I’ve been enjoying Pandora Radio for several years. It has been a great way to discover new artists and even new genres of music. I doubt I’d ever have learned of the existence of Dubsteb without Pandora – see my Music, Movie and Book Recommendations page to hear samples of my latest discoveries.
However, the web client was built on Adobe Flash, which makes it a bit of a CPU hog. I’ve long known that playing Pandora used up a lot more CPU time than playing other music (roughly 50% of the CPU for Pandora vs ~1% of the CPU for an MP3 or OGG). Thankfully, I have found a way to reduce the CPU load considerably.
All you have to do is open Pandora in a new browser tab, get your music playing, and then switch to a different tab in the browser. Hiding the Pandora tab stops it from constantly re-drawing itself, and that seems to make a huge difference. Here are the results on my desktop:
Pandora CPU Usage in the Foreground
Pandora CPU Usage in the Background
The upshot is that I can cut Pandora’s CPU usage by two thirds. This also reduces the temperature of my processor by 6°C – probably more in the summer months.
Great solution. I was looking for a solution to this problem online, and there was nothing.
I just connect my iPod touch to our Wi-Fi and use the Pandora App. This eliminates any CPU usage on my desktop.
Phones work, too. I have Pandora on my HTC G2, but I really only use that on the go. My computer is the only device connected to my stereo ;)
Thanks for that great & easy solution!
The new Pandora has improved. Sometime earlier this year Pandora rolled out a new web-based player. CPU usage has gone down dramatically since then.
Thanks a ton, I’ve been looking for a solution to this for months, this cut Pandora’s CPU usage from 60-90% to ~30%. My audio no longer lags/stutters when I do anything but listen to Pandora. I was having it open as the only tab in GC but after this I use a single Pandora tab and a blank ‘new tab’ in IE (I use IE for work so no preaching on the ills of IE please).