What Computer Upgrades Need to Play Blu-ray on PC

Want to enjoy HD Blu-ray movies on your computer? How do you know your old computer can support Blu-ray playback? Or need some upgrades? Below I will give you an introduction for computer configuration for play Blu-ray movies, both the minimum one and recommended one.

Tools we are using:

1. Aurora Blu-ray Media Player for Windows, Arcsoft Total Media Theatre 5, PowerDVD 13 Ultra

2. Samsung SE-506BB Blu-ray Drive

3. Windows 7 64bit with 4G RAM, Intel Core i3-3210 CPU @3.2Ghz, integrated graphics

4. Windows 8.1 64bit with 2G RAM, AMD Athlon 2 220 @ 2.8Ghz, integrated graphics

5. Windows 7 32bit with 2G RAM, Pentium Dual-Core CPU E2110 @2.2Ghz, integrated graphics

6. The Tron Legacy 3D and Avatar Blu-ray disc movies

Testing

If you are not sure about your computer can play Blu-ray or not, you may make some simple tests. For example, you can test some 720P and 1080P videos to check if your computer can deal with high definition movies smoothly as the Blu-ray is 1080P but with more frame rate than the common ones.

1. If your computer can’t even deal with common 1080P smoothly, you may refer to our configuration recommendations.

2. Or, it works fine, follow our testing. Here we use Aurora Blu-ray Media Player as it is easy to master comparing with Arcsoft TMT and PowerDVD. We tested the Tron Legacy 3D and Avatar on the three computers listed above and they all work fine. And there is no 3D support as for now, it can only read but output as a 2D movie. According to the testing, the Pentium Dual-Core 2.2Ghz encountered some delay when loading disc and clicking stop operation, while the other two perform better. According to this and the past experience, we can conclude the minimum configuration for playback Blu-ray disc – Dual Core 2.0Ghz or above CPU; 2G RAM(for Windows 7/8); integrated graphics and Blu-ray drive.

3. And then we test 3D Tron Legacy with Arcsoft TMT 5 and PowerDVD 13. Both can play but encountered a little standstill. So we recommend the minimum configuration for play 3D Blu-ray is 2.4Ghz Dual Core CPU, NVIDA GeForce 8600/ATI 400/Intel G45, 2G RAM for Windows 7/8.

Recommended Configuration

At last we give a recommended configuration for play Blu-ray/3D Blu-ray on Windows platform.

CPU: Intel Core i5，AMD Phenom II X4

RAM: 4G

Graphics: Intel HD Graphic (Intel Core i5), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 400 and GeForce GT 240/320/330/340, AMD Radeon HD 6000

Blu-ray drive: USB2.0/Fireware 400 or above