Vostro 1500 Fullscreen Playback Lag

[sandiego]

Hello all,

Ever since I got this Vostro 1500, I've had problems playing full-screen videos from the browser. Even if I allow clips to load fully before playback, same issue occurs. It happens constantly and you can clearly tell the framerate is somehow, for some reason limited.

I've tried it in Firefox 2.x and 3.0.x, as well as Chrome Beta and 1.0.x. I've updated Flash religiously, to no avail. I've tried to change to the Performance power plan, while plugged into A/C, no difference. I disabled Aero, nothing.

I've updated the graphics card driver to the latest I could find (graphics card is a NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS running 7.15.11.7474 released on 3/24/2008). The screen itself is the LG LPLF300.

The resolution is set to 1680x1050. Same happens for 1440x900, though.

Here are the specs:
T7250 @ 2GHz
2.5GB
NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
Vista Business


Any ideas?

My thanks in advance.

[JAMES_911]

Here are the two solutions.
One is to use Internet Explorer to view pages with Flash video. Unfortunately, this option may be anathema to some Firefox users. So the other option that works is to roll back the Adobe Flash Player plugin for Firefox from version 9 to the last iteration of version 8 (8r42). If you also have IE installed, you can keep it using the latest version of the Flash plugin for IE (see below).

How to roll back the Adobe Flash plugin.
Note that there are at least two versions of each revision of Flash for Windows, the flashplayer#r##_win.exe which is the plugin for Firefox and flashplaye#r##_winax.exe which is the Active X version for IE. Here's how to roll back the plugin for Firefox.

• Download this zip file and unzip it. (If the link doesn't work, click here.)
• Run FlashplayerUninstallerforWindows.exe. This will uninstall your Flash plugins for both IE and Firefox. Don't worry, reinstallation of Flash is VERY fast and easy. After running the uninstaller, check the details it offers to see if your computer needs a reboot to finish the uninstallation. If it does, or if you just want to be on the safe side, reboot your computer.
• Run Flashplaye8forFF-Version8r42.exe, which will install the Flash Player plugin for Firefox.
• To stop Adobe Flash from constantly offering to update itself to the latest version, click this link and on the fourth tab, uncheck "Notify me when an update to Adobe Flash is available."
• If you also have IE installed, run Flashplayer9forIE-Version9r124.exe, which will install the Version 9.x of Flash Player for IE.
• Check back here every now and then to see if there is a new Adobe Flash Player that doesn't cause the problem.

[SecRecy]

You are using firefox right? Ok, so click the links below and add each one to your firefox. One is a downloadhelper, which lights up and lets you know when something's available to download. Then, get the partner to this device, which actually detects video on the page, and stops it from 'autoplaying', replacing it instead with a glassy play button which you click to allow the video to play (so you'll only be doing one at a time, no danger of other video's you opened with a middle mouse button click (open in background window).

Instead of playing it, you can click the downloadhelper to download it to your (desktop/video) flv folder, and then click when it's finished in the firefox download window (or, if you get the download toolbar, there will be a small progress bar - and it will remain after the download finishes and change colour) to open it and play it in vlc, or whatever your favourite player is. (Please don't tell me you use WMP - it's rather a security hazard and frankly not very good).

I think Vista has been designed to make it a little harder for people to avoid using Microsoft products - so I would continue to try with Firefox.

Hope this links help you : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/26
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1765

[sandiego]

Thank you, SecRecy, for your recommendation. I happen to already use those add-ons, and I appreciate your suggestion for what it is: a by-pass.

I was looking to figure out what causes the problems, whether it's the hardware or my configuration.

James_911, your solution seemed to have worked, yet several features I took for granted went bye-bye. Such as fullscreening in YouTube (it now pops up a new maximized window), or hulu or veoh.

When I play stuff in the pop up windows of youtube, it seems to play back much better. At the same time, HD mode is disabled...

So is it the full-screen hardware scaling that Flash messed up for FF users in the 9.0 version?

Thanks again for all your replies and look forward to your comments.