Why is Flash Slow in Mac Browsers?

[rring]

Hi
This must be documented somewhere, but I have never found it. I have been
developing in Flash on a Mac since Flash 4, pre-OSX days. No matter what
version of Flash or what version of Mac OS I have developed on, Flash has
always played slower in mac browsers than in PC browsers. Has anyone else
experience this? I know running the Flash Player while Flash is open affects
this, but closing Flash down first doesnt help 100%

No matter what version of Safari or IE for mac - the Flash Player runs slower.
However, when i see other peoples flash sites some of them seem to run quite
fast (although I dont know what their original authoring FPS was )

I have tons of memory, dual gig processors, G5 and all the latest and greates
software updates.

Does anyone have any insight where the problem lies?

Thanks
Ryan

[Jeckyl]

> Does anyone have any insight where the problem lies?

Yeup .. FLash just plays slower.

You're not likely to get an explanation of what it is about the way the
player is written and the mac operating system operates that causes this.
Nor is there anyhting you can do, other than try the 'magic' frame rates
that seem to perform better on Mac in the past .. 21 and 31 fps being the
most common (there are some faster and slower ones, but they aren't really
useful rates).

Its just something you have to accept and ensure you author you movie so it
is not dependant on the frame rate and then you won't notice any slowdown in
your movie at all .. it will work the same regardless.

Jeckyl

[rring]

Thanks! Sad, but whadyagonna do?

Im assuming then that other peoples Flash sites that are quick in my browser,
have either been authored at very fast frame rates, or have very short tweens
(or AS generated animations)

[albee]

Yes, it's something that us Mac users have had to deal with because regardless
of how fast our shiny new hardware is, Flash is still slow, especially with
large fades over text content, and large images moving across the screen. I
think that the player for Windows is better integrated with graphics-rendering
hardware and is definitely tied in to DirectX technology, which is a
Windows-only graphics rendering environment. The new Flash player for Mac (v.
8) is supposed to integrate more with OpenGL, the graphics specification that
many game developers, etc., use to develop games and that is supported natively
by Mac OS X. This is good news because now the Mac version of the player may
perform on par with its Windows counterpart... It's just a theory!

[rring]

Thanks for the 411 Albee!

[PeaceNic]

Here's what I consider the absolute documentation on this subject, in case you haven't seen it...

http://weblogs.macromedia.com/md/archives/2005/08/flash_player_8.cfm