Netflix Making System Stutter

[Twisted4000]

Recently I got a Netflix account and started playing it on my second monitor as I work. Turns out it makes my entire system stutter every 3-4 seconds or so, and this is especially difficult to work with if you work with art and animation programs while playing your shows on your second monitor. Your computer basically freezes for 0.5 seconds, although Netflix plays nicely without any stuttering.

My NVIDIA and Chrome drivers/versions are up to date. I tried disabling hardware acceleration in Chrome, but with no luck. Any ideas? Thank you! Here are my specs:

OS - Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Motherboard - Asus Maximus VI Hero
Processor - Intel i7 4771 @ 3.5GHz
Memory - 32GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 1600MHz (4x 8GB)
Video - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690
Storage - 1x OCZ 128GB SSD (OS Installed)
1x WD 500GB SSD
2x Seagate SATA 1TB HDD @ 7,200rpm
Power Supply - Corsair CX Series CX750M (750w)
Heatsink - Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO w/ Pull Fan

Main Monitor - Acer GN246HL 1920x1080 @ 144Hz
2nd Monitor - Asus VS228 1920x1080 @ 60Hz

 

[Kenrou]

Try Firefox, even Youtube runs much better on it, though i doubt it's a browser problem ?

 

[Zuzzz]

Try setting both monitors to the same refresh rate when playing youtube videos.

Z

 

[Twisted4000]

Try Firefox, even Youtube runs much better on it, though i doubt it's a browser problem ?

Running Netflix on Firefox solved the problem, thank you.

 

[Kenrou]

Odd, I know Chrome doesn't hardware accelerate YouTube unless you change the stream from HTML5/Flash to h264 (Firefox is brilliant into that regard - also much less dropped frames either way) but I haven't had any issue with Netflix. Flash plugin acting up again?

 

[wingman99]

When I enable hardware acceleration in chrome I see GPU utilization with HTML5/Flash.

 

[Kenrou]

You will see GPU utilisation in general because it uses it to draw/speed up nearly everything you see but it's not the same as for example CPU h264 hardware acceleration. There's a few addons that allow switch between flash/html5 and a h264 stream which runs much smoother on CPUs that support it.

 

[wingman99]

I don't see GPU utilization for HTML5/Flash in Chrome if Hardware acceleration is disabled.

 

[Kenrou]

I don't see any GPU utilization in Youtube unless i have several tabs on and i'm doing something else on the other tabs. Chrome uses the GPU to render the page you're seeing (the layout) but that is not the same as hardware acceleration of videos/streams as i said above. And i don't even know how deep the programming goes, there are addons to switch the stream to HTML5 and h264 which makes me wonder if the default stream isn't just regular flash (which is usually buggy as hell). i'm trying to find documentation about this but it's sketchy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_HTML5_and_Flash

Firefox on the other hand seems to use hardware acceleration for everything, stream and page layout. Everything is buttery smooth and has MUCH less dropped frames if you're doing anything intensive.

 

[wingman99]

This is GPU utilization with Chrome hardware acceleration enabled with YouTube HTML5/Flash.

 

[EarthDog]

I get similar use in Chrome with running YT.

 

[Kenrou]

Mine doesn't (as far as i noticed so far and i have a fair amount of different uploaders subscribed), but according to the link below only some videos/streams use HTML5. Maybe mine are simply older or prefer to use h264 ?

https://www.youtube.com/html5

I found a few google hits that complain about Netflix (and Youtube) freezing same as OP though, ways to deal with it is disable hardware acceleration/Avira/Avast/Adobe Reader DC (if you have it) ?

https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/9o43yb

https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/ad4y5y

https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comments/ach4di

 

[wingman99]

I also have Chrome hardware acceleration with Flash video GPU utilization.