Choppy playback of 1080p .mkv files

B

Black Box

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 13, 2002
Messages
505
I recently received a hand-me-down core2duo system from my friend and am using it as a htpc. I am however having issues in playing 1080p mkv files smoothly. I've tried the cccp codec pack and the playback was unbearable. I am now using coreavc pro and ffdshow tryouts. Seems to work a little better but still has the occasional stuttering. I was under the pretension that it didn't take crazy high end specs to play back 1080p. This is from a fresh install of windows 7 rc7227 btw.

screen of my experience score

specs774.png
 
Pentium D's are pretty weak, so that's cutting close for 1080p depending on how high of bitrate it is, and what level with what amount of reference frames. I'm assuming the type video is H.264. Your graphics card doesn't do hardware decoding either, so that route is no good. The easiest upgrade would be to get a graphics card which suppots VP3 decoding so you can take advantage of CoreAVC + CUDA acceleration. It would play back those 1080p files with ease.
 
I am not sure what is the cheapest gfx card to get to play 1080P mkv's, but since I have onboard nvidia 9300 chipset and that plays 1080P mkv's, I would guess that a 9400GT or 9500GT would suffice.
 
Black Box said:
so any new decently mid range card would solve my headache?
Click to expand...

As wiretap said, your CPU is too slow for it. High bitrate (1080p) H264 videos will eat CPUs for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And that's with a video card that does partial hardware acceleration... which is the kind of video card you have. Upgrade your video card to a 4550/4600/4700 series and you'll be fine. I wouldn't bother with an NV since they don't support audio over HDMI too well (using a cable to route SPDIFout through the card doesn't count. That's just bull.)
 
I got 1080p playback on my brothers computer... it had a Single Core AMD 64 3500, 1GB of ram and a 8800 GTS 320 installed, but I could never get native DXVA to register under MPC-HC... I would turn off the internal decoder and it auto-chose like CyberLink PowerDVD, but CPU Usage never goes over 60-70% and he can watch 1080p movies fine now, over 100mbit network.

So rather that decoder is REALLY good, or it's finding a way to use the 8800GTS 320 for some hardware decoding. Either way it works, and I haven't messed with it.

He hasn't reinstalled windows in 4-5 years so it's a mess of installed and uninstalled programs/drivers etc.
 
Pentium D is not a Core2Duo... There lies your problem, get a videocard capable of accelerated playback.
 
A HD 4650/4670 should be sufficient enough for you.

Your Pentium D is a single core CPU; it is not a Core 2 Duo.
 
JaguarSKX said:
A HD 4650/4670 should be sufficient enough for you.

Your Pentium D is a single core CPU; it is not a Core 2 Duo.
Click to expand...

No, it's dual core, its just two P4 (netburst based) processors in a multi chip package. Not all of intel's dual core chips were Core based processors.
 
Right pentium D is dual core. I had a pentium D 3.73 with HT so it actually showed as 4 cores in task manager. It isnt however a core 2 duo. Those came after.
 
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