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Any way to disable the animated Flash banner?

W

WAJetboating

Member
That animated Flash banner at the top of every page (the one with the water passing behind the boat) is a real CPU hog. Sitting here on a 2.6GHz machine, one window open (to this forum), not typing, the web browser is hovering around 50% utilization (!!!).

Having multiple pages of this site open simultaneously is almost useless because the CPU quickly pegs at 100%.

Accessing this site on a netbook is agonizingly slow due to the active graphics on those slow Atom processors.

This behavior is the same on multiple machines, in multiple locations, using multiple web browsers (IE and Firefox). The constant is the website.

No other site consumes this much CPU nor behaves in this fashion.

Do we have, or could we add, a user-selectable feature to disable this graphic? Having it as the default is fine, but once you're a member it would be great if you could choose to trade performance for appearance.

Thanks!
 
I haven't experienced any issues with system over usage or freezing when running the site in MSIE, FF or Chrome. I have also accessed the site from multiple computers. Your the first to suggest any problem like this since adding the flash banner 6 months back.

That being said I have set up an alternative style for members who wish to hide the flash banner.

Access the site via this link: http://seadooforum.com/index.php?styleid=7 and your session will be with a static banner. That goes for anyone who is interested.
 
hfgreg said:
I haven't experienced any issues with system over usage or freezing when running the site in MSIE, FF or Chrome. I have also accessed the site from multiple computers. Your the first to suggest any problem like this since adding the flash banner 6 months back.
Click to expand...

As an Engineer, I definitely understand the difficulty of "fixing" problems that only one person reports <grin>. However, I can assure you this is real - at least for me on the five machines, four backbones, and two browsers I've tested so far.

Access the site via this link: http://seadooforum.com/index.php?styleid=7 and your session will be with a static banner. That goes for anyone who is interested.
Click to expand...

Just tried it, and I still have the same animated banner. I can't see any difference. And I have confirmed that the address line does match the one you provided, including what I suspect is the important "styleid=7" attribute. Weird....

Thanks for trying, I do appreciate it.
 
At the bottom left of the forum there is a drop down box. Select SDF Old and you should see the static page. :cheers:
 
AHHHHHHHHhhhhh, much better...

hfgreg said:
At the bottom left of the forum there is a drop down box. Select SDF Old and you should see the static page. :cheers:
Click to expand...

Yep, that works. And my CPU utilization dropped to single digits.

Plus, the banner now has a nice photo of MY boat!

Thank you very much!
 
Flash...?

hfgreg said:
I haven't experienced any issues with system over usage or freezing when running the site in MSIE, FF or Chrome. I have also accessed the site from multiple computers. Your the first to suggest any problem like this since adding the flash banner 6 months back.

That being said I have set up an alternative style for members who wish to hide the flash banner.

Access the site via this link: http://seadooforum.com/index.php?styleid=7 and your session will be with a static banner. That goes for anyone who is interested.
Click to expand...

This is the first time I've seen or heard this to be a problem.

I use 3 and sometimes, 4 computers to work the forum. I've built my main computer which is XFX everything. It uses the 3.0 core to quad, 750i mobo and 8 gigs of ram, along with twin XFX vid cards and running 4 screens to be able to multi-task while working. My gadget for watching processor speed and ram on this machine barely moves. It's understandable, since the machine is so powerful, benchmarks from Windows is a 5.9, with my highest in processor being somewhere near 7. I use 3D Futuremark too, and have high marks.

But, I also use my laptop to do my forum work, with a secondary monitor extended by the VGA port. It's a 1/4 the power of this one. It doesn't seem to have any hiccups in running the flash.

Just good that Greg left the possibility that you can run the forum in any format that you like.

I will note the ability to change the flash on the banner. I'd make it a sticky if there were more people with the problem but like Greg said, since it's been running, this is the first complaint I"ve heard about it being a hog over resources. I do know, when I'm working, something moving in sight of my pre-referral vision, it can be annoying at times. But, even on my XP, which is 5 years old, I have no problems using the site....
 
Thanks. It's not a visual distraction, just a resource one.

