DVD plays slow

[befriend nerds]

I just got a CD player, burner, DVD player combo drive. Everything works fine, but when I try to play a DVD movie with Power DVD, It plays really slow.

I have a Pentium 3 and 260,400 KB of RAM. Does it play this slow because I don't have enough RAM to process it all at once?

 

[Nitestick]

what sort of graphics adapter are you using? need to know the clock speed of the p3 as well

 

[befriend nerds]

How do I find out the clock speed, and what is a graphics adapter?



I'm not the comp customization kind, so I don't know these things

 

[Nitestick]

lol. graphics adapter=video card
clock speed=right click my computer on the desktop then click properties. in the section that says computer tell me how many mhz or ghz it says.

 

[befriend nerds]

Well, It didn't say what the hz was, but I do know that core speed is 598.1 and FSB is 132.9 and multiplier is 4.5.
All I could find that seemed like what would be the video card is Intel 810 Graphics controller hub

 

[damasta55r]

Okay, your PIII, really sucks... Does it even meet the minimum requirements to play dvds? Maybe its your psu, nto enough power.
Roger

 

[Apokalipse]

Well, It didn't say what the hz was, but I do know that core speed is 598.1 and FSB is 132.9 and multiplier is 4.5.
All I could find that seemed like what would be the video card is Intel 810 Graphics controller hub

there's your problem. that video card is integrated into your motherboard (motherboard = where all your stuff gets plugged into) and it actually uses your main CPU (the part that does the thinking) and some of your RAM (where everything gets loaded, including Windows) to generate the graphics.
this, and the fact that your CPU is not particularly fast is the reason DVD's aren't playing well.

what you can do, is try and find someone who lives near you, that knows the insides of a computer, and see if he can put in a better video card. if it has an AGP slot - the slot where your video card goes, if it is not integrated into the motherboard - you might be able to get any old video card, like what I used to use (one called a TNT2 RIVA) and it will take the load off your CPU.

 

[Nitestick]

yeah it must be integrated.

"Okay, your PIII, really sucks... Does it even meet the minimum requirements to play dvds?"

more than meets them, i can almost play movies fine in win xp using a PII-400 and integrated graphics. as a side point my dvd's play flawlessly full screen in linux on integrated graphics. unfortunately im having trouble getting my soundcard working

 

[Apokalipse]

his CPU will play DVD's, he just needs a better video card to take load off his CPU. even a TNT2 should do fine for him.