Slower computer doesn't play AVI files flawlessly

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.video (More info?)

I've recently had to downgrade to my older Pentium III 550 Mhz
computer. The avi files that used to play flawlessly

on my 2400 Mhz computer now play jerky, or rather it depends, if the
rate is 100 KB/sec they play flawlessly, if it's

an avi of 140 KB/sec it just barely keeps up, momentarily freezing
every 5 seconds as if the buffer can't cope with

the inflow.

I'd like to know if I can fix this somehow, or if it's just that the
computer is too slow. I started with 64 MB RAM. I

clearly needed more when I installed XP on the 550 Mhz computer. I've
taken it up to 192 MB. Great overall

improvement. Only then did I first run the avi's and notice the problem
with some of them. I added another 128 MB,

for a grand total of 320 MB RAM. Absolutely NO improvement in avi
playback at all. NOTHING. Identical to the 192

MB RAM setup. I gave back the extra 128 MB and am back down to 192 MB
RAM.

Then I noticed my video card wasn't properly installed. It's kind of
old, a Nvidia TNT2 Vplus with 32 MB RAM. After

getting the drivers from Nvidia, I was able to install the video card.
Absolutely no difference whatsoever to avi

playback performance.

At the shop they told me perhaps upgrading to a 64 MB video card might
help, though they weren't sure. Can

anyone inform me about this?

I've played the clips with different media players, such as Winamp, and
it made no difference, same issues

present. I'm using WMP 10.

When playing back the 100 KB/sec file (Windows says its 127 kbps with
352x240) CPU usage is around 60%. Playing

the 140 KB/sec file (Windows says its 128 kbps with 512x384) CPU usage
is 85%. I calculate the KB/sec by dividing

file size by the length of the clip. The clips are very long, about 45
minutes each. Playing an MP3 consumes 85%,

but disabling WMP's graphic displays while reproducing the MP3 takes it
down to 25%, or less. Not doing anything

makes the CPU usage go down to 3-5%.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, including the potential sad
truth that my CPU is simply too slow for the

video in question and there's nothing I can do to make it work.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.video (More info?)

On 4 May 2005 00:39:09 -0700, easytoremember123@email.com wrote:

>I've recently had to downgrade to my older Pentium III 550 Mhz
>computer. The avi files that used to play flawlessly
>
>on my 2400 Mhz computer now play jerky, or rather it depends, if the
>rate is 100 KB/sec they play flawlessly, if it's
>
>an avi of 140 KB/sec it just barely keeps up, momentarily freezing
>every 5 seconds as if the buffer can't cope with
<big snip>
I don't think you can do much about this.
I've experienced it also on an old K6-lll 500Mhz.

The freezing at every 5 seconds is probably the
AVI's keyframes. This is the full frame of data,
where other frames are just the cumulative changes.
More than the cpu can keep up with - hence the skip.

You could convert the avi to mpg 1 or a smaller avi,
that would help !
Dave