First of all, sorry about the long posting and lousy home videos :-(
My question: What - if anything - can I do (besides buy new computers) to reduce the extremely high CPU usage when using Firefox and the Flash plugin to watch videos on my two Win XP machines?
I can see clearly that the problem has to do with the size of the video.
http://edu-net.net/media/fish/ -> size 680x360
http://edu-net.net/media/beforekochel/ -> size 1280x720
Watching the smaller vid is fine on all three machines. The CPU usage on the XP machines is 30%-35% and 1%-2% on Win 7.
However, when watching the bigger vid on XP, CPU usage goes immediately to 100% and stays there till the film is finished. Also, the film is pretty jittery. On the Win 7 machine, it's 5%-10% and looks fine.
When I watch both films stored locally on all three machines, everything's fine.
One factor, of course, is the huge differences among the three computers.
1. Firefox Nightly x64 / Lenovo S20 / Intel Xeon W3520 (quad core @2.67GHz / 18gb DDR3 triple-channel RAM / Win 7 Pro x64 / Nvidia Quadro FX 1800 (768mb RAM) with latest driver
2. Firefox Nightly x32 / IBM Intellistation MPro 9229 / Intel Core2Duo (@2.40GHz) / 4gb DDR2 dual-channel RAM / Win XP Pro x32 / Matrox M9128 (1gb RAM) with latest driver
3. Firefox Aurora / IBM Intellistation ZPro 6223 / Intel Xeon Nocona (single-core @ 3.6GHz) / 4gb DDR2 dual-channel RAM / Win XP x32 / Matrox M9120 PCIe x16 (512mb RAM) with latest driver
Notes:
1. I know that Firefox Nighly and Aurora block hardware acceleration on the Matrox cards. I have the following about:config settings:
gfx.direct2d.disabled;false
gfx.direct2d.force-enabled;true
2. I'm using the latest Flash beta: 11.8.800.149; hardware acceleration is on on all three computers.
3. When watching "professional" streamed vids even full screen, e.g. on YouTube, this doesn't happen.
4. I know XP will be EOL relatively soon. I'm wondering, though, if the switch to Win 7 will make any difference. I'm planning to stick with the 32-bit version.
5. I'm sorry, but I don't have a machine with the Fx or Flash release builds to see if this is a beta issue.
Thanks in advance for any feedback.
My question: What - if anything - can I do (besides buy new computers) to reduce the extremely high CPU usage when using Firefox and the Flash plugin to watch videos on my two Win XP machines?
I can see clearly that the problem has to do with the size of the video.
http://edu-net.net/media/fish/ -> size 680x360
http://edu-net.net/media/beforekochel/ -> size 1280x720
Watching the smaller vid is fine on all three machines. The CPU usage on the XP machines is 30%-35% and 1%-2% on Win 7.
However, when watching the bigger vid on XP, CPU usage goes immediately to 100% and stays there till the film is finished. Also, the film is pretty jittery. On the Win 7 machine, it's 5%-10% and looks fine.
When I watch both films stored locally on all three machines, everything's fine.
One factor, of course, is the huge differences among the three computers.
1. Firefox Nightly x64 / Lenovo S20 / Intel Xeon W3520 (quad core @2.67GHz / 18gb DDR3 triple-channel RAM / Win 7 Pro x64 / Nvidia Quadro FX 1800 (768mb RAM) with latest driver
2. Firefox Nightly x32 / IBM Intellistation MPro 9229 / Intel Core2Duo (@2.40GHz) / 4gb DDR2 dual-channel RAM / Win XP Pro x32 / Matrox M9128 (1gb RAM) with latest driver
3. Firefox Aurora / IBM Intellistation ZPro 6223 / Intel Xeon Nocona (single-core @ 3.6GHz) / 4gb DDR2 dual-channel RAM / Win XP x32 / Matrox M9120 PCIe x16 (512mb RAM) with latest driver
Notes:
1. I know that Firefox Nighly and Aurora block hardware acceleration on the Matrox cards. I have the following about:config settings:
gfx.direct2d.disabled;false
gfx.direct2d.force-enabled;true
2. I'm using the latest Flash beta: 11.8.800.149; hardware acceleration is on on all three computers.
3. When watching "professional" streamed vids even full screen, e.g. on YouTube, this doesn't happen.
4. I know XP will be EOL relatively soon. I'm wondering, though, if the switch to Win 7 will make any difference. I'm planning to stick with the 32-bit version.
5. I'm sorry, but I don't have a machine with the Fx or Flash release builds to see if this is a beta issue.
Thanks in advance for any feedback.