7600GS enough for H.264?

[drshivas]

Is this a hardware or software problem?

My HTPC is a win7 64 box with a Q9450 and 7600GS outputting 1366x768 to an LCD TV. DVD, rmvb, all other video formats play smooth except for mkv files, which I assume are H.264 encoded. I'm using WMP with a couple codec packs installed. VLC player is a bit choppy too.

Do I need to try more codecs and tweaks, or is my 7600GS not cutting it? Google isn't giving me a clear answer either.

EDIT: When I say choppy, I mean 'not smooth.' The files do play, and you can watch them, but it's not ideal. That's why I suspect it being the card's horsepower.

 

[LandShark]

IIRC, no, the 7600GS doesn't accelerate h.264. (my memory could serve me wrong as usual tho )

but I'm surprise that your Q9450 could handle it tho....

 

[drshivas]

Thanks LS. I think I found my answer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NVIDIA_PureVideo#Table_of_PureVideo_.28HD.29_GPUs

"For H.264/AVC content, VP1 offers markedly inferior acceleration compared to newer VP2, VP3 and VP4 GPUs, placing a much greater burden on the host CPU. However, a sufficiently fast host CPU can play Blu-ray without any hardware assistance whatsoever."

The GF7 series are VP1 cards.

I have a G98 8400GS (VP3) in the mail, and will swap that out and see what I how it works.

Credit goes to hypoxide's post on AVSForum here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15639137#post15639137