Flash hogging CPU

[xtal256]

I often play flash games on the internet and i frequently find that after 10-15min of playing the CPU usage jumps from ~50% to 100%. I was just playing Motherload and, as usual, it was fine for the first 10min but then it jumps to 100% CPU until i switch to another application window which is maximised and the CPU drops to 5-10%, i assume because it isn't rendering the game (but it's still running in the background). Then a few minutes after i switch back it happens again, and occurs more and more frequently. Here is a screenshot of the CPU usage:

I have drawn a red line indicating the average CPU usage when the game is running, the jump to 100%, down to ~5% when the game goes to the background, and finally back up to normal game CPU usage.

Memory does not seem to increase so it's not a memory leak, and it happens when i run games in Firefox or Opera. I just tried it in IE7 and it seemed to be ok, but i never use IE. The same thing happens with all flash games so it's probably a Flash's fault not the game programmer's.

Does anyone else have this problem? And can it be fixed (e.g. by downloading the latest flash version) or is it just that my computer is slow. I have a laptop, Intel Pentium M 1.73GHz, 1.5Gb RAM.

[Abel.]

I often play flash games on the internet and i frequently find that after 10-15min of playing the CPU usage jumps from ~50% to 100%. I was just playing Motherload and, as usual, it was fine for the first 10min but then it jumps to 100% CPU until i switch to another application window which is maximised and the CPU drops to 5-10%, i assume because it isn't rendering the game (but it's still running in the background). Then a few minutes after i switch back it happens again, and occurs more and more frequently. Here is a screenshot of the CPU usage:

I have drawn a red line indicating the average CPU usage when the game is running, the jump to 100%, down to ~5% when the game goes to the background, and finally back up to normal game CPU usage.

Memory does not seem to increase so it's not a memory leak, and it happens when i run games in Firefox or Opera. I just tried it in IE7 and it seemed to be ok, but i never use IE. The same thing happens with all flash games so it's probably a Flash's fault not the game programmer's.

Does anyone else have this problem? And can it be fixed (e.g. by downloading the latest flash version) or is it just that my computer is slow. I have a laptop, Intel Pentium M 1.73GHz, 1.5Gb RAM.

Hmm, very strange indeed. Well, IE (sh*t, I know) is interegated to Windows, so maybe it's the fault of Firefox and/or Opera.

Firefox uses a bit more CPU and Ram than IE, but uses it in a more efficient way, also increasing speed. Try updating

Firefox. and try updating your flash player.

[Reincarnated]

Yeah, I get this problem as well (in firefox and IE). Even when I went to that link, my CPU jumped to 45-50% because of the ad.

[xtal256]

I am playing it now in IE and i just started getting the problem there too. It took a little longer than FF and Opera but it still happened. I think because Flash doesn't handle memory or CPU very well. I have never used Flash before but if it has a garbage collector (code that handles memory allocation/de-allocation for those who don't know) then that might be the problem.