Anyway I can get vista to run using less memory

colly10

At the moment im trying to run a clip thats 720p and 60hz. Its grand in some parts but too jittery to watch in others. I already have the laptop set to performance mode. Any way I can tell vista I want to not run the fancy crap and want all memory to be used on the clip

Blazer

What's your CPU and memory specs?

In control panel/system - select advanced system settings.
On the advanced tab click on settings and select adjust for best performance.
This will switch off the bells and whistles.


Also under display select windows classic them to switch off Aero.

colly10

It's running a core 2 duo @ 2.2 ghz (T7500) with 2gb of ram. Graphics card is a GeForce 8400 M GS. I tried the above and its still not running well in parts, probably just way too many frames at that resolution for this machine

ronkmonster

most modern graphics card can do some of the work of decoding hd video.
have you tried updating the drivers

i can watch bluray discs (full hd) on my t7350 (2.0ghz) but i've 4gb ram and 9600M

is there anything else using processor at same time?

tried running at high priority?

Overheal

with integrated graphics (Intel Chipset) you may not be able to handle 720p at all.

I can run 720 and even 1080 on mine. same specs (2.0ghz proc), except i have an 8400M GS with 256MB of VRAM. Still kills the hell out of the battery: 1080 can overheat the battery and stop it from recharging - this after draining it down in a record 40 minutes. 12 cell no less.

Without a dedicated graphics processor, you might not be able to. It has less to do with memory but how fast the laptop can decode/

The only other thing to advise is shutting down any and all other programs. Download the K-Lite Codec Pack, and download and run the clip through something light, such as Mediaplayer Classic (comes with K-lite) or VLC.

Running at highpriority may cause some madness. I only recommend setting priority (at most) to above normal, as not to override windows' core functions, like Explorer, and the task Manager, which are set to run at High Priority. Running anything in Realtime mode as well, is really not recommended. Its a good way to lock up the machine.

ronkmonster

the OP has a 8400 also.

high priority should be used to test it out. if it improves it means cpu isn't up to the task or something else is busy at the same time.

drivers can often give good speed increases. worth trying out.

Are you sure it's your computer that's slow and not the clip(slow on the recording computer)?

Blazer

Also for playing back 720p clicks use Media player classic or Media cinema.
VLC I find to be buggy when trying to play these back.

Stephen

Is this flash video by any chance? Recent versions of flash have a retarded bug where hardware acceleration actually makes performance brutal when you go into fullscreen. Switching it off makes everything fine again.

I have a HP laptop with a similar enough spec to yours (except the CPU is an AMD x2 and I have a little bit more RAM) and thought it was just too slow until I disabled the h/w acceleration in flash.

I'd have it on Windows 7 already except I'm travelling with it. I don't particularly fancy doing an OS install on the road