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[Denti]

I have two PCs that I have been using on my network with MC, one for music only, the other for video only. I have now consolidated the systems and figured I would use the "faster," newer PC. This is an Intel i7 with 3.60GHz CPU and 8GB of RAM. The other one is an Intel NUC with 2 cores and 2.13GHz CPU with only 4GB RAM. The "faster" one is running Windows 8.1; the "slower" one is running Windows 10.

I was using the NUC (slow) for video and the other one (fast) for audio (DSD). I figured using the faster one for video would be a cinch. And indeed, I was able to run it with Red October HQ last night to watch a TV show I had downloaded. Tonight I tried to watch a movie and I couldn't get it to play without stopping every few seconds to buffer. So I put it back to Red October Standard and made sure the setting all matched the NUC. But it still can't play the movie. Now, the difference in file sizes is huge. The TV show was about 1GB and this movie is a remux of about 17GB. However, the NUC can play it fine, no stuttering, no stopping. The faster PC cannot. Why? The hardware would suggest it would be much more capable of handling this. The only main difference is Windows. I can't imagine upgrading to Windows 10 would make the difference. What else am I missing here?

EDIT: it gets weirder! I just installed the DSD drivers I’m using on the fast i7 PC onto the NUC with the hope of just using the NUC and being done with it. But no, it can’t handle playing DSD. I was outputting 256 bitstreamed DSD and now I can’t even do 128DSD smoothly. This tells me something is up with the video set up on the i7 PC. Anyone want to try helping me?

[JimH]

On Win10, make sure you configure Windows Defender.  There's a thread on this board.

[Denti]

On Win10, make sure you configure Windows Defender.  There's a thread on this board.

But the Win8 PC is the one with double the RAM and the way faster CPU. Shouldn’t this one be able to handle a 17GB video file? I’m confused.

[JimH]

Did you read the thread?

[Denti]

Did you read the thread?

Yes, and the OP says in the first post that this is a problem that emerged with Windows 10. I don’t see any mention of it also being a problem with Windows 8. Did I miss something?

Again, my Win10 PC is able to play video no problem and I haven’t “tamed” Defender. It can’t play the DSD because it doesn’t have the CPU power. It’s the Win8 unit that *can* play the DSD but keeps buffering video.

[tij]

If hardware is not up to task to render video, you will have skipping (frames from movie gets drop out as hardware is not capable to render them in time)

Buffering suggests that your network is too slow . Are you using WiFi?

[Denti]

Yes, I am. Any advice on how to check the different capacities of these computers’ network adapters?

EDIT: Sure enough, the i7 PC has a speed of about 18mps and the NUC about 40mps. That’s it! Now to figure out why the i7 is so slow... I’m using a USB adapter, but it should be able to handle much higher bandwidth, so I don’t know what’s limiting it.

[JimH]

EDIT: Sure enough, the i7 PC has a speed of about 18mps and the NUC about 40mps. That’s it! Now to figure out why the i7 is so slow... I’m using a USB adapter, but it should be able to handle much higher bandwidth, so I don’t know what’s limiting it.

You may have a USB 3.0 device plugged into a USB 2.0 port.  Try another port.

[Denti]

I installed the adapter on my laptop and it's getting 30mps, so it's not the adapter. It might be the placement? Maybe I need an extender? I think this adapter is USB 2.0.

EDIT: sure enough! I put the wireless adapter on a USB extender cable and placed it higher up and it works fine! Thanks for your help, everyone!

[JimH]

Thanks for reporting the solution.