What's funny about it is that I see it on four separate machines of wildly varying vintage. My work machine is a 2.8GHz single core; my home machine is a 2.4GHz single core; my wife's laptop is a Dell 1525 (can't remember what CPU); and my laptop is a Core 2 Duo that's not even six months old. All of them have at least 4GB of memory. Two are running XP, one is running Win7 x86, and one is running Win7 x64. Some run IE, some run FireFox. And the relationship of hardware to operating system to web browser is nicely mixed up so there's no obvious pattern there.

The only commonality I've been able to think of is that, on all of these machines, I've gone to Adobe's site and manually downloaded the plugins for Flash and Shockwave. I don't depend upon the ones that "natively" come on the machines or with the browsers. I presumed this would yield the best performance, but since it's the one thing they all share and Flash is involved....

Anyway, since going to the static banner all is well and CPU utilization on all machines has plummeted to near zero. I'm calling that a win!

Thanks!
 
Interesting you mention this. I never noticed, but this one window IS sucking 26% of my cpu...

EDIT--I just flipped over to my Maverick forum, firefox dropped to 1%, then back here and hovering at 24-27. WOW!
 
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scooper77515 said:
Interesting you mention this. I never noticed, but this one window IS sucking 26% of my cpu...

EDIT--I just flipped over to my Maverick forum, firefox dropped to 1%, then back here and hovering at 24-27. WOW!
Click to expand...

Ahhhhh... it feels so good to be exonerated! [grin]

Thanks for chiming in. Writing decades worth of Assembly language firmware has made me extremely protective of my CPU cycles! I wonder what our systems have in common that we are seeing it, while others do not. Thankfully, there's a solution available in the static banner option.
 
Maybe flash versions? I only see 2-3% increase when it is displayed. At least there is an out :)
 
Getting these results on my homemade P4-3.0ghz, 32-bit XP, 4 G ram. Using Firefox 3.6. Flash 10.0.45.2.

Haven't tried it on my quad-core win7 laptop.
 
As noted above:

The only commonality I've been able to think of is that, on all of these machines, I've gone to Adobe's site and manually downloaded the plugins for Flash and Shockwave. I don't depend upon the ones that "natively" come on the machines or with the browsers. I presumed this would yield the best performance, but since it's the one thing they all share and Flash is involved....
Click to expand...

Thus I'm running whatever Adobe is making available as the latest and greatest on their site. Wouldn't be the first time that an "upgrade" proved slower than the previous version (can you say "Microsoft Windows"? [grin]).
 
Win 7?

There is no versions of Flash available for Windows 7, 64 bit. I run the 64 bit Windows 7 and have to use my 32 bit browser for anything Flash. I hope they do eventually update and make the app available in 64, since it's so much faster.

As for percent usage, from your descriptions, your computers are pretty much outdated. The Core to Quads are almost outdated themselves. The newer i3, 5's and 7s are the newest and fastest CPU's on the market. They are much quicker because they are not bottle-necked by the FSB. But, to put that into perspective, you can buy a Core 2 Quad that is faster than the newer i7 if you have the larger based Quad compared to the lower based i7.

I'd love to be running the i7 extreme 3.3, but for almost a thousand bucks, I'll have to wait till it drops just a little.

I'm not saying the banner doesn't use more power, I'm sure it does. Anytime you use some kind of moving graphic or any other app that makes the screen blink, move or pop-up an image, your going to use more power. Even using the emoticons will use more power.

If your computer can play a video game that is 5 years old, you shouldn't really have that much difficulty in running the sites flash banner. The power usage for the app is actually lower than playing a game of Tetris while multi-tasking the forum......

I think in all the time I've been a mod, there really hasn't been any of the computer questions asked. I like to tinker with things and when computers came out, I found myself asking that same question I asked about an engine, "how does this thing work". That was all it took, next thing I knew, I was building my own and helping others.

Attached is a pix of my work station I use for mostly the forum. The reason is simple, "multi-tasking". I can play a game, work the forum, write my mistress email (LOL, J/K).......... nah, really .. I have the forum's main page, the parts page, google and a second main page that I use to answer posts. The first mainpage is what I use to get hyper links from......
 

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Ps3?...

No, sure don't. But, I do still have my first Atari 2600 Game system I bought back in the early 80's. Does that count? Want to borrow my Space Invaders game..........:rofl:
 
For a second, i thought my pc went "foreign" on me. Have NO IDEA..WHAT i read, but flipped to "old skool", and all i can say..yeah buddy...WAY FASTER.
 
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