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sprynmr · Jul 2, 2002, 05:01 PM

This topic is regarding the incredibly lousy performance of the flash plugin on any browser (even IE,) on the fastest of connections, on the fastest of Macs. It would benefit our cause to get as much press and articles about this as possible.

As most of you probably know, the performance of any flash movie or animation on even of the FASTEST of DUAL G4's lags way behind the performance of flash on even a mediocre to LOW END PC. I used to allow for the fact that this MAY be the bad system architecture of OS 9, but NOW we have OS X, which was built from the ground up to be a 'digital hub' and have awesome multimedia capabilties. We also know it isn't the hardware bringing it down. (DUAL 1GhZ G4 should have absolutely not even a hiccup playing any flash movie.)

Being as frustrated with this as I was, I wrote Macromedia support. They flipped me around to a couple different support people and suggested silly things like making sure I was using a carbonized flash player and that I make sure other intensive tasks aren't running at the same time. Still I continued to write them, not letting them shuffle me off. I finally talked to this Macromedia Support person who was finally helpful, and honest, although not in a place to directly effect the performance of the player within the company.

In short, he suggested that as many people as possible fill out the form below and request more resources to be used for Mac Flash Player Development. (Cite the incredibly poor performance.) Unless people do this, there will be no change and we will continue to have flash performance on a mac ingnored while Flash becomes more and more in widespread use across the internet.

I'm requesting you fill out this form
<a href="http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/" target="_blank">http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/</a>
and sign this petition
<a href="http://www.petitiononline.com/daniel1/petition.html" target="_blank">http://www.petitiononline.com/daniel1/petition.html</a>

If you are only going to do one or the other, fill out the form. But it would really help if you did both.

Below is my most recent conversations with Blake, the Macromedia rep. His most recent response is listed first, so that the e-mails are in reverse order.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />

Hi Robert,

Again, thanks for your feedback. Like I said, I forwarded that URL to our developers. As usual, they have their hands full with just the performance of the Flash Player on Windows, especially version 6. Anytime there's a new version of software, there are going to be bugs. And you're right. Mac OS X is more stable because it runs on a UNIX kernel. I think that right now the best course of action to take is to have everybody who signed on that page to fill out this form and request that more resources be used for Mac Flash Player development: <a href="http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/" target="_blank">http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/</a>

The more customers who write in, the more our engineering team will listen.

Regards,

Blake Hutchinson
Macromedia Customer Care

--- Original Message ---
From: "M. Robert Spryn"
Received: 06-21-2002 8:28 PM CST
To: Blake Hutchinson
Subject: Re: Macromedia Customer Care

Yes I have tried that. It helps up the performance a little bit, but it
still lags for the most part. I just have trouble understanding how
flash can perform so well on very antiquated PC's, but can't even match
that on today's fastest macs. (Don't dare expect good performance on a
G3.) Before OS X, I figured that it might have to do with the lousy
underlaying system architecture of OS 9. But now that we have OS X,
which is designed ground up for performance and has incredibly powerful
multimedia layers built in, I am stunned that Flash still can't perform
well. My only conclusion is that it has to be based on the small amount
of resources put in to its development at Macromedia. Now I really love
Macromedia's products, and will continue to support the company, but it
really needs to optimize the code and performance of the flash player or
something. The only reason there aren't more signatures on that petition
is nobody knows its there.

Thanks for not disregarding my e-mails. I realize this may be
aggravating or annoying since it isn't your fault or really
responsibility.
~Robert

On Friday, June 21, 2002, at 08:21 PM, Blake Hutchinson wrote:

Hi Robert,

Thanks for your feedback. I was looking at the signatures and saw this
post (148): "All OS X users should update to 10.1.5 which includes the
latest Macromedia Flash Player 6. This version in many cases has been
seen to outperform the PC version." Has that been tried yet? I will
forward that URL to the Flash Player engineering team. Thank you!

Sincerely,

Blake Hutchinson
Macromedia Customer Care

--- Original Message ---
From: "M. Robert Spryn"
Received: 06-19-2002 2:23 PM CST
To: Blake Hutchinson
Subject: Re: Macromedia Customer Care

I am using a carbonized version. I am a power user, and an advanced
multimedia artist.

I am complaining that for whatever reason, the even the most up to date
flash player (r29) on mac OS X (most up to date version,) has terrible
performance in compared to Flash performance on the PC. This is not an
issue that is only present on my computer, it is present on all of the
macs I have access to (even brand spanking new ones,) and is something
that many mac users have complained about.

Please refer to this petition
<a href="http://www.petitiononline.com/daniel1/petition.html" target="_blank">http://www.petitiononline.com/daniel1/petition.html</a>

~Robert

<hr /></blockquote>Viva la Mac

crystalthunder · Jul 2, 2002, 05:16 PM

Whoooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!

JLL · Jul 2, 2002, 05:39 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by sprynmr:
This topic is regarding the incredibly lousy performance of the flash plugin on any browser (even IE,) on the fastest of connections, on the fastest of Macs. It would benefit our cause to get as much press and articles about this as possible.<hr /></blockquote>All I know is that Flash is faster in OmniWeb than in IE.

juanvaldes · Jul 2, 2002, 05:53 PM

What version of flash are we at?

