Help w/speed of Flash application - Use load vars, flash remoting or other....

[SWVADeveloper]

I'm looking for a little help with a dynamic Flash application I am building with ColdFusion integrated. I need the Flash to load and interact with a SQL Server database as quickly as possible as the user interacts with the Flash application. I have done research and thought that Flash Remoting was the way to go especially when using ColdFusion with Flash, but I am experiencing a lot of lag time when a user tries to load more data.

So I'm looking for some advice on what is the fastest/best way to pass data back and forth between Flash and ColdFusion. Currently I am using Flash Remoting via ColdFusion web services (first time using this), but again with the lag time I am receiving I am thinking maybe my old way of using LoadVars would be faster? I am also open to any other means to pass data from ColdFusion/SQL database to Flash that exist. I am just looking for the quickest way for my customers to interact with the Flash piece.

Thanks in advance!

[nunomira]

hi,

Flash Remoting should be the fastest way to load that as it uses AMF.

The lag that you are experiencing depends on some factors such as connection speed and server performance.

Do you notice the lag when loading any other dynamic or static pages on the very same server?

I can't see why loading variable name / value pairs should be faster... but there is nothing like giving it a try to compare.

[SWVADeveloper]

We have not noticed any other lag time on our server where we are developing this application and this is one of the first times we have tried to do something that has multiple calls back and forth between Flash and ColdFusion.

We are using Flash Remoting to connect to web services in ColdFusion and throughout the creation of each "page" or "state" of the Flash application we are making three separate calls to various ColdFusion web services before the "page" or "state" is rendered in Flash. We were hoping that would be ok, but have noticed lag time when doing this on multiple computers on and off our internal network and were wondering if we were using the fastest methodology available between Flash and a programming language. I come from a programming background and have very limited experience with Flash and am used to interaction between scripting languges and databases being very fast even for lots of data and was hoping the same would be true using Flash.

Do you think we are making too many calls back and forth between Flash and the web services before rendering the page? And do I have too high of expectations for how quick Flash can process data sent via Flash remoting and web services? Also should we be trying to use action script's record set object to work with the incoming records or treat the incoming data like arrays?

Sorry for such a long response and more questions, but I've been trying to tackle this problem for weeks and haven't been getting very far and really want to ensure I'm approaching the problem correctly.

Thanks again!

[nunomira]

hi,

As there are some calls back and forward between Flash and Flash Remoting, that may account for some lag.
Especially if you are loading lots of data.

Are you making the calls from Flash at the same time, or one after the other?

Something like loading one piece of data, one at a time, and showing preloaders for each piece, is usual, notifying the user that something is happening and new content will show up soon. This helps decreasing the idea of lag.
People are used to this, and don't expect new content to show up immediately.

The interaction between the server side scripting language in this case still exists and it should be fast, but Flash still needs to communicate with the server side scripting language to load (or send) data before displaying it.
Don't forget that Flash runs on the user's computer (browser). Not on the server!

I really have no knowledge in order to compare recordsets and arrays.
I'd use the one that best suited my needs in terms of avoiding parsing data, both on the Flash and Flash Remoting side.