Unable to play 2160p files smoothly

[mihacor]

Hello, I'm having trouble watching 2160p files on my home computer. It freezes all the time. The TV is a Samsung 6272, a 4k capable they say... I've changed my video card, I took a gigabyte 1030 2g as I didn't want to spend much and on their website says there's 4k possibility. I've my old CPU, a Athlon II X4 631 with 4 g ram. Never thought it will be so difficult, I have downloaded all codecs o could find for free, tried all the mediaplayers, same result, no smooth playback. I'm starting to be old so I need the help of young ones, what should I do, not very fond of changing the motherboard and processor... thanks in advance

 

[James Mason]

you don't have enough ram. And it may not be "fast enough" with your OLD CPU either.

 

[dontlistentome]

I would increase system ram to 8gb, assuming you're using a 64 bit version of Windows. 4k involves lots of data, freezing could happen due to swapping of data into and out of limited memory space. I'd also use Task Manager to look at CPU performance while I played a video. Does it max out at 100%?

Lastly, make sure your media player is set to use hardware acceleration. Your card had the capabilities, but if your media player isn't set to use it then it won't help.

 

[mihacor]

Thanks dontlistentome, never crossed my mind to check with task manager...you're right, it's the processor a little bit old, although it has a 4 core and wasn't so bad untill now..it turns around 98% when playing a 2160 p file and that with 8 GB ram ( I forgot that I did the update some time ago ). I think it's quite expensive to change the CPU, motherboard and ram so, do you think that going for a GTX 1060 will release the pressure on the processor as I'm not willing to pay 500 euros only to watch now and then the 2160 p files?

 

[James Mason]

Thanks dontlistentome, never crossed my mind to check with task manager...you're right, it's the processor a little bit old, although it has a 4 core and wasn't so bad untill now..it turns around 98% when playing a 2160 p file and that with 8 GB ram ( I forgot that I did the update some time ago ). I think it's quite expensive to change the CPU, motherboard and ram so, do you think that going for a GTX 1060 will release the pressure on the processor as I'm not willing to pay 500 euros only to watch now and then the 2160 p files?

No. Decoding video files is actually all the CPU. The GPU handles 3D work.

 

[Mark RM]

IF the files you are playing are encoded with codecs that have GPU acceleration support, the GPU would do the heavy lifting.

This whole thing sounds to me like the media player you are using to play these videos doesn't have support for the GPU acceleration. The rig you describe can play 4K videos just fine with the correct combination of player/encoding.

If you are talking about youtube videos, then force your browser NOT to use their VP9 encoding and make it fall back to something your system supports more easily. You do do this with add ons for the browsers called "h264ify " - this add on is supported in firefox and chrome.

Too little detail here about what is being played from what OS and media player on what site site or file format.

 

[madmatt30]

Use kodi , enable dxva decoding & it will use the gt 1030 which is perfectly fine for 4k video playback.

As already said , at the minute the software youre using is using your cpu not your gpu.

https://kodi.tv/download

It requires a small amount of setting up , you nees to add drives or directories to the video aection manually to populate your video collection.

 

[madmatt30]

On another note you have installed the nvidia drivers & have your tv card plugged into the gpu itself ??