Also, does anyone else find it dumb that under OS they list tons of stuff (every version of windows) only to have the next question be what version of the OS above your using? <img border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" title="" src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" />

vasu · Jul 2, 2002, 06:32 PM

Flash Speed Tests:

Powerbook G4: 550Mhz, 100Mhz System Bus, 512Mb PC100 RAM, 16Mb ATI Radeon Mobility Graphics, OSX 10.2 6C75

Windows PC: 750Mhz Athlon, 133Mhz DDR System Bus (266?), 512Mb PC266 RAM, 32Mb NVidia GeForce2, WindowsXP Professional.

Time to Complete Flash Animation at <a href="http://www.2advanced.net" target="_blank">www.2advanced.net</a>
Windows PC/IE6.0 : 18.13 Seconds
Powerbook/IE5.2 : 19 Seconds
Powerbook/OmniWeb4.1 : 18.04 Seconds
Powerbook/Chimera 0.31 : 18.11 Seconds

Pretty encouraging so far for a beta OS on my pidly Powerbook. This is using the latest Flash plugin on the Powerbook (Flash 6.0 r29)

-vasu

[ 07-02-2002, 06:34 PM: Message edited by: vasu ]

Ken_F2 · Jul 2, 2002, 07:08 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Time to Complete Flash Animation at <a href="http://www.2advanced.net" target="_blank">www.2advanced.net</a>
Windows PC/IE6.0 : 18.13 Seconds
Powerbook/IE5.2 : 19 Seconds
Powerbook/OmniWeb4.1 : 18.04 Seconds
Powerbook/Chimera 0.31 : 18.11 Seconds<hr /></blockquote>I have 1.5Mbps cable and it took about three seconds to load all the <a href="http://www.2advanced.net" target="_blank">www.2advanced.net</a> modules on my P4 2400 with XP and IE 6.0.2800.1065.

t_hah · Jul 2, 2002, 07:12 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Ken_F2:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Time to Complete Flash Animation at <a href="http://www.2advanced.net" target="_blank">www.2advanced.net</a>
Windows PC/IE6.0 : 18.13 Seconds
Powerbook/IE5.2 : 19 Seconds
Powerbook/OmniWeb4.1 : 18.04 Seconds
Powerbook/Chimera 0.31 : 18.11 Seconds<hr /></blockquote>I have 1.5Mbps cable and it took about three seconds to load all the <a href="http://www.2advanced.net" target="_blank">www.2advanced.net</a> modules on my P4 2400 with XP and IE 6.0.2800.1065.<hr /></blockquote>I think your 3 seconds measure something else than what the previous poster was measuring. My PowerMac QS 867, loaded the whole animation in about a second, but of course took a little more to play it. I am of course sitting behind a T3.

0.02$

Adam Betts · Jul 2, 2002, 07:33 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by vasu:
Flash Speed Tests:<hr /></blockquote>It is not about loading or speed time. It's about sluggy feeling found in most heavy flash movies.

Adam Betts · Jul 2, 2002, 07:36 PM

In Macromedia Forum, there are lot of debates about the speed in Flash Player for OS X:

<a href="http://webforums.macromedia.com/macromediaplayers/categories.cfm?catid=184" target="_blank">http://webforums.macromedia.com/macromediaplayers/categories.cfm?catid=184</a>

Ken_F2 · Jul 2, 2002, 07:37 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />I think your 3 seconds measure something else than what the previous poster was measuring.<hr /></blockquote>I'm not sure what else there is to measure. You click on "Enter 2Advanced Studios" and measure the time it takes to finish loading the below animation.

<img src="http://kfowler.bizland.com/temp/flash.jpg" alt=" - " />

sprynmr · Jul 2, 2002, 07:37 PM

Time to complete a flash animation doesn't fully reflect the performance of the flash player, unless you test an extremely high load flash piece (not the overall size, but the amount of traffic occuring at one point in time during the flash movie.) Unless the machine is sufficiently slower than other machines, a small - medium load flash animation should finish in about the same time on all players.

The difference is how smooth the animation plays. (What the real frames per second ends up being.) The animation may finish in the correct amount of time, but it is definitely not smooth (and often jerky if the animation is high enough of a load.) Objects will not smoothly tween in or across the screen, they will jump from one place to another, skipping many frames in between. The flash player compensates for the poor performance by skipping frames to try and keep up with the rate at which it is supposed to be playing.

Machine speed can and does affect the overall length of a flash piece however. And this is much more true on a mac. I won't even attempt to play a flash piece on my old iMac (333 with 160 mb of RAM) because it will take absolutely forever and look more like stop animation than real animation.

However, a PII 300 will play most flash movies extremely well. (In fact rivaling my Dual 500 G4 with a Gig of RAM.)

Honestly I'm suprised at those of you who find the performance to be about the same. (Unless you were only using the time to complete the animation as a reference.) Do me a favor and repeat the tests again on that and different flash animations, paying attention to the smoothness of the playing.

Cipher13 · Jul 2, 2002, 07:43 PM

Meh. I hate Flash anyway.

I refuse to visit Flash websites.

sprynmr · Jul 2, 2002, 08:01 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Cipher13:
Meh. I hate Flash anyway.

I refuse to visit Flash websites.<hr /></blockquote>Hey Cipher, why don't you sign anyway for your fellow mac users who do.

