Ubuntu & Adobe Flash Issues

[bigbeark]

When i run Adobe Flash (YouTube default player) on a Windows XP machine, video playback, even with a 16MB video card, is smooth.

When I play a YouTube video on my P3 Ubuntu Linux box with more ram, more Vram, and a faster CPU, the video is jerky. If I use the Movie Player Application to play YouTube videos, video quality is MUCH better, but I have to do that outside the browser and Movie Player will not play all sites.

I tried changing Firefox preferences to use a different player, but YouTube insists on using Flash 10.

Is there any way around this problem? I also note that dual CPU or Hyperthread 478s seem to play Flash video really badly, black banding everywhere.

Any suggestions other than more power?

[ratdude747]

Re: Ubuntu & Adobe Flash Issues

google chrome. it is beta, but it doesn't have that issue in ubuntu.

FYI, firefox is BLOATED. or at least since 3.0. hence why i recommend that all ubuntu users switch to opera or chrome.

[washu]

Re: Ubuntu & Adobe Flash Issues

Adobe Flash does not use proper video acceleration under any OS except Windows. It sucks but that's the way it is. The only solution other than using Windows is to throw hardware at it.

[mockingbird]

Re: Ubuntu & Adobe Flash Issues

You're pointing him in the wrong direction.

First of all, you're right. Flash Player does not play videos (With the exception of a recent Beta) through overlay, it renders them itself which takes a relatively large cpu load.

Now when you're playing them in Linux through your system's overlay, it's working fine. But when you're trying to render them with the systems raw power, it's slowing to a crawl. Why? Your video drivers ar enot installed correctly. Make sure MesaGL is working properly. Go to a console and type GLXGears and post the results.

[stj]

Re: Ubuntu & Adobe Flash Issues

dont use chrome - use iron instead.

[washu]

Re: Ubuntu & Adobe Flash Issues

mockingbird: bigbeark said that videos play fine outside flash, thus his video drivers are already working correctly. Messing with them won't fix the flash problem. It doesn't matter what kind of video acceleration his drivers support or not, flash wont use it and will always use lots of CPU to render.

The newer beta versions of flash might help, but from what I've seen they won't do much, especially on such an old machine.

[mockingbird]

Re: Ubuntu & Adobe Flash Issues

It doesn't matter what kind of video acceleration his drivers support or not, flash wont use it and will always use lots of CPU to render

Wrong. The fact that it is playing through the overlay shows that the drivers are functioning correctly in that respect but are not when he relies on the video card's OpenGL.

If it were the case that his hardware isn't up to par, it wouldn't work smoothly in Windows.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ubuntu & Adobe Flash Issues

dont use chrome - use iron instead.

i disasgree

iron= no .deb= PITA to use.

and why should the privacy stuff they claim matter? what would a timestamp even do for them? maybe to estimate the # of users?

also, i like it saving my past searches... makes re-searching easier.

to me, iron seemed good on paper but sucky when used. the lack of a .deb was the icing on the cake.

unless you are a tarball whore, i do not recommend iron at this time.

FYI, i posted this from chrome.

[bigbeark]

Re: Ubuntu & Adobe Flash Issues

Thanks for the input. I did see somewhere on the Adobe Site that the system requirements for the Linux player are much more demanding than for the Windows player. I believe they called for a minimum 2Ghz CPU and 128MB video ram.

The Totem movie player must use the same video Drivers as does Flash. If i could direct the YouTube application to use the Totem Movie Player instead of Adobe Flash there would be no problem. Another brutal site is the WarnerBros.com movie trailers - awful because they use Flash.

But I can and do watch movies on Icefilms with no video issues, using my dual CPU Asus CUR-DLS machine (2 times 866Mhz CPUS, 2GB SDRAM). I just recapped this board and anything I recap I use, at least for a while.

I could always capture the YouTube video and play the captured version, just seems like a hassle.

[washu]

Re: Ubuntu & Adobe Flash Issues

Wrong. The fact that it is playing through the overlay shows that the drivers are functioning correctly in that respect but are not when he relies on the video card's OpenGL.

If it were the case that his hardware isn't up to par, it wouldn't work smoothly in Windows.

OpenGL doesn't have anything to do with this. You think his 16MB video card has fast enough OpenGL support to meaningfully accelerate video using it? Which would be a stupid way of decoding video even if it was. Flash works fine in Windows with Microsoft's own drivers with NO OPENGL SUPPORT!

