Microsoft Silverlight?

You should turn your color down to 256 colors also

I don't know if there are any widely available lists of sites that use Silverlight or an easy way to tell if a site is using it. I know NBC used Silverlight on its website during the Olympics.

It may be a moot point, since according to this artlcle, Microsoft is de-emphasizing Silverlight in favor of HTML5.

http://www.windowsitpro.com/article...Embraces-HTML-5-Deemphasizes-Silverlight.aspx

That said, Silverlight doesn't seem to be very resource intensive from my anecdotal experience. I did notice that Microsoft claims a 1.83GHz Core Duo or better is required for Mac OS X, even though a 450MHz Pentium III supposedly works on Windows. I suspect it's because Intel Macs never shipped with anything slower than a 1.83GHz Core Duo (even a 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo should handily outperform it).

http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/faq/#sys-req

i dont know that flash is a battery eater. sounds like propaganda to me.

i think you missed the point mike was making. video inherently draws more power. flash video isnt going to kill the battery any more than showing a tv show on itunes. if you go to 256 color mode you wont even be able to display most videos so youll be safe.

coochiekuta said:

i dont know that flash is a battery eater. sounds like propaganda to me.

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I think Flash on OS X uses an inordinate amount of CPU compared to Flash on Windows 7. Flash tends to crash a lot on OS X while I rarely if ever see it crash on Windows. I think it is just written very poorly for OS X.

coochiekuta said:

i dont know that flash is a battery eater. sounds like propaganda to me.

i think you missed the point mike was making. video inherently draws more power. flash video isnt going to kill the battery any more than showing a tv show on itunes. if you go to 256 color mode you wont even be able to display most videos so youll be safe.

Click to expand...

Download iStat menus and see for yourself. Compare it to HTML5/Quicktime videos that use hardware decoding. My Macpro only uses 1% of the cpu with HTML5 whereas Flash video takes 15-20% with the lastest plugin.

Also I came across a flash ad at Macrumors' front page where top banner ad and the side ad where displaying an intensive rain dance and my 8-core Macpro CPU usage shotup to 400%. I was like WTF?

I wouldn't dare to run flash on my MBA. Without Youtube5 safari extension, youtube's flash player takes around 50% both of the dual-cores.

coochiekuta said:

i dont know that flash is a battery eater. sounds like propaganda to me.

i think you missed the point mike was making. video inherently draws more power. flash video isnt going to kill the battery any more than showing a tv show on itunes. if you go to 256 color mode you wont even be able to display most videos so youll be safe.

Click to expand...

Flash IS a battery eater. No question about that. Activity Monitor is your friend.

KPOM said:

I think Flash on OS X uses an inordinate amount of CPU compared to Flash on Windows 7. Flash tends to crash a lot on OS X while I rarely if ever see it crash on Windows. I think it is just written very poorly for OS X.

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this is true. it is hard to write for a platform that works against you.

jeznav said:

Download iStat menus and see for yourself. Compare it to HTML5/Quicktime videos that use hardware decoding. My Macpro only uses 1% of the cpu with HTML5 whereas Flash video takes 15-20% with the lastest plugin.

Also I came across a flash ad at Macrumors' front page where top banner ad and the side ad where displaying an intensive rain dance and my 8-core Macpro CPU usage shotup to 400%. I was like WTF?

I wouldn't dare to run flash on my MBA. Without Youtube5 safari extension, youtube's flash player takes around 50% both of the dual-cores.

Click to expand...

did it stay at 400%? even so comparison must be made when all things are equal. a site that is written both in htlm5 and with a flash version is ideal.

coochiekuta said:

this is true. it is hard to write for a platform that works against you.

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Alternatively, it is hard to work for a software package that has long since neglected your platform.

coochiekuta said:

did it stay at 400%? even so comparison must be made when all things are equal. a site that is written both in htlm5 and with a flash version is ideal.

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It hovered around that amount and caused the webpage to lag when you scroll. Like I said the ad was animation intensive like meteor showers falling. I'm going to post a screenshot of CPU activity when I find it. Meanwhile others in the forums are talking about it too: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/453962/

T4R06 said:

gents - noob q's

we all know flash is a battery eater so to prevent this is install click to flash then it will indicate every pages that runs flash has this word "flash" on webpage which is good thing.

now, i am a netflix subscriber and to watch movies you have to install microsoft silverlight..

i dont have any choice to install it. if i open a webpage for example cnn.com yahoo.com etc.. how can i determine that those sites are using silverlight?

i believe silverlight will cause battery consumption like flash right?

thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

To clear up a misconception, just having the Flash plugin installed does not consume your battery. Even loading a simple flash page does not do anything to your battery. Silverlight isn't really used in site design so the chances that you encounter a regular site with common interactivity running Silverlight are low. In your usage you are only going to be using Silverlight for Netflix and viewing any kind of video will tax your computer and therefore your battery. Otherwise you should be fine. AFAIK Silverlight always has the same kind of circular "now loading" animation as you see on Netflix.

Bernard SG said:

Flash IS a battery eater. No question about that. Activity Monitor is your friend.

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No. Flash is not a battery eater, but flash-heavy sites and flash video are.

darngooddesign said:

No. Flash is not a battery eater, but flash-heavy sites and flash video are.

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So you're saying flash is not a battery eater... as long as you don't use it.
Ok, that clear it up.

dmelgar said:

So you're saying flash is not a battery eater... as long as you don't use it.
Ok, that clear it up.

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Just like HTML5 videos eat your battery and a regular html page doesn't.

Regular flash sites like most restaurants use, for example, do not eat your battery.