RFE: User-Configurable Snowfall

Houn

Really, I'd just like to be able to turn it off.

Not because I am a hater of Xmas.

But because in this one browser on this one computer it's really, really struggling with it and locking my browser up occasionally. So for this browser in this computer, being able to turn it off would be a Christmas Miracle.

(Totally not turning the snow off at home. Long live the snow!)

*edit* I just figured out how to disable it with AdBlock, so unless you really want to hack a button in, you can ignore this request. For others curious to do this, filter on:

forums.penny-arcade.com/plugins/SnowStorm/*

Foomy

Yes please, being able to turn it off would be so nice. I like the effect but it is also making browsing really hard for me.

ManetherenWolf

Im also running into some issues with my CPU usage ramping up considerably when on a forum page with the snow.

Not really causing any major problems for me directly, but it appears it is for some.

AshtonDragon

It's causing my browser to crash too, if I leave a page up too long while I'm in another tab. The AdBlock method should work for me, though.

august

The snow also seems to be slowing my browser to a crawl at times.

edit: used Houn's adblock suggestion to get rid of it.

DietarySupplement

The effect makes me think I am experiencing the early effects of a migraine. Thanks for the tip for disabling it.

IcyLiquid

Admit it, you guys are browsing from this, aren't you?

Houn

While hilarious, no. I'm browsing from Iceweasel 31.2.0 on an old Debian Wheezy box, and it just chugs on it. It's my secondary box at work, and where I usually browse from during the day.

At home, it's not a problem.

ManetherenWolf

Im running it on the most recent Firefox update, Win 7 64bit. Like I said, for me its not a problem, but I have monitors running for my cpu and memory, and the cpu one spikes a good 15-20% from its normal idle when on the snowfall pages. Not enough to cause problems, but I imagine on some peoples it could.

ASimPerson

Yeah, my CPU spikes on my Macbook as well. I always have a tab open to the forums so it's a problem after a few minutes. I still think the effect is neat, though, so I just leave the forums up to whatever topic I last read instead of returning to the index.

Pixie

I love the effect. I think it's very pretty. But it sure makes the site almost unviewable on the crappy thin clients we're stuck with at work. Without PA, I don't know what to do with my work day.

DarkPrimus

Pixelated Pixie wrote: »

I love the effect. I think it's very pretty. But it sure makes the site almost unviewable on the crappy thin clients we're stuck with at work. Without PA, I don't know what to do with my work day.

Look at Steam sales...

SoundsPlush

It drags my Firefox to a crawl. I had a bunch of tabs open, including YouTube, with no issue, but opening the forums in the background gave me 4-5 seconds of lag after CTRL+W before a tab would close. A fresh launch leaves no lag when closing a second tab, but the forum scroll remains less than smooth—CPU spikes from negligible to 35%, and stays there. Less an issue in Chrome where it jumps from ~3% to 15% and there's no choppiness, but it seems oddly resource-intensive for such a simple effect.

Anyway, I just came looking for a better way to disable it than revoking NoScript permissions on the domain, so I'm good now. I like the visual, but not for that price.

SeñorAmor

IcyLiquid wrote: »

Admit it, you guys are browsing from this, aren't you?

root@server [/]# lynx forums.penny-arcade.com

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I can't see shit with all this snow...

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

it destroys performance on my netbook. And granted my netbook's old as dirt, but it's still pretty annoying

MechMantis

Well, at least on my Microsoft Surface Pro 2, it's making the forums basically unbrowsable, with 10-15 second lag times on scrolling as suddenly the core that has Firefox on it is doing literally nothing but render snow.

It also is interfering with general browser function too, with hefty lagtimes on switching tabs from the forums.


Kinda frustrating, especially since ads that have had this exact same behavior are usually pulled instantly.

Tube

Ok so I'm going to ask Icy about this, but seriously guys, there's something wrong with your computers. I'm on a Surface 3 right now, and do most of my browsing on iPad. A check of the task manager just showed 0 processor usage for PA tabs. I opened the front page ten times to see if that made a difference and it didn't blink.

TychoCelchuuu

The snow seems to stop when the window loses focus so depending on how you are checking CPU usage you might be missing it. Having the page open 10 times won't do anything because at most the snow is falling on one page. When the snow window is in focus, Opera is using ~20% of my CPU (and sometimes it spikes to 40% for a second). When the window isn't in focus (or it's closed) Opera is using ~2% to 4% of my CPU.

zerzhul

I just checked out mine on chrome. When I have a snowfall tab in focus, it uses ~17-20% of my CPU. It's not causing me any problems, but it's definitely a hog, for what it is.

Comradebot

I was hoping for the opposite. I want more snow. I won't be satisfied until my PA forum looks like a scene out of The Grey, complete with the fear that there could be murder-wolves (well, PA forums so Dickwolves) just a few feet away.

