About 1/3 of the time I use Lame, it encodes very slowly. I just encoded the same track twice, with the same settings (--alt-preset standard) The first time it encoded at 0.37x, the second, 3.99x, same track.
When slow, Lame's progress updates very slowly - like once every several seconds. When normal, the lame screen updates in what looks like every second or quicker.

Its as if my OS is witholding computing resources from Lame (or Lame doesn't know enough to ask for them), as if the OS were busy doing something else. I don't have speed issues with other programs that do a lot of number crunching (like Sonic Foundry Noise Reduction in Sound Forge, etc) This computer is used only for audio work.

PIII750/512MB/IBM 75 gig drives/adaptec scsi card -w- Plextor CD drives/ Win2000/ Lame 3.9.2/EAC

Cause/solution? Specify an operating environment specifically for lame? How?:confused: