VLC on ancient hardware.

[bz07]

I was trying to run Vlc with some videos on a Pentium II 333mhz with 96 mb ram. I was running both VLC and the video off a flash drive in the usb 1.0 port. The playback was very poor the video was extrmely choppy and the audio was garbled. I tried both an avi and mp4 file with the avi giving the bad video and the mp4 not even playing. Is their any way I can maybe fix this issue and watch some videos? Would maybe having VLC onnthe hard drive be better?  Maybe another video player? (The hdd is only 8gb and 6.5. are full so im limited on space)There is no reason behind doing this it is just for fun.

[Tommy]

In my opinion, it'll probably be a bit difficult to get videos working well on that machine. But you didn't mention how high quality the video is. Anything above 640x480 will probably be choppy, HD quality would definitely not be possible. The hard drive would definitely be faster than a USB1 port. It's noticeable between 1 and 2. How maxed out are you in hardware? Are you using an OEM machine or a custom built one? What I always do is if I have spare parts around, I try upgrading the machine as best as I can. But it's hard to know exactly what steps to take since I'm not quite sure what you're dealing with here.

[FantasyAcquiesce]

Are you running Windows 95 or 98/ME? Try installing a codec pack for Windows Media Player and have the video on the Windows hard drive! (If your computer has enough space on its hard drive) Often newer video players are "bloated" (Use up more installation memory, require more ram to open, etc!) older programs require less because they were made at a time when computers had lower specs! Obviously VLC player is NOT meant to run on a system with those specs!

TL; DR
Try using Windows Media player with a codec pack installed instead, it takes up less ram and cpu to load. And copy the video to your hard drive if possible, USB 1.0 is pretty slow...

[sdfox7]

VLC will run on those specs, I've done it in the past on Win95/NT 4.0 machines with 200MHz. You need a legacy version of VLC such as 0.8.6 which does not depend on SSE instructions. There were multiple versions of VLC 0.8.6, but I always ran into issues starting with version E so I only recommend A-D.

http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/

http://sdfox7.com/win95/vlc086a.exe
http://sdfox7.com/win95/vlc086b.exe
http://sdfox7.com/win95/vlc086c.exe
http://sdfox7.com/win95/vlc086d.exe

You'll also probably need at least Direct X 6.0 but I would recommend Direct X 8.0 (DX80ENG.EXE): http://sdfox7.com/win95/DX80ENG.EXE

[bz07]

19 hours ago, Tommy said:

In my opinion, it'll probably be a bit difficult to get videos working well on that machine. But you didn't mention how high quality the video is. Anything above 640x480 will probably be choppy, HD quality would definitely not be possible. The hard drive would definitely be faster than a USB1 port. It's noticeable between 1 and 2. How maxed out are you in hardware? Are you using an OEM machine or a custom built one? What I always do is if I have spare parts around, I try upgrading the machine as best as I can. But it's hard to know exactly what steps to take since I'm not quite sure what you're dealing with here.

I don't know what the resolution was set at. The graphics card had 4mb ram that's pretty much all I know. I will try to move a video to the harddrive to test it out. It is an oem xps d333. I have a few parts from other oems but no ram or cpu(this pc is the newest and most powerful of them)

[bz07]

19 hours ago, ~♥Aiko♥Chan♥~ said:

Are you running Windows 95 or 98/ME? Try installing a codec pack for Windows Media Player and have the video on the Windows hard drive! (If your computer has enough space on its hard drive) Often newer video players are "bloated" (Use up more installation memory, require more ram to open, etc!) older programs require less because they were made at a time when computers had lower specs! Obviously VLC player is NOT meant to run on a system with those specs!

TL; DR
Try using Windows Media player with a codec pack installed instead, it takes up less ram and cpu to load. And copy the video to your hard drive if possible, USB 1.0 is pretty slow...

