Games and Movies - how demanding on hardware?

Which of these are most demanding of hardware, games or movies?

I'm asking because I'm building a home theatre pc that'll only be needed to play .mkv and .avi movies, (no games or DVDs) and I'm wondering how good a display card I need.

Thanks

 

Games – by far – the most demanding of any application.

A Radeon 4350 or Nividia 9500 with 512MB memory will be more than enough to play any movie including BlueRay.

Since you might, at some point, want to play DVD’s with upscaling check out the hardware requirements of latest WinDVD and PowerDVD – the 2 most popular software programs.


ps- Although a dual core pentium would be adequate - splurge and go for at least an E7400 core duo (think noise - they run a lot cooler).

 

Thanks ephemarial, that's kinda what I thought.

Thing is, I've been running a Powercolor Radeon HD3850 (AGP) and it'll play Oblivion OK with fairly high settings, as well as smaller movies, ie, 500MB.

But bigger mkv files,say 1.5GB, get jerky playback. Maybe it's the card. Tried heaps of different drivers but can't get it to behave.

Cheers

PS: Just bought a used Core Duo E6600 and an Asus P5PE-VM mobo to house it, but it's that combo that won't work with the 3850 card. Puzzling....

 

That jerkiness can be either the Video card or slow CPU.
Doubt it’s your CPU – unless it’s overheating. Reason thought of that is larger file that jerky motion happens with.

Download SIW or another prgm to monitor the temp.
Open up Task Manager to monitor the CPU usage.
Run the file that causes jerky movement.

If temp is within specs, CPU usage 90% or less – you’re stuck.
It’s the card.

Might as well get a new MB then that uses a PCIE rather than AGP card. You’ll also need new memory.
Current MB uses DDR – almost any new board will use DDR2.

New MB cost about 65, memory around 40 , card around 45.

 

Thanks ephemarial. The E6600 Core Duo CPU seems to be functioning OK, temp is around 50c according to Asus 'Probe', which is well within specs. Memory (1x1GB, 1x512MB) tested OK with two different progs.

Yep, I'm beginning to think it's the 3850 card. BTW, it didn't come with great docs. There are two jumpers just inside the backplate and I've no idea what they do. For all I know, OPEN may mean 'Function properly' and CLOSED may mean 'Give the user as much trouble as possible'. I think it's set on the second choice. Don't suppose you know what they are? Card is a Powercolor HD3850 AGP.

Cheers

 

Where are you playing the files from, an optical drive, off the HDD, network storage (maybe wireless)? I could imagine it being a buffering problem (which is what I investigate first).

 

Direct from the HDD, Mattman.

 

Now for some information. IDE or SATA? (As you would know, we recommend putting the system details in your WindowsBBS user profile.)

Do you have a good set of motherboard (chipset) drivers installed. [If it is an NVIDIA chipset, IDE controller drivers may be better not installed.]

If it is an IDE HDD, check the DMA mode.
Some info: http://support.microsoft.com/search/?adv=1&query=dma+mode

Does the HDD have plenty of free space? I avoid letting the Windows drive go under 20% freespace. Has it been defragmented? Try running Error Checking (CHKDSK) on the drive, including the disk surface.

Try disabling antimalware (disconnect from the internet if you are concerned, that will also remind you to re-enable it again after the playback). Check if any other programs may be trying to access the HDD in the background.

Some other suggestions...
You can start up Task Manager and see what the CPU is doing (it's percentage usage during playback).

Could your power supply be close to getting overloaded?

Matt