Flash doesn't use OpenGL for video playback on any OS. There is more to video acceleration than just 3D and overlays. Flash is not using the video card's overlays or iDCT or OpenGL or anything on Linux. It's just dumping pixels into a pixmap and nothing more.

Other video players (IE, anything but flash) on Linux do use overlays and other video acceleration techniques that the drivers provide. That's why his videos play outside of Flash.

On Windows and Windows only Flash uses overlays and other video acceleration techniques. On Linux it does not. Don't like it complain to Adobe.

[washu]

Re: Ubuntu & Adobe Flash Issues

The Totem movie player must use the same video Drivers as does Flash. If i could direct the YouTube application to use the Totem Movie Player instead of Adobe Flash there would be no problem. Another brutal site is the WarnerBros.com movie trailers - awful because they use Flash.

Totem uses the video acceleration features of your video card and drivers. Flash does not. Simple as that. If your drivers were not working properly then both Totem and Flash would fail.

[washu]

Re: Ubuntu & Adobe Flash Issues

But I can and do watch movies on Icefilms with no video issues, using my dual CPU Asus CUR-DLS machine (2 times 866Mhz CPUS, 2GB SDRAM). I just recapped this board and anything I recap I use, at least for a while.

I haven't used Icefilms myself, but it says right on their page that they use DIVX. That certainly is not being decoded by flash. Some other player like Totem is decoding that.

[stj]

Re: Ubuntu & Adobe Flash Issues

utube uses flv, you can play it with Mplayer.

[mockingbird]

Re: Ubuntu & Adobe Flash Issues

OpenGL doesn't have anything to do with this. You think his 16MB video card has fast enough OpenGL support to meaningfully accelerate video using it? Which would be a stupid way of decoding video even if it was. Flash works fine in Windows with Microsoft's own drivers with NO OPENGL SUPPORT!

Yes! I think a 16mb videocard can do it. And you're wrong thinking that MesaGL has nothing to do with video rendering on X. Just like Microsoft uses Direct3D to render video, Linux uses MesaGL to render video on X. And the reason why it works in Windows with non-OpenGL Microsoft drivers, is because Microsofts own WDM drivers DO HAVE some form of Direct3D support.

Flash doesn't use OpenGL for video playback on any OS. There is more to video acceleration than just 3D and overlays. Flash is not using the video card's overlays or iDCT or OpenGL or anything on Linux. It's just dumping pixels into a pixmap and nothing more.

From what I understand, an overlay is a special interface created by the system through the PCI bus to improve the speed with which video data is transmitted. The old video cards had a special place where you could attach a cable and the most notable case where this was used that I can remember was the old ISA TV Wonder.

So in essence, even an overlay is just "dumping pixels into a pixmap" albeit at a much faster speed. Of course don't quote me on any of this.

[washu]

Re: Ubuntu & Adobe Flash Issues

Yes! I think a 16mb videocard can do it. And you're wrong thinking that MesaGL has nothing to do with video rendering on X. Just like Microsoft uses Direct3D to render video, Linux uses MesaGL to render video on X. And the reason why it works in Windows with non-OpenGL Microsoft drivers, is because Microsofts own WDM drivers DO HAVE some form of Direct3D support.

You are again wrong. Direct3D is not used on Windows to render video* and MesaGL is not used on Linux. Why would it be used? Overlay has existed and used on Windows and Linux before Direct3D even existed. An S3 Trio or Mach64 with NO 3D SUPPORT AT ALL can render flash video on Windows and not Linux.

Second, a 16 MB card would not have any kind of pixel shaders or any type of programmable processing. It could not render video itself. The only thing such an old card can do for video is overlay and maybe iDCT for MPEG1/2. Flash on Linux uses neither.

* Yes, a Direct3D surface is used when doing Flip3D in Aero on Vista or 7. Since even 98/NT4 can render Flash video this is not used in the general case.

From what I understand, an overlay is a special interface created by the system through the PCI bus to improve the speed with which video data is transmitted. The old video cards had a special place where you could attach a cable and the most notable case where this was used that I can remember was the old ISA TV Wonder.

So in essence, even an overlay is just "dumping pixels into a pixmap" albeit at a much faster speed. Of course don't quote me on any of this.

