Prev: The function breakApart() is currently unavailable!?
Next: How do you dock the Main and Edit toolbars?
From: math_guy87 on 10 Dec 2008 21:03
Ok, I first want to apologize if this problem has been answered and fixed
before, but I have spent days pouring over forums, and I still can not fix my
problem. It requires a little bit of background first:

I can't remember how long ago it started, but whenever I am viewing a flash
file (a game, videos from youtube, advertisements, etc.) My CPU usage increases
to 99-100% and remains there until I close the program that is running it, or
go to a different webpage. I normally use firefox, so for the longest time I
was searching for the problem relating to firefox exclusively. I came across
FlashBlock, and I still use it in Firefox. However, this is not a SOLUTION to
the problem, just a "work around." If I actually want to view the flash content
- bye bye CPU usage.

So for the longest time I focused on firefox. I completely uninstalled and
removed flash and firefox from my computer, and reinstalled. I even tried it
with an older version of flash, because I can't remember always having this
problem, and the problem persisted. But now I have everything up to date, and
the problem is still there.

Then I decided to use IE for a little bit because I was upset at Firefox. I
was surprised when I was on youtube, or playing a flash game, that my CPU went
up to 100% and remained there. SO instead of googling "flash firefox cpu" I
just googled "flash cpu" and I have been doing some research/experimenting. I
am - by no means - a very technical person or a programmer, I am an ordinary
user that is upset about this problem. I went to this page
http://www.bezzmedia.com/swfspot/samples/beginner/Show_the_Current_Frames_Per_Se
cond and watched my cpu usage go up to 100. But when the animation goes to a
lower fps, from about 1-5, my cpu usage goes down, but only to about 80. So
what happens is I can do control-alt-delete and watch the performance tab's
graph. After letting it run for a while, I get almost an perfect, symmetrical
mountainous "landscape" if that makes sense - with bumps up to a hundred, and
coming down to about 80. It is so consistent that I am positive my system
cannot handle even normal frame rates for some reason. However, I am running on
XP Pro with a Pentium 4 2.80GHz processor and 2.5 gigs of RAM and I should not
even be having this problem - I can run tons of programs and not have my cpu
usage go above even 50, but a flash video puts it at 100. It is ridiculous! I
don't have a virus or anything, and I actually take pride in keeping my
computer clean and efficient. It happens to all users on the computer as well.

Again, I am not a programmer. Is there some option somewhere that I can tell
my flash content to reduce its frame rate, or not go above a certain number? It
seems that many people are having this problem. I think I remember someone
somewhere saying that with the newer versions, they are trying to perform
"better" than an older version you had, and the frames per second increases,
but I have no idea if this is true. Should I roll back to a later version, like
5? I already tried it back on version 9 but I still had the problem.

The "ideal" solution is to figure out what is going on with the frame rate on
my computer. Maybe if I could just right click the flash, and tell it to play a
lower fps? Does hardware acceleration have to do with this? Also, changing the
"quality" of the flash content from low to high or medium doesn't affect the
cpu usage - it stays at 100%.

Please help out an ignorant person if you can. I want to preserve the life of
my computer as long as possible. If someone could help me - in layman's terms -
I would greatly appreciate it, and so would all the other upset people googling
"flash cpu problem." Thank you!

From: MartyxB on 14 Dec 2008 08:36
I too am frustrated by the very real problem with flash and CPU usage. I have a
dell Precision 390 workstation and should not have my system come to a crawl
whenever I go to a web site that has some silly ad that I am absolutely not
interested in. I wish that they had a utility like FlashBlock for IE. Adobe
seems to be silent about this issue. It would be nice if they would acknowledge
it and say that they are working on a solution. At least allow the user to fine
tune some optimization parameters so as to create an acceptable balance between
performance and video experience.

From: luciusbv on 23 Dec 2008 16:12
Uninstalling my old firewall (outpost) solved the problem.
Just disabling the firewall didn't solved anything.
Now I use Comodo and everything works great.
I hope this helps.
 | 
Pages: 1
Prev: The function breakApart() is currently unavailable!?
Next: How do you dock the Main and Edit toolbars?