Lightweight browsers [Solved]

[arjaybe]

... Also try with 1-2 browsers what happens if you disable "Hardware Acceleration" within its preferences, (... better/worse ...)

I'll try that. Last night I watched a game where the lagginess was worse than what I first experienced. On every browser I tried and even on another computer. It felt like a slow internet, but I have 350 megabits. It's hard to troubleshoot when you get inconsistent results. I'll just keep hacking away at it.-)

[dolphin_oracle]

if you are using one, a vpn can impact as well. if you vpn, its not your connection, its the vpn's connection.

[arjaybe]

I ran speed tests in Firefox, Brave and Vivaldi with h/w accel off (and on). Firefox showed a 50% improvement, while the other two came in at about 10% of FF's rate either way. Now I know that turning it off helps, at least in FF. Now to see if I'm VPNing and whether that makes a difference.

[Stevo]

Chrome, chromium, and other Chrome based browsers are supposed to now support video hardware accelerated decoding via the va-api method, but it of course depends on the video codec being supplied, plus you must manually turn it on in the browser settings the last time I tried it.

[arjaybe]

Chrome, chromium, and other Chrome based browsers are supposed to now support video hardware accelerated decoding via the va-api method, but it of course depends on the video codec being supplied, plus you must manually turn it on in the browser settings the last time I tried it.

I found where to turn off h/w acceleration in Brave and Vivaldi, but it didn't make any difference to my download speeds. I'll have to remember to check what it does next time I'm streaming a game, for the video. I don't know about the va-api method or the codec.

As for VPN, it doesn't look like I'm using it, as far as I know, but I have seen sites reporting my location wrong. Like telling me I'm in Singapore or Bruges, when I'm obviously not.

[Huckleberry Finn]

... but it didn't make any difference to my download speeds...

Normal. That's not the aim of hwa.

... seen sites reporting my location wrong. Like telling me I'm in Singapore or Bruges, when I'm obviously not.

https://ipinfo.io/

https://whatismyipaddress.com/

https://www.whatismyip.com/

[arjaybe]

I managed to watch a complete game tonight and the video was good, with occasional juddering on pans. I tried many things and finally thought to try plugging in the ethernet. That reduced the load on the GPU enough for it to keep up. Who knew my wireless would be such a processor hog?

Thanks all for your help. Now I can relax and watch the game without twitching every few seconds.-)

[davidy]

In general it depends on where you are and how you connect. I never turn my vpn off for streams, or anybody for that matter, but have found that servers overseas from the US generally give poorer results when trying to watch video here in the US. I use Basilisk generally but Falkon mostly with streams and I'm on a wifi 2.4G only network on my laptop. I have never seen cpu spiking whatsoever. It always depends on how you connect, and of course your hardware in general.

[arjaybe]

Not so fast, I guess. I had a sticky game again last night. A few seconds of smooth action, then a freeze followed by a jump. I'm thinking now that the processor is just not strong enough in the laptop. (Pentium N3700) So I'm looking at refurbished mini computers to take its place beside the TV. (The Dells seem more likely to have the required HDMI than the Lenovos or HPs. Wireless not required) I could use your help finding something strong enough, but cheap enough. Something in the i5 family? i5 8250U, for instance? The "U" indicates the chip is for mobiles, though. Does that matter? Maybe an i5 in the 7000s or even 6000s.

As a side benefit, this would liberate the laptop for recording stories without having to keep unplugging and moving it.

[timkb4cq]

There are a lot of inexpensive AMD Ryzen processors laptops out there. The Ryzen 5 5xxx series is really fast, but even the cheap Ryzen 5 3500u is ~5x as fast as your n3700.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/25 ... en-5-3500U