An overlay is an access to video memory which bypasses the rendering system and most CPU processing. Basicaly the video app can write it's data directly into video memory. The cable was used to dump data into the video card's memory without even using the bus. Any video rendering bigger than a postage stamp needs overlay so that the CPU does not have to copy each pixel one at a time. Flash on Linux doesn't use it so the CPU has to do much more work.

When Flash on Linux is "dumping pixels into a pixmap" it is writing into SYSTEM memory (not video memory ) which then the X system has to process and copy to video memory itself. This is very CPU intensive for something that updates so frequently like video.

[mockingbird]

Re: Ubuntu & Adobe Flash Issues

True a Mach64 or a Trio3D or a Trident had no Direct3D support, and I agree the fastest video card with only 16mb would have to be a voodoo3, but isn't there some sort of acceleration with DirectDraw?

The question still remains, what would be causing the video to slow down only in Linux but not in Windows? And I don't buy it that Flash Player works better on Windows. YouTube videos actually play better on Debian on my laptop with X3100 Graphics.

[washu]

Re: Ubuntu & Adobe Flash Issues

True a Mach64 or a Trio3D or a Trident had no Direct3D support, and I agree the fastest video card with only 16mb would have to be a voodoo3, but isn't there some sort of acceleration with DirectDraw?

DirectDraw can be used for video, but it is still using overlay in the background as the main acceleration feature. iDCT and maybe motion compensation can be thrown in there for some help too. For full bore video decode acceleration on Windows you need DXVA (DirectX Video Acceleration). That is only on very recent cards. Nothing even approaching a voodoo3.

However, three important points:

Overlay has existed and worked before DirectX existed. Windows 3.1 could play videos with overlay.
DirectDraw IS NOT Direct3D. They are both part of DirectX but not the same.
OpenGL and thus MesaGL does not provide anything equivalent to DirectDraw. MesaGL would be pretty useless for video decoding. Other stuff on Linux can provide the equivalent of DirectDraw, but not Open/MesaGL. Flash still does not use any of them.

The question still remains, what would be causing the video to slow down only in Linux but not in Windows? And I don't buy it that Flash Player works better on Windows. YouTube videos actually play better on Debian on my laptop with X3100 Graphics.

You can not believe it all you want, Flash works better on Windows than anything else and that's a fact. Adobe fully admits this. Complain to Adobe if you don't like it but denying the truth won't help any. If Flash actually does work better on your Linux install then either you are not playing the exact same video (h264 on Windows, h263 on Linux) or your Windows install is seriously screwed up.

Ars Technica did a benchmark of Flash on the three major platforms. They used a quad core Mac Pro so no problem with CPU grunt.

OSX: 28 FPS
Linux: 22 FPS
Windows: 46 FPS

The windows install also needed significantly less CPU time to do the same job faster in Flash.

[bigbeark]

Re: Ubuntu & Adobe Flash Issues

Washu, thanks for your explanation of the problem. Thanks to everyone who contributed.
So the answer is, surprisingly, if you want to use Linux for flash, use a later model computer. Or use XP if you can find the drivers for your old machine. Maybe Windows 2000 is better.
Is anyone still using Win2000?

Strangely enough, I think earlier versions of Flash worked better on old machines. I have a computer that I loaded with Mandriva 2008 and it plays Youtube without jerkiness, but at a lower resolution, which perhaps reduces the need for video acceleration.

[washu]

Re: Ubuntu & Adobe Flash Issues

Washu, thanks for your explanation of the problem. Thanks to everyone who contributed.
So the answer is, surprisingly, if you want to use Linux for flash, use a later model computer. Or use XP if you can find the drivers for your old machine. Maybe Windows 2000 is better.
Is anyone still using Win2000?

If you are specifically using Flash to play high definition video and you have a modern card then you want to use Vista or 7. Vista and 7 support DXVA version 2 which Flash can use.

Otherwise it doesn't matter much which version of Windows you use. XP and 2000 use the same drivers so either should be the same.

Strangely enough, I think earlier versions of Flash worked better on old machines. I have a computer that I loaded with Mandriva 2008 and it plays Youtube without jerkiness, but at a lower resolution, which perhaps reduces the need for video acceleration.

As much as older versions of Flash may work better it is a very bad idea. Flash is riddled with security bugs so keeping up with the latest versions is important if you don't want to get infected.

[mockingbird]

Re: Ubuntu & Adobe Flash Issues

washu:

If you install the hacked DX 10 for Windows XP, can you get DXVA 2 on XP?