How to Play 1080p HD Video on PC, Minimum Requirements

Here is a million dollar question that you won’t get proper answer to, over several searches. But this one promises to answer all your questions.

Can a PC with 1.6Ghz Dual core and Intel Extreme Graphics Play 1080p ?: Yes, read-on to find-out.

Minimum Requirements for Running 1080p on PC:

A. The minimum requirements to play FullHD content on PC are pretty high, with a standard Codec.

Processor: 2.4Ghz (dual core) or 3.5Ghz (single Core) processor.

Graphics: Nvidia/ATi having bare minimum 256MB Video RAM and core clock 600Mhz.

When you try to play it in a lower config PC, the video plays but is often jerky.

In most PCs, today, this will be hard to achieve since either of the two minimum requirement is not met and in some cases both. But the problem is not limited by the Hardware, but it’s with the codec that you use.

Codecs:

Popular codecs like FFDShow, Klite pack, CCCP, and the one inbuilt in the popular VLC media player, do not make the optimal usage of the Hardware. The best one I know of, that will let you play FullHD 1080p on a basic config, is  CoreAVC.

CoreAVC (which actually includes Haali as part of its setup) is a multi-core aware AVC video decoder. It is a proven high performing Codec (in absence of GPU) that  let’s you play 1080p on:

Minimum Requirements (using CoreAVC):

Processor: 1.5 Ghz (Dual core), 2.6Ghz (single core)

Graphics: Modern Intel Extreme Graphics or Nvidia or ATi with 128MB video RAM, core clock 300Mhz.

That’s like almost every PC can do it. On average, this means even a 4 year old PC can play it.

How to Run it on any PC:

You can Purchase the CoreAVC or request a trial and download Media Player Classic to accompany it. With Both installed, Open your HD files in Media player Classic, and all your 720p, 1080p Video files will be smoother than ever.

CoreAVC costs $14.95, but it’s worth spending for a HT PC. Though, it’s available over torrents too, but I won’t encourage piracy.

The latest version supports Nvidia CUDA. CUDA is a Nvidia’s proprietary technology that let’s your GPU (graphics card) do the work that normally CPU does. With this feature enabled in CoreAVC, you can watch 1080p with low CPU utilization. e.g. for 8400GM, CPU utilization goes down to 20-30% for 1080p as compared to 60-80% without the feature being turned ON.

You can get the Full list of CUDA enabled cards here.

I hope this had been some help to you. Post your questions, I`ll be happy to answer them.



Filed in: Guide, HD Tags: , , ,

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  • petruchito

    i have pentium D 820 (2.8ghz, OCed to 3.1ghz)+2gb of DDR2-800 memory+x1950 pro, and the cpu is not sufficient neither to transcode to ps3 nor to play under Win7,
    16gb of such MKV:
    Video: MPEG4 Video (H264) 1920×1080 23.98fps [Video]
    Audio: Dolby AC3 48000Hz 6ch [Audio]
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    Under WinXP, when using CoreAVC it plays flawlessly.

  • petruchito

    i have pentium D 820 (2.8ghz, OCed to 3.1ghz)+2gb of DDR2-800 memory+x1950 pro, and the cpu is not sufficient neither to transcode to ps3 nor to play under Win7,
    16gb of such MKV:
    Video: MPEG4 Video (H264) 1920×1080 23.98fps [Video]
    Audio: Dolby AC3 48000Hz 6ch [Audio]
    Text [Subtitle]

    Under WinXP, when using CoreAVC it plays flawlessly.

  • kai sjölund

    Hi!
    Nice article. I'm just making HTPC so i need some help. So you're saying that this graphic card isn't good enough?

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/FP7QVC72DDSHKZ6LZWPI26W62U Fabio27

    hello…
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    3 Ghz
    2 GB Ram (667)
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    Please tell me if my machine is capable to play 1080p mkv video.
    I tried most combination of player and codecs but with 1080p I always have a sound delay and the video motion is a bit slower as it should be..
    With 720p it works perfect..
    Processor usage with 1080p to 55 %
    I tried Klite codecs CoreAvc CCCp MPC Player MK Player the best result I got with MK Player and Core AVC but its not good…I cant watch 1080p
    Please tell me if my Graphikcard is ok to do this job
    Thanks

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  • Gaurang Saini

    oh there's a FREE, 10x better, simpler method.

