Powerpoint 2010 animations and videos choppy or laggy

Problem:  As stated, even though you have an SSD and nothing else is running.

Solution:  Counterintuitively, you have to disable hardware graphics acceleration in Powerpoint.  It is likely that will clear it right up.

Why you have to turn hardware-based acceleration OFF to get BETTER performance is beyond me, and one more example of how ridiculous things have gotten.

Yes, I know 2010 is very old now.  But it's possible this might affect other versions / systems, or even extend beyond Powerpoint itself.