While watching a live stream of Dota2, I noticed my CPU utilization on Firefox (Fx) is going 50%-60% after a minute of watching the stream. I did some comparison against Chrome and Brave and both were using less than 3%.
The live stream website of Steam TV uses Akamai's HTTP Live Streaming, which according to Akamai, uses H264 video codec and AAC audio codec. Specifically:
I did the same comparison against YouTube & Vimeo, and all browsers had very low CPU utilization.
GPU: nVidia GTX 1080
OS: Windows 10 Pro - Build 17134
CPU utilization: 60.9%
GPU utilization: 5.4%
Memory utilization: 788 MB
Browser version: 61.0.2
Note: There's only one tab open, but you see 6 processes launched. This is probably using multiple processes for video or other content the site has loaded.
I have disabled Ghostery addon intentionally to make sure the spike in CPU wasn't caused due to blocked scripts, ads or anything else.
Firefox GPU options: I checked the "Performance" under General options and when unchecking the Optimum check mark, it does show that it uses hardware acceleration when available.
CPU utilization: 1.9%
GPU utilization: 12.3%
Memory utilization: 634 MB
Browser version: 0.23.79
Browser left to its default settings.
CPU utilization: 1.4%
GPU utilization: 3.7%
Memory utilization: 271 MB
Browser version: 68.0.3440.106
Browser left to its default settings.
Oddly enough, it's using the least GPU, but still manages to keep CPU utilization low.
Update 1: Aug 26th, 2018 - 19:17. Added system info and browsers' version.
The live stream website of Steam TV uses Akamai's HTTP Live Streaming, which according to Akamai, uses H264 video codec and AAC audio codec. Specifically:
Video: H.264 Baseline Profile Level 3.0, Main Profile Level 3.1, High Profile Level 4.1, and MPEG-4 Simple ProfileIn all cases below, there's only one private/incognito tab open, each browser was launched without the other loading the same site, and left to stream for 2 minutes minimum.
Audio: HE-AAC or AAC-LC up to 48 kHz
I did the same comparison against YouTube & Vimeo, and all browsers had very low CPU utilization.
Computer Specs
CPU: i7-6700kGPU: nVidia GTX 1080
OS: Windows 10 Pro - Build 17134
Firefox Browser
GPU utilization: 5.4%
Memory utilization: 788 MB
Browser version: 61.0.2
Note: There's only one tab open, but you see 6 processes launched. This is probably using multiple processes for video or other content the site has loaded.
I have disabled Ghostery addon intentionally to make sure the spike in CPU wasn't caused due to blocked scripts, ads or anything else.
Firefox GPU options: I checked the "Performance" under General options and when unchecking the Optimum check mark, it does show that it uses hardware acceleration when available.
GPU Options
H264 Options
Brave Browser
GPU utilization: 12.3%
Memory utilization: 634 MB
Browser version: 0.23.79
Browser left to its default settings.
Chrome Browser
GPU utilization: 3.7%
Memory utilization: 271 MB
Browser version: 68.0.3440.106
Browser left to its default settings.
Oddly enough, it's using the least GPU, but still manages to keep CPU utilization low.
Summary
I still don't know what's the cause. Be mindful of what you use and your resources, as more CPU utilization can quickly eat your device's battery (laptop).Update 1: Aug 26th, 2018 - 19:17. Added system info and browsers' version.
