See the picture with the lady sitting down, in my previous post.
See that ahead is 2...the Buffer checkbox is unchecked !
I noticed this, and decided to play a movie and switch checking and unchecking the Buffer box to see what the osd would do.
Regardless if the buffer box was checked or not, it stayed at two.
I then closed MPC, and opened the FFDshow video configuration and unchecked the Buffer box, then started the movie and watched the osd to see if the Ahead would be at two. It was !