End

Tube wrote: »

Ok so I'm going to ask Icy about this, but seriously guys, there's something wrong with your computers. I'm on a Surface 3 right now, and do most of my browsing on iPad. A check of the task manager just showed 0 processor usage for PA tabs. I opened the front page ten times to see if that made a difference and it didn't blink.

I think video acceleration probably makes a big difference

for example (even though visually it seems fine) it shows about 30-50% cpu usage on my laptop, because chrome blacklists the video card on it, so everything happens in software

In contrast, my desktop is <=1%

Bowen

CSS animations can drag CPUs to their death, but, if you've got a CPU from the past 8 years (core duo) you should be fine. Especially if you use chrome and not IE.

zerzhul

My computer is certainly not super recent, but it's not 8 years old either. I think I did a full refresh in mid 2011? Don't have an intel chip though.

Bowen

zerzhul wrote: »

My computer is certainly not super recent, but it's not 8 years old either. I think I did a full refresh in mid 2011? Don't have an intel chip though.

Yeah 20% sounds about right then.

Looking at the CSS I see some 3D calls, so GPU should be taking over at that point.

@zerzhul‌

chrome://flags/

Browse to that and enable the override on software rendering and see if you notice a huge increase in performance/reduction in CPU.

chrome://gpu

Will give you more information as well.

zerzhul

that ended up not changing anything for me. I did try it out in opera though... 9%, as opposed to 20%.

Still, not actually noticeably causing me any /problems/ it's just odd.

IcyLiquid

FYI I lowered the snow volume and animation rate. Should improve CPU.

Redthirst

This is insane. With Firefox running in the background(PA tab is out of focus so snow doesn't work) and with other background programms I run, I have CPU usage of ~10%. When I switch to PA tab to let the snow fall, it jumps out to 30%. So you are telling me that goddamn animation of snow falling takes twice as much CPU as Firefox+Steam+Battle.net running in the background?
The javascript only works for one page, later you need to use it again.
I'm sorry, but I'm going with adblock, this is just ridiculous.

SeñorAmor

With all due respect Icy, wouldn't the prudent move be to disable the snow until a good solution for fixing the issue (e.g. - a toggle) can be implemented?

Caedwyr

It isn't hurting my machine's performance, but on Firefox, I go from CPU usage of 1-2% to CPU usage of 28% when on a page with the falling snow. Something is a CPU hog in that script.

Zetx

So, a toggle (via bookmarklet) has been here and was mentioned in one of those forum announcement thingies yesterday (IIRC) as well.

I believe the CPU increase is because the script constantly adds/removes <div>'s, each <div> being a single 'snowflake' which it continuously moves around while they are in existence. And then the reason you won't see your CPU increase if you alt-tab/switch to your task manager is because this action stops when the tab is not in focus, so you'll have to open it and your task manager side-by-side to see the effect.

Sample of the <div>:

<div style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: absolute; transform: translate3d(0px, 0px, 0px); width: 8px; height: 8px; font-family: arial, verdana; cursor: default; overflow: hidden; font-weight: normal; z-index: 0; display: block; bottom: 6.04160926793914%; opacity: 1; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; font-size: 16px; line-height: 10px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; right: 48.6825976621235%;">•</div>

At the time that I pulled it to "Inspect Element" there were 160 of 'em. Now imagine that every x seconds it calculates at lest the 'bottom' (6.04160926793914%) and 'right' (48.6825976621235%) value and hopefully one can understand how the browser becomes unhappy about it)

Spectral Swallow

Zetx wrote: »

I believe the CPU increase is because the script constantly adds/removes <div>'s, each <div> being a single 'snowflake' which it continuously moves around while they are in existence. And then the reason you won't see your CPU increase if you alt-tab/switch to your task manager is because this action stops when the tab is not in focus, so you'll have to open it and your task manager side-by-side to see the effect.

Wow... that is... quite possibly the worst way to do that. Like really. No wonder it was killing folks computers.
Like even a 30+ repeating gifs would be better. Or an animated SVG.

Bowen

http://codepen.io/NickyCDK/pen/AIonk/

Something like this seems to only make my CPU go up to about 5%.

Naphtali

IcyLiquid wrote: »

FYI I lowered the snow volume and animation rate. Should improve CPU.

This is going to sound strange, but after you made that change it got worse performance wise on my laptop with firefox at home. I blocked it with adblock after that because it started nearly freezing the entire browser when the PA tab was open. Before whatever changes you made on the 10th it actually ran okay on it (and hardware wise, the laptop shouldn't have any problems with the snow) it ran fine.

IcyLiquid

SeñorAmor wrote: »

With all due respect Icy, wouldn't the prudent move be to disable the snow until a good solution for fixing the issue (e.g. - a toggle) can be implemented?

I'm not the one who wants to keep this, even though I think it's pretty cool.

SeñorAmor

Anyone using the AdBlock method of disabling the snow finding it not working more often than not?

I have the full URL to the SnowStorm plugin folder set to be blocked and it only works probably 40% of the time. If I refresh the page once or twice, it seems to stop the snow. It's almost as if ABP isn't loading properly or something.