Problems Viewing Flash in Safari

Question

I posted this over three days ago, got 49 views, and exactly zero replies!
So I am reposting in high hopes that someone can suggest something, anything that I can try.
Thanks for viewing anyway...
+I am trying to troubleshoot for my sister who has an iMac G4 800mhz; 768mb RAM; 64mb VRAM; running 10.4.10+
+Quicktime trailers play fine for her in Safari, (or on her desktop), but with Flash content, like at Youtube, or Comedy Central, the video playback stutters badly. I define stutter, as unwatchable jumpy video, and audio that plays back better than the video, but also drops out occasionally.+
+I've upgraded her to the the latest version of Flash, and that did nothing. I also downloaded Firefox, just to check another browser, and Flash content stutters there to.+
+My next idea, as a test, was to download a flash file to her desktop, and see if it stutters there without using Safari, and it's flash plugin, as the player.+
+So I downloaded a flash file from youtube, (by doubleclicking it in the activity window, which automatically downloads a file called, "get video," with no file extension, and a generic icon.)+
+I then added a .flv on the end of the file name, and the icon turned into a flash icon.+
+Now, I want to note, on my computers, when I add a .flv on the end of the name of one of these files I've downloaded from Youtube, when I highlight it in a finder window under column view, I see a preview of the movie, which I can play there. I can also ctrl click, and choose, open with other, (because flash player will not open an flv file), and choose Quicktime as the app, it opens and plays.+
+On her computer, when I highlight the same file in column view in her finder window, there is no preview visible, just a large flash icon, and the file will not open with her Quicktime app either.+
+Now, I could care less whether she can play the darn things on her desktop, though I am perplexed that I cannot. (I was just troubleshooting.) Btw, we are both using the same versions of OSX 10.4.10; Safari 2.0.4; Quicktime 7.2; and Flashplayer 9.0+
+All I want is for her to be able to play Flash content on Safari without the stutter.+
+Any suggestions?+

Answer 1

The most important thing: don't upgrade your OS or browser now.
Next, all we need to know is the speed of her internet connection, the amount of space left on her hard drive, the number of cute little widgets she has on her machine, and how long & often 10.4 has been used. These I explain below (except the internet speed, which just requires a larger buffer).
First, however, try adjusting the Power Management from 'Better Energy Savings' to 'Better Performance'. Flash runs fine on an iBook G3 whose disk is virtually filled (for momentary storage) connected to a 100 Mbps DSL, so something big (but likely easily fixed) is wrong.
On the G3 machine, Flash cinema (as opposed to cartoons, in SWF files) will stutter hopelessly if the Energy Setting is 'Better Energy Setting' and run adequately if set for 'Better Performance'. This is when viewing previews with Safari 2 of NetFlix movies.
If you Ctrl-Click the screen, a little menu offers 'Settings'. Clicking the folder, I choose only 100 Mb of cache. You can offer Flash as much as it wants.
The real problem, I'm guessing, is that MacOSX 10.4 is not paging (as it should), but swapping in desperation. This OS uses demand paging: the real memory is pretty much filled with processes (programs in memory) you either need or want to run, and the OS starts exchanging those pages (4096 bytes?) from the hard disk needed to run what is now scheduled, replacing part of the memory of a process not currently needed to run. This is fast, and the processors have hardware designed to page.
Problems arise when (1) you have many little widgets active (for, though they don't run, they take up real memory and can significantly reduce your 768 MB of RAM; and (2) your processor is stressed. This you can check by running 'Activity Monitor'. When real memory is mostly filled most of the time, when your hard disk's freespace is fragmented so the pages must be stretched out all over your disk; or the number of processes become too great: your computer swaps to speed the computer.
Swapping moves essentially the entire process to your hard disk, so whole processes are stored in real memory. These can be large. If you need just several large ones, they must play musical chairs: some pause when swapped to the hard disk, and others run fast. Power Management needed to cool the G4 is sophisticated, and takes memory. Safari 2 takes great memory. If fact, Safari 2 and a few widget will fill about 512 MB of RAM chips.
Now, if your swapping several processes that the scheduler things are really, really needed to keep your computer running, Flash Player will be swapped out, empying its cache. When it comes back, moments later, you have lost that period of time and it stutters.
I should start 'Activity Monitor' running, see what resources you are short on, then 'turn off' the Power Management processes and see if things improve. If you are not short of any resources, I should suspect your freespace is fragmented. This is not reported by any utility I'm aware of, but it will cause your Mac to ultimately swap rather than page.
This is because 10.4 had its file system 'augmented': every 20 MB or less in size is written defragmented. This is done by searching out the free space and diminishing it. This was (in my opinion) a good idea only if people now & then defragment their disks with a file-by-file backup & restore, or a disk defragmenter. Otherwise, your computer will eventually stop paging & start swapping, with a great change to your 'user experience', and you won't know why.
I should guess that this iMac G4 has run 10.4 quite a while without either. Is this true? Version 10.4 was installed on this iBook G3 when it first came out, and months ago I received the message: 'Not enough free space for 5 MB swapfile', when the OS reported 7 GB free on the hard disk!
Write back.
Best of luck,
Bruce