Help Me Watch 720p Movies Smoothly On My Old Dell Optiplex- Advice Needed.

[RandomPrecision]

As you've probably gathered from the thread title I'm pretty clueless when it comes to PC's...

My problem is this, I've recently started watching a lot of 720p/50fps movies (Mostly on H.264 format) usling VLC or PotPlayer on my old Dell machine, and whilst it does play them, the playback is jerky/chopppy lots of times and pixilates occasionally too, almost like frames are being dropped quite often. I'm assuming an upgrade from the onboard Intel Q35 graphics to a dedicated card would help matters?

System:
Dell Optiplex 755
Intel Core Duo 3.00 ghz
4G DDR2 RAM
160G SATTA HD (121G free)
Intel Q35 graphics
300W power supply
Running Windows 10 64bit.

My main questions are...

1. Will a dedicated card help movies play more smoothly, or am I barking up the wrong tree?

2. If the answer to the above question is yes, then what low cost cards would be suitable and compatible with my set up and Windows 10? Any suggestions as to cards I should be looking at?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions/support on this chaps

 

[RandomPrecision]

First things first, thanks for the help/replies

Of the cards mentioned the GT 710 sounds like a good call! I like the sound of it on the basis that it supports NVIDIA® PureVideo™ and therefore offers H.264, WMV/VC-1, and MPEG-4 Hardware Acceleration. Good call!

My questions would be...

1. Is the GT 710 comatible with my system (Power supply/CPU etc)?
2. I run windows 10, assuming I bought the card, would it be best to run the drivers disc that comes with it, or to simply plug it in/connect it then go directly to...https://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/103913 and download the Windows 10 drivers?

Again, thanks in advance for putting up with me and what must probably be pretty stupid/silly questions on this!

Edit to say: Is there virtue in going for the model with 2G memory as opposed to the 1G version?

 

[RandomPrecision]

@ hornetstinger : Yep, it plays them but playback is jerky/glitchy.

@Orcvader : Yup, tried the MPC-BE. This yielded slightly better results than PotPlayer/VLC. The best so far is the standard WMP oddly enough.

It's also worth mentioning that I can play 720p h264 files, although frames are dropped and playback isn't smooth. Interestingly 720p 25fps h264 files are fine, it's 50fps h264 that yields choppy playback.

I'm going to pick up the GT 710 on my way home from the office tonight and see how I get on. I'll make sure to report back here and report my findings

 

[RandomPrecision]

Right, time to update this thread as promised.

@ubersonic: Yep, tried that as well as all the usual tricks to get VLC to play ball, no luck.

Last night I installed the GT 710 (I went for the 2G model as it was only £5 more) and I can confirm that it completely resolved my issues Playback is super smooth and even picture quality looks better. Thanks to everyone who chimed in on this, your help has allowed me to 100% fix my problem, it's been a wonderful induction into the Overclockers site.

Special mention to @Orcvader on this, I couldn't have done this without you, thank you!

One final (And also silly question) I'd ask on this topic is.... The drivers I installed for Windows 10 on the disk that came with the card were numbered 365.10, where-as on the Geforece website... https://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/103913 there's a driver listed for Windows 10 as 368.39.... Do I have to un-install the drivers I got from the disk and then install the drivers from the website, or can I just go ahead and install the drivers from the site without removing the ones I already have?

Also, is the aove even necessary? Should my card/software be automatically updating itself?

Again, thanks in advance guys.

 

[RandomPrecision]

Thanks again