You seem to be on here enough, so you got some time on your hands. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

jk... but seriously just sign. Flash is a big defacto standard these days, needs to be well supported on the mac even if you don't in particular use it. It is things like this that keep some PC users from changing to Mac, which hurts the whole platform, not just those who use flash. Drives me nuts to be sitting in a college new media class and have the PC users laughing as the high powered G4 macs continually get the jitters while playing a flash piece that their eMachine can play flawlessly.

karbon · Jul 2, 2002, 08:18 PM

I support this 100% and signed the petition. There is no justification for Flash running this slow, and it`s all just a matter of developer resources on Macromedia part!

But let me say that I really admire Macromedia has committed to the Mac OS X platform. DreamWeaver MX works really well and at least we have a full functioning Flash Player (although a little slow!)

malvolio · Jul 2, 2002, 09:11 PM

Just to throw in some more numbers, that Flash site took 61 seconds to fully load on my 350MHz G3 iMac with 768 MB of RAM and the stock 8MB ATI Rage 128 graphics card.
I'm off to sign the petition!

walrusjb · Jul 2, 2002, 09:44 PM

Done + Done (filed as bug report, re-filed as Wish request)

Thanks so much for posting links to these... this has been driving me mad as of late.

Alex Duffield · Jul 2, 2002, 11:11 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Cipher13:
Meh. I hate Flash anyway.

I refuse to visit Flash websites.<hr /></blockquote>That�s cause you use a Mac.

I refuse to visit ugly poorly designed websites. I don�t care about what technology they use, as long as they use it well...

Unfortunately it is a lot easier to do it wrong with flash. But that does not make flash sites BAD.

PipelineStall · Jul 2, 2002, 11:47 PM

Flash performance is indeed bad. For a good example, see the flash movie at: <a href="http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/af/content/atom_1403" target="_blank">http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/af/content/atom_1403</a>

Viewing this in IE 5.2 on 10.1.5 is bad. The animation is fairly choppy most of the time (around 5 - 7 fps I'd guess, it's a 20 fps movie).

Saving the film to the hard drive, and viewing it in OmniWeb is better, but for smooth animation I have to reduce the size down to around 200 x 100 pixels. It's still choppy in certain areas where there is lots of activity on the screen (eg: around the transition to Tattooine where the Storm Troopers are waving their arms).

This is being tested on my TiBook 667 (not the newer DVI ones) with 1 gig of RAM. The authors recommend a Pentium II or newer for optimal speed, and I don't think that my TiBook is *SLOWER* than a Pentium II.

[Edit: Fixed link - thanks sprynmr]

[ 07-03-2002, 02:17 AM: Message edited by: PipelineStall ]

sprynmr · Jul 3, 2002, 01:26 AM

Just fixing the link in this post:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by PipelineStall:
Flash performance is indeed bad. For a good example, see the flash movie at: <a href="http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/af/content/atom_1403" target="_blank">http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/af/content/atom_1403</a>

Viewing this in IE 5.2 on 10.1.5 is bad. The animation is fairly choppy most of the time (around 5 - 7 fps I'd guess, it's a 20 fps movie).

This is being tested on my TiBook 667 (not the newer DVI ones) with 1 gig of RAM. The authors recommend a Pentium II or newer for optimal speed, and I don't think that my TiBook is *SLOWER* than a Pentium II.<hr /></blockquote>

milhous · Jul 3, 2002, 02:33 AM

sprynmr:

Thanks for showing initiative on this one. I've signed what you asked. Let's see how serious Macromedia takes the feedback and petition.

sprynmr · Jul 3, 2002, 02:47 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by milhous:
sprynmr:

Thanks for showing initiative on this one. I've signed what you asked. Let's see how serious Macromedia takes the feedback and petition.<hr /></blockquote>Honestly my motives are somewhat selfish.

Initiatives like this need to be taken by both members of Apple and of their user base to make sure the company stays around and hopefully even grows. I want Apple to stay around, so I can keep enjoying using my computer, especially since it is directly in my line of work.

But I suppose in that sense, most everyone's initiatives are selfish.

Anyway. I wrote both Macnn, and Maccentral to try to get them to publish some sort of article or news release on this to open it up to way more mac users than I can reach. Lets hope they do!(List any other mac news sites you think I should contact, or even contact them yourself if ya like.)
~Peace

undotwa · Jul 3, 2002, 03:16 AM

Me don't like flash.
Me want better flash because lots of sites use flash.
Me wish the web was static... me dreams...

Gee4orce · Jul 3, 2002, 03:40 AM

Sorry to preach, but this is exactly what happens when people allow a proprietory technology to 'take over' the internet. If Flash were a W3C standard technology then we'd have umpteen different players available...

Personally I'd rather see a browser on the Mac that's as fast as a browser on the PC.

theolein · Jul 3, 2002, 05:30 AM

There are those who are members of the FFF (Fu*k Flash Foudation) and those who think that Flash is better thatn anything else on the web.

The reality is probably somewhere in between. Flash can add to a site but many sites lost it completely with irritating Flash intros that no one really wanted to watch. Even if I'm on a PC I try to avoid sites that are too Flash heavy for no apparent purpose other than having animated little gizmos.

