How to make my PC play 1080p HD Video?

[realscot]

I have a XP2500 Barton overclocked at XP3200 (2.2GHz)
Gigabyte Nf2 Motherboard
1GB OCz Premier 3200 ram
Ati 9600pro 256MB

As it is I can run 720p HD movies, just lol. It's a wee bit jumpy.
What's the cheapest way for me to be able to run the high quality video smoothly. I also want to be able to play my games at a higher resolution.

The reason for this is my lovely new 26" Samsung LCD HDTV the new 'm' series one with the 8ms response time. I reckon it's even better picture than the dell models. I've not seen any ghosting yet and colours are just unbelievable.
Now though it's a case of my computer is letting the screen down. I'm stuck in most wanted on 800x600 res cos that's all it can handle with my current spec. and trust me on a 26" screen 800x600 looks really blocky. I'm running windows resolution at 1360x768 @60Hz doing that seems to have slowed windows down a bit too.

Right so if someone can recommend what to do to improve my graphics performance, maybe an X850 XT or a 7800GS or would i just be better with a whole new Mobo/cpu/PCI-E combo. Bear in mind i just spent £750 on a screen so the wallet's a bit light at the moment. Will have a £300 bonus this weekend so let me know how best to spend it.
Thanks

 

[AWPC]

Yeah a X850 XT or a 7800GS would help a lot. 7800GS has WMV hardware assist built into it. Failing that you would need to upgrade to a PCI-E mobo + PCI-E gfx card.

 

[nO}{8]

you wont be able to play 1080p it requires too much bandwidth, 1080i is possible though.

 

[fornowagain]

IMO Look for a NV 6600GT get a cheap but solid PCI-E board, something like an ASUS A8V-E and a 3200+ A64 and 512mb ram and it will play anything you can throw at it. Should be able do that for £300. And there is no point running anything higher than the native resolution of your display. It will only downscale and look worse than keeping 1 to 1. Take a look at ffdshow with VLC or Theatertek players.

 

[sja360]

that samsung hdtv doesnt do 1080i/1080p resolutions. i'd recommend a a64+1Gb+x800 it'd be far faster than anything you have atm.

 

[fornowagain]

IMO The nvidea purevideo post processing (NVPP codecs) VRM9 and video acceleration, is better than the ATI version on the older gen. Don't know about the latest AVIVO X1***. I stick to NV for my HDTV and ATI for gaming.

 

[Audioslim]

IMO Look for a NV 6600GT get a cheap but solid PCI-E board, something like an ASUS A8V-E and a 3200+ A64 and 512mb ram and it will play anything you can throw at it. Should be able do that for £300. And there is no point running anything higher than the native resolution of your display. It will only downscale and look worse than keeping 1 to 1. Take a look at ffdshow with VLC or Theatertek players.

Make that 1 gig of ram and it will run everything you throw at it.
512 will make games like BF2 chug along like an old car believe me.
In fact 1.5 gig is desirable minumum in my books. 1gig on BF2 still gives the odd page file refresh pause.

Slim

 

[fornowagain]

To play movies, i.e HTPC it only needs 512mb tops. For games like BF2 to play as there supposed to, you’re going to need quite a rig. Way more than is needed for an HTPC and certainly more than £300. TBH for BF2 I'd want £300 just for the GF card. Maybe a 3700+ SD or an X2 with a decent OC.

 

[The Running Man]

er, since when is buying a new mobo, new cpu and new gpu the cheapest way to improve gfx performance lol

personally i reckon that buying a 6800GS agp will allow you to do what u want, and only cost u £130... but i would read up first and make sure they can do HDTV... bear in mind that no current gfx cards (really) will be HDCP compliant, so forget watching HD Movies until a generation after this current one and hope they ahve the right adapters onboard...

 

[realscot]

HDTV

Sorry to say but yes this tv does play 1080p and 1080i I have the bible(massive manual) right here in front of me and it says it supports all those res's. If you read otherwise tell me where so i can have a look for myself.

Right now onto the graphics card topic. I don't need a card with HDCP as I will either have SkyHD or DVD HD plugged directly into the HDMI socket on the tv.
I have a trailer for Final Destiantion 3 1080p quality and it is mega jumpy but does play. And that's on the old 9600!!! (using DVi-HDMI)

I've been thinking about all the advice on upgrades, graphics and complete systems. I really don't want to spend money going to socket 939 when AM2 is just around the corner. That would be like going buying a spanking new Civic type R when the new one is coming soon.
I think my money would be best spent on a graphics card for now, I think a 7800GS should keep me going till AM2 manages to settle down in the market. That way the step up will be bigger and more noticable and there's no doubt we will have even better graphics cards by then.
I'm not a massive gaming fan, or a person obsessed with fps and 3dmark scores. If it looks nice, and runs smooth that's good enough for me.

