Choppy video during DVD playback

[jjkatz]

System is Dell Latitude CPT-V, Celeron 466 processor, 128 MB RAM, ATI Rage Mobility M1 video (8 MB of video RAM), 6 GB hard disk about half full. System dual boots between Windows 95 and Windows 2000, each on its own partition. Trying to play DVDs in Windows 2000. Drive is a Dell DVD/CD-ROM drive. Using WinDVD version 3.0, patched to version 3.1.91.33.

Playback is often jerky. Here is what I have tried so far:

1. Reducing refresh rate to 60 Hz
2. Reducing display resolution to 800 x 600
3. Removing network adapter
4. Disabling Norton Antivirus 2002
5. Setting screen saver to "none"
6. Killing all non-essential W2K services
7. Setting WinDVD display quality to "Low"
8. Setting WinDVD display quality to "Custom" and checking "Software bob (de-interlacing)
9. Confirming that I have the latest video and audio drivers for Windows 2000, and the most current version of my system BIOS.
10. Installing DVD Genie to utilize advanced playback settings (made it worse - uninstalled it pronto).

Is my system just not up to this? Or does anyone have any suggestions?

[UncasMS]

Is my system just not up to this?

***
i'm afraid so, m8!

most systems under ~600mhz will have playback problems with many/certain titles due to the heavy data-load and cpu power that mpeg2 needs.

[jjkatz]

Actually, I think I just got it licked! I know DMA can have a big impact on video performance with CDs and DVDs. I didn't see DMA as an option under Device Manager\CD/DVD Drives, so I didn't think it was available in Windows 2000. Wrong! It's located under IDE Devices. I set the secondary IDE controller to use DMA and bada-bing, problem solved.