Arch Linux

ataylor

Member

Registered: 2008-04-10

Posts: 54

Framy flash playback

Hi,

I'm running Arch on a Thinkpad T30 with a P4-M 1.8ghz, 1GB RAM and a 16mb ATI Radeon 7500 card. I noticed this a while back but didn't think to solve it since I don't use flash all that much, but either after the upgrade to Flash 10 or the recent xorg upgrade, my flash playback in all browsers became very juddery, especially for particularly 'busy' videos.

Any help on getting this fixed would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Andy

userlander

Member

Registered: 2008-08-23

Posts: 413

Re: Framy flash playback

No one has an answer to this yet. Some people have it, some people don't seem to (or aren't bothered by it -- drives me crazy). I don't think it's a bug in X because it started for me before the last X upgrade. I don't think it's in flash, or else why wouldn't everyone notice it.

What video card/drivers are you using (N/M - just reread your post). I have the problem on both my laptop (thinkpad) and my desktop, both with radeon chips, with both open source drivers and catalyst drivers. nopat in the kernel option line (as someone else recommended) didn't solve it for me.

also see:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=58243

Last edited by userlander (2009-01-09 17:48:56)

mrunion

Member

From: Jonesborough, TN

Registered: 2007-01-26

Posts: 1,938

Website

Re: Framy flash playback

I have bad lag after about 30-45 seconds of flash playing. The drive spins like crazy! After a few minutes of that (not timed it), if it ever spins down without quitting Firefox, then the video plays fine.

This happens on two machines, one x86_64 and one i686. Both have nVidia 8000 series cards. It happens both in KDE and Gnome in both Firefox and Konqueror. It has only started happeneing recently -- like within the last month I think.

Any clues from anyone?

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Matt

"It is very difficult to educate the educated."

mrunion

Member

From: Jonesborough, TN

Registered: 2007-01-26

Posts: 1,938

Website

Re: Framy flash playback

I've noticed that it's not actually PLAYING the flash that's causing the problem.  It's the download caching that seems to cause the problem.

Try this:

1) Go Here: http://screencasters.heathenx.org/wp-co … ep080.html
2) Click on the movie (or the "play" button) and let the movie actually start -- takes about 3-5 seconds. This starts it downloading.
3) Pause the movie. The downloading continues.
4) Wait.

After the movie gets about .25 to .3333 downloaded/buffered, Firefox stalls. Even though the movie is not playing, Firefox becomes slow and sometimes has to be forced to quit.

Does this happen to anyone else?

Note:  I recomipled the kernel AND Firefox from ABS and this still happens.

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Matt

"It is very difficult to educate the educated."

whargoul

Member

From: Odense, Denmark

Registered: 2005-04-04

Posts: 546

Re: Framy flash playback

Well over the years I have learned one thing... flash is just shit. And Adobe is shitting on us; check the system requirements: http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/systemreqs/ compared to Windows and OS X.

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Arch - It's something refreshing

mrunion

Member

From: Jonesborough, TN

Registered: 2007-01-26

Posts: 1,938

Website

Re: Framy flash playback

Something funny...This DOESN'T happen in Opera!  It happens in Konqueror AND Firefox, but not Opera. Odd?

Last edited by mrunion (2009-01-24 02:52:02)

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Matt

"It is very difficult to educate the educated."

mrunion

Member

From: Jonesborough, TN

Registered: 2007-01-26

Posts: 1,938

Website

Re: Framy flash playback

OK, I downgraded the kernel to 2.6.27 (and nvidia to 177.82 along with that) and there was no change. I have one more thing I know to try.  The last time I KNOW this stuff was working was on 1/11. on 1/12 my pacman logs showed that ffmprg and x264 got an upgrade. I am either going to try and rebuild those packages or download old versions and try them (or both?). If there's any news I'll chime in.

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Matt

"It is very difficult to educate the educated."

whargoul

Member

From: Odense, Denmark

Registered: 2005-04-04

Posts: 546

Re: Framy flash playback

Something funny...This DOESN'T happen in Opera!  It happens in Konqueror AND Firefox, but not Opera. Odd?

Uhm yeah... but I think I can live with that for now.

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Arch - It's something refreshing

mrunion

Member

From: Jonesborough, TN

Registered: 2007-01-26

Posts: 1,938

Website

Re: Framy flash playback

I probably could to. I've just got some kinda mental trouble when I try to let go of a problem -- I usually just can't. Anyway, I think I'll give recompiling and/or downgrading ffmpeg and x264 just for snicks. Then I may let it die.

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Matt

"It is very difficult to educate the educated."