which dvd player consumes the lowest amount of system resources?
i have powerdvd5 that came bundled with my dvd combo.it claims to require only 400 mhz of cpu.i have a celeron 400mhz cpu with 192mb ram running windows2000 but the playback is very jerky.
does anybody know of a more efficient dvd player?

plz dont comment on my system specs! :angel:

i found vlc media player.i think this as good as it gets when it comes to efficiency.any other recommendations?

Decoding a DVD is quite a hefty task & with current CPUs, people tend to forget that. No software will make the decoding easier on your CPU, the only way to help it would be to get an ATI card which can do some of the decoding itself offloading the CPU or a stand alone MPEG-2 decoding card.

No software will help your CPU shortcomings.

yup u are absolutely right,but if u have tried vlc media player u'll know what difference it made to my pc.it plays all the widely used formats plus its light on your system.

before vlc i had the same opinion as yours,and can u give me feedback on one thing:will merely upgrading to a good graphics card be enough? coz i think the cpu clock speed is a bottleneck too.

A card which can do DVD decoding, yes. Not just any upgrade will work.

i believe most of the cards now have hardware mpeg-2 decoding.
i had one such card for a few months,the results were much better but not quite satisfying..thats what made me think that everythings useless when accompanied by a processor such as mine

I know Power DVD 5 says a 350MHz P2 minimum. With a 450mhz P3 it's still not quite right(with a Geforce 3.)

it's the memory you need more of it
not processor
you are only referring to playback not encoding thats diff beast
I watch mpg's on a 400mhz with 256 all the time with no problems
as a test
try this open power dvd up
now do alt ctrl delete for task manager
high light running app rigth click and at bottom go to process
here right click again and set affinty to high this may help



good luck
be careful working here

I doubt he needs more memory. PowerDVD which is probably the most memory demanding DVD player (which isn't to say it's a memory hog) doesn't take 50mb of Ram. Get a card with a proper DVD decoding feature (ATI comes to mind) & you'll get a much better viewing experience.

by mpg's u are probably refering mpeg-4 videos n svcd's.those run fine, i have no problem running them. DVDs is what i am talking about.[thats what i meant by mpeg-2]

as for memory i have plenty free when i am running pweredvd,its the cpu line that goes off the roof.plus i run it on my secondary OS win98 to let it utilise even more resources.

DIDOU refer to my previous post.i had Geforce MX4000.hardware mpeg-2 decoding was among its specifications.u are welcome to check it on your own if u wish and correct me if i m wrong.

I've always found nVidia's DVD decoding to be lacking, mind you I haven't used their in-house DVD player which is supposed to fully utilise the NV decoding functions.

I remember going from an old ATI Rage-II to a Geforce DDR & found it lacking. I then upgraded to a Geforce 2 GTS & later on a Geforce 2 TI200. It was only when I changed to get an ATI Radeon 8500 that I got a better DVD viewing experience on the PC. I'm sure something like a Radeon 7000 can be found for dirt cheap, it's worth a try I would say.

if you like your graphics they way it is and you are going to do other things with the machine.you can add the memory to video in bios on some machines

so did you try the process infinity setting