Welcome to the Real Player FAQ. From this page, you’ll be able to find answers for all of the basic questions you may have regarding the software and the installation process. If you find that a question you have hasn’t been answered here, feel free to use our contact page and we’ll do our best to help you out.

My computer isn’t very powerful, will I still be able to run the application?

You’ll be glad to know that it uses hardly any resources at all! This means that you’ll be able to run it on almost any computer you’ll find today without problems. We do recommend that you purchase a more up-to-date computer at some point though so that videos continue to play without issues and so your Operating System can remain safe and secure. This isn’t a requirement for using the program, this is a personal recommendation.

I have an old version installed and want to upgrade, what do I do?

The process is a lot quicker and easier than you imagine. With some pieces of software, you would have to completely uninstall the previous version and then begin the whole installation process again which can take a huge amount of time. Luckily, with this player, you can simply download the new updated version and then follow the install process as you would normally. The old version will automatically be removed for you which can save you a lot of time, especially if you didn’t know how to do it in the first place.

The quality of the video could definitely be improved, do you have any tips?

One tip we can give you is that you should always update your video drivers in a situation like this. These updates can really improve the quality of video you get when you’re playing it back to yourself and best of all, the updates are free. If there are lots of other programs running at the same time, we recommend that you close a few down to make sure that enough system resources are given to the media player to make sure that it can play correctly. You should also avoid using the zoom button on videos that have a low resolution in the first place.

I need to use a lot of programs as well as this, how can I reduce system resource usage?

Although Real Player doesn’t use much resources anyway, it is possible for you to reduce performance as a way of compromising. There is a very simple option which allows you to do this, you can find it in the settings panel. If you go into View –> Preferences and then click on the Performance tab. From here, you’ll have all of the options you need which will change the quality of both the audio and the video of any media you choose to play back. Be careful not to limit it too much though or you may not enjoy the media as much.

I love using the media player but I don’t want it to load up when I start my computer.

This is a very simple request, one that can be solved by looking in the preferences panel. First of all, you need to go into View –> Preferences once again and then into General –> Settings and then disable StartCenter. Once you’ve done this, you should find that nothing related to it opens when you start your computer. Now when you want to use the media player, you’ll either have to find it in your list of programs or open a piece of media when you’ve set Real Player as your default client.

This is the end of our FAQ. We constantly add more and more questions so if you need to know more, feel free to check back and see if we’ve answered more that could interest you.