But in spite of this, I signed the petition as I want my Mac to be completely Multimedia capable.

Love Calm Quiet · Jul 3, 2002, 07:10 AM

Maybe, being on a Mac, I don't *know* what I'm missing -- sure there's some 'choppiness' to the animation. I just thought that's the way (even via cable modem) web animation is.

Maybe there are not more Mac-user complaints because they can't tell about a smoother, faster performance they coul be getting if MM gave us Rodney MacDangerfields some more respect

havannas · Jul 3, 2002, 12:11 PM

Signed the petition.

If its true that a lot of Flash content is made on a Mac, perhaps this performance difference is on purpose. Kinda like in 'Chariots of Fire' when they trained with the wrong(heavier) weights. If a Flash designer gets it to play half-way decent on the Mac, it will play real well on the PC... ensuring that the Flash technology looks good to 95% of the population.

el_humpo · Jul 3, 2002, 12:34 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Gee4orce:
Sorry to preach, but this is exactly what happens when people allow a proprietory technology to 'take over' the internet. If Flash were a W3C standard technology then we'd have umpteen different players available...
<hr /></blockquote>EXACTLY!! This is why I will never use Flash on my site, and I won't visit sites that use it.

sprynmr · Jul 3, 2002, 03:03 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by el_humpo:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Gee4orce:
Sorry to preach, but this is exactly what happens when people allow a proprietory technology to 'take over' the internet. If Flash were a W3C standard technology then we'd have umpteen different players available...
<hr /></blockquote>EXACTLY!! This is why I will never use Flash on my site, and I won't visit sites that use it.<hr /></blockquote>Well, its not as if it existed before flash was made available by Macromedia. Its not as if Macromedia put it out there and forced others out of competition and forced people to use it. They came up with something new (actually a small company did and Macromedia bought the software so it could be developed much quicker,) and they put it out there to add more multimedia capabilities to the web. Are you blaming a company for wanting to make money, but being fair about it? They don't make you pay for the flash player plugin, and they didn't stop Adobe from developing a flash technology development solution.

I like Open source (a lot) and I like standards (a lot), but it isn't always the best answer. If a company comes out with something revolutionary like flash (was) then you can't expect them not to make money on it.In fact though, I do believe Macromedia is doing this the right way. And further more, I don't think they are necessarily stopping anyone from developing a better plugin (I don't know for sure,) but who in their right minds is really going to spend their time doing that when Macromedia is in a better position than anyone to. They know their technology far better than anyone else, and SHOULD be able to develop a great plugin.

In my corner, the only issue is the crappy performance of the flash plugin on the mac when compared to the excellent performance on a PC.

I believe Macromedia has worked with everyone to make sure that swf was a industry supported and very compliant file format.

Do you not watch quicktime movies because the plugin is developed by Apple? I seriously doubt they would let anyone else develop a plugin.

Anywho, keep the signatures coming.

ReggieX · Jul 3, 2002, 04:19 PM

Riiight, because we all know how effective online petitions are.

sprynmr · Jul 3, 2002, 04:35 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by ReggieX:
Riiight, because we all know how effective online petitions are.

<hr /></blockquote>Read the first post. I said the form is more important as it does go directly to the developers, but the petition is now being watched by macromedia.

Even if you don't think it'll work, sign anyway. You don't have 10 seconds to spare?

sprynmr · Jul 3, 2002, 04:42 PM

Some have commented about the bad grammar and spelling of the person who wrote the petition.

First of all, I guess I didn't make it clear that I didn't write it. (That is misinterpreted on the Macnn homepage.) I just found it and decided to move its cause along. (The petition has more than doubled in signatures in one night.) Second of all, after some e-mail correspondence with the author, I have realized that English is not is first language, so it was not a lack of effort on his part, it was just the best he knew. So don't be too proud to sign because it has a few errors in it. The author knew enough Enlish to get across what he wanted. A good flash plugin!

Peace

waxpraxis · Jul 3, 2002, 05:18 PM

I am *intimately* familiar with the Flash development process as well as the team who does the development and I can tell you that many times more optimizations were made for the Mac than were made for the PC. That's a fact.

In addition, the Flash player does not and *can not* utilize Altivec because the type of data that Flash works with simply doesn't coorespond to vector operations (the math, not the type of drawing). Altivec and other vector processors work with huge swaths of data all at once and the SWF format is based on sparse structures.

Finally, your villian here really isn't Macromedia, it's the old Netscape plugin architecture. ActiveX is lightyears ahead of that cruddy old spec... hell compare Netscape on the PC performance with performance on the Mac, it is *very* similar. That architecture is the major problem, not Macromedia.

elevader · Jul 3, 2002, 05:22 PM

OK,

We were refered over here from the flashcoders mailing List, and there is information that many people don't know. I'm going to paste in some comments made by Branden Hall to help clarify the issue:

*Remember*-The Flash player is optimized for Size first. It is a mere 350k. performance is secondary;

--Branden Hall from FlashCoders--

I know what he was talking about, I just didn't want to get too deep into
acronyms that the average Flashcoder couldn't keep up (I also used to work a
bit with high performance computing)

I can't go into great details here because of NDAs, etc, but the Flash 6
player had *much* more time spent on it to optimize it for Macs than you
might even believe. The huge majority of platform specify optimizations were
made just for macs. I know this for a fact.

