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[wildcatknh]

Hello everyone.  Was looking for some help with regard to upgrading my HTPC to handle 4K video and possibly 4K gaming.

So, I have purchased a new OLED 4K TV to go along with a new XBox One X.  I currently have an old HTPC that I use with MC23 to watch my video collection of movies and TV shows.  All of my equipment is now ready to handle 4K HDR video except for my PC.  When I try to play 4K videos now in MC23, they will play (barely) but with constant choppiness and stuttering.  So my question is ... which parts on my HTPC will need an upgrade ... or should I just purchase/build a whole new HTPC?  All output from my HTPC is routed through a brand new Sony STR-DN1080 receiver via HDMI on then on to a brand new LG OLED55B7A 4K TV.  My current HTPC hardware specs:

Windows 10 Pro V6.3 Build 14393
AMD Athlon II 645 Quad-Core processor 3.10 GHz
8GB DDR3 RAM @ 1333 MHz
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 4GB GPU

The HTPC itself is probably 10 years old but the GTX 970 is probably only about a year old.  Was already planning on adding another 8GB of RAM. 

I don't game much at all on the HTPC ... it's primarily used for watching/listening to my media collection.  But on the occasions that I might game on it, I want it to be able to handle games as well. 

Does anyone have any advice or suggestions for upgrades to handle playing 4K video?  Is the GTX 970 not enough GPU?  Would another 8GB of RAM make any significant difference?  Do I need a faster, more powerful processor?  Or do I just need to build a new HTPC?  Any help would be greatly appreciated to know where to go from here.

Thanks.

[Hendrik]

A NVIDIA 10 series GPU like the 1050 Ti (4GB) will likely enable you to watch 4K content, I would say (the 4GB is important, otherwise you might run out of GPU memory).
A 970 is unfortunately not fully equipped with hardware decoding for the new formats used by 4K/HDR content, decoding-wise it was already a bit behind when it came out.

A similar fate falls through the 10 series GPUs, the 1050 Ti can decode more then the 1060, for example.

[wildcatknh]

Interesting ... as I thought that the 970 ... while not a top-end GPU ... would be able to handle 4K content.  It is promoted by NVIDIA as fully 4K capable and the Maxwell architecture is also claimed to support HDR.  What 4K/HDR format decoders specifically are you talking about?  So that I can look for that in my research? 

[tyler69]

This might help: https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/981372/geforce-basics/which-gpus-support-hevc-a-k-a-h-265-/

[wildcatknh]

If the question is about the HEVC/x265 codec ... the GTX 970 very definitely supports that codec.  I play hevc encoded videos (1080p) on it every day with absolutely no issues.

[mojave]

On Sunday I sold my Haswell-E i7-5820K build with a Nvidia GTX 970 Gaming 4G. The GTX 970 support 4K video including HDR10, but didn't have enough power to upscale with good settings on madVR. I now have a GTX 1080ti for playback of my ripped UHD Blu-rays. I also game at 4K on another 9 year old PC with a 1070.

Don't confuse the ability to play something with hardware decoding. You can see from Nvidia's encoding (NVENC) and decoding (NVDEC) matrix, that Pascal added the ability to hardware decode H.265 and VP9.

https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-decode-gpu-support-matrix

[wildcatknh]

@mojave ... thanks for the info.  I'm learning here as I go.  So from just some brief reading, it's more efficient as a whole to have the GPU decode HEVC using hardware decoding to move some of the required work away from the CPU and free up CPU resources for use elsewhere ... correct?  And so with that being the case, I can see that I need a Pascal or later GPU that does encode/decode HEVC.

Is that part of my problem that I see now with choppiness and stuttering?  Without the GPU helping out, my CPU is having trouble decoding and outputting 4k/HEVC video?

[Hendrik]

Is that part of my problem that I see now with choppiness and stuttering?  Without the GPU helping out, my CPU is having trouble decoding and outputting 4k/HEVC video?

That is the most likely cause, yes.

Earlier GPUs like the 970 have a "hybrid" hardware decoder for HEVC, which uses a combination of CPU and GPU - which may be enough for 1080p, but will fail at 4K. Full hardware decoding for HEVC only arrived with the 960 and the 10 series cards.

[jmone]

So what are the cards to buy / avoid in the 10 Series?

[Daydream]

From my own experience... GTX 1050 works great for decoding everything, but can't do anything with madVR (don't even try; too underpowered). If you really want to do things with madVR (not just dial everything down in frustration), don't stop till a GTX 1070. So that's a ~$450 fee to play with madVR @ 4K, which just adds to my love/hate relationship with the software in question.

And no, that's not the end of it because madVR is a money black hole; GTX 1070 is where I tried to retain some sanity about these things. But if you want to go with 720p60 or 1080p60 upscaled to 2160p60 with the most powerful algos, and sharpening, and anti-ringing/debloating/dehaloing/de-whatever -> the sky's the limit, I hear they have these GTX 1080 Ti now Oh, one might need to put a different PSU in an HTPC to drive those cards. Life is full of challenges...

[tyler69]

I do have a 1050ti and madVR works just fine, of course with modest settings. I guess 4K downscaling puts more strain on the GPU than normal 4K playback?