[MPlayer-users] why is -nocache default?

[yourself]

D Richard Felker III wrote:
> 
> 1. -cache will make noninterleaved avi files take 10000% cpu to play.
> 2. -cache in generally makes mplayer slower unless you need it to
> compensate for broken hardware or slow network.
> 

You're probably right but in my experience, -cache makes mplayer much 
smoother in playback. If I use -nocache I can spot random pauses and 
jumps in the playback, which totally fade away even when using a small 
cache. I wouldn't think that my hardware is broken, as i've got the 
files on a new 200gb disk on my mainboard's integrated via controller 
(which i really would like to believe is not broken :-)) and an athlon 
xp 2600+ cpu...

Another thing I noticed is that there is much more IDE activity (led 
blinks continuously) when using -nocache... I kinda dislike the idead of 
my disk _continuously_ reading just a little bit...

It really intrigues me to hear that mplayer is better off without 
-cache... !!

Maybe it's something else that's causing those random pauses?

Thanks

-- 
yourself