Question I just want to run 4K on a monitor using AMD FX Processors and RX 460 Video Cards... but I get mixed results! Help! Not a Gamer, just a regular guy!

[motoxdude]

Run AMD FX in 970 Chipsets... and RX 460 Video Graphics. Seems I get mixed results with very similar towers. Worst seem to come trying to watch 4K content on 1080P monitors. 2.7K monitors do better, but not consistently. HELP! How is it my FX-6100 suddenly worked GREAT attached to a Samsung 48" 4K TV yet choked on a 2560 X 1600 Monitor running RX 460 Graphics? How is it that my FX-4300 on a 2560 X 1600 Monitor with 8 GB RAM and the same RX 460 Video Card works Great on 4K 60 FPS video, yet my FX-6100 with the same card, monitor and 8 GB RAM chokes on the same? Then I have the FX-6300 on my former work computer with the RX 460 and 16 GB RAM is Abysmal on a 1920 X 1200 Monitor when trying to view 4K and even some higher bitrate 1440P video! Am I just not getting bottlenecks or??? How do you identify them and resolve? I know Ryzen Processors and Intel's Core i5 and i7 do better (Built my first i7-9700k) and it's fine on my 2560 X 1600 monitor... 2.7K and 4K play flawlessly with a GTX-1060 3GB Card. I have ten machines on my network here... I'm anal about back-up storage and such. But why am I getting such mixed results regarding video playback on very similar CPUs, Graphics Cards and Differing Monitors? I'm running Windows 7 64 Professional on all of these machines. Why does it resort to shuffling them around to get a decent result? As of now only 3 of my machines (AMD FX-4300 with 970/950 Chipset, 8 GB RAM, RX 460 on 2560 X 1600), (Intel i7-9700k 32 GB RAM, GTX-1060 3GB on a 2560 X 1600) and (FX-6100, 16 GB RAM, RX 470 (460 worked too) on a 4K Samsung 48" TV) work with 4K without choking, pixellating and freezing! Yet very similar towers also choke! (FX-6300, 16 GB RAM, RX 460 on 1920 X 1200 Monitor), (FX-4300, 760 Chipset MB, 8 GB RAM with RX 460 Graphics on a 1920 X 1080), and lastly ( FX-4150, 8 GB RAM, RX 460 Graphics and 970/950 chipset MB on a 2560 X 1600 Monitor) all choke! Is this random numbers at-work here? Am I ready to be placed in an Asylum? What Gives? Why such different results? I understand the differences between Graphics Cards on Version 1, 2 and 3 Sockets, but mostly mine are all type 2 with the exception of the Z370 intel i7 which is type 3. I've even run Novabench on all the machines and it is quite revealing what bottlenecks some machines (HDD is a biggie on older MBs (Sata I, II, III), yet oddly RAM is not so different). The other big difference is graphics between the various MBs (PciE 2.0 vs. 3.0 etc), but the only ones I'm dealing with here are the newer chipsets/grahpics and are very similar but with very different results. I'm Cornfuzed! Do Monitors themselves contribute to bottlenecks (down converting the media to match the lower resolution monitor)? The media is stored on 7200 RPM Drives the OS is on SSD. Is it the CPU? The RAM? The Graphics Card (that's what I thought forever, at least)?.... HELP! Oh Geesh! Think I'll just give the Old Victrola a few cranks on the winding lever and enjoy some old Al Jolson 78's while I crap in my outhouse! Not a Gamer here... I know that's rare, but does anyone out there just want to use a PC as a feeder for a nice HDTV set-up with high resolution and 60FPS ? I've even resorted to VLC Player as it's less of a resource hot than Windows Media Player! VLC plays my home-made 2160P Content back rendered in Nero Video... Windows Media Player just gives me a black screen. Running K-Lite's recent Codec package on ALL machines, too... but that's another matter for another time!
,

 

[TerryLaze]

Most of the playback is done with hardware codecs on the GPU,whenever your software is not setup correctly and uses the CPU instead of the GPU hardware you are going to get bad results especially on 4k even on a ryzen or intel system you would notice a lot of usage when using the CPU for the decode.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

4k should be no problem with a rx 460.

 

[motoxdude]

Most of the playback is done with hardware codecs on the GPU,whenever your software is not setup correctly and uses the CPU instead of the GPU hardware you are going to get bad results especially on 4k even on a ryzen or intel system you would notice a lot of usage when using the CPU for the decode.

These machines have all had recent Re-installs of Windows 7... with no archives from present adding/removing drivers, devices etc. I'm trying to compare apples to apples here yet I'm seeing oranges!

 

[motoxdude]

4k should be no problem with a rx 460.

I know the 460 is NOT a Gamer's Card, but I just purchased it for 60FPS 4K playback... yet on 8 machines I get very different results! Even the Novabench showed similar scores on machines that failed/achieved 4K content viewing. But on lower resolution monitors (900, 1080 and 1200P) it was like trying to get a dead cat to move.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Reinstall drivers and if that doesnt fix it, reinstall a fresh copy of windows.

 

[motoxdude]

The FX-6100 RX 460 Set-up is a virgin install of Win 7 and has only had the RX 460 ever (so no old drivers floating around). Yet my old Kitchen unit (FX-6300 and now RX 470) has had more cards installed and removed than a 5-cent hooker in Las Vegas! Yet it has zero issues powering the 4K TV whereas the the very similar one first mentioned here struggles with 2.7-4K on a 1080P monitor. I'm really beginning to question if the downscaling to 1080P is hogging resources. Any ideas? I just ordered a 4K Monitor to do some experimenting with.

 

[motoxdude]

Well, I found it... or I think! Turns-out I was using an older version of VLC Player. I initially went to VLC as it is a Light version and was working great on 2.7K resolution (mostly). Window Media Player CHOKED on 1440P or above, so I long-ago abandoned it for high resolution playback. Since upgrading All my video cards to at-minimum RX 460 it appears I had updates turned-off on the VLC player. Once I installed the new version it enabled 4 more of my machines to playback 60 FPS 4K Video! The only ones still not able to do so are older AM3 Phenom II X4 and Athlong II X4 Processor units with Radeon 5750 and 5770 graphics cards. I ordered a few more RX 460 cards and will be upgrading these towers to AM3+ Motherboards and will put my old FX processors on them. I bet most will work in 4K 60FPS at that point! Thanks for ALL of your input on this. It's appreciated. I will soon be posting my latest saga... another "stumper" that hopefully this community can offer me some assistance with! Thanks guys and gals!

 

[RobCrezz]

sounds like you were missing codecs on the older VLC.