    Download “KMPlayer”. Its recommended by most 1080p rippers.

    I can now run Full HD, 1080p content butter-smooth on my 1GB, 1.8Ghz Core SOLO laptop(yes, you read that right!).

    there's another way…
    download “K-Lite mega codec pack”,
    open 1080p file on the newly installed “Media Player Classic”,
    open “task manager” by pressing ctrl-shift-escape,
    In the “Processes” tab, right-click the “mpc” process,
    change the “Priority” to “Above Normal”.

    Bingo :D

  • http://www.taranfx.com Taranfx

    Klite is a good free codec, but it consumes more CPU and video jerks alot. Setting higher priority will literally freezes other apps or make them sluggish. And videos varies within 1080p, a higher bitrate one may not run as smooth. Coreavc always does it optimally, so you save power, extend battery, still run videos smoother. It had been a great investment for me :)

  • nana007

    Oh!I can't download coreAVC 2.0 because it requests to buy it no trial version for me. Can you help me now about this problem?

  • Arijit Banik

    Thank you for your info page,
    It save me a lot to build a new PC for just only to see 1080p video.

    Using CoreAVC the & my videos play flawlessly.

  • adi

    wow! works like a charm with WMPC and CoreAVC.

  • Snake

    PLEASE HELP ME! I am trying to play a very large (38gb) FullHD 1080p movie (Avatar) but I'm having problems! It is extremely choppy/laggy when I use VLC Media Player. I've tried Windows Media Player but that is even worse! I read the comments and someone mentioned that KMplayer was good and I downloaded it. Well that doesn't even work! When I choose the file to open it opens and plays but the video is extremely tiny! When I set it to full-screen all I see are hues of blu and purple! What player can I use? I have a crappy Dell Vostro, here are the specs:

    Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E400 @ 2.20GHz and 1GB of RAM

    Please help me!

  • Lee

    Man thanks very very much for this article and advice! You helped me a lot! Now I can watch 1080p movies smoothly on my Pentium 3.2 Ghz single core, just because I have installed CoreAVC, its such amazing software! Great job! Recommended to everyone!

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    Hello – is this software available for mac too?
    Alex

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    Can you comment on the expansion slot please?
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  • Ichiro Ino

    In the minimum system requirements for CoreAVC, you forgot one thing (which puzzled me for years).

    I've got a 3ghz CPU with 256mb of Video Memory.

    It was running HD fine until one time when the power shut out, it seems that my BIOS had been reset/reconfigured.

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  • Aquangel10

    According to my opinion, codecs bla bla dont work… you may have the least possible specifications to run 1080p as mentiond

    3.6ghz pro
    512mb Video mem
    2.5 gb ram

  • Eternelagony

    dude get a life or get a good computer like mine i’m not bragging but my system is a core i5 760 2.8 and i oc’d it to 4.2 ha. 8gb ddr3 ram thats 4 2gb 1600 mhz rams.and 2 heavy duty 1gb pci express cards yeah thats right.there is nothing that my monster pc cannot run booya. ok somebody reply to that

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    Just so you know PCIe x1, x2, x4, x8 and x16 will all work in an x16 port. I’ve used an x1 card in an x16 port and it works fine.

    Confirmation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express

  • Somsef

    This is priceless advice, motherfucker!

  • Sigurd Mellqvist

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    In conclution ladies and gentlemen, snake should get a new computer.

  • oldbeater

    Try again! I have succeeded to have 1080p playback on a system that is from 2003 :
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    512 MB Ram (DDR)

    CoreAVC is not efficient. I have had much better results using FFDShow and KMPlayer (which has native decoding)
    CPU usage is high : 70% for 720p and 90-100% for 1080p, but is plays well
    (note this is watching videos with subs – like most of the world does…)

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  • Jimsim

     it did not worked 

  • Jimsim

     it did not worked 

  • Gian

    2mb of ram? lol

  • Anonymous

    my machine can’t play this 1080p HD Video, what a pity……

  • Mapetz_aka_jaspan

    I have intel core 2 quad at 2600  with 4 gb of ram and Gainward nVidia GeForce 8400GS, 512Mb.   Hopeless.

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