Home / ubuntu / Questions / 852
Accepted
DLH
Asked: 2010-08-05 13:01:52 +0800 CST

Why are Flash applications so sluggish/crashy?

  • 772

I've noticed that Flash applications tend to be more sluggish under Ubuntu than they do under Windows on the same machine. This is particularly noticeable when watching HD video or playing graphics/physics-heavy games. Are there any ways of improving the performance of Flash under Ubuntu, or is this just an issue with the Linux version that I will have to live with?

Currently I'm just cutting down on the number of tabs open, blocking flash ads, and closing other programs, but I'm looking for ways to affect Flash itself.

Other things I have already been doing include using Youtube's HTML5 feature and playing videos straight from /tmp in VLC. I was wondering if there was some way of streamlining Flash itself though. Perhaps not.

More Specific Question: Is there anything I can do in mms.cfg to boost performance?

flash performance

11 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    This is an issue with the Flash Player - the Linux version has some performance issues with playing video.

    Your best bet for sites like YouTube that support HTML5 video is to use that instead. (See here for details.) The performance is much better.

    • 25

  2. Hardware acceleration in flash for video and graphics is currently only supported on Windows platform. See: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/fplayer10.1_hardware_acceleration.html

    • 12

  3. Alternatively you can use Gnash or Lightspark.

    • 3

  4. I would hope your using Ubuntu. Its pretty straight forward if you use the installer given to you from the adobe website.

    It might just be a low on processing power since flash is processor extensive process, also more ram might help.

    Also going to System > Administration > Hardware Profiles and making sure your graphics drivers have the correct settings helps.

    :)

    • 2

  5. Try disabling desktop effects.

    • 2

  6. In addition to the suggestions above - try disabling compiz, using chrome, making sure the fastest graphics drivers are installed - you could try to override the Flash plugin's detection for hardware acceleration. I can't vouch for the usefulness of this hack, though.

    • 2

  7. Try using Google Chrome browser. I found it to be faster than Firefox in Ubuntu, for normal pages or those with Flash.

    • 1

  8. If for instance you want to play a youtube video there is a workaround!

    Flash buffers the video to you disk, that file will be in /tmp/ and called something like FlashXXp0sHC0, that is Flash + 8 random chars. You can play it in a normal player, or even copy it somewhere else for offline viewing (Note that in most countries it is illegal to copy the file since it a breaches copyright).

    This approach will work on a lot of sites but depends on what the streaming format is. If in doubt you can use the file utility to detect what is in the file

    user@host:~$ file /tmp/FlashXXp0sHC0
/tmp/FlashXXp0sHC0: ISO Media, MPEG v4 system, version 2

user@host:~$ file /tmp/FlashXXLE3wCf
/tmp/FlashXXLE3wCf: Macromedia Flash Video
    • 1

  9. I am running Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit with an Nvidia GeForce 8400 GS. I have had Flash-related issues since performing a clean install of 12.04. Just like you, I have installed the proprietary drivers, but System Settings > Details lists Graphics as "Unknown."

    I was having speed issues, but most annoylingly, the same issues as reported in Flash video appears blue on this forum. Following the workaround posted at the previous link stopped the unwanted behavior of all Flash video being tinted blue, but ended up causing the Flash plugin to crash nearly every time I attempted to watch a video online.

    The solution for me was to look back at /etc/adobe/mms.cfg and remove everything but one line, which should read:

     OverrideGPUValidation=true

    If you are not sure how to do this, you can use your favorite text editor (for me it's vi) or you could pop open gedit with the following terminal command:

    sudo gedit /etc/adobe/mms.cfg

    Write in the OverrideGPUValidation=true line from above, save the file, and quit gedit. Restart your browser and see if this solves the problems you are having.

    This idea and others are discussed on ubuntuforums, and many other places. Please try changing your mms.cfg (or creating it, if it does not already exist) and post back with your results. Good luck!

    • 1

  10. If you're using the AMD64 build of Ubuntu, try downloading the beta AMD64 flash player. The x86 build is run through an emulation layer that I've had tons of problems with.

    • 0