In addition, try this sometime - get a really CPU intensive Flash movie and
play it in Netscape on the PC and any browser on the Mac... you'll see that
they are *very* close in terms of playback speed. In this case MM is simply
tied to a very old and cruddy plugin architecture that dates back to before
Netscape 3! ActiveX is *lightyears* beyond that level... and well, it shows.
Look at standalone SWFs on the Mac, they fly!

Yes, I am sure that MM could optimize the player more, but remember, it's
already optimized for *size*... and as I'm sure you know, optimizing for
size and speed at the same time is often like pulling on a rope in different
directions - you end up going no where. I'm sure MM will pull more
performance out of the Mac player in the future, however, want to impart to
both you and the rest of the Flash community that MM *does* care about Macs
and *does* spend a lot of time optimizing their player for the PowerPC
platform.

-Branden

Tony MacDonell
Teknision

elevader · Jul 3, 2002, 05:24 PM

What's Up Branden!? Reprazent!

sprynmr · Jul 3, 2002, 06:19 PM

Hey again all,

Branden appears to be extremely knowledgeable on this subject. Below is my response to his thoughts outlined above.

Branden,

I admit I am not an expert when it comes to the architecture of the netscape plugins, but I am not yet convinced this is the problem.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />
I am *intimately* familiar with the Flash development process as well as the
team who does the development and I can tell you that many times more
optimizations were made for the Mac than were made for the PC. That's a
fact.<hr /></blockquote>I cannot deny this. I have no knowledge of this, and you may very well be correct.
<blockquote>quote:<hr />
In addition, the Flash player does not and *can not* utilize Altivec because
the type of data that Flash works with simply doesn't coorespond to vector
operations (the math, not the type of drawing). Altivec and other vector
processors work with huge swaths of data all at once and the SWF format is
based on sparse structures.<hr /></blockquote>Honestly, it shouldn't even need to tap into Altivec. When a Pentium II can play a flash movie flawlessly without even maxing the processor, there is no reason that a g3 chip at the same clockspeed should have any problems. It has been shown that the g3 and g4 performs slightly better at identical clockspeeds because the gX chips do more operations per cycle. Open up a movie on a mac, and open a CPU monitor. <a href="http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/af/content/atom_1403" target="_blank">http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/af/content/atom_1403</a> is a pretty good example. Never does it max out my processor, and in fact it doesn't approach that level. I can still comfortably do lots of other things on the system with no performance hit.

No I really don't believe the processor is the problem.

However this part I am not willing to venture a strong denial of:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />
Finally, your villian here really isn't Macromedia, it's the old Netscape
plugin architecture. ActiveX is lightyears ahead of that cruddy old spec...
hell compare Netscape on the PC performance with performance on the Mac, it
is *very* similar. That architecture is the major problem, not Macromedia.
<hr /></blockquote>But, I am not convinced that this is the full answer either. No offense intended. I can only look to the performance of other plugins, namely quicktime's, which is also a netscape plugin (no other option.) Now a compressed movie can also chew up quite a bit of processor power, as the CPU scrambles to decode the information using the appropriate codec. But I never see any difference in performance on similiarly configured macs and PC's when it comes to playing quicktime movies in the browser. (And this cannot be attributed to Altivec if the plugin architecture is the bottleneck in the first place. And from what I've heard, quicktime still doesn't currently take too much advantage of altivec. (Could be mistaken on this one.) Also, if the plugin architecture is the bottleneck, then why do lower end macs suffer so much more than higher end ones? (Although the g3 should be more than capable of playing the movie as I already said.)

I don't think I am getting the full picture/answer here. And I believe the campaign could and will still be effective even if part of this falls on Apple/Microsoft. If Macromedia catches enough complaints (which I do believe they are,) then they are in a more able position to push Apple or Microsoft into changes things on their end so that Macromedia's users would benefit and stop blaming them.

If I had written the petition, I would have included some of your thoughts in there about the plugin architecture, but its a little too late for that.

Thanks for your thoughts though. I am not ignorant or so fixated on the cause to not consider that there may be other reasons that I am not aware of. I believe by pushing hard enough, this may get solved no matter what the cause.

Thanks!
~Robert

sprynmr · Jul 3, 2002, 06:26 PM

And here is his response, to which I really would be over-stepping my bounds to try and come up with an intelligent response to. He seems to know what he's talking about beyond where my knowledge reaches.

Robert,

As for the processor, most of the comparisons that are done between PCs and
Macs *heavily* rely on use of the Altivec units. The imfamous Photoshop
tests are a big example of this. For a very detailed breakdown of the G4
chip vs. the P4 you can read this article:
<a href="http://arstechnica.com/cpu/01q2/p4andg4e/p4andg4e-1.html" target="_blank">http://arstechnica.com/cpu/01q2/p4andg4e/p4andg4e-1.html</a>

<blockquote>quote:<hr />But, I am not convinced that this is the full answer either. No offense
intended. I can only look to the performance of other plugins, namely
quicktime's, which is also a netscape plugin (no other option.) Now a
compressed movie can also chew up quite a bit of processor power, as the
CPU scrambles to decode the information using the appropriate codec. But
I never see any difference in performance on similiarly configured macs
and PC's when it comes to playing quicktime movies in the browser. (And
this cannot be attributed to Altivec if the plugin architecture is the
bottleneck in the first place. And from what I've heard, quicktime still
doesn't currently take too much advantage of altivec. (Could be mistaken
on this one.) Also, if the plugin architecture is the bottleneck, then
why do lower end macs suffer so much more than higher end ones?
(Although the g3 should be more than capable of playing the movie as I
already said.)<hr /></blockquote>The plugin architecture is the bottleneck in the case of Flash because it
*can't* use Altivec. In the case of Quicktime it *is* using Altivec so
consequently the plugin bottleneck is negated by the huge boost in speed
that Altivec gives (Altivec really are amazing chips!)

