HTPC laggy

[Deleted member 68110]

Hi there, I currently have this setup as a HTPC and use it to play HD movie files:-

Asus E35M1-M PRO motherboard
AMD Hudson M1
Integrated dual-core AMD Zacate 18W processor
2xHypertec 2GB Dtop DDRIII 1333
2TB SAMSUNG HD204UI SATA 3GB/S

It lags/skips/jerks quite often.

What is the cheapest way to upgrade this to stop lagging?

 

[R088ieS86]

what program are you using to watch your files?
and what format are you files in? (mp4/mkv)

 

[Deleted member 68110]

Hiya, I use VLC and the files are mainly MP4

 

[Mujja]

What filesize / resolution?

Do small resolution files (700MB) also stutter?

 

[lude1962]

what res are you watching at?

 

[Deleted member 68110]

Hi there. No, it seems to be only very high res stuf that stutters.

 

[Mujja]

Check CPU usage when playing a video.

Try Media Player Classic (MPC-HC). There's a setting to off load the processing to the graphics card if it's compatible. Not sure if that's only for DXVA MKVs. It's been a while since I used it.

 

[Flying_Hellfish]

A bit long in the tooth now that proc unfortunately.

As Mujja says check CPU usage when playing the files.

 

[phazari180]

If you're using this build only for movie playback, maybe try booting from USB stick to OpenELEC, see if your files work lag free then. I'm thinking if you're running Windows or a full-fat Linux build on that setup, that maybe a background process is causing the lag.

However as already suggested give MPC-HC a try first, I was setting up an old Acer Revo for a friend a couple years back and I had far less trouble getting MPC-HC to run 1080p files than VLC.

 

[Deleted member 68110]

Hi there. I'm not tech-savvy enough to work out how to track CPU usage while VLC runs, but I've tried MPC-HC and it works a dream.

Thanks so much to everyone for the help, and especially for the recommendations for MPC-HC.

 

[Mujja]

Thanks for posting back. Glad it all works and you saved your money on upgrades.