[rashid420]

I have an ATI 4540 with 1GB on a Dell Optiplex 64-bit AMD Athlon X2 running Windows 8. I have hardware acceleration turned on to DXVA2. All Online content is fabulous. Personal video collection will not play period. Does not matter what the bitrate / size / resolution is. Starts to play and hangs.

Elsewhere I learnt default player is DVDPlayer which cannot handle Hardware acceleration and I should use another player. But how? Even if I turn off hardware acceleration I cannot play any of my video files: avi, mp4, mkv. NONE. The file will open and hang on the first frame.

The machine is quite powerful. I can play everything perfectly over my Windows Network simply opening file in Windows Explorer. I have setup XBMC on so many windows machines, even Windows 8 and this is first time I have had issue. I had no issue with Eden or Frodo RC2. Official Frodo, BOOM, I'm hosed.

Someone please help !

[bluray]

It is very possible that the audio output in Frodo is not properly configured, here are some tips- Audio output configurations

[rashid420]

It is very possible that the audio output in Frodo is not properly configured, here are some tips- Audio output configurations

I read that post 3 times. I tried various things and it worked partially.

Video Addons work.
SD Video works.
HD video, i.e. 720p still gives choppy playback

I'm running Windows 8 on a Lenovo ThinkCenter M81. CPU = i3. 4gb RAM. DisplayPort to HDMI adapter, to Samsung DLP TV. Motherboard has Intel HD Graphics 2000. I've tried WASAPI for the Audio outs, or Samsung for the Audio outs (regular and passthrough) in all permutations and combinations. At my wits end right now.

Basically here are the items to play with.
- True fullscreen or full screen?
- Sync Video refresh to screen refresh?
- Audio Out
- Pass through audio out
- Use hardware acceleration (I've kept this checked for DXVA2) since without it CPU takes 50%, and with it takes 10%. In XBMC docs I am told to check it. IS THIS MY PROBLEM? I don't really have a separate video card. My onboard motherboard display port backed by Intel HD Graphics 2000.

[bluray]

I'm I correct that you are having issues with both Lenovo and Dell? If both of them connected to HDTV this way (HTPC-->HDTV via HDMI), you can configure audio output in Frodo as shown in my screen shot below. You can try both DirectSound and WASAPI audio output devices, but one at a time. Whichever playback fluently, you can keep it. As for DXVA2, you want to disable it in Intel HD2000 iGPU and enable it in the ATI 4540. Intel i3 should be strong enough to handle it without DXVA2, and it is okay to have slightly high CPU usage as long as it can playback fluently....

[rashid420]

I'm I correct that you are having issues with both Lenovo and Dell? If both of them connected HDTV this way (HTPC-->HDTV via HDMI), you can configure audio output in Frodo as shown in my screen shot below. You can try both DirectSound and WASAPI audio output devices, but one at a time. Whichever playback fluently, you can keep it. As for DXVA2, you want to disable it in Intel HD2000 iGPU and enable it in the ATI 4540. Intel i3 should be strong enough to handle it without DXVA2, and it is okay to have slightly high CPU usage as long as it can playback fluently....

Thank you so much. Your reply helped me out tremendously. The offending setting was "Digital AC3 playback". Good riddance to Apple TV !!!