[Help] Flash games runs slow on Windows 7

[Geneve]

Hi !

I just got a new laptop and it uses Windows 7. My old laptop used Windows XP. My old laptop got 5000 points in 3Dmark 2005, and my new one get 15000+.

On this new laptop all my games runs much slower than on my old laptop. I have fps counters in some of my games, they are all on 30/30 fps on my old laptop with XP, but on this new one I get like 17-19 fps . I have installed all updates, latest drivers for my graphic card, and it makes no difference. I also of course have the latest flash player installed for my browser.

I have tried my games in Firefox, IE 32bit, IE 64bit and the speed is the same in all of them. I tried IE 32bit as I read on google that the flash player is not 64bit compatible, and my OS is 64bit.

Anyway, anyone else got this problem?

So lame I now got a way faster computer, and now my flash games are much slower..... hate Vista and W7, but have no choice for this new computer.

Windows XP rules!

[Orkahm52]

Might sound a little silly, but have you tried turning off the Aero effects in Windows 7? They can use up some serious processing power. I can't think of anything else off the top of my head, though. I've been using Windows 7 on my laptop for some time now, and, if anything, it performs far better than it did before I upgraded. (From Vista, I've never had XP on this laptop.)

[Visceral]

I am not overly familiar with 3Dmark but doesn't it measure the ability of your graphics card and not your cpu? Flash games are not accelerated by your cpu. What cpu did you have in your old laptop? Whats the cpu in your new laptop?

Before you open your browser check the task manager, is anything using a large percentage of your cpu time?

I don't have windows 7 but in xp if you right clicked on my computer/properties it shows you the clock speed of your cpu. Im assuming you can still do this some how in windows 7. Whats the clock speed?

Do you have the same problem when you plug your laptop into the charger? Your laptop might lower its clock speed to save power when its running on batteries only.

[Geneve]

"Aero effects in Windows 7" ?. What is that and where do I find it?

3D mark mainly tests the GFX card, and my laptop has one of the top best ones for laptops atm, I've been told. I have a GeForce GTX 260M.

I always check my CPU usage with the Task Manager (ctrl+alt+del) and it's way higher than on my old laptop. It's around 80%+ in one game, where it was like 40% before or maybe lower.

I'm sure if I had XP on this laptop, I would get over 17000+ points in 3DMark 2005, the flash games would use way less CPU and everything would perform better. Same issue with my old laptop, got it with Vista, had 3400 points in 3DMark, managed to get XP working on it and woalla! 5000 points. Vista and W7 sucks big time. Unfortunately, XP doesn't work on this one :/.

I have a ASUS G60VX

edit:

I tried the unplugging of the laptop, it performs exactly the same.. same fps/speed in the game, same cpu usage.

Here is one of my games. My old laptop had 30/30, another older laptop I tested that game on which only got 1500 points in 3Dmark 2005 had 16fps... so don't know why this new good laptop has such low performance... I pretty sure it's the W7 crap.

http://longplays.ath.cx/site/mario.php

edit2:

Ok, found out what aero effects in windows 7 is. It's just those fancy glowing effects and transparent windows. I have it all set to as close XP look as I can so I don't have those effects anyway. Also found a test thingy to rate my computer, so ran it. According to this page, aero effects are only on if the score is above 3.0. Well, I had more than that but use XP theme so don't have the active anyway I think. Can't find a turn off switch...

Score

[Orkahm52]

Yeah Aero is the transparency and also the animations when you close or minimize windows. Like you said, It's probably turned off since you have a different theme.

Visceral is right, flash doesn't use your graphics card unless you program it to. (and even then it only does if your card is open source or such)

What are the stats on your old and new processors? It's highly unlikely, but there is chance you might have a smaller processor on your new laptop. Perhaps you got a dual core on your new one?

Another thing is check your power options in the control panel, or the little battery button on the tray. If your laptop is on "Power Saver" or "Balanced" mode it slows down significantly compared to "High Performance". (I know this might be a bit obvious)

[Geneve]

Got power stuff on full performance ofc ... and this processor, like my old one are dual core....

oh well.... nothing I can do.... maybe my old laptop had a much more powerful processor, as this new laptop is a gaming laptop and has a good gfx card.. my old one didn't have that good gfx card so might not have been a gaming laptop....

