Is my PC enough to play 1080p?

[eBoy0]

Hey there guys, been a while.

I recently setup an HTPC which pulls the content from a server. Everything has been working perfectly until I started playing blu-ray rips.

The HTPC specs are:
s939 170 @ 2.0gig (won't overclock since I removed the IHS years ago while I was running DI on it)
MSI mobo (not sure of the model off the top of my head)
3 gig crucial generic memory
EVGA 430GT(stock)


So the issue I'm running into is, when I try to play the x264 MKV files which I ripped myself from blu-ray, the file sizes are about 7-9GB.
I ran a lan speed test to see if it was an issue in the streaming between the HTPC and the server, but I got an AVG. read/write speed of 86mb. So when the video plays, the non-action scenes seem to play somewhat normally, but once the action scenes occur and alot of explosions are occuring, the video begins to lag and become choppy in VLC. When I run the video file in XMBC, it doesn't become choppy but the video and audio become out of sync.
I manage to open up task manager while the video is playing and the CPU load does shoot up to 100% then it appears to drop to 25% while it's choppy, then shoot back to 100% when it plays normally again. So before I rip this thing apart and build a new HTPC, any advise you guys may have, is the 170 s939 not enough to run x264?

[zanzabar]

you should be fine if you have gpu decoding. if you want to do cpu then u need a minimum of a 2.2ghz dual core p4 (so about 1.7-1.8 on amd)

[eBoy0]

you should be fine if you have gpu decoding. if you want to do cpu then u need a minimum of a 2.2ghz dual core p4 (so about 1.7-1.8 on amd)

Now by GPU encoding you're referring to the check box in VLC? I'm really thinking it's CPU related since it always seems to studder and ripple when the CPU spikes to 100% load on both cores.

[eBoy0]

I guess it all has to do with the codecs/decoders you use.

http://imouto.my/watching-h264-video...itecture-cuda/

I followed this very helpful guide and now my videos play perfectly, no tearing or lagging at all! Even the 45GB original blu-ray files play perfectly. CPU load is now 50-60% per core and GPU load is about 75-80%.