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Thread: Petition for Macromedia to improve the Macintosh Flash Plugin.

  1. #21
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    if you want anything to be done, you need to let us know what you are finding is "slow". if you can provide simple code examples that will allow us to reproduce any issues, that would be very helpful.

    finally, how are you comparing mac performance to pc performance? are you taking environment variables into consideration (such as processor speed, os overhead, etc...)?

    mike chambers

    mesh@macromedia.com

  2. #22
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    Hi Mike. Thanks for paying attention.

    We just built this site for a client:

    http://www.8com.com.au/

    All content is dynamically loaded and all animation is scripted so there's no tweens to hammer the processor.

    If you view the site on Mac and then a PC you will notice a significant difference (the Mac really chokes - especially in OSX). We already reworked a lot of code to try to improve the Mac experience as the site will be viewed predominantly by Mac users.

    We also developed a game early this year for a major Australian promotion and had serious grief due to the poor performance of the Flash player on Mac:

    http://www.dizkgames.com

    password for game: cd54xp

    Looking forward to a response from MM on this issue.

    regards
    Pixelboy
    Generator Interactive http://generator.au.com

  3. #23
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    nice site (and fairly complex). can you isolate what is running slowly?

    from my previous post:
    --
    if you want anything to be done, you need to let us know what you are finding is "slow". if you can provide simple code examples that will allow us to reproduce any issues, that would be very helpful.
    --

    mike chambers

    mesh@macromedia.com

  4. #24
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    The animation of the pics dropping into place or exiting off screen is the most immediately visible difference when viewed on the 2 platforms. A PC will play this animation 2 to 3 times as fast as a Mac (older PCs included - We use the latest and fastest Macs and they are still slower than older PCs).

    The code on the site is pretty lean. The animations are constructed using "setInterval".

    In terms of 'reproducing any issues' we feel the issue is fairly obvious and not related to any particular coding practices. The Mac player simply does not perform as efficiently as the PC player.

    This is also a serious issue for other local Flash developers we have spoken to recently. We have to deal with the limitations of the 'non-PC Flash player' on almost a daily basis, and quite frankly it's costing us big dollars in terms of workarounds.

    We love MX but are constantly frustrated by the limitations forced upon us by a 'Fat' Mac player.
    It feels a little like owning a Ferrari and being speed limited to 40km/h.

    The fact that we have to restrict our creative ideas to work within the confines of the 'lowest common denominator' - the Mac Flash Player, is a little out of keeping with the commendable vision of MM 'giving us the tools to create'.

    Anyway, now that's all off my chest I just have to reiterate that there are no specific Flash development techniques we use that cause this poor performance when viewed on non-Windows systems - the Flash Player for these other platforms simply needs to be 'fixed'.

    Thanks for listening Mike, love MM products and hoping for a solution soon.

    regards
    Pixelboy
    glen@generator.au.com



  5. #25
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    I have great problems on my mac (G4 400, 1GB RAM, OS X) whenever any alpha effects are used.

    At first I thought my problems were coming from tweened animations, but i then reprogrammed my whole site in actionscript (it's not live yet) but it still runs like crap on my mac. it works great on pc's tho.

    i can't buy the argument that my mac is just too slow either. It runs Photoshop like a champ! Illustrator 10, no problem. Flash Plugin, big slowdown!

    I think MM needs to take bit more time in optimizing the plugin for mac.

  6. #26

    Support Mac Users

    yes, don't forget the Mac developers/users, fix the player please.

    In my case, i develop all stuff(sites,games,cd's,etc.) in Mac, with Pc's as main target (BUT NOT THE ONLY ONE, WAKE UP!!!)....as i said before in another post, the bugs on flash players force me to do a better job,and that's a good thing, because if i can make stuff have good performance on Mac, i know for sure this will be the same on Pc...but again, who wants to work harder to get the job done just because the development is made on Mac if MM gives us the same program on both platforms, or not?

    Anyway, ill be waiting the bugfixes before developing on flash MX for production/live, in the mean time, just experimental stuff.

    But not all is bad, some things are/will be fixed i belive, is just matter of time (and some pressure too)

    btw. thanks for your mails mike chambers, at least someone at MM cares about this.


  7. #27
    Senior Member cancerinform's Avatar
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    Please do not make the same mistake which Microsoft is <br />doing by creating a lower quality product for the Mac compared to PC (IE5.1).
    Thanks

    OS9.1 FlashMX
    http://www.cancerinform.net/

  8. #28
    supervillain gerbick's Avatar
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    I created an quick animation, all it has is an mp3 soundtrack, and it's at 18fps. I used similar spec machines to test this:
    • SGI 320
      P3 550mhz
      512mb of RAM
      Win2k SP3
      Flash Player 6.0.29

    and the mac:
    • iBook
      G3 500mhz - overclocked to 600mhz
      576mb RAM
      Mac OS 10.1.5
      Flash Player 6.0.29

    The mac misses the sound cues, that work great on a PC, because it's too slow. By at least 2 seconds!

