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# High cpu usage watching youtube

• @fragger911

Is unusable for those with the problem since Media is mostly everywhere, even without the ability to stop AutoPlay and not always you use or watch in FullScreen.

The Workaround about change between WorkSpaces, for daily use, it's annoying.

If it's not fixed even for W10, then...

• I may have found a fix.

For me, Twitch was using about 30% of my CPU per screen. I'm not going to go into detail or lay out my specs but I did find a way to fix my problem.

1. Make sure hardware acceleration is enabled or this won't work
(If you can't find hardware acc, go here opera://settings and type in "hardware acceleration")
2. Go to opera://flags/#ignore-gpu-blocklist
Enable that setting, relaunch and you should be good.

I think someone above already answered this but I was unable to find this setting using their instructions.

I really hope this helps cause I've been having to stress over this for about 2 weeks and it feels good to be back at minimal CPU usage.

• @gamedevchrs No, problem persist for me in v.75.

It still goes to about +40% higher cpu power consumption with favicon animation compared to mouse cursor hover on tab.

Spec: win8.1, fanless cpu i5 4570T, internal gpu.

• Hi @marjang, first of all go to "opera:flags#disable-accelerated-video-decode" and make sure it's set to "Disabled", and if not disable it, restart the browser and check if it helps.
Also, you can enable "opera:flags#enable-gpu-rasterization" (don't forget to restart the browser to make it works).

In addition to the above, check if running the Opera with the following switches (add them at the end of the shortcut which you use to run Opera): "Path\to\launcher.exe" --disable-gpu-driver-bug-workarounds --num-raster-threads=4 --use-gl=desktop
improves all over performance of the browser (including this playing videos).

Small note: in case "--use-gl=desktop" makes some artifacts (causes displaying issues in the browser UI), remove it and try to run the Opera with the other switches only.

• @l33t4opera Thanks for your help! I followed each step you wrote and tried each time how cpu power changed with youtube favicon animated.

Sadly, no change. cpu goes to about +40% when favicon is animated.

• @marjang Which "youtube favicon" do you mean? Can you show it in the screenshot?
Does playing YouTube videos consume now less CPU resources or not?
If not try the opposite, I mean go to "opera:flags#disable-accelerated-video-decode" and now set it to "Enabled" and restart the browser. Maybe there's something broken with the flag switch, and when you enable this it will work.

• @l33t4opera This is an old problem of the Opera and it is not solved by the flags of chromium. The problem is in the animation of the favicon.

• screenshot

The discussion is about the tab's equalizer

• Hi guys, @johnd78 yes I was already aware about the issue with "lagging" audio indicator since the beginning.

@andrew84 Thanks for the screenshot. Are you sure it's only about that? , it states in general "High CPU usage watching YouTube".

Also, are you completely sure that the lagging is caused by this indicator? As I remember it the indicator was causing a much more CPU use than 40%.
For example, when I'm listening to only music (without video) on some websites, the indicator is active, but it seems not to use much more CPU resources in this case.

• @marjang Can you re-check it in the latest Opera stable 76.0.4017.94, please?

• @l33t4opera I can't say for sure, but I'd say that I don't see much difference when I compare the same video (and same resolution) in Chrome/Edge vs Opera with muted tab.

• As I remember it the indicator was causing a much more CPU use than 40%

Yeah, Opera was fixed to lower the CPU usage. But, it can still be high enough (as much as 17% in some cases) to cause performance issues.

DNA-82936 is an unresolved bug for this to make things even better. However, users ultimately want an option to disable the thing completely.

• @l33t4opera I tried in v.76 and it is the same with your mentioned flags enabled or disabled. Cpu power goes to about +40% when the sound favicon on a tab is animated. Causing cpu temperature rise over acceptable values.

My "solution" is to watch videos in fullscreen or hover mouse cursor over tab.

Spec: win8.1, fanless cpu i5 4570T, internal gpu.

• @marjang I see. Start watching a video, and check two things:
1. Right click on it, select "Stats for nerds", and see which codec it displays "avc" (h.264), vp9 or any other,
2. Open "chrome:media-internals", and click on the item below "Recent Players" which contains "kPlay", press "Ctrl+F" and search for "videodecodername". What it shows on the right of it, "FFmpeg..." or something else?

• Issue still persist in version 76.0.4017.94.

• @l33t4opera

1. stats4nerds: it says vp09.
2. kVideoDecoderName = "VpxVideoDecoder"
• @marjang Ah, so that could be also the cause of some additional using of the CPU.

Can you install the h264ify extension, and check if the browser uses less CPU resources when you replaying videos?
(you can see that it forces replaying videos with H.264 codec, when it displays "avc1... /mp4a..." under "Stats for nerds")
You can install the extension under a fresh profile, if you don't want to clutter the current one as follows:
"Path\to\launcher.exe" --user-data-dir=\Path\to\writable_dir\fresh_profile" .

• @l33t4opera Interesting, it definitely is better with the extension. Animated icon raises cpu for about 25% now.

• @marjang Nice, so at least that helped to reduce the CPU use in your case ;-)
By the way: it should now also use less CPU resources on most of the other website where you watch videos, not only on YT.

What it's displaying now in "chrome:media-internals" on the right of "videodecodername" ?

• videodecodername

"MojoVideoDecoder" in my case