Pi3 internet browsing and Youtube performance

[ghodan]

Can somebody who already has the Pi3 or had the honor to test it tell me if the internet browsing performance and youtube performance is now at a level that we could say its a desktop replacement for people who only browse and watch youtube?

Pi-B+ and Pi2 where not fast enough for those tasks.

( So i mean youtube at 720p or 1080p without stutter on a wired network connection. And with browsing i mean graphical heavy websites)

[stderr]

Can somebody who already has the Pi3 or had the honor to test it tell me if the internet browsing performance and youtube performance is now at a level that we could say its a desktop replacement for people who only browse and watch youtube?

Pi-B+ and Pi2 where not fast enough for those tasks.

( So i mean youtube at 720p or 1080p without stutter on a wired network connection. And with browsing i mean graphical heavy websites)

I do not have a pi3.

The question I could never find an answer to was if full HD broadcast over the air tv in North America out of a Hdhomerun, this is mpeg2, could decode and display properly. People would talk about their European experiences or their experiences with HD off cable but they are not the same thing.

If you are testing 1080p or something like that, if you can download it first, that would help understand where the problem is. I'm recalling though that youtube-dl supposedly is blocked from doing that. On lesser streams, I would often start the youtube-dl on the server and then from the pi come in and start viewing it logged in sshfs. That has worked fine but I've avoided those high resolutions.

[ghodan]

I got my Pi3 today

So i tested Ubuntu Mate with its default browser:
Browsing internet: Not good enough speed.
Youtube default&HTML5: Not good enough

Rasbian:
Epiphany:
Browsing internet: Not good enough speed.
Youtube default&HTML5: 360p is ok, 720p almost ok but feels like its struggling.

Iceweasel:
Browsing internet: Not good enough speed.
Youtube default&HTML5: 360p is ok...

With the current browser software optimization at this moment i can still not recommend friends & fam to use a Pi (in this case Pi3) as a desktop replacement for browsing & youtube.

Of course a Pi3 has 100000000 of other uses then youtube, and i remain a Pi-aholic.

[ghodan]

I installed Chromium Os today for my Pi2 (No Pi3 image on the site).
I did not expect any ultra magical unicorn speedboost but i have to say..... WOW

This is the first time i considered the browingspeed usable.
And youtube worked on fullscreen 360p and 480p without stutter.

http://www.chromiumosforsbc.org/

I am realy looking forward to a Pi3 version.
This Os makes the Pi 2 (and 3) usable for browsing and youtube (google docs also worked ok after it was finish loading/doing stuff for first use)

[lumsdot]

Chromium browser is best for plain browsing on raspbian on the pi
on the pi3 it just about compares to browsing on a normal pc, but youtube is not great.

if you want reliable youtube, then use youtube-dl and download the vid first before watching in omxplayer which is installed by default

You can watch 720p youtube videos or higher with perfect frame rate on the pi, this way

[kusti8]

Chromium browser is best for plain browsing on raspbian on the pi
on the pi3 it just about compares to browsing on a normal pc, but youtube is not great.

if you want reliable youtube, then use youtube-dl and download the vid first before watching in omxplayer which is installed by default

You can watch 720p youtube videos or higher with perfect frame rate on the pi, this way

For the Chromium browser I released RPi-youtube which simplifies the process of using youtube-dl. Simply click an icon and the video will load in OmxplayerGUI. More information on the Chromium install thread.

[Rive]

Chromium browser is best for plain browsing on raspbian on the pi
on the pi3 it just about compares to browsing on a normal pc, but youtube is not great.

if you want reliable youtube, then use youtube-dl and download the vid first before watching in omxplayer which is installed by default

You can watch 720p youtube videos or higher with perfect frame rate on the pi, this way

I use the chromium browser exclusively on my pi3.

I use chromium (without the rpi-youtube plugin), and youtube is fine for me in normal and theatre mode. 480p on the youtube html5 settings.

