Fastest Method to "Downcoding" a Video to 480p?

[Phantoms Cry]

I recently looked into encoding videos to my own resolution size (480p), but the problem is my computer is rather old and it takes a while to get anywhere. So, in regards, I'm looking for specs to use when encoding a mkv file type to a mkv file of 480p.

P.S. I use XvidD4PSP.


Naturally, I am encoding these videos because my only other method is 360p or 400p videos, and I truly hate that. On the other hand, my computer lags like hell when I play anything above 480p. So quality does concern me, but if it isn't the most fluent, or a few key frames skip out, I'm okay with that if it saves me time (lol).


Any suggestions? All I want is to encode higher grade videos to 480p. O_O

[davexnet]

What OS are you using, What CPU do you have, how much RAM do you have, and what is the source files resolution?
For example, older CPU's (more than 10 years or so) will not support the SSE instructions and it's going to be
slow no matter what you do.

[jagabo]

Use AVI with one of the faster Xvid presets like Xvid Q3.0 Balanced. If that's not fast enough for you go to the codec details, the Motion tab, and lower Motion Search to 2-Low or lower.