On Fri, 2009-08-07 at 14:32 -0700, Fx wrote: > On Aug 7, 12:19 pm, Ben <[email protected]> wrote: > > I have an AMD Athlon X2 2.0Ghz CPU and nVidia GeForce 7100 GPU. > > > > Flash while watching a video on Hulu hovers at around 35% CPU usage, and > > total system CPU usage hovers at around 50% for each core (or 25% > > total). This is with "low" resolution, btw. Watching full screen (still > > low resolution) brings flash CPU usage to around 50% (maximum for one > > core), I imagine total CPU usage doesn't change much, except for one the > > core. > > Thank you. I am able to watch Hulu ok but it stutters badly at times, > but my CPU usage is more like 90% for each core at 'low' resolution, > not full screen -- npviewer.bin takes over 40% CPU alone. (Test video > was the beginning of Burn Notice Season 3 Episode 8, browser used was > kazehakase) > I'm guessing your GPU is more capable of providing hardware assist > than mine, or the Athlon X2 is better than the Turion64 X2 running at > the same clock.
Ah, that explains it. Yes, I'm using the 32 bit flash plugin in Chromium. You using kazehakase explains why it's npviewer.bin in System Monitor, too. I suppose it could be GPU hardware assist dropping CPU usage; I don't think there's that much difference between an Athlon and Turion. > > The plugin is only using 100MB of memory, as far as I can tell, and it > > doesn't appear to be climbing. I also only see one instance of the > > plugin, and I have browsed multiple pages that use Flash, so it doesn't > > appear to be leaving any rogue processes. > > <snip> > > But I do see > multiple instances of npviewer.bin, though they come and go. > I'm using the 64-bit version of Flash from Adobe... I'm guessing > you're using the 32-bit version? Yes, 32-bit flash. Hulu uses Flash for text and ads(which come and go with commercial breaks), so that may be what you're seeing. > > That aside, I don't notice any major performance hit when watching > > videos using Flash or browsing sites which use Flash. However, I still > > think an alternative would be greatly beneficial (Gnash, maybe?). > > I was looking a Gnash, thanks for reminding me about it. But first, I > think I'm going to try a GreaseMonkey script found here: > http://krunchd.com/youtube-via-vlc > that uses VLC to watch YouTube. The downside is that it's not true > streaming video, you have to wait for the entire video to download > first, but VLC has a pretty small memory & CPU footprint, so it may be > worth that inconvenience. > > I definitely feel that alternatives need to be considered for Chrome > OS, especially for netbooks. You and I have dual-core AMD processors > running at 2 GHz, with a Nvidia GPU, and even then Flash seems to > require 50% CPU or more. A netbook might have an Atom running at 1.6 > GHz with an embedded Intel GPU (Pine Trail) or an off-chip Intel > graphics chip, or an ARM A8 running around 1 GHz with its embedded > GPU... on those less-powerful platforms, a YouTube or Hulu experience > could be a lot less than optimal using the current version of Adobe > Flash for Linux (compared to the WinXP/Win7 experience), and that > alone could sink Chrome OS. jmho Completely agree with you about Flash on netbooks. Even though that's not really their main purpose, the ability to watch Flash movies (or any videos, for that matter) online can be extremely useful, no matter what your work is. I hear Adobe is working on a version of Flash for embedded (ARM?) computers, but it would still be nice to have a lighter-weight alternative. In the mean time, I'll take a look at that greasemonkey script, and I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens after Gnash's Summerbash (looks like they're making good progress, but would be nice to see a blog update or something... oh, wait; there is![0]). [0] http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/gnash-summerbash --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Chromium Discussion mailing list: [email protected] View archives, change email options, or unsubscribe: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-discuss -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