Demonstration of Youtube on Chromium (Pi3 Raspbian Jessie OS):
https://youtu.be/EvDg2yiyd1w

[Crumbs]

Re. "My YouTube is fine at 480p resolution", I have to say that really doesn't cut the mustard at all. When I bought the Pi 3, I saw "quad core 1.2GHz" and thought "no probs - this will smash it!". But boy, the chrome browser runs about as fast as a sloth... and it crashes hard when you put it full-screen.. I tried updating chrome, but it crashed on install lol.. Hate to say it but it looks like there's a bit of work to do before Apple needs to start worrying.

[Crumbs]

The Pi 3 crashes every time when putting YouTube full screen. Does anyone know why? Or what to do when it crashes and restarts crashes restarts crashes restarts like 6 times in a row. This is out of the box with Raspbian Noobs -I haven't installed anything else or changed any of the settings.

[gkreidl]

The Pi 3 crashes every time when putting YouTube full screen. Does anyone know why? Or what to do when it crashes and restarts crashes restarts crashes restarts like 6 times in a row. This is out of the box with Raspbian Noobs -I haven't installed anything else or changed any of the settings.

It shouldn't crash, but you should be aware that this cannot work. Although Youtube video decoding is hardware accelerated, copying the decoded video back to the frame buffer is costly and only works for smaller screen areas, but never full screen.
To watch youtube (or other web) video full screen you have to use solutions based on omxplayer.

[Crumbs]

Hmm, well it seems pretty weak, Facebook also crashes (I admit I was zoomed in 150% - is zooming also computationally expensive? I would have thought playing a video full screen would be less expensive than playing it in a window. Why does playing a video full screen require extra copying to the frame buffer?

[Gavinmc42]

4.4.38 seems quite reliable, the kid spent hours watching youtube on a 3.
Then I updated to 4.9 kernel before xmas and Chromium kept breaking "aw snap...".
Updated and upgraded a few times since and slight improvement?

[fruitoftheloom]

Hmm, well it seems pretty weak, Facebook also crashes (I admit I was zoomed in 150% - is zooming also computationally expensive? I would have thought playing a video full screen would be less expensive than playing it in a window. Why does playing a video full screen require extra copying to the frame buffer?

First and foremost you appended to an out-of-date post, it makes it easier if you had started a new post for a relevant response.

Presuming you are running Raspbian Jessie with Pixel Desktop it includes chromium-browser v51 (there is no update as yet to a newer version, this version is compiled for Raspbian Jessie):

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/introducing-pixel


Regards YouTube and similar sites use kweb:

viewtopic.php?f=66&t=40860

Kweb utilise yt-dl and supports many sites:

https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/supportedsites.html

Kweb also utilises Omxplayer which is hardware accelerated.

[fruitoftheloom]

4.4.38 seems quite reliable, the kid spent hours watching youtube on a 3.
Then I updated to 4.9 kernel before xmas and Chromium kept breaking "aw snap...".
Updated and upgraded a few times since and slight improvement?

4.9 Kernel is still Testing Status so irrelevant, using Testing can and does lead to issues..

[Crumbs]

Well, I thought if I just started a new thread, people would get annoyed that I hadn't searched first.
Thanks for the information.

[fruitoftheloom]

Well, I thought if I just started a new thread, people would get annoyed that I hadn't searched first.
Thanks for the information.

Raspbian Jessie with Pixel DE standard and fully updated (still 4.4.x kernel) includes chromium-browser version 56, which appears generally to be an improvement........

viewtopic.php?f=63&t=174021

[xXRoboBoyXx]

Re. "My YouTube is fine at 480p resolution", I have to say that really doesn't cut the mustard at all. When I bought the Pi 3, I saw "quad core 1.2GHz" and thought "no probs - this will smash it!". But boy, the chrome browser runs about as fast as a sloth... and it crashes hard when you put it full-screen.. I tried updating chrome, but it crashed on install lol.. Hate to say it but it looks like there's a bit of work to do before Apple needs to start worrying.

