Problem with Intel Graphics 620 & YouTube

[Kflash08]

I have a Dell Inspiron 3583 with an Intel Core i3-8145U processor. When I try to watch 60fps YouTube videos in fullscreen in either Edge or FireFox, the video occasionally drops frames and flickers back and forth between upcoming and previous frames as if the 60 Hz lost it's sync. I've contacted Dell support about this, and found out that it has something to do with the resolution. If I connect an external monitor to my computer and increase the resolution from the native 1366x768 to 1920x1080, the problem goes away.

All drivers and updates have been installed. The latest Intel driver on Dell's website is from February 2019. There's is a much newer one on Intel's website from December 2019, but every time I try to install it, installation halts and says that my computer isn't validated for these drivers, even though my processor is on the list. The Intel Support & Driver Assistant also tries to install the same updated drives, which also brings up the same message.

As of now, I'm guessing that my problem with YouTube is related to the graphic drivers, though just recently I've seen some brief screen tearing on the Windows desktop. Is Intel aware of this issue? Or is it something else? Memory and processor both tested OK, so I don't think it's bad hardware.

[RonaldM_Intel]

Can you help us out by recording a video of your playback experience? A video from your smartphone camera would be more than enough so we can see the drops you are referring to and use it for comparison.

Regards,

[Kflash08]

Attached is a brief recording of the suggested video. The drops/stutter can be seen on the jet turbine.

[AdrianM_Intel]

Hello Kflash08,

Can you please test this again while playing the video in Windowed mode (not Full Screen)? at the same time can you please take a screenshot of Task Manager “Performance GPU” while the video is playing? 

Regards,

Adrian M.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Kflash08]

Here you go!

[AdrianM_Intel]

Hello Kflash08,

Thank you for your reply.

We will take a look into it, please allow us some time to update the thread.

Regards,

Adrian M.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[AdrianM_Intel]

Hello All,

I would like to update the thread.

Our Development team has concluded their investigation on this issue and determined that this does not appear to be a graphics driver related issue, but rather a system-level issue. In the video we can observe the CPU and GPU utilization to be within normal and expected ranges, however, there is an abnormally high disk drive utilization which can point towards a hard drive performance issue, buffering, or caching the playback data or even Virtual memory page files. Our recommendation is to report this to the computer manufacturer to explore these other possibilities.

Regards,

Adrian M.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Kflash08]

On YouTube using Firefox, I've noticed that the 60 Hz out-of-sync weirdness seemed to have stopped a few months ago, so either YouTube, FF or Microsoft addressed an issue that fixed it. However, I still see occasional frame drops on 720p 60 fps videos that the YouTube player never picks up.

I originally posted this issue on the Dell Community, and not getting anywhere with them, I came here. We did find out that YouTube videos oddly played better at a higher resolution once I connected an external monitor to the computer. I never thought to do this with the sample video, but I can give it a try. The panel's native resolution is 1366x768, where my external monitor went up to 1080.

There's a few upgrades that I've been planning on doing with the computer, though they have been delayed due to the current situation that we are all in. I plan on upgrading to a M.2 nvme drive (from a HDD) and doubling the RAM. While I think that the M.2 drive won't yield in any performance increase with the graphics, the RAM should. Currently I have a single 8 GB module that came installed from the factory, which means that the RAM is only operating in single channel mode. Installing a second 8 GB module would bump me up to 16 GB, and enable dual channel mode, which I read somewhere does improve graphic processing. Do you think that will help eliminate the dropped frames and shudder?

[AdrianM_Intel]

Hello Kflash08,

Thank you for your response.

After our investigation, the Development Team determined that this does not appear to be a graphics driver related issue, our recommendation is to report this to system manufacturer.

Regarding your question, during the investigation, we found that there is an abnormally high disk drive utilization which could point to hard drive performance issue so we can not assure that by changing the hard drive this will disappear our best recommendation is to contact DELL support about this behavior and also they can guide you as well if you want to change your hard drive or to optimize the components of your system.

Regards,

Adrian M.

Intel Customer Support Technician

[Kflash08]

Its been a while, so sorry for bring up an old thread.

I just want post an update to my original issue. Since my last post, I've been using the Enhanced-H264ify extension for FireFox to force YouTube videos to use the AVC1 codec rather than the VP9 codec. Using the older AVC1 codec produces very few, if any noticeable dropouts, and playback is flawless. However, AVC limits the max resolution to 1441p, I believe, so no 4K playback if the video supports it. No big deal as my display panel is only 720p-ish. I haven't checked the other browsers lately while using the VP9 codec on YouTube to see if there's been any improvement, including the then new-at-the-time Edge Chrome. I probably should, but my guess would be that playback would be about the same as FireFox.