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Author Topic: AGP Graphics card for older PC to improve YouTube?  (Read 4653 times)

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Offline Ral-ClanTopic starter

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Re: AGP Graphics card for older PC to improve YouTube?
« Reply #14 on: December 21, 2013, 02:35:40 PM »
Quote from: vince_6;754858
I have noticed that single core machines cannot play yt videos well  anymore.Try to disable hardware acceleration in flash.

Yes!  This is what makes me angry.  Prior to the time Youtube went Hi-def, ALL 480p videos played absulutely great on my computer - using around 60% CPU.

Then they switched to allow HD videos.  My machine can't handle 1080p videos and is choppy at 720p videos.  Fine - I can accept that and throttle them down to the 480p setting.  BUT - now even playing those HD videos in 480p mode takes 75-100% of CPU.

If you can find an older video on YouTube that wasn't uploaded in HD then it will still use the older player and consumes lower CPU cycles.

It all seems to be based on a change to the YouTube player.  The older videos have a thicker looking progress bar at the bottom (lower res) and these play well.  The newer videos (all HD videos) have a thinner progress bar at the bottom and use more CPU even when throttled down to the lower 480p resolution.

So it's frustrating that CPU usage should go up for exactly the same resolution (480p).  Seems like a step backward.  My machine can just about keep up with 480p now, whereas before it could handle 480p Flash video with CPU to spare.  Mostly it plays fine, but now I hear the CPU fan whirring up to high gear, and occasionally there is stutter or the sound is delayed from the video.  Seems like Flash is getting less efficient with every version released.  Why should a newer version of Flash perform WORSE than an older version?

PS: I have disabled hardware acceleration in Flash.  It doesn't change anything in regard to CPU consumption on my machine.
« Last Edit: December 21, 2013, 02:50:09 PM by ral-clan »
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Offline Thorham

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Re: AGP Graphics card for older PC to improve YouTube?
« Reply #15 on: December 21, 2013, 02:39:40 PM »
Use a youtube browser extension to download a video and watch it with a good native player.
 

Offline Iggy

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Re: AGP Graphics card for older PC to improve YouTube?
« Reply #16 on: December 21, 2013, 02:45:45 PM »
Nope Nik, you're wrong there.
I had a 3850 AGP card (it exists - there are a few on eBay right now), the performance is a little smoother than the 4670 or 4650.
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Offline Ral-ClanTopic starter

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Re: AGP Graphics card for older PC to improve YouTube?
« Reply #17 on: December 21, 2013, 02:59:31 PM »
Quote from: soviet;754871
You don't need to change your video card to watch youtube videos.
Follow this guide
http://smf.rantradio.com/index.php?topic=2162.0
Works wonders im watching HD video on an athlon 1800+ :D ,was imposible before to watch even the lowest settings using flash player.
Give it a shot know i do the same on my high end notebook and is much better than flash you dont see the ads know.

Ah!  That thread explains things.  The HD YouTube videos stream "raw" mp4 to your computer, whereas the older videos stream FLV.  It seems that Flash Player is better at processing FLV and MP4 is more CPU intensive.  That would explain the jump in CPU usage for any video that plays with YouTube's HD player (even when throttled down the 480p).

PS: I tried that guide you suggested (using VLC player) and so fair it WORKS GREAT on SOME videos!  I'm currently watching a streaming 720p video without stutter on a 1.8GHz Window XP laptop. I never would have thought it possible.

But other videos won't play through VLC - these are the videos with commercials inserted at the front, etc.  VLC says "Your Input can't be opened". I still have to play with this a bit to see what it can and can't play.

[EDIT: I think the error might have been something on my end - as it seems to have gone away]
« Last Edit: December 21, 2013, 03:57:09 PM by ral-clan »
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Offline nicholas

Re: AGP Graphics card for older PC to improve YouTube?
« Reply #18 on: December 21, 2013, 03:09:13 PM »
Quote from: Iggy;754876
Nope Nik, you're wrong there.
I had a 3850 AGP card (it exists - there are a few on eBay right now), the performance is a little smoother than the 4670 or 4650.

Cool, I did a quick check of eBay.ca and there were only PCI-E cards for sale so I assumed there were no agp ones.

@ral-clan

Enable HTML5 mode for YouTube to disable Flash and see if that helps.

http://youtube.com/html5
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Offline Iggy

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Re: AGP Graphics card for older PC to improve YouTube?
« Reply #19 on: December 21, 2013, 03:26:20 PM »
I was not aware that they were not using FLV on some videos.
That is actually an improvement.
MorphOS can handle MP4 format.

And frankly, I'm sick of Flash.
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Offline Thorham

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Re: AGP Graphics card for older PC to improve YouTube?
« Reply #20 on: December 21, 2013, 03:46:19 PM »
Quote from: ral-clan;754877
But other videos won't play through VLC - these are the videos with commercials inserted at the front, etc.  VLC says "Your Input can't be opened".

Use a browser extension to simply download the video.
 