This is windows 98 se. I will try the video on the harddrive. I will also try a codec pack. Yea usb 1 is very slow

[bz07]

2 hours ago, sdfox7 said:

VLC will run on those specs, I've done it in the past on Win95/NT 4.0 machines with 200MHz. You need a legacy version of VLC such as 0.8.6 which does not depend on SSE instructions. There were multiple versions of VLC 0.8.6, but I always ran into issues starting with version E so I only recommend A-D.

http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/

http://sdfox7.com/win95/vlc086a.exe
http://sdfox7.com/win95/vlc086b.exe
http://sdfox7.com/win95/vlc086c.exe
http://sdfox7.com/win95/vlc086d.exe

You'll also probably need at least Direct X 6.0 but I would recommend Direct X 8.0 (DX80ENG.EXE): http://sdfox7.com/win95/DX80ENG.EXE

Yea I was using a newer vlc. I will try older. I have a copy of 1. Something ill try than try 0.8.6 if no sucess. I will also try Direct X 8

Edited May 18, 2016 by bz07

[Yushatak]

I've experienced similar using 0.8.6f and running the video from the hard drive. My specs are similar (not THAT similar, but still):

300Mhz Tillamook (Mobile Pentium MMX)

512MB RAM

ATI Rage AGP 2x (8MB I think - also have a Voodoo 2 in there but I don't think that applies)

750GB ATA133 HDD (on Promise controller, so full 48-bit LBA support)

I'm going to try out one of the ones sdfox linked..

Edit: tried 0.8.6d and it didn't work any better, has a very hard time buffering and then stutters because it hasn't buffered enough to handle things. It also crashed when I turned on "Advanced Settings" in preferences with "Video Options" selected.

Edit 2: Occurs to me that the codec is pretty important for this.. I've been testing with an Xvid file. Simple MPEG plays fine (and I knew that coming into this thread), but I really wanted to just be able to play any reasonably low-res video. May really matter which codecs..

Edited May 22, 2016 by Yushatak

[bz07]

On 5/22/2016 at 7:50 AM, Yushatak said:

I've experienced similar using 0.8.6f and running the video from the hard drive. My specs are similar (not THAT similar, but still):

300Mhz Tillamook (Mobile Pentium MMX)

512MB RAM

ATI Rage AGP 2x (8MB I think - also have a Voodoo 2 in there but I don't think that applies)

750GB ATA133 HDD (on Promise controller, so full 48-bit LBA support)

I'm going to try out one of the ones sdfox linked..

Edit: tried 0.8.6d and it didn't work any better, has a very hard time buffering and then stutters because it hasn't buffered enough to handle things. It also crashed when I turned on "Advanced Settings" in preferences with "Video Options" selected.

Edit 2: Occurs to me that the codec is pretty important for this.. I've been testing with an Xvid file. Simple MPEG plays fine (and I knew that coming into this thread), but I really wanted to just be able to play any reasonably low-res video. May really matter which codecs..

Well I installed klite coded pack 2.88 with kernel ex and the videos play great. I use windows media player and media player classic with no hiccups right off a flash drive. The only issue I found was when I tried playing a blueray rip is when the pc stuttered. that's no problem though I don't have any blueray disks nor a blueray drive nor plan to use the pc for this.

[bz07]

On 5/18/2016 at 2:05 PM, sdfox7 said:

VLC will run on those specs, I've done it in the past on Win95/NT 4.0 machines with 200MHz. You need a legacy version of VLC such as 0.8.6 which does not depend on SSE instructions. There were multiple versions of VLC 0.8.6, but I always ran into issues starting with version E so I only recommend A-D.

http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/

http://sdfox7.com/win95/vlc086a.exe
http://sdfox7.com/win95/vlc086b.exe
http://sdfox7.com/win95/vlc086c.exe
http://sdfox7.com/win95/vlc086d.exe

You'll also probably need at least Direct X 6.0 but I would recommend Direct X 8.0 (DX80ENG.EXE): http://sdfox7.com/win95/DX80ENG.EXE

I installed direct x 8 and tried all the vlc you suggested but I settled on usinf windows media player and media player classic with a codec pack.

[bz07]

On 5/17/2016 at 8:33 PM, Tommy said:

In my opinion, it'll probably be a bit difficult to get videos working well on that machine. But you didn't mention how high quality the video is. Anything above 640x480 will probably be choppy, HD quality would definitely not be possible. The hard drive would definitely be faster than a USB1 port. It's noticeable between 1 and 2. How maxed out are you in hardware? Are you using an OEM machine or a custom built one? What I always do is if I have spare parts around, I try upgrading the machine as best as I can. But it's hard to know exactly what steps to take since I'm not quite sure what you're dealing with here.

The videos work pretty well. The resolution is 1024 x 768 I belive.