does resolution and color depth matter for DVD playback on PC?

[MaxDSP]

I have a Toshiba 16x SD-M1502, 1024x768 w/ 32-bit color. My system is Athlon 1GHz, 256 MB PC133, RivaTNT 16MB, PowerDVD v3, 17" KDS AV7TF. When I play DVD fullscreen, the playback is sort of choppy, such as in when the camera is moving fast or there is a lot of action on the screen. If I enable DMA from System Manager, will that help the situation? I have the DVD-ROM as a Master and a Philips CDRW as a slave on the IDE cable/channel. I dont want to go through the hassle of changing resolutions and color depths and rebooting just to play a dvd

 

[ISAslot]

Yes, enable DMA. When I play a DVD (ATI player, 800 Mhz AMD) I must have DMA enabled for it to work without stuttering.

 

[MaxDSP]

Would enabling DMA cause any probs for either drive, the CDRW and the DVD? What exactly is DMA and why do most people not turn it on?

 

[ISAslot]

If you are able to enable it without trouble it should not cause any problems.
DMA is direct memory access, it allows a device to transfer data directly to the memory instead of going through the processor. If for some reason you ran into trouble you can always disable it, but I have not heard of such a thing personally. Many people use DMA when they can, it's just not set up as the system default. Some computer mobos (mine atleast) require a ATA-66 cable to set DMA for the DVD drive in bios, as the Asus A7V does. Check your bios settings to see the current setting; it may even tell you what you must do to get the DMA setting.

 

[TunaBoo]

<< Would enabling DMA cause any probs for either drive, the CDRW and the DVD? What exactly is DMA and why do most people not turn it on? >>



If ppl know how to and what is does, they enable DMA. 99% of computer users don't know what it is.