[X4U] Video card ?

[Stroller]

On 19 Nov 2007, at 03:46, Dan A Currie wrote:
>> ...
>> Substantially: better graphics in 3D games, improved performance  
>> in 2D apps which use Quartz. The only program I'm aware of in the  
>> latter category is Aperture, and I can affirm that graphics card  
>> makes a big difference.
>>
>> Really, if you want useful advice about this you need to give us  
>> more information. Why are you asking?
>>
> I am driving an MDD DUALIE 1.25 MHz / 2 GB RAM / 320 GB HD /  
> NETSCAPE 7.2 / OS X.4.7 and I was trying to watch an episode of CSI  
> on Innertube and the "balloon kept spinning" and also when my  
> daughter was watching some Batman episodes on YouTube.
>
> Is this a processor glitch, I am maxed out on RAM, so I was  
> thinking that it might be a video card ... since I know absolutely  
> nothing about them.

What software are you using to play the film?

Does the film start & beachball a few minutes in, or does it  
beachball when you try to play it and never let you see any of the film?
Do other episodes from the same source work ok?

I don't know Innertube - I'll assume it's a website or an internet-TV  
service, rather than a typo for "intertubes".
What software are you using to play the episode? Innertube's or  
Quicktime or something else?
What format is the video file?

A correction to my second statement - Quicktime probably uses Quartz  
and can probably offload playback to the GPU in order to take the  
load off the CPU. Assuming the movie is standard-def then a DP G4  
should be fine to play it back, however. I think my DP G5 struggles a  
bit on hi-def, in which case forget it on a G4.

Most likely the problem is a software one, perhaps related to the  
codec with which the video was encoded. Playback of video from  
eclectic sources is one area in which I find my Mac's efforts to  
"just work" most thwarted.

Stroller.