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Snow Leopard Flash performance
- Thread starter zen
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One option is to install Click to Flash and force youtube to load the h264 versions of videos. I haven't noticed any choppiness, but flash does run rather poorly.
Flash is much worse in Snow Leopard than it was in Leopard. I'm not sure if it's due to the plugin wrapper or the move to 64-bit (or something different entirely), but the performance is worse and it chews up much more CPU. Trying to play some Flash games that worked great in Leopard cause my black MacBook to run at 100% in one core (jumping the CPU temperature up to the mid-70s C) and to be notably less smooth than they were in Leopard.
This also occurs with some (but only some) Flash video. Youtube (Flash only - H.264 with C2F is great!) is pretty poor, but some others are surprisingly not as bad.
This also occurs with some (but only some) Flash video. Youtube (Flash only - H.264 with C2F is great!) is pretty poor, but some others are surprisingly not as bad.
It's not just their Mac coding... Adobe can't code their way out of a paper bag on any platform. Flash was always a problem child on both Mac and PC, it's the #1 source of browser crashes on both platforms, it's the #1 reason for the fans spinning up like crazy, and its poor optimization never ceases to boggle my mind. My god, a couple of lame 2D vector sprites and the computer is doing heavy lifting like I was playing a modern first-person shooter at 60 fps with 1920x1200 resolution.
Adobe seem to be concentrating on Air which has OS X cross platform support. not really much of a fan of it but this may cause them to concentrate less on Flash development for OS X.
Does a company with over 7,000 employees really need to concentrate all its efforts on one product at a time?
flash
I've noticed that flash doesn't seem to have the same runaway temps when I run it in Firefox as compared to Safari, but this may just be my impression. However, the temps are still running hot regardless of browser.
I've noticed that flash doesn't seem to have the same runaway temps when I run it in Firefox as compared to Safari, but this may just be my impression. However, the temps are still running hot regardless of browser.
haha no? just saying that i think Flash for OS X is probably less important at the time due to Adobe's new venture into Air.
"/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Flash Player.plugin" and "/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/flashplayer.xpt"
Instead of putting in even older versions of the plugin, you should download the latest version (10.32) from Adobe, as 10.6 shipped with an older version of Flash (10.22). Of course, it still sucks--and not just on Mac OS, it also sucks on Win 7 x64. I still have no idea why Flash needs >75% of each core on a penryn system just to decode 720*360 AVC video, when other applications (VLC, QT and Windows Media Player 12) use 20-30% max at that resolution.
Also, it would seem that Adobe has just given up on releasing an x64 version of Flash (i.e. one that would be compatible with 64bit browsers like IE8 and Safari in OS 10.6), which is yet another reason why Flash player sucks.
Also, it would seem that Adobe has just given up on releasing an x64 version of Flash (i.e. one that would be compatible with 64bit browsers like IE8 and Safari in OS 10.6), which is yet another reason why Flash player sucks.
I can confirm this problem. I used to be able to fullscreen hulu videos on my 1080p monitor, but after installing snow leopard they're just too choppy. My (crappy) fix is to zoom in on the video using control-scrollwheel.
[update:] I downloaded the latest version of Flash and it's not much better. I still cant scale video smoothly to 1080p. I'm fairly certain i was able to do that with 10.5.8
[update:] I downloaded the latest version of Flash and it's not much better. I still cant scale video smoothly to 1080p. I'm fairly certain i was able to do that with 10.5.8
Flash is utter utter crap. It's a tough pill for most Mac users to swallow, but Silverlight is a far far better solution for Flash-like solutions. It's much much more efficient.
Well, I doth hereby 'unconfirm' this.
No problems with flash or Hulu (full screen) on my lowly whitebook.
Are you running Safari in 32bit? Try it.
Pretty strong degradation in guimark
<http://www.craftymind.com/factory/guimark/GUIMark_Flex3.html>
The most recent version of Flash under Leopard gave (if I'm remembering correctly) a fps of 26 or so. Now, in 64-bit safari, it is like 11, in camino, 12, and in 32-bid safari, 14. (early 2008 macbook)
I hope apple/adobe can resolve this. Yes, Silverlight works nicely, Safari HTML works nicely, but you have to go with however the provider wrote it. The end user has no choice in the matter.
<http://www.craftymind.com/factory/guimark/GUIMark_Flex3.html>
The most recent version of Flash under Leopard gave (if I'm remembering correctly) a fps of 26 or so. Now, in 64-bit safari, it is like 11, in camino, 12, and in 32-bid safari, 14. (early 2008 macbook)
I hope apple/adobe can resolve this. Yes, Silverlight works nicely, Safari HTML works nicely, but you have to go with however the provider wrote it. The end user has no choice in the matter.
Crap? Yes, this is why there are thousands of developpers and designers working with it and loving it.
I dont want to enter a discussion about which is better, but after like two years from release I stil haven't seen a decent site made with silverlight...
Yes this is horrible.... Safari is eating 70% of my 2.2 core 2 duo cpu watching a miserable video on Vimeo.
I love Apple and all... but one of the primary uses of my laptop is coding flash and this is getting ridiculous.
And yes, I installed the latest player and the 10.6.1 update.
I tried it on my MBP 2.2 core 2 duo. I get between 9 and 11.9 fps....
Anybody wants to buy a MBP?....
Developers definitely love Flash. The problem is the user experience.
I only turn on Flash if there's something in particular I need to see or do. Disabling it keeps my computer cooler and quieter, extends my battery life, and makes for much less distracting reading of websites.
There are also thousands and thousands of developers for Windows - which many in this place would describe as worse than crap.
Look at the comments here - the deployment of the flash plugin on OSX is utterly utterly appalling thing. I can watch Vimeo, YouTubeHD, play flash games - and not have a fan speed increase under XP.
Yet OSX is massively massively stressed out by flash.
And I'm beginning to think it might not be entirely Adobe's fault.
http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3636 - especially the netbook page
"The major exception is that Apple's Safari 4 web browser again comes in last, again by a large margin. Chrome managed 36% more battery life on the 1005HA than Safari, and Flash content within Safari 4 used a significant amount of CPU time. Safari seems to want more CPU power than the Atom can provide, with the result being the processor is often near 100% utilization for significant amounts of time on Flash-heavy sites."
I just installed Click to Flash last night and I love it. Web pages with flash ads now load... in a flash. The video on youtube is now of higher quality. If you want to see a flash add... just click on it.
Good point, although I'm sure most of them work in that OS because is the mainstream, not because they love it.
In more than 15 years working with computers I have never found someone tell me "Hey you gotta try this Windows version! It's great!" (on the contray...). But in less than two years with Apple I hear such kind of statements often. The same with flash, there's a lot of excitement going on.
The problem as I see it is not flash, it's flash on the mac. On windows it works great...
I don't know if it's apple's fault or adobe's.... either way it's really a shame.
In Tiger/Leopard performance was bad... but now seeing what has happened with SL I'm really thinking of going back to windows again unless something happens. Flash is roughly 40% of the work I do with my MBP, and I don't want to go back and forth between mac os and bootcamp, that is ridiculous.
You're a star! Thanks for the recommendation (and to xlii for the further endorsement!). It was doing my head in, but now it's arguably better than it was before this problem, thanks to the added control, and this h264 thing is jolly nice
It's also interesting to see how much flash content there is on some sites, which must slow everything down. I just went to http://www.nectar.com/ (a UK-based shopping reward scheme) and there were a load of little flash boxes, most of which seemed utterly pointless (i.e. they could have replaced with images).
Anyhoo, thanks again & a big thumbs up for 'Click to Flash'