[crimsonmac]

Hi everyone,

I like to watch anime, and I have been trying to find a video player that will allow me to view avi files on my Pismo without any lag in OS X. Is that possible? My specifications are: G3 400/512/10.
Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[mduell]

VLC is probably your best bet. Anime should be pretty low bitrate.

[crimsonmac]

Unfortunately, the use of VLC results in choppy and slow presentation. So far I've had the most success with Chroma and mplayer. Does anyone know of a good source for a G3 optimized version of mplayer? In addition, would increasing the RAM to 1 GB and installing a new 7200 rpm drive make a difference?

[G. I.]

Mplayer is the fastest player on slow G3 CPU.

[crimsonmac]

I agree that mplayer is best. What about the hard drive and memory upgrades, though? Do they make a significant improvement in video playback?

[mduell]

Memory: Maybe if you were at 64MB to start with, but not from 512MB

Hard drive: No, the hard drive has no problem keeping up with compressed video.

Your problem is CPU. You're on an 7 year old laptop that wasn't exactly speedy when it was new.

[crimsonmac]

I understand that the machine is old. What I am interested in is wringing every bit of power I can out of it. Are there any user groups devoted to creating or modifying software to maximize the usefulness of these older machines?