[Q] Choppy playback of Flash video with Optimus? (W230ST / GeForce 765M)

I have had a Clevo W230ST for about half a year now, and I love it. I've been running into a problem lately, though -- on Flash-powered streaming video sites like Hulu and CBS.com, playback is really choppy. I've tried all 3 major browsers (IE, Chrome, Firefox) and it doesn't seem to make a difference.

I checked the tray icon and the dGPU isn't activating. I also can't force the GPU to be active in the Nvidia control panel: the selector is disabled when you pick (for example) "chrome.exe". I've read elsewhere that this was a deliberate decision by Nvidia, though I don't understand why. At any rate, the iGPU should be able to handle 1080p Flash acceleration on its own, right? I checked that Flash has hardware acceleration enabled. It's also definitely not a network issue -- with Hulu, for example, I always have a full "buffer" bar.

Has anybody else encountered this? Is there a workaround/fix?

 

I get very choppy video if I view videos in Steam. I get it occasionally in YouTube at FullHD, but not as distracting as Steam where it's constantly jerking.

I don't know if using dedicated GPU would help as the IGP is plenty powerful enough to manage the Flash video.

 

Any idea *why*? I don't know enough about Flash video to "debug" the process.

One trick I found is to make a hardlink to the Chrome executable with a different name -- apparently Nvidia only locks down the GPU prefs for processes called "chrome.exe" so giving the binary another name lets you force the dGPU. This didn't seem to help, though. I know in Firefox the actual Flash DLL runs inside "plugin-container.exe", which is *also* locked to the iGPU in the control panel, so this hack won't work there either, and if Chrome employs similar trickery it would mean that at best the browser uses the dGPU while the plugins use the iGPU.

If anybody with an Optimus (is that still the right term?) card is actually getting smooth playback of fullscreen HD Flash video, can you let me know how?

 

It's more likely the network/ISP, or the wireless card if you're using WiFi. Are any graphics demanding applications giving you trouble?

 

This laptop can play demanding, current games smoothly at 1080p -- of course, that's with the dGPU active. I think the problem here is that the iGPU is struggling to keep up, but I can't force dGPU for the plugin (in this case, Flash).

I mentioned it in the OP, but Hulu has a "buffer" bar -- it's supposed to indicate if you're getting packets fast enough to keep up. It's also supposed to intelligently throttle down to a lower resolution if it can't keep up. It wasn't throttling down, and the buffer remained full -- but it was choppy as hell. I put that down to decoding performance problems, and I'd like to be able to fix them....

 

It's streaming, so it shouldn't be network, it's cached ahead several seconds at least.

The IGP can handle it just fine, it's the crappy flash player and Intel drivers.

 

So is it just impossible to *ever* get smooth 1080p playback on the sites I mentioned? Is somebody going to "fix" this or will I have to start bumping my display down to 720p every time I want to watch full-screen video?

 

It's a deliberate decision as the drivers were flipping onto the dGPU and killing battery life without people realising. Renaming the exe could let you experiment, faster system ram can help IGP performance so it might help.

 

The newest Flash player(s) actually are the issue themselves. Your hardware is TONS more than enough. When I first viewed video through Pepper Flash 12.0 in chrome a couple weeks ago, I immediately saw the difference. I actually was concerned until I found out it was the Pepper Flash 12.0 plugin that just got uploaded to all chrome users.

I recommend downloading a previous version of flash. Maybe 11.9, but you may want to go older if it is still an issue. Hell, to see the difference for yourself, down grade to 11.9 for Internet Explorer and only enable Pepper Flash 12.0 in chrome. Play any YouTube video. It is seriously the stupidest thing. Who tests this crap? Flash player has been getting worse every month for years. Also, HTML5 video in YouTube is smooth.

Here is the page where you can find older Flash player versions: http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/archived-flash-player-versions.html#Flash Player archives

 

Yes even a modern igp should cope with flash ok it's true.

 

That's true. I opt for the HTML5 player and have noticed quite a difference on the videos that support it. Even the Android API seems to yield smoother playback more often than the Flash player.

Right. People all over have this problem, and some/many allude to it being bandwidth throttling.

Why YouTube buffers: The secret deals that make

https://secure.dslreports.com/shown...king-ISPs-Based-on-YouTube-Performance-127440

 

A work around you could consider for longer (any length actually) videos is to download them with freemake video downloader. Once its downloaded then you can watch it. It takes a little longer since you have to wait for that, but can be worth is if the choppy playback is too annoying.

 

I also notice that about the Android app.

Just don't forget to check if it is Flash 12.0 that is causing the issue.