Movie lags

[Dayron]

First of all, my PC is old and weak but it does usually play videos with no issues. I'm trying to watch a 3-hour long movie but the lags are unbearable. I'm using PotPlayer but I've checked with two other players (VLC and MPC-BE) and there is no difference. I can easily play a 1h:50m long movie, but apparently 3 hours is more than my system can handle. I figured that if the long duration is really the issue, then trimming the movie into two smaller parts would help. I used Avidemux to split the video without re-encoding but the lags are still there. So what's going on?

[poisondeathray]

It might also have to do with the format, codec used - Newer codecs require more decoding power. Or perhaps the resolution of that file is higher than the others.

You can use mediainfo (view=>text) for more information on that file

You might have to convert it to an "easier" format for your computer to handle

Some formats can be hardware accelerated for smooth playback, offloading the CPU. You would have to post more details on specs of the CPU, GPU