Playing dvds results in stuttering, skipping

How do I fix this shit?

Updating the driver isn't exactly possible, as apparently the fuckos who have made my dvd/cd-rom have dropped support around the time I fucking bought it from them.

Is it throughout, or just at certain places on the disc (e.g. towards the middle of the film)? Check task manager for something eating up your CPU time, and make sure you have hardware video acceleration turned on. Another possibility might simply be a dying drive (they don't last forever, and frankly DVD drives, and especially hybrid CD-RW/DVD-ROM drives, are the most failure-prone component of a PC).

>>1
What OS are you using? Some don't set drives to DMA mode automatically. Check up on that.

AIDS & DRMz

>>2

Every DVD I put in it. Every time. Hell I tried playing Starcraft with it and the animation scenes for that fuckin' lagged too.

It's been doing this since about maybe six months after I first got this computer. As in, for a while it worked fine, then outta nowhere it went to shit.

And before you ask, I can play movies that are on my harddrive without any problems whatsoever.

>>3
Windows [in before slander, etc]. What's DMA mode? And without knowing anything about it, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have much to do with it, seeing as how it used to work fine before going to shit (as opposed to always being slow.)

is this drive a usb or firewire external unit?

if not:
try enabling dma
try replacing ide cable with 80-wire cable
try the drive in a working windows installation to test laser
if you are using dvd+/-r/ws or cd-r/ws, try original pressed cds to test laser
try DISabling vendor ide drivers in favor of the ones built into windows
try isolating drive on its own ide channel (or at least a less busy one)
try setting strict master & slave vs. cable select
try another soft dvd player
last resort, look for a more recent drive firmware