"ffmpeg error" any clue?

[jas]

Hy everybody!

first of all, sorry for my english, i'm a little bit rusty...

I downloaded videolan today and i tried to watch some .avi files..
It works...but not perfectly...the movie run but not fluently...like so to say from one screenshot to another...mmh is not easy for me to explain that better.
I read this message but i didn't understand a word:

vout_directx error: overlay unuseable (might already be in use)
ffmpeg error: more than 5 seconds of late video -> dropping frame (computer too slow ?)
main warning: resampling stopped after 257000 usec
main warning: late picture skipped (7969012)
main warning: late picture skipped (7929012)
main warning: PTS is out of range (3873012), dropping buffer

so.......if you have any clue...please i really need your help!
I'm using win98, and my PC is a little bit old...only 8GB memory on Hard disk and no idea about RAM memory (not much anyway..)
..Is it too old and too slow to run .avi files properly?
..or are there solutions for this kind of troubles?
(i hope the second one, so badly!!!!)

Thank you very much in advance for your help...

[markfm]

You may have disk/CPU/RAM limitations, unfortunately.

One thing to try is defragmenting your disk -- I think Win98 has a built-in defragmenter. If the movie is fragmented right now, and your disk is slow, the combination might be bad.

You can also increase the file cache (buffer), under Settings -- Preferences -- Modules Access (or access2), the "file" entry. You'll probably have to check the Advanced options box, in the Preferences window, to see the file cache size appear.