As for older Macs being worse than newer ones your culprit is the huge
differences architecture-wise between the G3 and G4. In addition, you have
have the simple fact that G4 run a hell of a lot faster than G3s!

-Branden

Me again --->
However, this does NOT mean we should let up on Macromedia in my eyes. This problem needs to be solved no matter with whom it truely lies.If it lies in Macromedia's field, lets get them to fix it. If it lies in Apple's, lets bug Macromedia enough to where they will tell Apple to fix it. It is much easier and effective to focus a campaign like this on one company, which can then defend itself if necessary and publicly place the blame on Apple. If MM catches enough crap from us, and it is not their fault, then they will put out something saying so, and put the spotlight on the culprit.

In fact, I have been contacted now by the Product Manager of Macromedia. I wrote him a detailed response. I will keep people updated on his response.

Thanks,

Appleman · Jul 3, 2002, 06:55 PM

Did both.

Hate Flash.

Apple should talk with / to MM.

Appleman · Jul 3, 2002, 07:06 PM

Hilarious: while reading this thread I'm listening to my 3000+ iTunes collection playing at random, and guess what's playing now?

"Flesh" from Aerosmith's "Get a grip"...

<img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" />

Mr Scruff · Jul 3, 2002, 07:18 PM

Can someone verify the performance of Flash if the plugin bottleneck is removed (ie using a standalone player)? How does it compare to Windows?

Durandalus · Jul 3, 2002, 07:23 PM

Who invented the "Flash Intro" anyway? He should be banned from planet earth.
As to the topic: yes, Flash is slow on Macs, mainly for big moving filled vector graphics. Is Flash really that important for Mac people and Mac designers? Usually I see Flash intros as a way to dress up ugly and useless websites. Concerning Flash, Jakob Nielsen is wrong again (though his perception of the obvious astounds me). Flash is 100% evil, not 99%. Flash's only raison d'�tre would be Internet Applications and for that I can use Java, where i really have no limitations. As for bandwidth saving graphics, SVG is the way to go. Webdesignners should concentrate on content and functionality, not makeup.

train · Jul 3, 2002, 07:28 PM

I'm glad to hear Macromedia cares about the performance of the mac player but I too am not sure it all can be blamed on the plugin architecture.

Even when playing them within flash (not in the browser), they play slower on the mac. (am basing this on Flash 5) And of course, if flash is running in the background, then flash player and swfs in a browser play even slower than normal. Yes, swf's are faster when launched on their own, but they still lag, or skip a frame here and there.

Yes, It usually plays acceptable enough for most users and uses, but not when comparing it to the oldest slowest PC you can find.
I work in Flash for a living, and I understand what sprynmr means concerning Flash performance making the mac look bad. Mac is king of the hill when it comes to graphics, so it just bewilders people that a flash on a G4 450 plays so much choppier than on some crappy PII. I still much prefer to develop on a mac, but for playback of intensive animations the framerate on the almost obsolete PC will look better.

Now, with Flash Player 6 in OS X, and my QS 867, my machine plays most anything really well, but this type of power shouldn't be required to do so, and I'm still not 100% sure if it's up to par with a slow pc. And a swf will still become choppy if I scale it to full-screen, even just in Flash Player.

Besides framerate maximums, there has always been consistency issues. Now again, I'm making this statement based on vers.5, as I haven't had 2+ years working with the 6 player yet. It may have fixed some of this... But at least at one point, you could make a flash at 21 fps and it would only actually play at about 16 fps. Then you could set it to play at 31 fps and it would play at 24 fps. So my question is, if it's capable of 24 fps why couldn't it play at 21 properly?

Also, movies set to play at 16-20fps used to play the same as if they were set to 15fps, while movies set at 21-30 would all play as if set to 21, it seemed, and 31+, the same as at 31. So I almost always make my movies at 15,21,or 31 fps. There was a huge difference between 20 and 21, 30 and 31. This hopefully has been fixed with Flash Player 6 and/or MX. I haven't checked...

So needless to say, I'm all for accelerating the Flash plugin. I wish Quark Extreme could be used to accelerate this in 10.2, but I read somewhere that it wouldn't affect flash performance.

