On Sat, 27 Apr 2013, David Zuccaro <david.zuccaro@optusnet.com.au> wrote:

Also I don't have a video card, I'm using an onboard graphics controller:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)

The Intel video chipsets have a history of being well supported for the common functions. So while 3G etc will usually perform badly the basic functions including scaling of videos will usually perform well. Every time I've compared Intel video on a motherboard to a AGP or PCIe video card that performs better for 3G I've found the Intel hardware to work better for playing movies.

This is the motherboard:

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2304#sp

I put in an extra 2GB stick so now its memory capacity has been maxed out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_chipsets According to the above Wikipedia page you are limited to 2G or 4G of RAM with that motherboard as you have a 945GZ chipset.

Using mplayer seems to give much better performance than totem.

As a general rule if there are multiple programs to perform a task then testing another if the first one doesn't work well enough is a good strategy. Video players are very complex and there's lots of different options, you really don't want to know about all the work that goes in to optimising them. But it's complex enough that there are lots of ways for a player to not be optimised ideally for some systems.

...

When iceweasel performs poorly how much swap is in use and is the hard drive light on a lot?

No. This is not a swap issue. No swap is in use just complex (buggy resource intensive, badly put together web pages. I think I will make do with what I have at this stage. I will definitely need a bigger HD and as you say swapping to a new HD is going to be a PITA but it needs to be done. top also gives memory usage.

Last time I tested Chromium seemed to perform better with slow Javascript. But Chromium does use more RAM. As you've upgraded your RAM you should try Chromium and see how it goes for the slow sites. Even if you don't like Chromium it's still good to know where the problems are.

In summary I think I will do some upgrading before I buy a new system; and look into getting a graphics card. Thanks everyone for your comments.

http://www.graysonline.com/lot/0001-611545/computers-and-it-equipment/dell- optiplex-780-small-form As an aside, the fastest CPU supported by your motherboard is the type of CPU in systems that some people put out as e-waste. Buying a faster system at auction isn't going to cost much. The above auction has a system with a CPU that's considerably faster than the fastest that is supported on your current motherboard and the current price is $100 with less than a day to go. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/