Anyone with an intel culv laptop can report about flash playback?

[SammichPG]

I'm planning to buy a used thinkpad x200s for cheap on ebay (well I already bought it, but the seller didn't have my laptop anymore so I'm now waiting for a refund and looking for another laptop).
It's an Intel CULV (ultra low voltage core2duo) with a g45 chipset (4500mhd gpu), the max cpu frequency is 1.86ghz or 1.6ghz depending on which model I end up winning .

Does flash support gpu acceleration on intel gpus? Is it supported out of the box or you need some extensive tweaks? I'm planning to use debian or fedora because I really like gnome 3.

My current laptop has a 3.1ghz phenom and a 4200igp which isn't supported by the latest fglrx on new kernels so I'm stuck with radeon.
When I try to play 720p-1080p youtube content my cpu load goes to 85-90% with the fan spinning at 100%.
This is why I'm concerned about my purchase seeing that a 3ghz cpu roughly equal to core2duo struggles with software decoding, this is why having gpu acceleration is critical.

The cpu downgrade would be worth it because the thinkpad gets 6 hours or more if you use a 9 cell battery while my current laptop gets less than 1.5 hours on a brand new battery and it's a browsing/email/social network/office/media playback machine.

There's the x200 which comes with 25W cpus up to 2.66ghz instead of 15W ones but you get less battery life and/or you need to use a bulkier 9 cell instead of the 6 cell.

 

[SammichPG]

I've solved my problem:

- check for vlc player plugin in firefox
- install grasemonkey add on
- install viewtube script http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/87011

Suddenly high definition content plays with 50% cpu load at lowest pstate (800mhz).

Why is Flash so utter crap?

Considering that I browse with noscript and adblock I might even avoid installing Flash entirely.

Spoiler

 

[jolancer]

I appreciate the info in your thread. I'm always looking for higher efficiency as well. And am usually annoyed by most adobe software also.

few yrs ago i think i tryed to find an adobe flash alternative but never found one. Though i don't need it at the moment, I'm glad you mentioned your plugin/script alternative link.

I needed something efficent on my winXP N450 Netbook. I solved my issue by Reverting back to Firefox ~v10.0 , and Flash Player 11.1.102.55

I never kept track so i didn't know which version of flash would work best for me, but with some trial and error, by testing some of there releases, I came to the conclution that one worked the best from the ones i tested on my system. Downloaded from there Archive here: http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/archived-flash-player-versions.html

since im running XP, and wasn't familiar with there version hierarchy. That one in particular i picked to try because its note in the last supported release for win2k. From what i could gather though, it appears version hierarchy is kinda like this... 11.1.xxx is one version, and 11.2.xxx is a totally different version. so the first 2 numbers make a big change.

I did notice linux versions mixed in there archive. though you may not need any depending how well that alternative works.