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Hayama4
Participating Frequently
January 6, 2011
Question

Slow facebook games, hot computer - what can I do?

  • January 6, 2011
  • 3 replies
  • 26004 views

Hello,

I have a Toshiba Satellite L555D with AMD Turion dual core 2.2GHz (per core) and 4GB ram.  I also have an ATI Radeon 3100 graphics card (dedicated).

I have Windows Vista 64 home edition and I run both IE and Firefox, but I gave up on using IE for facebook.

My problem is, despite the fact that my computer can run lab computations fine, PC games fine, DVD's fine, etc etc it simply cannot handle Facebook flash games.  CPU usage for the flash container goes up to an average of 55% and my CPU heats up, not into the red zone, but to the point where I am concerned about it.  Watching youtube videos only uses about 20% of my CPU and causes less heat.

I play Happy Aquarium and Happy Pets and I have tried everything I can think of to bring it up to a reasonable speed.  I have tried:

- Playing the games at the lowest graphics settings

- Turning hardware acceleration on/off

- Checking for graphics card driver updates (as far as I can tell there aren't any)

- Clearing caches and temporary files

- Giving the programs more Flash memory (they actually use very little, just to remember settings)

- Uninstalling/Reinstalling Flash

- Uninstalling Shockwave

Any other ideas?  Any plans to fix these kinds of issues for the next version?  I've googled around and I am certainly not the only one with this issue.

Also, how does the hardware acceleration work?  Is the graphics card functionality something the game developer needs to do?

Thank you.

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    3 replies

    H
    Hayama4Author
    Participating Frequently
    January 16, 2011

    Thanks for the replies guys.

    1 - My laptop is on a hard wooden surface, elevated by a soft drink bottle cap on each of the four corners, giving it about a centimeter of airflow.  The room is about 70 degrees.

    2 - I have delved deeper into the graphics card driver issue.  Apparelty ATI has updated it a few times, but their driver install program is incompatible with Toshiba.  Toshiba has released the new drivers, but only for Windows 7.  I was supposed to update to Windows 7 but I want to do a clean install and I don't want to mess with that right now.

    3 - My flash is up to date.  I check that a lot.

    4 - My guess is that these games do not have up to date flash or that they are poorly programmed in some way.  They play perfecly fine on the super-fancy mac pro at work.  Also, the games worked fine when I first played them.  Like when I only had one aquarium tank with just a few fish.  Now that I have 8 tanks and 200 some fish it is sloooooooow.  But really, it still should be less cpu intensive than a pc game that has much better graphics and more stuff going on.  Also, I can play flash games at www.orisinal.com and they only use like 20-30% of my cpu.

    Are these games just doomed?

    EDIT: some things I forgot

    The Toshiba PC Health monitor shows that my fan is usually working at like 50% if I'm doing browsing, etc.  When I play on facebook it is up to 90%.  I've never checked it after my computer has been sitting with nothing running.

    The facebook games will not tell me what flash they use.  They pretty much ignore me when I send a ticket describing my problem, just telling me to clean the cache and stuff, which I have tried.

    Usually when I play these games I have the facebook main page tab open also, and often I have word documents and stuff.  But I have tested playing JUST the game and the problem is the same.

    A
    Anonymous
    January 16, 2011

    Hi, thanks for more info. I think you are correct on #4 that you posted. I have dealt with so many users about Facebook and especially the games. Their responses are mostly canned answers and won't give any info. I don't know if any of the games you play have any system requirements, but if you see anything like, "you must have at least Flash Player version 8", LOL, which believe it or not those are out there.

    You could try one of their other games just to test. Games that are very popular have so much traffic and I don't think their servers can keep up.

    I thot you have an ATI/Radeon but you say their driver program is incompatible? You shouldn't have to have Win7 in order for the ATI driver to perform! I have a site that is about the ATI/Radeon vs if you want it. A lot of good info from users.

    Well, if you have the same issue with only one window open, considering your system, then that tells you where the problem is. Not with you, that's for sure.

    Now why the Mac doesn't have a problem, I don't know.

    Do you have any addons in the browser that may be conflicting? Any other websites causing an issue?

    Thanks,

    eidnolb

    H
    Hayama4Author
    Participating Frequently
    January 16, 2011

    The thing with the ATI drivers is this:

    I have driver version 8.5ish and it works perfectly fine for most things on my computer, like PC games.

    However, ATI updated the driver for my graphics processor to version 10ish.

    My thought is that perhaps this new updated driver works better with flash.

    I went to the ATI website and downloaded the new driver.  The program to install the driver started up, began to install, and then stoped with the message that I need to contact my hardware manufacturer because the install program is not compatible.

    According to the internet, ATI's driver installation program doesn't work with my Toshiba laptop and I must get the driver update from Toshiba.

    Toshiba has the drivers for download.

    For Windows Vista they have the same that I have, 8.5ish.

    For Windows 7 they have updated to version 10ish.

    I do everything I can to get rid of ad-ons... but I do have one, and ad-on from the game itself.  It's a little bar on the top of the page that reminds you to feed your fish and stuff.  I wonder if that might be the culprit.  I'll try getting rid of that.

    However, if it isn't that ad-on I think it is either that I can't update my driver or that the game itself is flawed.

    A
    Anonymous
    January 16, 2011

    Hi, You didn't say what version of Flash Player is Installed, but that may have something to do with the problem. Some of the

    games on Facebook may not support the latest version of FP. As Steve said, with your system, you shouldn't be having that

    problem. I wouldn't be too quick to think it is something related to your computer. You may want to find out from the website/game if they support FP vs 10.1.102.64(the latest)

    If you have closed all browser windows except the one for the Facebook game and checked in Task Manager, then clearly it's the website/game.

    Here is a link for info on the hardware acceleration:

    http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/help01.html

    This link has more info and driver info also:

    http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/systemreqs/index.html

    You can check your ATI Driver here:

    http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx

    Thanks,

    eidnolb

    A
    Anonymous
    January 15, 2011

    A computer with those kind of specs really shouldn't be heating up over a flash game. Are you using it on your lap or somewhere that might be blocking vents? Or maybe one of your fans has died.

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