Offline Ral-ClanTopic starter

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Re: AGP Graphics card for older PC to improve YouTube?
« Reply #21 on: December 21, 2013, 03:52:42 PM »
@nicholas

I actually did try enabling HTML5 for YouTube, and the performance is actually worse.

@soviet

HOLY CRAP!  Thanks so much soviet for this tip to stream YouTube videos straight into VideoLAN (VLC) player!

I can't BELIEVE it! I am now able to view YouTube videos at crisp 1280x720 resolution with no stutter, no audio delay, full-screen and streaming live. ALL THIS AT 40% CPU usage with NO CHANGE TO MY HARDWARE (only using the onboard old motherboard Intel GPU).

Wow. I can't thank you enough for this tip. I was only looking for good 480p performance, and now I can get 720p with an over 50% drop in CPU usage!

What the hell is wrong with Flash Player to take so much more CPU as to make 720 and even 480p so difficult to play?

Thank you, thank you, thank you.  Everyone with an old PC should try this tip.

PS: I haven't done the Greasemonkey thing yet, I've just been cutting and pasting the YouTube URL into the VideoLAN's "Open Media Stream" fuction.

WOW!
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Offline Thorham

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Re: AGP Graphics card for older PC to improve YouTube?
« Reply #22 on: December 21, 2013, 04:25:04 PM »
Quote from: ral-clan;754885
What the hell is wrong with Flash Player to take so much more CPU as to make 720 and even 480p so difficult to play?

What's wrong with it is that Flash sucks. You just can't beat properly written native players. I use an extension for youtube simply because I really hate those flash players with a passion (and as a nice bonus you won't get any commercials and advertisements that way).
 

Offline Iggy

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Re: AGP Graphics card for older PC to improve YouTube?
« Reply #23 on: December 21, 2013, 04:27:24 PM »
On that we agree!

"Flash sucks!"
"Not making any hard and fast rules means that the moderators can use their good judgment in moderation, and we think the results speak for themselves." - Amiga.org, terms of service

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Offline alex76gr

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Re: AGP Graphics card for older PC to improve YouTube?
« Reply #24 on: December 21, 2013, 04:59:01 PM »
My main PC is a system similar to yours and AFAIK no AGP card will help you because flash is CPU intensive and not GPU.

Try to upgrade your CPU to the fastest your motherboard can handle.

You can also add a plugin like VideoDownloadHelper to the Firefox.

With it you can copy the video stream link of the YT video and redirect it to a video player like VLC and watch it without any problem and speed loss.
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Offline nicholas

Re: AGP Graphics card for older PC to improve YouTube?
« Reply #25 on: December 21, 2013, 05:33:04 PM »
Flash uses GPU accelerated video decoding on supported cards.
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Offline nicholas

Re: AGP Graphics card for older PC to improve YouTube?
« Reply #26 on: December 21, 2013, 05:40:48 PM »
Quote
I actually did try enabling HTML5 for YouTube, and the performance is actually worse.


That's a shame.

HTML5 video works a treat on my PowerBook G4 which only has a 1.67GHz CPU, admittedly the Radeon 9700 video card is better than your Intel IGP but under MorphOS there is no GPU accelerated decoding to help play the video so theoretically your 2.8GHz Pentium should play the same videos.
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Offline Ral-ClanTopic starter

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Re: AGP Graphics card for older PC to improve YouTube?
« Reply #27 on: December 21, 2013, 06:36:10 PM »
WOW!

I just installed the GreaseMonkey Script to play YouTube videos through the VLC Player plugin in Firefox. (as Soviet had suggested).

I can barely describe the level of improvement.

YouTube videos now play seamlessly inside the YouTube page and at full screen in 720p HD at around 40% CPU (an over 50% drop in CPU usage over Flash's 480p playpack performance).

Plus you get a lot more control over playback aspects of the video than YouTube normally would give you.

REALLY.  I'm blown away by the change.  My PC is like a whole new machine now.
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Offline Ral-ClanTopic starter

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Re: AGP Graphics card for older PC to improve YouTube?
« Reply #28 on: December 21, 2013, 07:36:25 PM »
Quote from: nicholas;754900
That's a shame.

HTML5 video works a treat on my PowerBook G4 which only has a 1.67GHz CPU, admittedly the Radeon 9700 video card is better than your Intel IGP but under MorphOS there is no GPU accelerated decoding to help play the video so theoretically your 2.8GHz Pentium should play the same videos.


With this new VLC/Greasemonkey/Firefox extension arrangement installed, HTML5 does indeed have about 5-10% better performance than mp4 on YouTube.

The Greasemonkey thing allows one to select between various preferred codecs when watching YouTube (MP4 or WebM - the latter of which is HTML5, I believe).
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Offline nicholas

Re: AGP Graphics card for older PC to improve YouTube?
« Reply #29 from previous page: December 21, 2013, 07:44:18 PM »
In glad you've got it sorted.

Have you tried AROS on that PC btw?  It'll fly compared to Windows, but web browsing leaves a lot to be desired; though once Odyssey is opensourced and ported that should make AROS a great choice for old machines.
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