how could i watch hd movies without lag?

yeah.. i guess i will stick to 720p - it can run almost normally

 

Very Wrong...

I can watch 1080p movies easily on my old computer which is
Celeron D @ 3.1Ghz
512DDR 1 Ram
Geforce 6600 (Overclocked 48%)

It doesn't lag so I dunno why the hell you wouldn't be able to watch them on a more powerful 3500+. Im thinking your codec/video drivers are at fault here.

PS: I just measured CPU usage on my current computer playing a 1080p movie and usage was 40% cpu with RAM usage @ 90mb. Content played was The Dark Knight in 1080p so its very relevant.

 

Not very wrong from my own experience, you cannot run true HD content in mkv format on a low powered cpu END OF.

I presume you dont use CoreAVC mkv codecs? They are the best on the market.

My point is there are so many threads on the interenet about HD problems etc with low powered rigs, but do you see any with regards to performance on high end rigs? i dont

Ps

i am talking about MKV files here , they require more cpu processing than other HD formats.

By struggling, i mean the first shot of planet earth where the screen fills with 10000's of birds and this caused even my friends e6600 core duo to stutter, thats what i meant by struggling not average fps, im talking about during the most activity on the screen.

How big is the Dark Knight file if you dont mind me asking and is it in MKV format?

edit update,

just play DK myself 10.9Gb backup and it was at 25% usage, 100mb. Try planet earth the first one, all of the intro upto the north pole title

 

how are u using 60% CPU and I am barely breaking 30% when your CPU is quite a bit faster? Are you using codecs or no codecs?

 

I don't have Planet Earth to test but what I was saying is I've seen a fair ammount of HDs and never had an issue with any of them so that sounded weird. Even the old PC is capable of playing the HD movies (which actually suprised me). As for format and codecs, perhaps I'm not using the very best ones but the quality sure does look amazing.
Which would be the best codecs for quality in your opinion then?

 

Thats bullcrap. To play a 1080p movie you do not need any super setup.

I've got an Athlon 64 3000+ and just upgraded to 2gb of ram.

I've got The Dark Knight 1080p and Planet Earth 720p both run no problem and use no more than 40% CPU usage or so.

I would say you're computer either has too much running in the background, or maybe it's loaded with spyware and viruses?

You're computer should be able to run HD movies fine, especially if you have nothing else running at all.

Windows is not your problem either.

 

Also, download VLC Media Player.

 

I agree with that. You don't need a super quad core for hD stuff...unless you are using some funky codecs that should be used with higher end hardware...or not using any lol.

 

if you have a good video card that does native hardware hd "decoding" then your cpu becomes less of a factor. that being said i would want at least an amdx2 4200 and 2 gb ram. but you should be able to watch 1080p movies without problems.
1. update your video drivers.
2. make sure you have no other codec packs installed other than cccp and ffdshow)

 

I agree,

the two pieces of sotware needed for running hd in x264 with the mkv wrapper would be media player classic home cimema, along with coreavc and haali media splitter, I am able to play almost every mkv based 720p movie with this software even on an old p4 2.8ghz, however for running 1080p that cpu is not sufficient and even my q6600 @ 3.2ghz has problems running some 1080p content (specially planet earth with has a very high bit-rate) with the standard ffdshow codec or vlcplayer, however after changing to coreavc my q6600 can run all hd content smoothly.

My advice for x264/mkv HD playback would be to use the software mentioned and stick with 720p as you will need a much more powerful cpu for smooth playback of 1080p or you could use original bluray disks to pass the work to your gpu.