xvid playback = choppy...please help

[skiier3_9]

I know that I'm a newbie to this forum, but i need your help. I'm trying to play xvid movies on a

2400+ Sempron (1.67 GHz 333 FSB)
256 MB RAM
Onboard Video (32 megs shared)
Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition

Player(s):
Media player classic
winamp (3 and/or 5)
media player 9

Every xvid movie that i play is choppy, when using ffdshow it says the frame rate is around 21 fps (although it jumps to 30 something about 1x per second). I have tried the latest xvid codec, the ffdshow codec, k-lite mega codec pack. In media player classic, it says that its using the correct codec (either xvid or with ffdshow the mpeg4 codec) I have tried a variety of players and they all have the same problem. The problem is consisten with all xvid movies on this machine - on a similar machine they play smooth as silk.

TIA for your help, I have been very frustrated with this problem.

[anonymez]

does the same thing happen with all mpeg-4 movies (eg. divx)?

[Soulhunter]

Maybe its not a prob with the audio codec and not the video codec...

Have all files you've tested the same audio format ???


Bye

[skiier3_9]

Originally posted by ziadost
does the same thing happen with all mpeg-4 movies (eg. divx)?

Yes, i tried out a few divx movies and they all have choppy playback.

The audio codecs are different for the movies that i have tested. Some have been mp3 (lame codec) and others were AC3.

The only thing that I can think of is the operating system. I tried increasing the priority on mplayer - to no avail. Perhaps its a Win 2003 issue.

Thanks!

edit: the problem is less noticable with regular divx. The "chopiness" is almost as if the "cd" (or file in this case) is skipping. The files are being played off the HDD. Also DVDs play fine (from the DVD drive)

[anonymez]

i'm thinking its got something to do with either windows 2003 (i've never tried it), or your video card... do you have the latest drivers for it? got directx 9.0c?

[skiier3_9]

hmmm...i'm not sure if i have directx 9.0c. The video card is just onboard AGP graphics with 32 (or 64 - whatever i set it at) megs of shared memory. I'll try upgrading directx and see if that changes anything. Thanks again

[skiier3_9]

Ok...so ->

After updating chipset and IGP drivers, as well as installing DX 9.0c I found that windows2003 defaults your display hardware acceleration to none (yep thats right folks...none). That means that direct draw and direct 3d are disabled -> choppy movies. After turning on the hardware acceleration and testing direct draw and direct 3d everything is playing smoothly.

Thank you guys for the help....directx turned out to be the problem.

[anonymez]

no problem, glad to be of help

[frogissam]

I found a cure for my choppy video playback. It happened with W2K's DVD Player, Real Player, and WinDVD 7 Platinum. I have an earlier version of Nero installed. It did not come with packet writing software, so I downloaded the third-party program Write DVD! to add this feature.

Write DVD! has an utility that was set incorrectly and causing my choppy playback. If you use Write DVD!, go to Start>Programs>Write DVD and click on SAI Switch Utility. In the File System tab that first appears, only the following two items should be selected:

Use SAI UDF File System Driver

Access via OS Embedded ISO-9660 File System Driver

Click OK after these changes, reboot your computer as requested, and enjoy perfect playback from your DVD player software.

Unfortunately, previewing Titles using DVD Shrink are still choppy. But who can complain about a great free program?!