The amount of Flash and Flash applications on the web is increasing, and being there is only 1 maker of a flash plugin, it is very important for the platform as well, that it be at a comparable consistent level with the PC performance.

train · Jul 3, 2002, 07:59 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Durandalus:
Who invented the "Flash Intro" anyway? He should be banned from planet earth.
As to the topic: yes, Flash is slow on Macs, mainly for big moving filled vector graphics. Is Flash really that important for Mac people and Mac designers?<hr /></blockquote>Yes!
Have you seen any recent movie promo sites not made in Flash?
Not many big name music artist sites either I suspect.
Whether we like it or not, Flash is taking over certain niches of the web, (besides being used for tv and PDA's now). Mac designers have to design this stuff and are doing so, that's why we're concerned. Bad flash performance hurts the overall mac web-browsing experience. Flash MX now incorporates video and other intensive stuff, and the number of broadband users is exploding. This will likely lead to more intensive flash use, which will keep adequate performance important.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />
Usually I see Flash intros as a way to dress up ugly and useless websites. Concerning Flash, Jakob Nielsen is wrong again (though his perception of the obvious astounds me). Flash is 100% evil, not 99%. <hr /></blockquote>It may be evil, but it looks like it's here to stay until something better and easier comes along.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />
Flash's only raison d'�tre would be Internet Applications and for that I can use Java, where i really have no limitations. As for bandwidth saving graphics, SVG is the way to go. Webdesignners should concentrate on content and functionality, not makeup.
<hr /></blockquote>Flash does provide a level of engagement that would be hard to accomplish any other way. Sometimes flash improves content and functionality. Take a look at <a href="http://www.becominghuman.org" target="_blank">becominghuman.org</a> I don't know how you'd do something like that using java and SVG...

arghhh · Jul 3, 2002, 09:05 PM

Hey all - my first post!

Looks like a good board- took a long time to find a name to register!

Anyway, I started building a tester app a while back, to gauge the flash player performance on different computers/browsers, etc. It still needs to be longer I think, to get a better idea, but I'll post it up if anyone would be interested in using it. It's simple, you load it up, it waits until the whole file is loaded, you push a button, it runs, and then gives you results at the end. Right now it tells you how long the animation actually is and what fps it should run at, and your scores in comparison. I'm going to make the test animation a bit longer, but it should suffice. I'll add my scores from my powerbook g3 when I post it up.

John

PipelineStall · Jul 3, 2002, 09:25 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr /> Look at standalone SWFs on the Mac, they fly!<hr /></blockquote>How does one go about playing SWFs on Mac OS X, without using a web browser? Do I need Flash MX?

Durandalus · Jul 3, 2002, 09:43 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />
Yes!
Have you seen any recent movie promo sites not made in Flash?
Not many big name music artist sites either I suspect.
Whether we like it or not, Flash is taking over certain niches of the web, (besides being used for tv and PDA's now). <hr /></blockquote>But that doesn't mean it's the best way of doing it. Just because someone's ego needs an animated intro doesn't mean it's necessary. Don't follow the crowd, don't submit to peer pressure.
<blockquote>quote:<hr />
Mac designers have to design this stuff and are doing so, that's why we're concerned. Bad flash performance hurts the overall mac web-browsing experience. Flash MX now incorporates video and other intensive stuff, and the number of broadband users is exploding. This will likely lead to more intensive flash use, which will keep adequate performance important.
<hr /></blockquote>Agreed. For the few times flash is good it would be nice to have decent performance.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />
Flash does provide a level of engagement that would be hard to accomplish any other way. Sometimes flash improves content and functionality. Take a look at <a href="http://www.becominghuman.org" target="_blank">becominghuman.org</a> I don't know how you'd do something like that using java and SVG...[/QB]<hr /></blockquote>Agreed again. But this is a very untypical site for Flash, as it conveys information. This is more a Director movie posted to the web. Also I think the information could be presented better with HTML and some Quicktime movies. That way I would still be in control. I could navigate freely, copy text and print pages. Maybe I'm too much the scientific type. Why should I wait for someone to read something to me over some panning images if I could just read the text myself in a second or so? Sometimes I think most people design flash movies for people with a comprehension disability or for 5 year olds.

Again: Yes I think Flash performance is crappy under MacOS

sprynmr · Jul 4, 2002, 12:12 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by arghhh:
Anyway, I started building a tester app a while back, to gauge the flash player performance on different computers/browsers, etc. It still needs to be longer I think, to get a better idea, but I'll post it up if anyone would be interested in using it. It's simple, you load it up, it waits until the whole file is loaded, you push a button, it runs, and then gives you results at the end. Right now it tells you how long the animation actually is and what fps it should run at, and your scores in comparison. I'm going to make the test animation a bit longer, but it should suffice. I'll add my scores from my powerbook g3 when I post it up.

John<hr /></blockquote>I'd like to see this. Let me know once you get it posted.

[email protected]

[ 07-04-2002, 12:13 PM: Message edited by: sprynmr ]

notneeded · Jul 4, 2002, 01:46 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by sprynmr:
This topic is regarding the incredibly lousy performance of the flash plugin on any browser (even IE,) on the fastest of connections, on the fastest of Macs. It would benefit our cause to get as much press and articles about this as possible.

As most of you probably know, the performance of any flash movie or animation on even of the FASTEST of DUAL G4's lags way behind the performance of flash on even a mediocre to LOW END PC. I used to allow for the fact that this MAY be the bad system architecture of OS 9, but NOW we have OS X, which was built from the ground up to be a 'digital hub' and have awesome multimedia capabilties. We also know it isn't the hardware bringing it down. (DUAL 1GhZ G4 should have absolutely not even a hiccup playing any flash movie.)

