playing 720p 264 mkv on older computer

[noobvide]

My Computer:

Pentium 4 CPU 3.06 with hyper threading enabled
2 GB Ram
geforce 6200 256mb
I have an LED monitor connected via DVI (would this matter?)

I was just curious if there is anything I can do to make it play better and if I set up Media Player Classic Properly.

I was originally using XBMC media center to play all my HD content and it played it without a hitch, until there was an update then the program kept freezing. Anyone else have this problem? (XMBC was a really good program imo, until this freezing stuff).

I started using VLC media player. It has played all my 720p content very good with about 80-90% CPU usage on average. I turned deinterlacing off. turned on GPU accelerated decoding (even though I don't think it works with my GPU, does it?) and made skip H. 264 deblocking filter to 'all'.

The other day, I had an MKV 720 file that could not play smoothly in vlc, even though the video bitrate was one of the lowest I have. Why could this be? After tediously searching, I downloaded Media Player Classic from cnet and got malware. I then found that I needed Media Player Classic Home Cinema. I found that the CCCP codec download includes MPCHC, I downloaded it and did not mess with anything. There was video/audio lag. I don't think I set up CCCP properly and if MPCHC even used the CCCP codec. How the heck do I know if it is using CCCP?

After further searching I found people recommending using CoreAVC with MPCHC -- I got coreavc. I went to external filters in MPCHC and selected CoreAVC Video Decoder (I didn't see an option for CoreAVC Audio decoder, is this right?). I then went to CoreAVC Video Decoder Configuration and only changed deblocking to 'skip always' deinterlacing 'none' and Acceleration to DXVA (I know my graphics card doesn't have CUDA, could it possible have dxva?)

Anyway, the MKV file that was skipping and freezing and using 100% cpu under VLC worked under MPCHC flawlessly, in fact, it only used 60% CPU on average and never went above 80%. How is this possible?

As you can probably tell by how I wrote my post, I'm super confused with this media player classic thing and don't even know what I did. How do I know what codec I'm using with MPCHC? Can I switch between the two CCCP and CoreAVC? Can I get the same results with CCCP? I really like VLC, is there anything else I can do to the settings get the same results as MPCHC?

Also anyone with an older computer like mine, I'm just letting you know that 720p can play very good with your machine.

Thanks to anyone, if anyone, who shares their thoughts.

[jagabo]

In MPCHC right click on the video window. Hover over Filters. You'll see the list of filters in use. You can select any of them to change any available settings.

To use CoreAVC or any other DirectShow decoder, disable MPCHC's AVC decoders via View -> Options -> Internal Filters -> Transform Filters.