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I have a fairly fast machine - nuc 8i7HVK (i7 quad core with Radeon Vega M graphics). I would like to play a game on my main display - while watching a 1080p video on a secondary display.

(I have 3 4K displays at 60Hz).

When the game is in focus the video gets choppy. I've tried going to Task Manager and increasing the priority of vlc.exe to 'real time' but it makes no difference.

I assume the game is just hogging all system resources. How can I ensure VLC gets enough to play smooth video - then the game gets what's left?

Thanks.

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  • have you tried a better video player? like media player classic, or mpv?
    – Cestarian
    May 9, 2018 at 21:08
  • How are they better? OK I'll give it a go.
    – niico
    May 9, 2018 at 21:15
  • MPC is, if anything, worse
    – niico
    May 9, 2018 at 21:19
  • MPC has better upscaling algorithms available, especially if you use certain renderer options (like madvr) this is most likely the reason why mpc would lag more for you, it'll use more resources for a higher quality image when video is upscaled. And better format and codec support as well as better handling of corrupted files. MPV is largely the same, but also some other things. And VLC is a buggy and outdated piece of trash player in the first place :P that's mostly just my opinion though, I've had bad experiences with it (like for example when it didn't display correct colors for me)
    – Cestarian
    May 9, 2018 at 21:24
  • Both players also have options for smooth motion/motion interpolation, which basically adds interpolated frames to smooth the playback of 24fps video so it will feel more like 60fps video. This is a quite important feature, as once you use it, you never want to go back. (though mpc may require a 3rd party renderer, e.g. madvr, to access this feature)
    – Cestarian
    May 9, 2018 at 21:26

1 Answer 1

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The most likely problem here is that the game is using up too much of the gpu resources which slows down the video. There are a few ways that may remedy this.

  • Enable Vsync in the game (if the game is running well above 60fps, like at say 80-100 or better, this may solve your problem because it will limit the frame rate to the same amount as your refresh rate and thus ease the load on the cpu)
  • Limit the framerate of the game. (If you limit the games fps to something lower than your average fps, it will ease the load on your gpu and allow it to devote more resources to the video player)
  • Lower the graphics settings of the game. (if your max fps is only 60 normally, then you will need to free up resources with other methods, namely, lowering graphics settings. This will push your max fps higher and thus after enabling vsync, you will have more free resources for the video)
  • If all of the above fails, you should disable hardware acceleration in the video player. (In vlc this option is in the input/codecs settings tab) if this by itself does not solve the issue you can go to the task manager and set the processor affinity so that the game process and video player process use separate cores.
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  • Thanks - I added the frame rate monitor and in Task Manager looked at GPU usage - I lowered graphics detail so the GPU was around 80% instead of being permanently maxed out, and this seems to have done it. Side note - I couldn't ever get frames to go above 60 (my monitor has FreeSync and I have Radeon Vega M - I tried FS on and off, didn't seem to change it it just sat at 60 both times).
    – niico
    May 10, 2018 at 11:09

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