YouTube playback

The ability to play back embedded Flash videos on webpages is something that is becoming an increasingly important on the Internets and since we've found Flash-heavy websites can bring Atom-based netbooks to a grinding halt.

In addition to this, with user-generated video websites like YouTube now offering both 'high quality' and 'high definition' quality options, we felt it'd be interesting to see whether the Ion platform helps improve the experience. Because of the nature of YouTube, where decent content is often removed, we found it was difficult to keep the same video tests.

We decided that, instead of reporting CPU usage figures that weren't entirely comparable, the best option would be to evaluate a wide range of videos at the three quality levels offered on YouTube, determining whether each resolution was viewable (i.e. smooth) or not. Instead of using the full screen option, we left the stream running in the browser, noting whether there were any flash advertisements on the page as well and were looking for evidence of stuttering during playback.


It was a wild stab in the dark, but unfortunately the GeForce 9400M doesn't accelerate Flash at the moment. We asked Nvidia if it had plans to do such a thing given Atom's inability to deliver smooth playback of high-definition YouTube videos - the company declined to comment.

Gaming Performance

There's literally no contest when it comes to gaming performance - the Ion platform simply obliterates Diamondville's poor showing. In the case of Lego Star Wars, the 945GC chipset cannot support most of the graphics settings in the game, and so it's less than half the speed and it's running at lower settings.

In addition to playing Trackmania Nations and Lego Star Wars, we tried our hand at a number of other games, including Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Half-Life 2. While the GeForce 9400M was able to handle the stresses of COD4 pretty well and we were able to obtain a 30fps average frame rate at 1,024 x 768 0xAA 0xAF with the lowest detail settings, we were unable to play Half-Life 2 at an acceptable frame rate, regardless of the settings or resolution used. Indeed, the highest frame rate we witnessed after really playing around to our heart's content was 24fps on average.

The problem is that HL2 is CPU limited even on a GeForce 9400M and it means you'll never get decent frame rates and by the time you get the resolution high enough, the GeForce 9400M has run out of steam. This highlights an imbalance in the Ion platform and it's quite easy to get carried away with how well Ion performs in other areas - you're always going to be limited by your slowest component and, in the case of Half-Life 2, it's clearly the CPU.