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#1 2009-03-01 04:45:38

B-Con
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2007-12-17
Posts: 554
Website

Firefox and flash

A) Flash, via the package flashplugin, is extremely CPU intensive. I can be watching a plain flash video from YouTube or Hulu and, on a bad day, see *both* cores of my Pentium D 3.0 GZ CPU spike to 60% usage by Firefox. It's not uncommon for Firefox usage to idle at 40 or 50%. This is unacceptable and I haven't found a direct way to cure the problem. Any suggestions are welcome.

B) I decided to try Gnash and/or swfdec. I installed both packages (gnash-gtk and swfdec-mozilla, specifically), but neither is working. They both appear in the Add-ons list in Firefox, but I can't get either to work. I disable all flash plugins that I'm not actively using and restart Firefox, but flash doesn't work. What does it take to get either of them working?

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#2 2009-03-01 04:52:02

skottish
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From: Here
Registered: 2006-06-16
Posts: 7,942

Re: Firefox and flash

Flash with Firefox rarely goes more than 20% total (2 cores, 3.2GHz, nVidia) CPU usage on my machine.  The only things that I can think of is that one or more of your extensions have problems, or there are issues with your video driver. Since Firefox has high CPU usage by itself, I'd look at your extensions.

swfdec will eat all of your CPU cycles, and Gnash will suck your eyeballs dry with pixelization.

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#3 2009-03-01 05:05:13

B-Con
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From: USA
Registered: 2007-12-17
Posts: 554
Website

Re: Firefox and flash

Hm, not sure how to explain the discrepancy. I keep my extensions to a minimum, no more than six enabled at any time. Things like CSRF protector, adblock, NoScript, US-EN dictionary, and user-agent switcher.

That's too bad about Gnash and swfdec functionality.

Last edited by B-Con (2009-03-01 05:10:18)

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#4 2009-03-01 05:26:42

skottish
Forum Fellow
From: Here
Registered: 2006-06-16
Posts: 7,942

Re: Firefox and flash

The 40 to 50% FF idle is nuts. My entire system sits at 2% or less at idle all of the time. My current extensions are US-EN dic, Flashblock, User Agent Switcher, and Old Bar.

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#5 2009-03-01 05:38:31

dannytatom
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From: Seattle, WA
Registered: 2009-02-02
Posts: 229
Website

Re: Firefox and flash

Mine doesn't spike up th at high, but it does go up to about 40% when watching flash videos.  30% when I'm not.  Firefox in general seems to destroy my CPU.


dnyy in IRC & Urban Terror

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#6 2009-03-01 05:41:44

Inxsible
Forum Fellow
From: Chicago
Registered: 2008-06-09
Posts: 9,183

Re: Firefox and flash

FF takes anywhere between 0-3% idle. Although it eats up about 30% of my memory with 2 webpages open.


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There's no such thing as a stupid question, but there sure are a lot of inquisitive idiots !

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#7 2009-03-01 05:48:59

dolby
Member
From: 1992
Registered: 2006-08-08
Posts: 1,581

Re: Firefox and flash

I use the binary package provided by mozilla and manually place the firefox plugin in ~/.mozilla.
But never had an issue like the one you are describing even back when i used the official package.
Memory usage today is always around 5% of my 2GB with or without flash usage. CPU usage with flash is around 30% of both my cores, but only with flash.


There shouldn't be any reason to learn more editor types than emacs or vi -- mg (1)
[You learn that sarcasm does not often work well in international forums.  That is why we avoid it. -- ewaller (arch linux forum moderator)

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#8 2009-03-02 17:57:36

samoturk
Member
From: Ljubljana, Slovenia
Registered: 2007-02-12
Posts: 86

Re: Firefox and flash

I also have problems with high CPU usage with recent versions of flash and firefox (also seamonkey). I always try a new version when it comes out hoping it will be less CPU intensive, but all recent ones seem to be quite hungry. That is why I still use version 10.0.12.36.

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#9 2009-03-03 06:12:59

B-Con
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2007-12-17
Posts: 554
Website

Re: Firefox and flash

Well, to be precise, it's a combination of Firefox and X that spike that high. Flash videos seem to put an almost equal strain on X as they do FX. For all those reporting 30-40% Flash-usage spikes in Firefox, what's your X usage spike to during those periods?

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#10 2009-03-03 16:15:57

Ranguvar
Member
Registered: 2008-08-12
Posts: 2,545

Re: Firefox and flash

Blame Adobe... Flash is notoriously piggish. The video and audio decoders at least are incredibly crappy. This is one of the big advantages of either, or both swfdec and gnash - they use ffmpeg, which rocks. Oh well.

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#11 2009-03-05 15:58:42

kamagurka
Member
From: Munich, Germany
Registered: 2006-02-20
Posts: 150
Website

Re: Firefox and flash

Yeah, I've been developing a steady hate on both Adobe and the Mozilla corporation because of this.
When I restart firefox flash works for about five minutes, and afterwards it goes completely broken; Firefox uses 20% CPU minimum at all times.
After every flashplugin or firefox upgrade I'm all hopeful that maybe now it works, but I have the feeling that Adobe is just changing the version number and releasing the same broken package over and over.


I always roll 20s on my disbelieve checks.
You better believe it.

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