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In a previous post I wrote about using MPV player on Windows with hardware decoding. This is a quick reference post for my recommended minimalist configuration settings in the mpv.conf configuration file. If you have an AMD / Intel graphics device #Default video output set to GPU. Best CPU utilisation in Windows vo=gpu    #Best for AMD GPUs  hwdec=d3d11va    #Prevent MPV closing after playback  keep-open   #Quality Upscale / Downscale filter (will increase GPU load when enabled)  scale=ewa_lanczossharp   If you have an NVIDIA graphics device  MPV for Windows and NVIDIA NVENC decoding #Default video output set to GPU. Best CPU utilisation in Windows vo=gpu #To enable NVDEC use opengl api gpu-api=opengl #Hardware decoder set to NVDEC wont work if above not set to opengl hwdec=nvdec #Prevent MPV closing after playback keep-open #Quality upscale / downscale filter (uncomment below to enable) scale=ewa_lanczossharp

If the playback of 4K videos is causing your processor fans to spin themselves to bits or the quality of the playback is an annoyingly inconsistent frame skipping mess, this may help you. The default Windows movie player app and alternatives like VLC and smplayer can play videos with hardware decoding but I frequently have playback issues. In search of something that works and is simple, say hello to  mpv.io  a free, open source, and cross-platform media player. Using MPV to playback 4K videos has provided me with the smoothest viewing experience compared to anything I have ever used but there is one small catch. Out of the box it defaults to software decoding (using your CPU), so you need to configure it to take advantage of hardware decoding, i.e, nvidia NVENC. Go to the options and tick a few boxes? Unfortunately not, you have to configure it by way of a text file named mpv.conf. Realistically all this means is using notepad to type a few characters... or since you are here...

By default SMPlayer is set to 'software decoding' resulting in high CPU utilization and potentially choppy playback depending on your system. Changing the settings to enable 'hardware decoding' will reduce CPU utilization and video playback will be much smoother. Compare the screenshots below, at 46 seconds the same video (playing at full window size) caused 25% CPU utilization versus 2% CPU utilization. SMPlayer Software Decoding SMPlayer Hardware Decoding How to enabled hardware decoding In the preferences > performance, change the 'Hardware decoding' option from 'None' to 'Auto'. Then click 'OK'. You have now enabled 'hardware decoding' in SMPlayer. If you wish to confirm this, simply compare your CPU utilization before and after.