Mac OS X forum: All very slow. Streaming videos have dead spots.

My 1st suggestion would be more ram. 1 gig is barely enough to run OSX
nowdays. It's so cheap (especially for 667 chips) that maxing it out on your computer would be a great start in solving this problem.

I definitely agree with the response about adding RAM. However, there are some things that you can do now to improve your streaming performance.
1. Quit running things you don't need running -- check your Preferences/System/Accounts/ Login items.

2. Check your internet connection load (do you, or someone else, have something else going on using bandwidth? ie silent updates/back-ups/syncs, downloads, P2P, mail, gaming---).

3. Test your connection speed. speedtest.net is one site that can test speed and quality for you. You may need to contact your ISP, if you see a discrepancy regarding what you are getting/ paying for. Also, try using OpenDNS. You can have "holes" if your ISP changes your address while you are streaming. Open DNS with the Mac updater can track/record those events.

4. Where offered, select a lower quality stream ---- HD and full screen options do generally tax your ISP and computer resources more than other choices. Also, try alternative players, if you are given the choice (ie, some site-specific players compensate on-the-fly for server load, 'net quality)

5. Increase the cache/delay/storage --- your various streaming programs have different names for it. Basically, a portion of the stream is downloaded/saved before the playing starts--greatly reducing the hiccups caused by monetary stream variations.