A graphics card to play 1080p files properly?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Alas the HD3870 is usually dual slot although there are single slot ones coming out:

Sapphire Atomic HD 3870 Review » Page 15 - Conclusion - Overclockers Club

Elite Bastards - Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 Atomic review

There are some single slot HD3850 512mb cards:

OcUK ATI Radeon HD 3850 Pro 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

Like I said earlier the 8800GT will be faster for gaming but the HD38** will run cooler,consume less power and is better for media purposes.

[spiral out]

Try using CoreAVC it's £15 dollars to buy but that would sort your problems out more than a new graphics card as i am playing 1080p files on a AMD X2 4200 with a ATI x800gto with no probs.

[Skinleech]

I agree here, it's a codec issue. Your Q6600 should handle any HD material thrown at it.

CoreAVC is an excellent h264 decoder, and if you couple that with MPC and Haali media splitter you should be laughing. You might want to try the latest build of MPC HC too, it's got it's own h.264 decoder built in.

[Shmee150]

I have decided that really my computer should not have spec problems, there must be more to it than that.

I am going to spend more time tonight looking at it (watched casino royale last night absolutely perfectly with no dropped frames). One idea I have is that dust in the fan having not been cleaned in years might be stopping it cooling properly and therefore that might have something to do with it, we will see.

If that doesn't work I might well go down the coreAVC route.

Cheers,

Tim

[TooNice]

I am weary about making GT vs whatever comparisons in terms of bang for buck right now. Using the average cost of the GT, ( on the higher side of the £170), then the cheaper GTS/3870 can look more competitive in terms of bang for buck.

Every now and then you get some bargains though - People who first bought the GT on Ebuyer with the £10 discount managed to get it for under £150 if I remember correctly, and not long ago some people managed to get the Palit for £138 from Scan. Right now, you can find the Palit Sonic for £157, which is very (I'd say more) competitive with both faster and slower cards in terms of bang for buck.

I can agree that for for a box that is primarily/solely used for media playback, that the 38## can make a better choice (assuming that gaming is given a lower priority). The cooler/less power kind of go together, but and from the various reviews, I reckon that the 38## has a small advantage, but it is unlikely going to make or break any machine: In Anandtech's review, it's 16W gap on idle and 4W under Crysis at 1900x1200 - I do recognise that some reviews show a bigger gap but usually not by a lot. I'd say that performance for the watt goes for the GT. 55nm process did give the 38## an edge, but I reckon that the design was inherently (at the same process) hotter than nVidia's offering for some reason.

So basically, that if the OP's is used for some quantifiable amount of gaming, then perhaps a single slot GT with the larger fans as mentioned in another thread would do. Otherwise, the 3850 will do by all mean.

Going back to the original topic, I agree that the problem is not in the hardware.

[arthurleung]

I have decided that really my computer should not have spec problems, there must be more to it than that.

I am going to spend more time tonight looking at it (watched casino royale last night absolutely perfectly with no dropped frames). One idea I have is that dust in the fan having not been cleaned in years might be stopping it cooling properly and therefore that might have something to do with it, we will see.

If that doesn't work I might well go down the coreAVC route.

Cheers,

Tim

May be just the file you are watching actually have dropped frames which your computer played correctly? Unless the lag occur at different spots.

Not every encoder (people or program) do a nice job on encoding, and some wrong settings will cause frame-dropping as well as audio synchronize problem.
Or the file you got is broken therefore the decoder had to skip some frames so that you don't see the errors.

[bcsbcs]

Just a slight possibility but you may also want to try disabling your virus checker just temporarily as it may be constantly checking the files being access, if confiugred correctly it should only check each file once but its worth a try.

[akashi]

I can also confirm this is a codec issue.

When you play x264, your graphics card does not assist the decoding of the file, your CPU does all the work. I would recommend using the CoreAVC codec as this decodes both x264 and H.264 (Bluray).

When I was having similar issues as yourself with audio being out of sync, I fix this problem easily by installing and using AC3Filter. This free codec decodes AC3 and DTS audio and removes the annoying audio sync problem.

Hope this helps you.

[Skinleech]

I can also confirm this is a codec issue.

When you play x264, your graphics card does not assist the decoding of the file, your CPU does all the work. I would recommend using the CoreAVC codec as this decodes both x264 and H.264 (Bluray).

A quad-core intel should have no issues decoding an x264 file in software though, 1080p or not, CoreAVC or not.

[weebroonieuk]

it will have problems if it doesnt have the correct codec though and i thought coreavc was a codec but i dont know for sure