    I would show the link publicly, but it's not appopriate for FK's G-Rating... it's just a simple test I put up to prove a point. I knew it would be slow. And all it is is just a layer, with a bitmap, and it's moving like a swing from one side to another. No code. No scripts. And a mp3 soundtrack.

  9. #29
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    can you send the link to the SWF and FLA to me? i have been trying to get simple example that demonstrate the performance issues for a while and they would be very useful.

    mike chambers

    mesh@macromedia.com

  10. #30
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    Originally posted by MikeChambers
    can you send the link to the SWF and FLA to me? i have been trying to get simple example that demonstrate the performance issues for a while and they would be very useful.

    mike chambers

    mesh@macromedia.com
    i don't mean to sound patronizing, but do you have a mac? obviously not. if you can get access to one, go to any of your favorite flash sites. you will see the difference when compared to your viewing experience on a pc.

    if you'd like, take a look at this site (not anything too sweet yet, but it's coming along...)
    http://www.rockstar-design.com/preview/

    I know from test viewing it on pc's that it is much slower on my mac, which is so ridiculous because macs are supposed to be engineered from the ground up for bad ass media creation/consumption. does the flash player for mac have altivec optimizations built in? that really seems to help the macs out in photoshop and other graphics apps written to take advantage of it.

    send me an email (robert@rockstar-design.com) if you'd like to use this as an example. i can provide the source files (it relies on cold fusion server and XML, however, so maybe it isn't the best example because of all the different ingredients).

  11. #31
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    yes, i do have a mac (2 in fact):

    http://radio.weblogs.com/0106797/2002/06/12.html#a134

    i have never noticed the flash player any slower relative to the rest of the system (on an 800mhz g4).

    we want to fix the problem as much as anyone else, but we need simple examples to reproduce it. pointing us to a complex site does not do us any good because we have no idea how the site was built.

    i have asked for simple examples twice in this thread. does anyone have a simple example that demonstrates the difference between the mac flash player and the pc flash player (and takes into account differences in system attributes such as processor speed?). if anyone does, please let me know, and I will send them directly to the flash player team.

    otherwise, just saying the mac flash player is slower doesn't help anyone move closer to a solution.

    mike chambers

    mesh@macromedia.com

  12. #32
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    k, mike. i got it for you. this is my worst offender by far.

    http://www.rockstar-design.com/preview/creativity.swf

    it is dynamically loaded into my main flash movie. on my programmer's athlon PC it just barely slows down as almost all the MCs are on screen (and this is in context with all the rest of the whole flash movie running), but on my apple g4 powermac it starts to slow down as soon as the clips begin multiplying, even when being viewed separately from the rest of the content.

    this also perfectly illustrates the great performace hit whenever you use any alpha effect, which is integral to the effect (and many others).

    i can email you the .FLA if you'd like.

    i also take issue with your processor speed condition. my 400 mhz g4 out-photoshops PCs at twice it's speed. it obviously has it where it counts when it somes to compositing images (ie: alpha) so why is the flash player so pokey, but the boyz at adobe can make photoshop scream on a mac?

  13. #33
    Senior Member Rob Goggins's Avatar
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    Originally posted by MikeChambers
    yes, i do have a mac (2 in fact):

    http://radio.weblogs.com/0106797/2002/06/12.html#a134

    i have asked for simple examples twice in this thread. does anyone have a simple example that demonstrates the difference between the mac flash player and the pc flash player (and takes into account differences in system attributes such as processor speed?). if anyone does, please let me know, and I will send them directly to the flash player team.

    mike chambers

    mesh@macromedia.com
    Mike:

    I have sent you (via email) a very simple example of a tweened animation
    containing only basic images and slight alpha transitions.

    Hopefully this will show the difference between the player on MAC & PC.
    It certainly shows a huge differece in playback on all my machines.

    Thanks again for taking an interest.

  14. #34
    Actually, while you're here Mike,

    1: Does the Flash player in MacOS X hook into Apple's "Quartz" pdf-based rendering angine at all? If so, that might explain the slowness for the moment.

    2: If not, are there any plans to hook the Flash Player on the Mac side into Quartz Extreme when that becomes available? Since many of the operations, such as alpha transparency and bezier curves are duplicated by the Quartz rendering engine, it might be a good way to speed up Flash player operations by offloading those functions to the graphic card.

  15. #35
    supervillain gerbick's Avatar
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    Mike, I sent you the link. I will look into finding the *.fla a bit later. I might have to reproduce it. I did it quickly.

    also, I was testing Livemotion 2. So, I have to find out which one I put out. Sounds crazy, but it was so simple - as you can see - and I did it within both programs in under 5 minutes, I seriously don't think I saved the files! Ooops.

  16. #36
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    Signed...

    ndl [former FK member], wishes to remain anonymous.

  17. #37
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    Oh yes...this is long overdue. Fix ASAP, please.

    Thanks,
    -Joe

  18. #38
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    Count me in...as a Mac and Flash fan, I want to see things play like they do on a PC.

  19. #39
    __OSX powered__ nucleuz's Avatar
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    < petition >signed< /petition >

  20. #40
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    Yes, PLEASE.

    Bryan Talbot

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