MP 1,1-5,1 8-core Mac Pro 2006 1,1/2,1 - Does it play YouTube 4K VP9 smoothly in Chrome?

[EugW]

I'm playing with a newly acquired 2 x 2.66 GHz dual core Xeon 5150 Mac Pro 2006 (MacPro1,1). I noticed that in Chrome it can play 1440p VP9 YouTube smoothly, although it can often use up to about 250% or so (out of 400%) of CPU.

Not surprisingly, 4K is a total fail. However, I'm curious, does it work well on the 8-core upgraded Mac Pros?

It's almost a moot point since officially these Mac Pros are limited to 1440p output anyway, but technically with something like SwitchRez they should be able to output 4Kp30 (although not 4Kp60).

I'm kinda looking for an excuse to upgrade to 8-core. Since general mainstream usage (surfing and office activities) on this machine doesn't seem to stress the CPU beyond 100% (out of 400%), such a CPU upgrade seems unnecessary for this purpose, esp. since this isn't my primary machine. However, if it could consistently do 4K YouTube VP9 smoothly while multitasking with such an upgrade then maybe that will be justification enough once I find the time. The chips are cheap, as the 2.33 GHz E45345 quad-core 80 W chips are only about US$20 a pair.

BTW, the GPU has been upgraded to Radeon HD 5770, but my understanding is that is irrelevant in this context, since these versions of OS X don't support hardware VP9 decode.

 

[ADDvanced]

I have an upgraded 2.1 but I don’t have a 4k monitor to test it out on

 

[EugW]

Hmmm... I just tried this on my Windows machine with Phenom II 1055T 6-core 2.8 GHz, and it doesn't work smooth on that. I see periodic pauses in the video.

Some benchmark comparisons:

Geekbench 5
Xeon 5150 x 2: 370/1250 (4-core 2.66 GHz)
Xeon E5345 x 2: 330/1900 (8-core 2.33 GHz)
Xeon X5355 x 2: 390/2250 (8-core 2.66 GHz)
Phenom 1055T: 530/2250 (6-core 2.8 GHz)

PassMark - CPU Mark
Xeon 5150 x 2: 2760 (4-core 2.66 GHz)
Xeon E5345 x 2: 3922 (8-core 2.33 GHz)
Xeon X5355 x 2: 3996 (8-core 2.66 GHz)
Phenom 1055T: 3205 (6-core 2.8 GHz)

I have an upgraded 2.1 but I don’t have a 4k monitor to test it out on

Thanks for the reply. You don't actually need a 4K monitor. You just have to select the 4K option in the video setting.

The video resolution setting is at the bottom right of the video in Chrome. (It's not supported in Safari on the Mac.)

 

[mikas]

I've got a 2x266 quadcore 1,1 with HD 5770 available right now. Please give a link and I'll try.
edit. It's 1,1 to 2,1 flashed and with El Capitan.

 

[EugW]

I've got a 2x266 quadcore 1,1 with HD 5770 available right now. Please give a link and I'll try.
edit. It's 1,1 to 2,1 flashed and with El Capitan.

Thanks. I just posted the link above. You need to use Chrome though.

 

[mikas]

Does not work. I can choose 2160p, but the video plays couple of seconds, stutters a little too while playing. Then it halts for a few seconds, and continues playback for a few seconds, stuttering still.

I get hickups with 1440p too, but not that much. I might have some other stuff going on in the background. My bandwidth should be enough, it's cable 100M+.

edit. I don't have a 4K display obviously, but an apple HD aluminium 1920x1200.

 

[EugW]

Does not work. I can choose 2160p, but the video plays couple of seconds, stutters a little too while playing. Then it halts for a few seconds, and continues playback for a few seconds, stuttering still.

I get hickups with 1440p too, but not that much. I might have some other stuff going on in the background. My bandwidth should be enough, it's cable 100M+.

OK thanks. Oh well. There goes my excuse to upgrade.

However, you might want to try Firefox to see if that makes a difference in 1440p playing smoothness. In Lion I am getting the 1440p option and 4K option in Firefox Legacy.

This webpage claims VP9 is disabled on the Mac, but I have it in Lion nonetheless.

Playing 4K (Ultra-High Definition) YouTube videos in Firefox | Firefox Help

Why the 4K option shows up for some viewers while it doesn't for others.

support.mozilla.org

When will I see 4K videos?
Whether or not you see 4K depends on the following:

Operating system

• • Linux: VP9 is enabled in Firefox, thus YouTube shows up to 4K resolution.
  • Mac: VP9 is disabled in Firefox, thus only H264 with 1080p will get played.
  • Windows: VP9 with 4K depends on the machine (see below).

Firefox's criteria on Windows
Firefox will enable the 4K option for the following scenarios:

1. • If your computer doesn’t have any hardware decoding capabilities, your computer has to do the decoding in software anyway, so Firefox enables VP9 in this case.
   • Your computer doesn't support H264 or H264 was disabled on your machine.
   • A small internal benchmark finds your computer is fast enough to support VP9.

In general, and especially on Mac which prefers H264 by default (see above), you can enable VP9 by setting media.mediasource.webm.enabled to true in about:config. But this should only be done by advanced users who understand the impact on battery life and performance.

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BTW, when I do try 4K, I just get a static image with nearly 400% CPU usage.