[Discuss] Flash in FF vs Flash in IE

[jonnyblazedx]

So, when I finally implemented an FPS calculator in my snake game, and besides that, realized with my naked eye, that FF SUCKED at playing flash movies.... It made me wonder.

I've always thought of Firefox as a much superior browser to IE but with Flash player that doesn't seem to be the case...

What is causing this? Is it a memory leak within Firefox? Does it not clean up its engine well enough once it renders a page? Why on Earth is IE outperforming Firefox in this field!?

It upsets me. I am a HUGE Firefox supporter... My Crown Snake page even links to getfirefox.com if it recognizes you're using IE.

Can anyone shed light on this? Or does anyone know how to get around this performance ding Firefox is giving us.

[Squize]

I'm exactly the same as you in regard FF, I've been a fan of it for a long while now, but yep, it's a turd when it comes to Flash.

I've only really noticed in my last two projects, where I've gone over my usual 31fps. The difference between FF and IE is unreal.

The reason is that FF puts a lower cap on the cpu usage given to plug-ins than IE.

Squize.

[jonnyblazedx]

Hmm, can't really find anything regarding it online.

So, are you saying under 31fps they perform the same? Or the difference just isn't noticeable. I hope they fix the problem soon. I know they've got, what is it, Gran Paradiso in the works right now, but from the very little I've found online, this issue has been real since Firefox 1. Two major releases later and still no fix, uncharacteristic of Mozilla.

[Squize]

Here you go:

http://www.kaourantin.net/2006/05/fr...sh-player.html

Check out the 3rd paragraph.

"Or the difference just isn't noticeable"

Just assume I've never noticed it, you get resigned to everything playing like it's running through treacle as soon as it's on a webpage.

Squize.

[MikeMD]

It depends on a game, but generally FireFox should be completely avoided if you use flash.

One way of forcing exact frame rates is using wmode, but this will screw up key inputs on Firefox , so you would have to use only mouse control.

The difference is that the same game set to 30 fps will run at 30 fps on IE ( with wmode ), but will sometimes be unplayable on Firefox. So if you don't use wmode, it will be closer, but you will not be able to maintain specified frame rates on IE, so you game will be slower on both browsers ( something that article doesn't mention and it should, because wmode is a legit way of maintaining frame rates you specified ).

[jonnyblazedx]

Sounds like wmode is best suited for animations and only that... Unless of course, like you said, you stick to mouse control.

I can see with what that article says about ads why this is a difficult issue to resolve. I guess I'll just have to stick to 31fps for now...

[MikeMD]

Unless of course, like you said, you stick to mouse control

People buy very expensive video cards just so they can play video games, so it shouldn't be too much to ask people to use a free browser to play certain flash games.
In some more advanced games only IE will do ( where you have to have high frame rates and use keyboard controls ).

[jonnyblazedx]

Hmm, good point...

maybe u could frame the ie tab renderer in a ff window to hold the flash
make it very convenient... simple ff addon, and u wouldnt have to switch out of ff to use it
maybe with a little javascript?

[renderhjs]

to all that people that only heard about IE and FF so far: give opera a chance. IE is by default unacceptable due its hilarius security lacks. The reason some things run faster as other they do in other browsers on windows is that IE is inluded deeply within the system (another big security problem). WOuld be nice if someone would try some flash stuff on firefox on Linux as firefox seems alot faster on linux (tested it myself).
As for firefox: firefox is slow as hell on windows, scroll behaviour and ram access are very poor (if not the worst of all browsers), not my favourite on older computers or slow internet connections.

[jonnyblazedx]

opera is a good browser, i used it a long time ago and can say, they have improved it a lot. but, as far as exposure, firefox is far above opera and is running an easy downhill with google.

its not my choice wat my viewers use

[nGFX]

It depends on a game, but generally FireFox should be completely avoided if you use flash.

The question is "how?" you(we) still have to face the user's choice of the browser.

The problem starts when you test the movie in flash ...
I usually test the game as often as possible in FF during development, knowing that the browser is slow, it helps finding the bottlenecks. Thanks to the IE tab plugin, I can test it in IE from there, too.

Imho ignoring/avoiding/condemning a browser doesn't help you as developer, you cannot get away with "hey it's not my fault if the user doesn't use the *correct* browser" - and better you detect it, as your customer.

nGFX

[lesli_felix]

Whats the big deal?

You can't develop games and hope the user will be running them in the best possible environment, it's just not gonna happen. If you test the game in flash and it's maxing out the processor, you know it's gonna fall down in the browser, more so in FF. Try and hit your target frame rate with plenty of processing power to spare, then you have some latency when it runs in a browser.

I know that's more easily said than done, but it's not impossible.

Also, does anyone here know how the different brower's handle multiple swfs's? Firefox might be slower with one swf, but if it's due to better resource management, then it might well outperform IE when it's running with loads of banner ads. this is just a hunch, I'd like to know if anyone here has tested this at all.

[MikeMD]

Imho ignoring/avoiding/condemning a browser doesn't help you as developer, you cannot get away with "hey it's not my fault if the user doesn't use the *correct* browser" - and better you detect it, as your customer.

Nobody will ignore firefox if it is required that a game works well across all browsers, but if you want to push the envelope ( to use that cliche ), sorry firefox just can't keep up, and why let it stop you from developing a game that runs well in IE. Because there will always be that extra power available in IE, and it's silly to just ignore it because some other browser can't keep up.

