Videos on Youtube and Vlc seem choppy

[andialb]

Hello everyone. I installed Linux Mint Cinnamon yesterday on my laptop (Windows before that). Everything went well. I am an IT student so I found it generally easy to use. But coming from Windows, videos on Mozilla (tried Brave too) look choppy ( people look like robots when they move). Something is wrong with the frame rate I guess. I tried those videos on Youtube. Also scrolling on the browser seemed slower too. I have a relatively old laptop Hp G62, Core i3 M350, 8gb ram, 500gb ssd.

Is there anything I can do or have I done anything wrong during installation?

p.s Disabled hardware acceleration but did not notice any difference. When I play offline videos on mpv player they are normal not like Vlc or Yt.

Code: Select all

System:
  Kernel: 5.4.0-121-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.4.0 
  Desktop: Cinnamon 5.2.7 wm: muffin 5.2.1 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 
  Distro: Linux Mint 20.3 Una base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:
andi@andi-HP-G62-Notebook-PC:~$ 
  Type: Laptop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP G62 Notebook PC 
  v: 0594110000252710001020100 serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 10 
  serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 143A v: 60.50 serial: <filter> 
  BIOS: Hewlett-Packard v: F.48 date: 11/09/2011 
CPU:
  Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i3 M 350 bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Nehalem rev: 5 L2 cache: 3072 KiB 
  flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 18133 
  Speed: 1395 MHz min/max: 933/2266 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1253 2: 1167 
  3: 1138 4: 1162 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Core Processor Integrated Graphics vendor: Hewlett-Packard 
  driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 chip ID: 8086:0046 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.13 driver: modesetting 
  unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1366x768~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics (ILK) v: 2.1 Mesa 21.2.6 
  direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 5 Series/3400 Series High Definition Audio 
  vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 
  chip ID: 8086:3b56 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-121-generic 
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL810xE PCI Express Fast Ethernet 
  vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 2000 bus ID: 02:00.0 
  chip ID: 10ec:8136 
  IF: enp2s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Broadcom and subsidiaries BCM4313 802.11bgn Wireless Network 
  Adapter 
  vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: wl v: kernel port: 2000 bus ID: 03:00.0 
  chip ID: 14e4:4727 
  IF: wlp3s0 state: dormant mac: <filter> 
  Device-3: Realtek type: USB driver: rtl8821cu bus ID: 2-1.3:4 
  chip ID: 0bda:c811 serial: <filter> 
  IF: wlx502b73ac2172 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 465.76 GiB used: 14.24 GiB (3.1%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Samsung model: SSD 870 EVO 500GB size: 465.76 GiB 
  speed: 3.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> rev: 1B6Q scheme: MBR 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 456.95 GiB used: 14.24 GiB (3.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 44.0 C mobo: N/A 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
  1: deb http://mint.ipacct.com/packages una main upstream import backport
  2: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal main restricted universe multiverse
  3: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
  4: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports main restricted universe multiverse
  5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ focal-security main restricted universe multiverse
  6: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ focal partner
Info:
  Processes: 195 Uptime: 3h 04m Memory: 7.57 GiB used: 983.8 MiB (12.7%) 
  Init: systemd v: 245 runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 9.4.0 alt: 9 Shell: bash 
  v: 5.0.17 running in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.0.38 

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 (xrandr)
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1366 x 768, maximum 8192 x 8192
LVDS-1 connected primary 1366x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 344mm x 193mm
   1366x768      60.04*+
   1360x768      59.80    59.96  
   1280x720      60.00    59.99    59.86    59.74  
   1024x768      60.04    60.00  
   960x720       60.00  
   928x696       60.05  
   896x672       60.01  
   1024x576      59.95    59.96    59.90    59.82  
   960x600       59.93    60.00  
   960x540       59.96    59.99    59.63    59.82  
   800x600       60.00    60.32    56.25  
   840x525       60.01    59.88  
   864x486       59.92    59.57  
   800x512       60.17  
   700x525       59.98  
   800x450       59.95    59.82  
   640x512       60.02  
   720x450       59.89  
   700x450       59.96    59.88  
   640x480       60.00    59.94  
   720x405       59.51    58.99  
   684x384       59.88    59.85  
   680x384       59.80    59.96  
   640x400       59.88    59.98  
   576x432       60.06  
   640x360       59.86    59.83    59.84    59.32  
   512x384       60.00  
   512x288       60.00    59.92  
   480x270       59.63    59.82  
   400x300       60.32    56.34  
   432x243       59.92    59.57  
   320x240       60.05  
   360x202       59.51    59.13  
   320x180       59.84    59.32  
VGA-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

[gittiest personITW]

Welcome to the forums.

