[SOLVED] HD decoder or more RAM for faster Youtubing?

pnvr8e

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Jan 24, 2021
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I have:
- Gateway W350a
-3gb of RAM(1+2)
- built in ATI 1270

I ordered x2 2GB of RAM a couple of weeks ago but that order has flopped: seller has not shipped the items, only replies with automated messages, yesterday was the deadline for shipping the preorder items and there is still no indication of whether he got them and they are heading my way. I've called CS to leave a not on my account to make sure that the order is dead, if I do get it from him that I'll be rejecting it, and that I should not incur any penalties. I'm thinking of getting a mini pci-e hd decoder instead as I could divert the RAM funds and it would also cost less. The videos I've seen of old laptops using such decoders show smooth video playback but they are all at least 5 years old. I think I've read somewhere too that the hd recorders no longer work or aren't as good anymore as YT has changed codecs so does anyone here have more and current experience with such decoders?

Browsing is tolerably slow on my laptop but the video on YT is choppy and that's what I aim to fix. Downloaded 720p movies are ok but the lag returns when playing 1080p. Will hd decoders also improve on 1080p downloaded video playback?
 
Solution
YouTube by default delivers VP9 encoded videos, which older computers will have trouble decoding since there's no hardware decoding support for it. You can force YouTube to give you the H.264 version of the video via the h264ify extension on Firefox and Chrome, which should be much easier on the computer to work with (though I forget when H.264 hardware decoding became a standard feature).

Otherwise, the computer is likely simply too slow to decode FHD video at a reasonable speed. No amount of RAM is going to fix this.
I have:
- Gateway W350a
-3gb of RAM(1+2)
- built in ATI 1270

I ordered x2 2GB of RAM a couple of weeks ago but that order has flopped: seller has not shipped the items, only replies with automated messages, yesterday was the deadline for shipping the preorder items and there is still no indication of whether he got them and they are heading my way. I've called CS to leave a not on my account to make sure that the order is dead, if I do get it from him that I'll be rejecting it, and that I should not incur any penalties. I'm thinking of getting a mini pci-e hd decoder instead as I could divert the RAM funds and it would also cost less. The videos I've seen of old laptops using such decoders show smooth video playback but they are all at least 5 years old. I think I've read somewhere too that the hd recorders no longer work or aren't as good anymore as YT has changed codecs so does anyone here have more and current experience with such decoders?

Browsing is tolerably slow on my laptop but the video on YT is choppy and that's what I aim to fix. Downloaded 720p movies are ok but the lag returns when playing 1080p. Will hd decoders also improve on 1080p downloaded video playback?
Your memory is definitively too low.
 
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pnvr8e

Prominent
Jan 24, 2021
49
2
545
15 years old laptop with C2D CPU, 3 GB RAM and ATI 1270 iGPU? And I assume it have HDD with spinning platters too. You are brave, sir :) At today software became much more multi-core CPU dependent and 4 GB system RAM is bare minimum for anything in desktop garden. You can try to view 1080i MPEG4 encoded videos - maximum that is possible for your iGPU. Though the rest of system will still drag video playing performance down. Honest recommendation - dump that antic and get at least 8 years old used laptop with at least 4 GB RAM and SSD instead.
 
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YouTube by default delivers VP9 encoded videos, which older computers will have trouble decoding since there's no hardware decoding support for it. You can force YouTube to give you the H.264 version of the video via the h264ify extension on Firefox and Chrome, which should be much easier on the computer to work with (though I forget when H.264 hardware decoding became a standard feature).

Otherwise, the computer is likely simply too slow to decode FHD video at a reasonable speed. No amount of RAM is going to fix this.
 
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Reactions: Krotow and pnvr8e
Solution