NVidia flash video woes

January 16, 2012 5:32 AM

Is there a solution to end stuttering in flash video on an NVidia 460 GTX SE?

My games run well as do movie files, but I get a lot of stuttering in flash video from youtube, vimeo, etc. I tried changing Power Management Mode to 'Prefer maximum performance' but that has not helped. Has anyone tried a solution that works for NVidia cards?

posted by waraw to computers & internet (7 answers total)

Do you use Firefox? If yes, try Chrome or IE.
posted by Akke at 6:11 AM on January 16, 2012

Does the stuttering happen even if you pause the video to allow it to completely load into memory?
posted by Burhanistan at 8:00 AM on January 16, 2012

Yes, seems unrelated to streaming.

I had avoided Chrome because it seemed (at the time I tried it) to be a memory hog, but it a) doesn't seem to expereince the same stuttering and b) doesn't seem to be as bad a memory hog as I remember, so perhaps I'll stick with it. I miss my Better Gmail tool quite a bit, though.
posted by waraw at 8:58 AM on January 16, 2012

Ah, glad you found a solution. You don't have to abandon your preferred browser, though.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:10 AM on January 16, 2012

I have similar stuttering in Firefox, and I have an ATI card. I guess that makes it a firefox issue. If you google for an issue like this you will find several solutions, I tried a couple but none of them worked for me.
posted by Akke at 9:50 AM on January 16, 2012

If using Windows XP through 7, you could try a combination of Ccleaner's registry cleaner (run 2-4 times until no further registry errors are reported) and then DeviceRemover (set the view mode to HIDDEN/DETACHED and remove all). Be sure to run these tools in the order mentioned, otherwise reboot in between to avoid blue screening.

Grab the latest drivers for your card, and make sure you don't have any residual driver software if an ATI card previously existed. Grab the latest versions of flash via Ninite Also try right clicking on a flash instance to test out hardware acceleration settings..whether on or off.

Other than that, click start/run and type 'msconfig'...navigate to the services tab an check the checkbox to hide microsoft services. Uncheck everything here that is uneccessary (you can always rerun this tool to re-enable later). Also uncheck everything on the startup tab.
posted by samsara at 11:31 AM on January 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

Try Process Lasso. The free version is all you need to try. No need to worry about the technical things in the program, the default installation is all you need.

There is probably some other process running on your machine taking over the processor at times and causing the stuttering, and Process Lasso will limit that process to stop the stuttering video.

Finding the process causing the problem and adjusting or killing it would be best, but Process Lasso is a quick easy free fix. It can help identify which process is taking over the machine too - just look at its realtime log of what it is limiting, even as the video will probably play smooth with Process Lasso running.
posted by caclwmr4 at 10:29 PM on January 16, 2012 [1 favorite]