so you shouldn't be using it. It stopped development in 2017 and should no longer be used by anyone, anywhere, at any time.

Nonsense, it's the best video player for Windows and is still being updated today. Check the link in the above post and get with the program!

Original poster, is there a particular reason you need to use dxva2? Because you shouldn't.
Set it to MPC Video Renderer in Options>Playback>Output.
From the changelog:

MPCVR is now included and is the recommended renderer for modern systems.
...
For optimal performance you should change the hardware decoder to D3D11 in LAV Video Decoder settings when using MPCVR on Windows 10/11, because this renderer uses DirectX11.

feda wrote on 2026-03-02, 19:34:

Nonsense, it's the best video player for Windows and is still being updated today. Check the link in the above post and get with the program!

+1

Added bonus: can watch Youtube videos without the ads (without paying a subscription fee).

feda wrote on 2026-03-02, 19:34:

Nonsense, it's the best video player for Windows and is still being updated today. Check the link in the above post and get with […]
Show full quote

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2026-03-02, 17:36:

MPC-HC is unsupported garbage-ware, so you shouldn't be using it. It stopped development in 2017 and should no longer be used by anyone, anywhere, at any time.

Nonsense, it's the best video player for Windows and is still being updated today. Check the link in the above post and get with the program!

Original poster, is there a particular reason you need to use dxva2? Because you shouldn't.
Set it to MPC Video Renderer in Options>Playback>Output.
From the changelog:

MPCVR is now included and is the recommended renderer for modern systems.
...
For optimal performance you should change the hardware decoder to D3D11 in LAV Video Decoder settings when using MPCVR on Windows 10/11, because this renderer uses DirectX11.

MPC VR is the video renderer. I might have been confusing with my terms, DXVA2 Copy-back is the default "video decoder" that is set by MPC HC always. I noticed that D3D11 hardware video decoder is working correctly as it supports hardware accelerated decoding in AV1, but I can't speak by generalising.