Should this computer be able to play 1080p?

[Hercules286]

It has an Athlon64 X2 4400+ (2.3 GHz), 2 GB of ram and an ATI Radeon X1650 (pci-express).

I've tried it under WinXP, and 32 and 64 flavored versions of Ubuntu and it always gets a bit choppy when there's alot going on. I'm using KMPlayer on all platforms, with CoreAVC codecs on WinXP. CPU usage hovers around 60% most of the time, but I still get choppy video on scrolling scenes over cities, for example.

I'm using the latest available ATI drivers on all OS's.

Am I missing something?

[cvrefugee]

CoreAVC should play it fine, but if it doesn't you will have to resort to 720p.

[jensked]

Originally Posted by petarkb

Am I missing something?

If it's choppy on all OS's and players, your pc is just too slow.

Tried VLC player?

[Hercules286]

^ Of course.

Since it's not taking 100% of the CPU 100% of the time, I wonder if there's a player that decodes the video ahead and stores it in a buffer. It would take alot of memory, but 2 gigs should be enough for two seconds or so. It might help.

Does a player like that exist?

[speck123]

Have you tried MediaPlayer Classic Homecinema

BTW if I may be so bold as to ask, what video are you watching.

Personally I have only watched 1 1080p video on my comp, and yes it is choppy in VLC, as well using the ffdshow codec that comes with CCCP. However, I have upgraded the ffdshow codec to use a newer build and now it seems to work fine. YMMV though.

Link to download ffdshow tryouts 2609-mt

FYI: My system: AMD Athlon X2 4200+, 2GB RAM, ATI HD4850 video w/ 512MB VRAM.

[m4v1s]

VLC is baaaad for HD, well the codecs it comes with are at least.

For easy out of the box, quality codecs, use CCCP

[Hercules286]

Originally Posted by speck123

BTW if I may be so bold as to ask, what video are you watching.

I was rewatching Wall-E in HD the other day and it lags behind during some difficult scenes with lots of detail and movement. (like for example the scene where Wall-E travels on the 'roads' inside the spaceship, with all the holographic signs and moving robots/fat people chairs)

Thanks for your reccommendation, I had been looking for a no-frills high-performance player with good VSync for a while now.

[speck123]

So I take it that it works now ?

Just want to let you know, DivX 7 is out and supports playback of MKV files as well as h.264 video codec. I have tried it and so far as I can tell, the playback is smooth as ffdshow-mt.

[NAIDANAC A]

Well here is another question about HD videos...I have 5.1 but on the shows I watch and media player and VLC are in 5.1 setting I barely hear anything out of the rear speakers. 5.1 works with the test settings with my audio drivers so I don't know what it is.

[Hercules286]

I updated my CoreAVC codecs to 1.8.5.0 and it's running with almost no dropped frames under WinXP, even on the very hard scenes. I'm still using KMPlayer, it turns out MPC-HC isn't any better performance-wise. I also offloaded noise reduction to the GPU and it looks alot better now.

Originally Posted by NAIDANAC A

Well here is another question about HD videos...I have 5.1 but on the shows I watch and media player and VLC are in 5.1 setting I barely hear anything out of the rear speakers. 5.1 works with the test settings with my audio drivers so I don't know what it is.

In a 5.1 setup, the rear speakers are used for ambiance, they're not supposed to be very loud or even noticeable, except during scenes with flying arrows.

They're intentionally mixed way lower than the mains and the center. What you're hearing is normal and is not a problem.

[NAIDANAC A]

Thanks, I guess I am not supposed to be so far from the front speakers as apposed to the rears. At home on the TV set up the rears still give total sound while doing the arrows and everything