Being as frustrated with this as I was, I wrote Macromedia support. They flipped me around to a couple different support people and suggested silly things like making sure I was using a carbonized flash player and that I make sure other intensive tasks aren't running at the same time. Still I continued to write them, not letting them shuffle me off. I finally talked to this Macromedia Support person who was finally helpful, and honest, although not in a place to directly effect the performance of the player within the company.

In short, he suggested that as many people as possible fill out the form below and request more resources to be used for Mac Flash Player Development. (Cite the incredibly poor performance.) Unless people do this, there will be no change and we will continue to have flash performance on a mac ingnored while Flash becomes more and more in widespread use across the internet.

I'm requesting you fill out this form
<a href="http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/" target="_blank">http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/</a>
and sign this petition
<a href="http://www.petitiononline.com/daniel1/petition.html" target="_blank">http://www.petitiononline.com/daniel1/petition.html</a>

If you are only going to do one or the other, fill out the form. But it would really help if you did both.

Below is my most recent conversations with Blake, the Macromedia rep. His most recent response is listed first, so that the e-mails are in reverse order.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />

Hi Robert,

Again, thanks for your feedback. Like I said, I forwarded that URL to our developers. As usual, they have their hands full with just the performance of the Flash Player on Windows, especially version 6. Anytime there's a new version of software, there are going to be bugs. And you're right. Mac OS X is more stable because it runs on a UNIX kernel. I think that right now the best course of action to take is to have everybody who signed on that page to fill out this form and request that more resources be used for Mac Flash Player development: <a href="http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/" target="_blank">http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/</a>

The more customers who write in, the more our engineering team will listen.

Regards,

Blake Hutchinson
Macromedia Customer Care

--- Original Message ---
From: "M. Robert Spryn"
Received: 06-21-2002 8:28 PM CST
To: Blake Hutchinson
Subject: Re: Macromedia Customer Care

Yes I have tried that. It helps up the performance a little bit, but it
still lags for the most part. I just have trouble understanding how
flash can perform so well on very antiquated PC's, but can't even match
that on today's fastest macs. (Don't dare expect good performance on a
G3.) Before OS X, I figured that it might have to do with the lousy
underlaying system architecture of OS 9. But now that we have OS X,
which is designed ground up for performance and has incredibly powerful
multimedia layers built in, I am stunned that Flash still can't perform
well. My only conclusion is that it has to be based on the small amount
of resources put in to its development at Macromedia. Now I really love
Macromedia's products, and will continue to support the company, but it
really needs to optimize the code and performance of the flash player or
something. The only reason there aren't more signatures on that petition
is nobody knows its there.

Thanks for not disregarding my e-mails. I realize this may be
aggravating or annoying since it isn't your fault or really
responsibility.
~Robert

On Friday, June 21, 2002, at 08:21 PM, Blake Hutchinson wrote:

Hi Robert,

Thanks for your feedback. I was looking at the signatures and saw this
post (148): "All OS X users should update to 10.1.5 which includes the
latest Macromedia Flash Player 6. This version in many cases has been
seen to outperform the PC version." Has that been tried yet? I will
forward that URL to the Flash Player engineering team. Thank you!

Sincerely,

Blake Hutchinson
Macromedia Customer Care

--- Original Message ---
From: "M. Robert Spryn"
Received: 06-19-2002 2:23 PM CST
To: Blake Hutchinson
Subject: Re: Macromedia Customer Care

I am using a carbonized version. I am a power user, and an advanced
multimedia artist.

I am complaining that for whatever reason, the even the most up to date
flash player (r29) on mac OS X (most up to date version,) has terrible
performance in compared to Flash performance on the PC. This is not an
issue that is only present on my computer, it is present on all of the
macs I have access to (even brand spanking new ones,) and is something
that many mac users have complained about.

Please refer to this petition
<a href="http://www.petitiononline.com/daniel1/petition.html" target="_blank">http://www.petitiononline.com/daniel1/petition.html</a>

~Robert

<hr /></blockquote>Viva la Mac<hr /></blockquote>

notneeded · Jul 4, 2002, 01:54 PM

Sorry about that last post. New to the forum and I hit the "Add Reply" button inadvertently.

Being a Flash developer, we have found as a Flash Mac IE player bug that will SIGNIFICANTLY affect site loading times for Mac vs. Windows.

When the Mac player starts loading an intro movie, it does not stop loading the movie when the commands generated by a "Skip Intro" button are executed. Windows player properly terminates the load of the intro movie.

We have tried every conceivable means to work around this problem. Nothing has been found to date.

So, when a Mac user enters a site prefaced with an intro movie, that movie will ALWAYS stream FULLY to the client player.

This is clearly a Mac Player bug that we hop MM will soon fix.

sprynmr · Jul 4, 2002, 02:12 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by notneeded:
Sorry about that last post. New to the forum and I hit the "Add Reply" button inadvertently.
<hr /></blockquote>You can at least get rid of all that text in your first post if you hit 'edit' (found at the top of the post,) and then delete all the text in the window.

Not sure if members have the right to delete their own post.

yurin8or · Jul 4, 2002, 02:37 PM

Isn't aqua coded in flash?

2advanced is a nice flash site, but it could use a little more contrast in its design.