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Deleted's avatar
Deleted
Apr 19, 2019

Youtube and VP9 CPU decoder

Playing youtube videos by default will use VP9 video decoder, however most computers do not have hardware support for VP9, so CPU decoding is used instead. This leads to high CPU/RAM usage, low batte...
Elliot Kirk's avatar
Elliot Kirk
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft

We are going to put this feature request on our backlog to consider as we go forward.  Our development team consider this a fairly complex issue, and want to ensure that if hardware offloading is unavailable that we shouldn't disable VP9 decoding as it risks the significant degradation of the YouTube 4K experience.  For those following, this seems like an optimization for savvy users, how would you want it surfaced?  Would you want a setting that you could control or a flag that you can enable / disable?  We are a little worried that too many people who didn't understand might find it and cause their browsing experience harm.  Please let us know below - Elliot

ms4132's avatar
ms4132
Steel Contributor
Aug 29, 2019

Elliot Kirk 

With regards to your question, "Would you want a setting that you could control or a flag that you can enable / disable? We are a little worried that too many people who didn't understand might find it and cause their browsing experience harm."

In my view flags are describe as "Experiments" at the top of the edge://flags page. To me this implies that they may have bugs or may even be removed in the future.

 

Once something becomes a feature, it seems to me that the feature needs a setting instead of a flag. If the concern is that some users might encounter issues, then the setting could be moved behind an Advanced Settings selection. This seems to be an approach that is used in Windows and Edge Legacy.

  • shadmansakib's avatar
    shadmansakib
    Copper Contributor
    Jan 20, 2020

    Hello, Sorry to bump an old issue.

    I have been using internet explorer and then edge for mostly video playback. Both of them played youtube video very fine. However, the new edge is using a lot of cpu usage on a core-i5 6200u. Yes the chrome also use similar cpu usage. Let me give a simple scenario for a 1080p 60fps youtube video.

    Edge (1-3%)

    Chome (15-18%)

    Edge New (20-22%)

    Firefox (20-25%)

    ..Core-i56200u, 8GB Ram, Windows 10 1903.

     

    I sure hope that edge will continue to add new features and provide the fallback video codec feature in settings like the old one. 

    .

     

    • nhthangdct's avatar
      nhthangdct
      Copper Contributor
      Jun 15, 2021

      Hi, I'm facing the exact same problem to yours.
      My specs: i5-6300u, 8gb of ram, no dedicated graphic card, windows 10.
      When i play 1080p60 youtube video on chrome, my total cpu usage is around 50-60%. That makes my laptop's temp uneccessarily increasing.
      But I see that in the same scenario your chrome cpu usagei is just 15-18%, is that correct?

      • shadmansakib's avatar
        shadmansakib
        Copper Contributor
        Aug 11, 2021
        Microsoft never added support for h264 fallback like the old one. However, you can use the enhanced-h264ify plugin (Chrome, Edge, Firefox) to resolve the issue. Back to cpu usage of 2-3% on most of the videos.
        Yes, with 6200u and NVidia 940mx I got 15-20% CPU usage. I think e-gpu is irrelevant here as it doesn't kick in for browsers.
        The newer cpu has vp9 decoder and wont have this issue though.

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