Fixing up older computer...video drivers?

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I've got an old Gateway E-4650.

2Ghz processor (Pentium 4), 2gb of memory (the most it can take).

It was running XP Pro, and, surprisingly, it's "accepted" a new Windows 7 Pro installation (on a new hard drive).

Once in a while I see a little of the slowness I'd been warned about (seems P4's and W7 don't mix well?) but overall it's not bad at all.

The only problem there is has to do with playing back video files.

Screen resolution is fine, no problem there, but when video files play, they can get a little "jerky" at times, and also get lines across the screen (in particular when playing a DVD). It can really get bad if the video file is high def, even 720.

Hardware manager showed no real details on the "Standard VGA Graphics Adapter", not even the manufacturer, and the machine insists it has the most recent driver(s?) for it.

I'm not a big computer tech. Just know enough to stumble around a little and usually make things work...often with help.

Any suggestions on anything else I might look for or try?

Look for an SLI video card with a VGA output for the monitor - you can get away with a really cheap one, though anything with nice cooling would be worth a few bucks extra considering the temperamental P4s... Just remember to search one out for your box's model #

_________________
"Standing on a well-chilled cinder, we see the fading of the suns, and try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds."
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"I fly through hyperspace, in my green computer interface"
-Gem Tos

I think that this computer was one of the older P4's that used Rambus RIMM memory, which is probably the reason why it doesn't play well with Win7. x/86 Rambus was a kludge to begin with, which was why DDR memory was adopted after about 6 months to a year of Rambus. --That being said, you may need to add more memory to get video to play w/o stalling, though at the same time, that particular machine accepts a max 2GB of memory.

I had a slightly newer Gateway workstation (desktop, not a tower) that was spec'ed similarly with the exception that it used DDR memory in lieu of rambus RIMMS. Win 7 was not loaded on that machine, but Ubuntu 8.04 was loaded on it, and it would play video with no issues whatever. -- As a matter of fact, this was the mechina that I got 8 months of continuous runtime from, and I would have gotten more from it had not a thunderstorm knocked out my power.

As far as Video drivers are concerned, I think that your machine might be like mine was in the fact that everything in the machine was Intel, from the CPU down to the LAN adapter, and yes also the GPU. That being said, yours might still benefir from an older ATI Radion 9000 series AGP
interface GPU.

First of all try installing codecs. A lack of codecs is often a cause of graphic glitches during playing videos.

In case it doesn't help you might try running DriverEasy. It might be able to detect newer drivers for your graphic card.

Then, if the problem still persist you might install an Linux distribution instead of Win7 (or go back to XP, it is OK, the system is still 100% functional). Perhaps there is just no drivers for Win7 because the hardware is that outdated.

If you don't want to do this you might buy a new graphic card. Just make sure you get a compatible one. You might show the computer to an IT specialist to advice or read the mainboard manual book carefully.