I run Mac OS X 10.6.8 and Flash 11 in Google Chrome 15.
The process part looks like this:
username 93458 11.4 14.0 2469136 588600 ?? S 2:02AM 5:37.25 /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/Versions/15.0.874.121/Google Chrome Helper EH.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome Helper EH --type=plugin --plugin-path=/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/Versions/15.0.874.121/Google Chrome Framework.framework/Internet Plug-Ins/Flash Player Plugin for Chrome.plugin --lang=en-US --channel=42748.0x2b3200f0.835069097 --enable-crash-reporter=46CB5F28860932569647D54223EACE3E
In some flash games it seems memory use grows from 100mb to 300mb and randomly (at no particular memory limit, there's still 1-2 gb free) it churns the CPU at 90% oscillating between a kernel_task process and the plugin.
Extra on what else you'll observe: The experience is that either the plug-in crashes very fast, in like 5 seconds, and you only notice when it happens to go black in the Flash frame, or the CPU spikes for 10+ seconds and you find you can't do anything in the system. You get a spinning ball and even that sometimes goes invisible (no cursor) and the OS can't switch or move windows or apps. Once the responsiveness returns in 10-30 seconds, either Flash crashes, or Chrome itself is force quit.
Has anyone experienced this and is there some setting that fixes this? I've uninstalled Flash from the system otherwise (Chrome bundles it) so I only use chrome for Flash games, and as a plus the other browsers are quite solid without Flash.