If you want a Watchable video use These overclock settings!! (: They work for me with a Fan case and a heatsink


gpu_mem=256
arm_freq=1300
over_voltage=6
sdram_freq=500
core_freq=500
gpu_freq=400
temp_limit=80

These work for me Really well! And i have a 1 GB swap file on the SD card

[DavidS]

Can somebody who already has the Pi3 or had the honor to test it tell me if the internet browsing performance and youtube performance is now at a level that we could say its a desktop replacement for people who only browse and watch youtube?

Pi-B+ and Pi2 where not fast enough for those tasks.

( So i mean youtube at 720p or 1080p without stutter on a wired network connection. And with browsing i mean graphical heavy websites)

As far as youtube, I watch it full screen HD (720p) all the time when I am using an HDMI monitor. I have not tried 1080p yet for youtube, though will try in a minute so I can tell you.

As far as overall performance for internet, the throughput has been there since the first RPi with plenty to spare. As with any system JS and other scripting will sometimes slow things down, though that is nothing new.

[DavidS]

Can somebody who already has the Pi3 or had the honor to test it tell me if the internet browsing performance and youtube performance is now at a level that we could say its a desktop replacement for people who only browse and watch youtube?

Pi-B+ and Pi2 where not fast enough for those tasks.

( So i mean youtube at 720p or 1080p without stutter on a wired network connection. And with browsing i mean graphical heavy websites)

1080p youtube is no problem at all.

Clocked at 900MHz ARM, 450MHz SDRAM, 400 Core, and with 384MB GPU RAM.

[gkreidl]

Can somebody who already has the Pi3 or had the honor to test it tell me if the internet browsing performance and youtube performance is now at a level that we could say its a desktop replacement for people who only browse and watch youtube?

Pi-B+ and Pi2 where not fast enough for those tasks.

( So i mean youtube at 720p or 1080p without stutter on a wired network connection. And with browsing i mean graphical heavy websites)

1080p youtube is no problem at all.

Clocked at 900MHz ARM, 450MHz SDRAM, 400 Core, and with 384MB GPU RAM.

1080p video in real 1080p full screen size(and on a RPi)? You must be joking or have defective vision. Yes it runs, in a way, but at least 80% of the frames are lost (on a RPi3). Other people call this "lagging". It's a pain to watch.

[treeHouse]

I have 2 rp3's, one on a 720p tv and the other on a 1080p.
The latest chromium does full screen youtube very well on the 720, but choppily on the 1080.

So for the 1080 I just use kweb.

[Trixster]

I have to say I'm impressed by the latest version of chromium. Watching 1080p fulscreen YouTube (without resorting to omxplayer) is much improved over older versions. For starters the constant pause every 3 seconds for audio is gone. Secondly whilst some frames are dropped its much less than before. There's a bit of screen tearing but it's pretty good as far as I'm concerned.

[Crumbs]

No longer crashing - problem solved.
For me the problem was my power supply. Did not realise the Pi needs a whopping 2.1 Amps - my bad. 2.1 Amp 5V power supply seems to have done the trick.
Facebook is still a bit unresponsive for my liking and the video still has buffering and performance issues trying to run on my 1080p tv at full screen but I can accept that. The main issue was the constant crashing and that is solved

[dom]

I have 2 rp3's, one on a 720p tv and the other on a 1080p.
The latest chromium does full screen youtube very well on the 720, but choppily on the 1080.

Increasing GPU memory (e.g. through raspi-config) does help fullscreen video decode in Chromium a little. 80M should be enough.

[PuppetHoundZ]

Increasing GPU memory (e.g. through raspi-config) does help fullscreen video decode in Chromium a little. 80M should be enough.

I have my GPU RAM set to 128mb is that too much then? OR Should I reduce to 80MB to allow the rest of the PC more room to run?

I've read around that 64mb is too low for most cases and 256 to be too much as well. But I get different suggestions from like yourself that 128 or 160 to be better numbers for video browser handling. But now I see your post that 80MB is good. It makes me wonder if that the coding for the browsers is just muddy in some areas that there can't be a consensus.