It might be worth your while installing Mint Mate and seeing if you have the same problem. It is worth doing that if you have just installed so can put it down to added experience!
Cinnamon can be a little more resource intensive.
Let us know how that goes.

Just to add that this might save you a few problems later on once you have other software installed and begin using the computer as a workhorse.

[andialb]

Will I miss anything later on if I install it? Mostly I will use this laptop for online/offline video playing, browsing and probably some light photo editing. And of course learning more about Linux.

p.s What can I use instead of Rufus to clean install Linux Mint? As I don't have Windows installed on my home anymore.

[gittiest personITW]

UnetBootin or Ventoy (multiboot) seem to work very well.
I think the standard USB writer that comes installed with Mint should also be ok.

Some of the differences are explained here.
https://linuxnetmag.com/linux-mint-cinnamon-vs-mate/


Get some top tips from this site once you've got an install you want to keep:
https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.com/p/1.html

[andialb]

Installed Mint Mate. Now it is much better. Thank you for the extra tips too.

[gittiest personITW]

Glad it works.

Be a bit careful with Timeshift. It is an excellent system snapshot tool but if it is set to create snapshots onto your main drive/partition, it may cause a problem as might fill your main partition up with snapshots depending on the regularity of the snapshots.
If you have an external drive that you can afford >50GB that you can partition/format with EXT4 that will save a lot of problems if you choose manual snapshot creation.

Good luck.

[andialb]

That's a problem to be honest since my 500gb ssd will not be enough then. I'll probably add an external hdd, since they are not expensive, just for snapshots.

[gittiest personITW]

It is also good practice to put your backups/snapshots onto different drives ....
Lets say your ssd breaks (unlikely, but possible), you can re-install most of your settings by installing Mint on the new drive and running Timeshift to restore a snapshot.
This is also great when you first start 'playing' with things as it is likely that you will appreciate a good solid snapshot to go back to rather than re-installing.

Obviously back up your data separately to at least one, preferably 2 external drives - using something like LuckyBackup and best practice would be to store important stuff on at least 2 drives which you cycle the backups, one of which is stored offsite.
That would be the same whatever OS you use.

Make a new thread if you need help and remember to include your inxi report.
Best of luck .

[Hoser Rob]

While I agree that Cinnamon is a bitb heavy for that machine (evenm with 8G RAM), installing a lighter DE may be a good idea but it's not necessarily going to help with browser videos.

That's an Intel Ironlake series GPU. I used to run Mint on a laptop with it. It only has OpenGL 2.1 and no low power VP9 support. Most YT videos are VP9 nowadays.

You can get Firefox plugins to play web video by sending it to mpv, that's probably the best option IMO for old GPUs. Neither FF nor chrome have very good Linux acclerated video support really.

BTW if you want to clean install the Mate version, which probably would be a good idea, you don't need unetbootin or any others to make the live boot USB stick. Mint already comes with a live USB maker, it works fine.

[andialb]

That's what I am realizing now. While Mint Mate seems faster than Cinnamon, playing videos still has a strange choppy effect (I cannot exactly describe it since English is my second language). It is not so noticeable and I can definitely live with it but in certain cases I do notice.
Btw do other Distros have this problem too with Intel graphics?
I'll try the method you suggested. At least now I know the problem.

[Hoser Rob]

... do other Distros have this problem too with Intel graphics?...

Just with old video cards, all of them. This whole thing about Linux saving old hardware is a bit overstated. Cinnamon is not meant for hardware that came out a dozen years ago.

Intel doesn't do gaming cards but they actually have the best Linux support. I wouldn't touch Nvidia or AMD graphics that old for a Linux box.

BTW all Linux distros are built from the same components basically. The kernel in all of them comes from the Linux Kernel Project, which is a separate entity. Ubuntu rolls their own kernels but I prefer mainline ones, I don't think Ubuntu has the resources to hadle that properly.

So differences between them are not as much as many seem to think. Hardware compatibility differences are really only about the kernel series supported.

[andialb]

Unfortunately I do not have much choice on this. Since I had a live usb with pop os, tried it too. On 720p there is no chopping anymore. Selecting 1080p almost doesn't play the video at all. And performance wise it makes my laptop much slower.