How to Make My Computer Run Video Faster

Upgrade RAM to improve your computer's video quality.

Video has become a popular online medium, as evidenced by the success of video sharing sites like YouTube and Vevo. Some services such as Netflix even allow you to stream entire movies on your computer. If your machine is inadequately equipped to handle video, though, the playback may appear choppy, which ruins the video viewing experience. There are strategies you can use to remedy poor playback, so you can enjoy watching video on your computer.

Things You'll Need

• Computer
• RAM upgrade card

Instructions

1. Close all applications on your desktop other than your media player. If you are running multiple applications, such as web browsers, spreadsheets and word processing documents, your system has to divide its available memory among those applications. This means it has less memory available for playing video.

2. Adjust your media player's settings to favor functionality over quality. Nearly all media players will let you reduce the quality of the video so that it will play more smoothly. In Windows Media Player, for example, you can configure your settings when you set up the player, or through the options menu.

3. Upgrade your system's memory with a RAM upgrade card. Both desktop and laptop computers have extra RAM ports available for memory upgrades. simply take the cover off the desktop tower or the access port off the bottom of the laptop, locate the upgrade port and snap the RAM card into place. Typically, adding one gigabyte of RAM will produce a significant improvement in video playback.

References

• PC World: Better Streaming Video
• "PCs for Dummies: Windows 7 Edition"; Dan Gookin; 2009