And sometimes difference can be pretty extreme. A game that runs fine in IE, using wmode, even on a 5 year old pc, sometimes can't run even close to full speed on the newest machine, when there is a single flash ad on the same page.

Develop the best possible game, then if necessary dumb it down for firefox, not the other way around. Don't let firefox limit what you can do.

then it might well outperform IE when it's running with loads of banner ads. this is just a hunch. I'd like to know if anyone here has tested this at all

Yes, we've tested it, and the shooter game runs fine ( steady 30fps ) in IE, all the way down to 1 ghz processor, with one ad on the page. Firefox completely chokes without wmode, with wmode, still slow and you have to play using only the mouse ( different set of controls designed just for firefox ).

The rest of the games , because they are optimized to do so, all run fine on both, with 4-5 year old pcs and will run even on flash 5 if necessary. If an ad is displayed that takes up too much cpu power, then things may slow down a bit.

[lesli_felix]

Another thing you can do is to factor in changing framerates when you design the game.

I've just tried out a game i'm building in both FF and IE. It hovers around 22 fps in FF, and around 29 fps in IE.

It's a big difference, but the movement is frame independant so the only thing that you notice is slightly smoother movement in IE. It still plays well and looks good in FF.

[lesli_felix]

Yes, we've tested it, and the shooter game runs fine ( steady 30fps ) in IE, all the way down to 1 ghz processor, with one ad on the page. Firefox completely chokes without wmode, with wmode, still slow and you have to play using only the mouse.

That's interesting.

I wonder if this is any different with firefox 2? or flash 9 with as3?

I won't play anything in IE, unless i play it a lot and want that extra bit of juice. I always have IE close to hand for the odd occasion when FF breaks, or I need to test something I'm building for dev purposes.

FF is so much nicer and safer to use, the few shortcomings it has are worth putting up with.

[Squize]

It's funny, I've agreed with nearly every post in this thread at one time or another.

It's only with my current project, the zillion sprite shooter, that I'm really disappointed with FF's performance, and find myself agreeing pretty much with Mike.
If I'd targeted the game to run as well as it could under FF it wouldn't be anywhere near as good as it is now, I'd have had to cut back a lot.

Although part of me still won't go down the wmode route, targeting specific browsers goes against the grain, so it's a case of it's a bit sucky in FF, pretty cool in IE ,and due to take up figures of each browser I know the vast majority of users are going to have a better experience.

Squize.

[ihoss.com]

As Lesli said, make it framerate independent, using getTimer, if you really want it to run fast. If thats not an option, then look into making it an exe and downloading it. This comes with its own problems, specifically that people wont download exes because of viruses, or because its too much hassle.

It seems Mozilla and Adobe are working together to improve the flash engine: linky

[tomsamson]

ok,many good and right points mentioned here,but there´s also some things wrong:
first,with firefox it works like this: Among one browser window/browser tab the performance allocated to plugins is shared by all. So the more seperate flash elements you have the less is left for each single one.
However when you have several tabs there´s a way to get more performance for flash content in a single tab. André Michelle and others have shown this. Of course its not feasable to open several tabs in vain hope to get more performance in one of em,its just an example for how things work in ff.
Next up i´ve heard people talking about using timebased gameplay to get around all fps issues.
This is wrong,cause if flash can´t achieve an fps it means it can´t handle the game at the required performance. Doing everything timebased will not raise flash´s performance or the one of your cpu. Therefore if you do all timebased and your game/flash/cpu isn´t up to handle it it won´t run fine then either.
If you have your code running based on an interval,it means the interval is theoretically called after the specific time has elapsed,but yeah,it is not executed before the code which has to be executed ahead is done.
Have a read of this for more info for example: http://www.bit-101.com/blog/?p=910
So yeah,sad,but yup,coding everything time based may seem like the nice solution and theoretically also like a propper help for fps issues but its not the end of all fps problems solution.

Imho,yeah,its said that flash content runs so much worse in some browsers than others,too of course, but yup,there are right now no ideal solutions which act the same on all browsers other than tweaking your game engine as much as possible,setting to a bit higher fps setting than the target one for browser playback and where not possible to get it smooth in as2/f8 develop it in AS3.

[renderhjs]

mozilla will be faster once they throw the old netscape code over board and rewrite everything new- but that will take a little while

edit:
@ tomsamson:
from my expierence the timed animation has a few advantages:
- more accurate time feeling (doesn´t cut unrealisticly off in the middle)
- faster as Flash IDE motions (the timeline ones)
I have 2 computers: a modern fast computer and a ver old slow computer (700 Mhz)- still my ortho- engine runs in a believeable flow even though the framerate itself is breaking down (5-7 fps in some heavy cases). That wouldn´t be the same with linear non- timed methods e.g:

if (x<dest_x){
x+=speed;
}

but I have to admid that that is because I used interpolation methods within the motion function, so what teh 101bit site says is just the other half of the truth for me

[lesli_felix]

Next up i´ve heard people talking about using timebased gameplay to get around all fps issues.
This is wrong,cause if flash can´t achieve an fps it means it can´t handle the game at the required performance. Doing everything timebased will not raise flash´s performance or the one of your cpu.

No, timebased code wont increase performance. What it will do is prevent different framerates from affecting gameplay. Like I said before, the difference between 20fps and 30fps in a timebased game is simply that one looks smoother, but it should theoretically play the same.

What I don't want is for a game to be more easy/difficult because of a different speed of browser/machine. If the difference is just an aesthetic one, then that's far more acceptable. I just see this as a matter of adapting to the problem, rather than actually solving it, cos that's a job for adobe/firefox.