How to make PC run Movies/Games smoother?

Question

I have an HP Pavilion dv7 1175nr laptop with the following specs:

64-bit Windows Vista OS
4.00 GB Ram
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5800 @ 2.00 GHz
Nvidia geforce 9600 GT Graphics Card

So I think my laptop has some pretty decent specs but when I try to play a high graphic game or a large sized animated movie file (8 GB+) it would start to lag. So much so that the sounds begins to go out of sync.

What do I need to upgrade or update in order to make this smoother? Right now I am trying to play a .mkv movie (8 GB) file with VLC or Media Player Classic but it is still lagging. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Which games are you trying to play? Because if you are playing games like GTA IV, Call of duty Black OPS, NFS Hot Pursuit, and all the latest games. Then it will surely lag.



Not all mkv files will work smoothly on vlc player. Try playing it on an mkv player.

Answer 2

it sounds like possibly the data transfer rate of your hardisk is too slow, it is unlikley that you are maxing out the speed of your ram. media player and vlc media player might have codec problems that are causing your lag. if your laptop's graphics card shares video memory with your motherboards main ram (4gb) you could try going into your bios and increasing the dedicated video memory for your laptop to 512mb or higher to make the video processing easyier on your videocard.

you could also download a gadget for your windows sidebar called (all Cpu Meter) and also (gpu observer) these have bars that show the workload and useage of your memory, processor cores, and videocard core and ram.. while witnessing the lag in your video check the gadgets to see what is being maxed out..

if none of these are maxed or close to it.. find a gadget to monitor hardrive activity..

Answer 3

Hi, either try the players below or you may try converting your videos to a smaller size 8 gig is huge for a video to me. First make sure you video acceleration is set to full, if it isnt then that could be the problem,



http://pptfaq.com/FAQ00129.htm (Here is a guide covering windows 98 through vista hardware acceleration, scroll down til you see vista.)



Honestly I think any video that's 8 gig would cutout in any player. That is very large for a video file, most older harddrives were 10-40 gig by themselves. I recently answerered a question about hd videos lagging for someone and it turns out my answer was chosen as best, he said kmplayer was the only one that didnt cut out as much. However i'm not sure if kmplayer works on 64-bit,



Since you've already tried vlc and media player classic. You should try gom player, kmplayer or mplayer for windows. Mplayer for windows is similar to vlc because it has it's own codecs.



http://mulder.dummwiedeutsch.de/home/?page=projects (This is the best front for mplayer I know of. Mplayer has many different fronts such as smplayer and kmplayer. This one includes smplayer an mpui original mplayer.) You may wanna try it. It can be uninstalled normally. It works on 64-bit.



http://www.gomlab.com/eng/GMP_Introduction.html (Official site for gom player. Unlike kmplayer, this can be uninstalled normally without problems) It does support 64-bit.



http://download.pandora.tv/?mode=kmp&tab=1 (Official site for kmplayer. If you install this player and do not like it, please read the IMPORTANT information below about how to uninstall it properly.) This might not support 64-bit. It is not related to mplayer, there are 2 different kmplayers people get mixed up. This one is independent and made by koreans.



http://www.kmplayer.com/forums/ (Official kmplayer help and skin forums. You can probably find a newer version of kmplayer here.) If you can find a newer version here it may support 64-bit.



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If you go with kmplayer and do not like it. Here is how to PROPERLY UNINSTALL it. Failure to uninstall it this way will leave files associated with it after it's gone.,



Open kmplayer. Right click on it and click on "options", in the popout list click on preferances. To the left at bottom click on association/capture. At top click on second tab over "association". In association click the none button. Then click "apply to system". Close it out and close the player. Now you can simply uninstall it. You can manage file associations here also.



http://www.anvsoft.com/any-video-converter-free.html (Official site for any video converter free version, a very popular video converter.) Your last option.



I hope this helps you out. If not I post additional details and I will try to help you further. See link below to manage file associations between players.

Answer 4

Hi, find a low cpu-cost media player for you, it can:



Optimized with MMX SSE SSE2 SSE3 Intel CPU instructions and support Multi-Core CPU and Hyper-Threading technology. Under 10% CPU cost on i5 CPU when playing 1080P AVCHD video.



Find my source from: http://www.winxdvd.com/resource/hd-video-player.htm

Answer 5

the bigger your computer screen, the greater helpful you would be waiting to 'see' the WoW worldwide, so i could get a minimum of a 20" demonstrate screen, and a 26" or greater could be much greater helpful. different than that, your computer sounds great. the two my husband and that i play WoW and his computer screen is greater than mine, and he can see slightly greater helpful (he performs greater, so I gave him the better of our video demonstrate contraptions). you have greater RAM than we've (merely upgraded to 4gb, that's as severe as ours will go) so which you shouldn't have any problems with 'lag time' (time between you 'doing a spell or strike' and getting it to be examine by employing their server and lower back on your gadget, which eats up a great form of RAM), apart from in case you're enjoying in a 'locked' realm with a lot of human beings additionally 'draining the server' on the comparable time, inflicting greater beneficial lag situations. have relaxing ... now I ought to pass nag my husband approximately upgrading our desktops lower back quickly!