[Son of Bryce]

I would hit CTRL+ALT+DELETE to bring up the task manager and start shutting down programs running in the background. It's possible that something pre-installed on your computer is eating up all of your CPU.

Only other thing I can really think of is what Orkahm suggested, that the power-saving settings are preventing it from running at full speed. So maybe it has to be plugged in or have the setting manually changed.

Sucks that Windows 7 is still a huge step backwards performance-wise.

[Orkahm52]

Make sure you're checking just flash player's CPU usage and not the total usage in Task Manager. Also, definitely have a look at the GHz of both your laptops. You might be right about the old one having a better processor.

I think the general opinion is XP > Win7 > Vista. So it's two steps backward one step forward for Microsoft.

[ImprisonedPride]

I think the general opinion is XP > Win7 > Vista. So it's two steps backward one step forward for Microsoft.

Did you really think typing it really small would allow you to get away with a comment like that?

I must disagree with you. My migration from Windows XP SP2 & SP3 to Windows 7 was by far the best "step forward" from Microsoft yet. I haven't used a Windows operating system this complete and polished ever before. Everything just works, and without me even asking most times. I'll admit that most people either love it or hate it, but I'm pretty certain at least two of those need to be switched around... and nobody likes Vista, so...


Just so I'm on topic: My 2.9GHz/3GB DDR/GeForce 7800 GTX runs the game perfectly fine at a consistent 30/30FPS, even with all the bells and whistles running (aka Aero).

[Visceral]

While the link to the laptop specs shows a number of possible cpu choices they are all more powerful than this macbook which in vista runs that game 30/30.

Can we see a screen shot where you have the game running showing the fps you are getting and also the task manager open over the top showing the active processes tab ordered by the highest cpu usuage to lowest?

[amcotterill]

Just formate the thing, if you look on the site there is a list of all the **** they dump on there. Most of it seems rather useless. There will be documentaion on all of it with your pc some were, find out whats needed and only install what logicly suits you. I just install drivers and thats it. Clean, simple, and best of all fast.

THE LIST!
Asus Win flash for BIOS and Driver live Update
ASUS SmartLogon
ASUS Audio Console
Asus Live Update
Power 4 Phone
Asus NB Probe +
ASUS Life Frame 3
ASUS Wireless Console
Virtual Camera
ASUS Splendid
ASUS Hotkey
ASUS Express Gate
Fancy Start
AI Recovery

I got a dell xps, not a gaming power house but still. It ran like a peice of **** till i formated the thing.

Aaron...

[dVyper]

How weird! I get exactly the same problem as the OP. I upgraded my laptop from Vista to 7 last week and have been loving it. I haven't really played any flash games on it yet.

I tried your game and indeed it runs slow as you've described, which is weird cos adverts and youtube video runs absolutely fine.

I tried disabling Aero but that made no difference. I did notice that while the game (and many other game i played) was running, FF 3.5.6 was running at full pelt (50% CPU, or 100% of a full core). I then ran it in Chrome and the speed was exactly the same.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the laptop as everything ran fine with Vista and i didn't upgrade to 7 but did a custom install so I had to install the Flash Player all over again so that rules out any old Flash Player issues...

What a shame

[Orkahm52]

Did you really think typing it really small would allow you to get away with a comment like that?

Haha, nah. I should have emphasized "general opinion" in that sentence cause I'm not really in a position to comment. I've never had Vista/Win7 and XP on the same machine, so I've got no way of comparing them. I do know that Windows 7 is heaps better than Vista in just about every way.

sorry for the completely off topic post, I'm out of ideas on topic...

[tidenburg]

I've got Vista and Seven on this machine - with XP on another. Windows 7 is by far my favourite. I didn't notice any flash-lag on my end.

[dVyper]

Well I did an update on my display drivers (to user Nvidia ones instead of generic ones) and the problem seems to be gone for the game mentioned by the OP. Dunno why it fixed it tho - Flash doesn't use the GPU...

[Geneve]

Yeah, I should have posted it earlier, I used an older gfx driver and the problem went away.