Also a note to those two guys arguing about ram. One's saying get 512, one's saying a gig.. did they both forget I already have a gig that could easily come over to the new board?!

Thanks everyone for the advice, most of it was helpful

 

[SamG]

That TV doesn't support 1080p and according to the spec sheet it doesn't even do 1080i. My Pioneer 436XDE doesn't even do 1080p and the last time I checked there were not any 1080p Plasma or LCD's out in the UK yet.

I can't show you the spec sheet cause it breaks forum rules but just use google.

 

[mpy32]

That TV doesn't support 1080p and according to the spec sheet it doesn't even do 1080i. My Pioneer 436XDE doesn't even do 1080p and the last time I checked there were not any 1080p Plasma or LCD's out in the UK yet.

I can't show you the spec sheet cause it breaks forum rules but just use google.

think there is a phililps model out that does 1080p but its something like £3500

 

[fornowagain]

Sorry to say but yes this tv does play 1080p and 1080i I have the bible(massive manual) right here in front of me and it says it supports all those res's. If you read otherwise tell me where so i can have a look for myself.

Support for 1080i and 720P is not the same as display. The TFT matrix is 1360 x 768, that's it. Anything else is down to internal signal processing. The best picture is always 1 to 1 pixel mapping. Building HTPC's, I sold on a NF7-S/Barton 3200 because it chugged along with HD. Quick test, take a SD DVD run an easy Lanczos HD upscale to the 1:1 of your display, stick on a couple of noise reduction filters and watch your Barton perform. The AM2 is still a 64bit core, more of a sideways move to DDR2. At least at first, I can't imagine a slower chip like a AM2-3200 being any major improvement over the 939. A current gen A64 will handle HD scaling etc, you don't need anymore. And consider that a decent PCI-E GF with be supported in future (AM2) boards, a AGP GF is a dead end.

 

[Flanno]

Phillips have actually launched a new rang of Cineos tv's which actually output 1920x1080. Orginally the home theatre mags said the TV was the first to support 1080p but Phillips are only admitting support for 1080i.

I had a Dell 2405FPW which of course is not limited like LCD TV's and will playback 1080p via component (using 1:1 in the OSD) or 1920x1200 via DVI. I downloaded some 1080p HD clips from MS's site just to see if I had the horsepower to play them back (I think it was the Terminator 2 trailer, and the Coral Reef trailer). I also downloaded the benchmark program from Intervideos site I think. Anyway with an FX55 overclocked to almost 3.1ghz, 2gigs ram, and a 7800GTX sli setup, the benchmark program rated my rig about 10% above the spec needed to play back 1080p. And they played just fine in Media Player. However I then converted these HD samples to H.264 (very similar res) using the ATI Avivo converter, and they were very jumpy in media player. However as WinDVD has a build in H.264 codec they played back fine there. Just about. So it would seem 1080p really needs a lot of CPU horsepower unless you video card can help with the decoding. So I am not surprised there are no or very few LCD TV's out there that have the ability to handle 1080p decoding. And I don't think there is a real demand anyway, sine 720p is what Sky will be outputting and there is doubt if even the PS3 will have games rendered at 1080p.

 

[Energize]

you wont be able to play 1080p it requires too much bandwidth, 1080i is possible though.

The pc im using now,

athlon 64 3200+
1 gig ram
6600gt

Plays 1080p fine and its not exactly a high end pc.

 

[Flanno]

The pc im using now,

athlon 64 3200+
1 gig ram
6600gt

Plays 1080p fine and its not exactly a high end pc.

I sincerely doubt they are HD 1080p clips you are playing back with no frame rate drops unless your 3200+ is overclocked.

A 3200+ does not have the horsepower. An FX55/57 does but not by a huge amount. And the nvidia purevideo codec does not support 1080p (either H.264 or MS's version of HD).

 

[Flanno]

To see if your PC can handle HD click this link

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/ContentShowcase.aspx

Then click 'See if your PC can play WMV HD'.

 

[Energize]

Those were the 1080p videos I have been playing. No overclocking at all.

If you read at the bottom it says.

Optimum Configuration
(to play 1080p video with 5.1 surround sound)
# Windows XP
# Windows Media Player 10
# DirectX 9.0
# 3.0 GHz processor or equivalent
# 512 MB of RAM
# 128 MB video card
# 1920 x 1440 screen resolution
# 24-bit 96 kHz multichannel sound card
# 5.1 surround sound speaker system

 

[Flanno]

I never trust recommended specs. However maybe the benchmarking program is off as well. Did you try it to see what is said about your rig ?

 

[Energize]

Couldnt find the link you mentioned.