What kind of system is needed for smooth playback of 1080p video?

[FearoftheNight]

It keeps stuttering on my laptop with 2.2 c2d 4 gigs ram and 8600m Gt? How fast of a system do I need?

 

[mpilchfamily]

An 8600 video card is just fine. The mobile version isn't. But its pretty much all in the video card. If you want to stick with a laptop then i would suggest one with the 9600 GPU. If it comes with a Blu-ray player then it won't have any problems.

 

[Lonyo]

Do you have a program which uses your card to accelerate h264 playback or is it all trying to run on the CPU?

 

[phoenix79]

It also depends on the 1080p video. If you're playing from actual Blu-Ray disks, then yes its all about the video card. but if it's divx encoded and/or compressed it will generally not be accelerated by the vid card hence you will need CPU and 2.2Ghz will not cut it, you will need at LEAST 2.5

 

[FearoftheNight]

well is there anyway to that i can keep my lappy and play it? since i'm gona have it for 2 more yrs...maybe a program of some sort? or is there something that wil let me view it in 720p partial decode?

 

[Koharski]

Unfortunately I don't think you will find any benefit from playing it in 720p mode, because now your computer has to scale it as well as decode the 1080p stream. If anything you'd just notice MORE slowdown.

 

[FearoftheNight]

gah when did the grail of comp power go from gaming to hd video

 

[yh125d]

I can confirm that 1080p works fine on a lappy with 4gb ram, 2.2gHz, and 8600M GT. I just watched I Am Legend in 1080p and no problems. It is definitely a software issue, not hardware.

OP, I suggest updating your nVidia drivers to the newest available

 

[vj8usa]

You might want to try using something like coreavc, too.

 

[funkymatt]

try playing using VLC player, it could be a codec or driver issue.

 

[gdextreme]

My dad's old laptop played The Living Sea (1080p) fine. It had a 2.2ghz C2D and only 1GB RAM and an ATI HD 2600pro. But it played this in performance mode (an option that comes up when you click on the batteries in Windows Vista).

 

[FearoftheNight]

i'm on os x w/ vlc i'll give it another shot. can you even swap drivers w/ os x?