[MPlayer-users] how does framedropping work?

[bond]

i tried to find out whats the maximum complex avc/h.264 stream at a
resolution of 720x288 25fps i can play in realtime + he-aac audio on my
pentium3 866mhz pc

therefore i wanted to disable the framedropping feature, which can be used
for keeping a/v sync, in mplayer
the problem is i dont seem to be able to do so

no matter what i set, mplayer always reports an increasing number of dropped
frames in the "frames dropped to maintain A-V sync" field described here:
http://mplayerhq.hu/~diego/DOCS/HTML/en/faq.html#id2883495

i tried setting:
1) in the config file
- framedrop=no
- noframedrop=yes
- hardframedrop=no
- nohardframedrop=yes (this function doesnt seem to exist tough)

2) in the cmdl
- -noframedrop
- -nohardframedrop (doesnt seem to exist)

and combinations of the above

still i always get an increasing number of dropped frames

now the question: what am i doing wrong? or is it simply not possible to
force mplayer to not drop a frame?

thx for the help!

bond