Slow PC is fine but Mac can't handle it ..... !?

[Spirit of 44]

I have an odd cross-platform problem.

I've created a simple slideshow with a few fades and zooms, with a single audio track. It's not complex, but it is large: 1280px by 1024.

I'm exporting this as both a swf file and an executable PC & Mac versions.

The PC version (both swf and exe) plays fine even on my slow low-end test PC machine: 600MHz with 128Mb RAM.

But my brand new Mac Mini just can't handle it at all. (It's the 1.25GHz 256Mb RAM verion).

The Mac can't play the swf file (about 18Mb) without choking and eventually crashing; nor can it play the executable version (about 24Mb).

Some of the things I've tried:
- Updating to Flashplayer 7
- Updating to the latest OSX version
- Chopping out a lot of the dissolves from the file
- Lowering the image quality
- Cutting the executable file size from 24Mb to 17Mb

But all this has only enabled me to get the file to play for a little longer before it fails. The failures don;t come at a specific point every time - the show may last a little longer of shorter each time.

The Mac sounds as if its often accessing the hard drive during playback and the show will give a little stutter every now and then before it just stops.

I then usually get the following error:

Exception: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (0x0001)
Codes: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE
Thread 0 crashed
0 Flash carbon player

What does it all mean ? Why can't the Mac handle this file ? 17Mb surely isn't a big ask, especially if a PC with half that power has no problem ?

I bought the Mac Mini specifically so I could offer files to Mac users, but at the moment that ain't going to happen...

Some suggestions (any suggestions!) would be very gratefully received...

[Spirit of 44]

Oh dear I was hoping that this might have been a 'known issue" to someone...

The only extra information I've discovered is that if I make the swf into a screensaver (including the audio) then it plays quite a bit better (but not perfect).

Perhaps this is a clue ?

Anyone have *any* thoughts ? I know very little about Macs...

[ltempest]

I'm not sure I can offer any good advice but I've had similar problems in the past and I've usually found it to be down to using long pieces of audio, and having a very long root timeline causing caching issues.

If you could 'split' the animation into seperate MC's and then call them from the main timeline, you would not load the entire animation when playing, only the bit you need to show. Also cutting your audio track into numerous sections, helps with the caching issues.

Hope it gives food for thought!

Lee

[Spirit of 44]

Thanks for the idea. I did try it, but in fact it was worse ! The Mini paused and "gulped" at each chunk.

It's just crazy. I can play the images swf by itself fine; and Quicktime will play the 12Mb soundtrack swf by itself fine too - just not when together. Grrrr

[Spirit of 44]

Well, from the deafening silence here from any Mac users, and the gloomy and dismal responses I've had at a Mac forum, the answer is: MACS CAN'T HANDLE IT

Yep, it needs caps. Maybe a few expletives too, and lots of angry smiley icons.

From my expereince you can translate power by the following:

DIVIDE YOUR MAC SPECS BY FOUR. That's what they're worth in PC terms for Flash playback.

Looks like I'll be another company offering "PC only".

Look out the next time a Mac head tries to tell me about their golden bloody cow.

[ltempest]

OOOOO!

We are a little sensitive when it comes to Macs aren't we?

Have you actually used a mac for a period of time, I suppose not as you are too busy fixing all the problems on a wintel box. Suffice to say I have used both Macs and PC's for over 15 years, and by far and away Macs beat PC's hands down.

Your quote about dividing Mac specs by four really made me belly laugh, if you understood anything about technology you would know that processor speed is not the be all and end all. Its no use having a massively fast processor when you bus speed and memory speed are still in the dark ages. It not how fast the processor is its the whole mother board and computer around, which by the way in a mac does not need a jet engine sized heat sink and fan to cool it down.

And then we have the OS itself, how long until longhorn? so oft delayed we'll all be riding hoverboards when its released, and it will be a pale imitation of the mac OS anyway as all previous incarnations have been.

I could rant longer but I'm sure your so brainwashed by Mr Gates you see only butterlies, and have some critical security patches to download!

So in closing, I have created 30 to 40 minutes animations in flash that run perfectly on a Mac AND PC with full screen alpha tweens between images and audio. I had more problems with it crashing on a PC (a 3 MHZ machine at that) than a system 9 mac!

Lee

PS why oh why on a PC do you have to go to START to turn off?

[Spirit of 44]

Which is all very interesting Itempest, but do you have anything useful to offer, or any advice on why the Flash performance is so bad on my Mini ?

At the moment I standby my comment that Flash performance on a Mac under OSX is absolutely woeful. And strangely enough I've talked to several hardcore Mac users who agree.

And you might also note that I'm not talking about processor speed, I'm talking about actual real-world Flash performance. Judging the Mini against my PCs I have found my "divide by four" comment to be spot on.

If you can offer any actual advice I'd be most grateful, otherwise I can only merely note your touching affection for one IT industry monolith over another.

[ltempest]

Are you compressing the audio or using full on 44mhz CD quality audio files. You can get quite considerable compression without losing any discernable quality. Are the images jpeg'd to their fullest?

With the separate MC's, instead of having them within the main timeline, try loading only the mc you need at each point in the root timeline.

Perhaps you could post the fla or swf and I could test it or take a look at the coding, as I mentioned I have created large flash files with animation and audio without problems on a much lower spec mac than the mini.

Speaking with another friend, it may actually be the graphics card/driver that is slowing proceedings and not the mac, if the driver cannot process the information as fast as the processor is feeding it then it will appear to 'jerk'

[Spirit of 44]

Thanks Itempest My machine is a base-level Mini.

I did try a version where I split the show up into several chunks, unloading each as it went along, but that made the problems worse. It caused the show to pause and take a "gulp" as it moved to the next clip.

The audio is compressed to the equivalent of 128K 22KHz MP3 and runs for 12 minutes.

The images and the audio run perfectly when played separately.

I also tried running a swf through Safari while the audio track played simultaneously through Quicktime. Again the performance was better but not perfect.

On the activity monitor I'm running from 3% to 80% depending on the frame, but activity level seems not to cause the crashes as such since they often occur when I'm only running about 30%.

Chopping the show down from 24Mb to 17Mb via heavier image and audio compression also helped a little, but not significantly.

I also tried keeping just the images in the main show and loading the audio track with load movie, but Safari didn't seem interested in loading the external movie for reasons which I couldn't immediately fathom.

Finally I made the whole thing into a screensaver. Interestingly that played the best of all. Again, not perfect, but the smoothest of all my experiments. Perhaps that indicates something ?

I think you can see I've been active trying to find alternate methods...

Any more ideas ?

[ltempest]

Well, its seems a bit perplexing. Without having the sources files to look over its a bit difficult to locate the exact problem.

If you are running the file at 1024 x 1280 are you using images (jpegs) that fill this area and then animating these images. That will take a lot of number crunching, and even worse if you then use alpha tweens to go between images, you are asking for trouble. Even on small images and animations I tend to stay away from using alpha for transparency on jpegs. Is there any way you can use vector based graphics instead of images.

I can only guess that becuase the final file size is so huge (around 17mb) you must be using a lot of images as vector graphics and sounds would not take up that much. Every image you have will take up the same amount of space in the final swf as the jpeg file size, so 10 images at 1mb each would make the final movie 10mb without any animation or sound!

Flash was never originally built to use images, it is a vector based animation platform that has been 'allowed' to use jpeg files. Maybe Macromedia Director or similar would be more suited to your project, Director can export swf files as well as standalone executables.

As for other things to try, instead of loading the next clip at the end of the current playing one, try loading the clip mid way through the current MC, this would stop the gulp you mention.

Is the swf hosted somewhere I could view it?