[MPlayer-users] performance compared to VLC on older machines?

[MB]

How can one get mplayer to perform as well VLC under OS X when run on
older machines? I have a 400Mhz G4 and can watch most divx files without
any problems, though I'll have to turn off some processes usually that
use a lot of CPU. For some material might have to renice as well.

But the same material played under similar circumstances doesn't do well
in mplayer 1.0rc1. What can be done to improve things like audio sync
and keeping up with the material being played? I get frozen frames or
imcomplete rendering and massive audio out-of-sync.

Is it a hopeless task with this hardware and I'll have to use VLC all
the time?