ANSWERS: 1
  • I can think of a few reasons. 1) You don't have enough RAM to hold all of the information and thus have to use "virtual memory" ( a portion of your hard drive otherwise known as a "swap file") that is over 1000 times slower than actual RAM. If you run Windows XP, you need 1GB minimum and 2GB to perform well. For Vista, double that to 2GB and 4GB. 2) Your internet connection sucks. I had the same issue when I lived in the woods and could not get better than 28.8K dialup (the local phone system could not even support 56K). I have *far* fewer problems since I moved and gor 1024/384 DSL; over fifty times faster! 3) The added drain to your system overwhelms your video capability. This only is a real issue if you use integrated graphics instead of a dedicated video card, but I mention it for the sake of completeness. 4) The added drain on your system causes it to heat up to the point where it "throttles back". Living with up to five cats has taught me to clean my heatsinks religiously to avoid system slowdown due to heat buildup caused by clogged heat sinks. 5) Your computer is ancient. My 3.4GHz Northwood P4 with 2GB RAM is old (six years old to be exact), but it still has enough power to get the job done. But grandma's 1.2 GHz Celron just isn't going to cut it. ESPECIALLY not if it has less than 1GB of RAM. 6) You have a cable-based ISP and are sharing bandwidth with your neighbors; see #2 above. Well, those are just some of the possibilities I can think of, and that is mostly client-side. We won't even get into what happens server-side when the server gets whacked and can't send you stuff fast enough to avoiding pauses for buffering.

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