HD Content Stuttering on Playback

[Foxfire 1]

I have constant problems playing HD content vis VLC. I have my PC setup as follows

Operating System Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Black Edition, 2800 MHz (14 x 200) 5400+
DFI LANParty DK 790FXB-M2RS(H)
AMD 790FX, AMD Hammer
4GB (4096 MB) MEMORY (DDR2-1600 DDR2 SDRAM) (5-5-5-15 @ 400 MHz) (4-4-4-10 @ 266 MHz)
ATI Radeon HD 3850 (512 MB) (RV670)
Samsung SyncMaster T240HD(Digital) Displaying at 1920x1200

Though I am not rich and am not running an overly expensive Quad Core Monster of a system, I think my hardware should be MORE than capable of running HD content. But I am Playing a Video that is an .MKV file with the following stats:

[VIDEO] 1080p.x264.AC3 avc1 .MKV
Resolution - 1920x1080
Framerate - 23.9754

Is there something I can do to prevent or put a stop to the stuttering during playback?

[Baldrick]

Try instead MPC-HC.

[Foxfire 1]

no joy. thx though!

[poisondeathray]

You have to configure MPCHC

either DXVA using your graphics card (probably a better bet for your system), assuming the video is DXVA compliant

or set decoding to multithreading for ffmpeg (2 because you have a dual core)

These are all found in the options=>internal filters=>transform filters=>h264/aac

If you aren't using an external mkv splitter (e.g. haali ), then enable the internal mkv one

If you aren't using an exernal AC3 decoder (e.g. ac3filter, or ffdshow), then enable the internal one

[nitro1973]

You can use MPC-HC and configure it for DXVA like poisondeathray wrote.
Or install Splash - nothing to configure - just check hardware acceleration in settings.
But splash does not support subtitles yet :/