Computer Optimization

[smoothpops]

Is there a place/person in Calgary where I could take my laptop to that could help me with my laptop? I have an HP DV2-1024ca laptop from 2008, I upgraded it to 4 gigs of ram, but it still has a (measly) 1.6ghz AMD processor running win 7 64bit. Basically i would like it to be able to play 720p.mkv files effortlessly (if possible). right now it sometimes lags, or the audio cuts out/the audio goes out of sync. I'm using MPC-HC with the k-lite megapack, as that's given be the best results, but it's still not great. I've tried reading online/tinkering with it myself, but I just make it worse as I'm only borderline technologically literate. Any ideas/suggestions on where to go/who to talk to?

[TurnedTheCorner]

http://www.finallyfast.com

[smoothpops]

“A virus forced me to throw away a perfectly good computer. Now I keep
it safe with Finally Fast.com.”
Melanie T.

Good thing you linked to it, i was on the verge of throwing out my laptop.

[Brannigans Law]

Fastest way to fix laptops like that is to simply factory reset it and start from scratch

[smoothpops]

Originally Posted by Brannigans Law

Fastest way to fix laptops like that is to simply factory reset it and start from scratch

One of the problems is; I'm not even sure if my laptop even has the processing/video card capabilities of playing 720p.mkv files. I did uninstall all the codecs i had, and then installed the k-lite megapack and had limited success.

[Brannigans Law]

Use CCDP codecs and media player light. a laptop from 2008 should easily play a video file, even in high def

http://www.mediaplayerlite.net/

http://www.cccp-project.net/

[smoothpops]

I'll give those a try, and post

edit: so far Brannigans Law's suggestions are working really well. I was able to watch an episode of spartacus as 720p.mkv with minimal choppiness.

Hack&Lube, I've heard of CoreAVC mentioned before, i'm going to have to look around and see if i can find a "trial" version of it

[Hack&Lube]

There's no combination of free codecs and media player I have ever found that are able to play mkv files on slow CPUs other than CoreAVC with deblocking set to always skip. This codec is so much faster and more efficient than any of the K-Lite or CCCP codecs in my experience. Don't even think about VLC, that's just a brute force video player that plays everything at a cost - it's cobbled together and is slow.

http://corecodec.com/products/coreavc Unfortunately, it's not readily available for free but I'm sure you can find it if you look.

With this codec and media player classic or home cinema, I am able to watch 720p mkv files on an ASUS first gen EeePC netbook from 2007 with 512MB of ram and Celeron-M CPU at 900MHz.

You don't really need optimization to watch movies unless you have too many active processes in the background taking away your CPU clock cycles. RAM is not going to do anything unless, again you have too many background processes consuming memory and therefore paging to the hard disk, it's raw CPU power that you need.

[jeffman]

delete system 32 it'll make it go faster

[rbochan]

Try VLC media player

[Fire]

You are probably just better off buying a newer laptop. It wouldn't cost much to get one to do what you want.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by rbochan

Try VLC media player

VLC is a great all-in-one player that can play everything and comes bundled with all the codecs and filters you need. The problem with VLC is because of that nature, it's incredibly slow and not optimized at all. It's designed for brute force media viewing which is fine with most modern day PCs but not older and slower computers. It's pretty much the slowest player out there but you'd never notice with a run of the mill modern computer since they are all fast enough.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

VLC is a great all-in-one player that can play everything and comes bundled with all the codecs and filters you need. The problem with VLC is because of that nature, it's incredibly slow and not optimized at all. It's designed for brute force media viewing which is fine with most modern day PCs but not older and slower computers. It's pretty much the slowest player out there but you'd never notice with a run of the mill modern computer since they are all fast enough.

I'm not sure this is really true - VLC is DirectX hardware accelerated on Windows. It's more likely on a low end machine that the video hardware lacks any of the hardware acceleration features for DirectX that VLC could take advantage of for video rendering.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

I'm not sure this is really true - VLC is DirectX hardware accelerated on Windows. It's more likely on a low end machine that the video hardware lacks any of the hardware acceleration features for DirectX that VLC could take advantage of for video rendering.

I don't think it's the player or the lack of hardware acceleration itself but rather the built in codecs and filters it uses. I have gotten smooth video rendering (regardless of video hardware accceleration) on other codecs and media players where it is easier to choose your own and override the built in ones.

[Brannigans Law]

CCCP and Media Classic Player is the best out there. Free, light, and it's played every single thing I've ever thrown at it.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

I don't think it's the player or the lack of hardware acceleration itself but rather the built in codecs and filters it uses. I have gotten smooth video rendering (regardless of video hardware accceleration) on other codecs and media players where it is easier to choose your own and override the built in ones.

Maybe they are less efficient because they are written to be cross platform, who knows - I trust your judgement though, I don't really use it on Windows.