You're lucky! On my old Core 2 Duo, the animation takes 40-60% CPU (nothing when idle). But this is a lot better than flash which frequently takes 100% of a core for even relatively trivial redering (videos and such), and stays high even when idle. My GPU sucks, so I think mostly everything is software rendered anyway.
Also, Flash is a pain to get working on *BSD and is no longer supported on Linux, which is reason enough to move to JS.
HTML5 isn't necessarily about lower CPU, it's about openness, cross-platform compatibility and integrating with other browser elements, all of which Flash completely fails at.
Also it's a pretty neat animation and works without plugins, provided your system OpenGL version is recent enough.
12% on i7 means one core out of 8 is fully booked. Windows never has more than 100% CPU, unlike mac and linux, which have 100% for each core and then tell you "Xcode uses 390% of CPU". :)
Also, Flash is a pain to get working on *BSD and is no longer supported on Linux, which is reason enough to move to JS.
HTML5 isn't necessarily about lower CPU, it's about openness, cross-platform compatibility and integrating with other browser elements, all of which Flash completely fails at.
Also it's a pretty neat animation and works without plugins, provided your system OpenGL version is recent enough.