59 replies to this topic 12 votes

[1759]

.Neo, on 25 August 2010 - 22:36, said:

I just love how Flash uses up to 65% of my 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon CPU while watching a 720p movie.

That's what you get for using OSX...

1080p vids on YT use about 30-35% of my GPU, an ATI 5770, because MS doesn't gimp what cards are allowed to accelerate what codecs. CPU is a quad-core i5, and OS is 7 64-bit. Hulu Desktop also runs flawlessly as well, just gorgeous watching them on my HDTV. If you want games and multimedia, you don't do it on a Mac. (media creation is different).

On my Mac Mini, Hulu Desktop would easily take up 100% of the C2D, but I blame that on Apple and partially on Adobe for making a poor plugin, but their hands are sort of tied, and that my Mini is ~3 years old.

[.Neo]

1759, on 26 August 2010 - 16:02, said:

That's what you get for using OSX...

1080p vids on YT use about 30-35% of my GPU, an ATI 5770, because MS doesn't gimp what cards are allowed to accelerate what codecs. CPU is a quad-core i5, and OS is 7 64-bit. Hulu Desktop also runs flawlessly as well, just gorgeous watching them on my HDTV. If you want games and multimedia, you don't do it on a Mac. (media creation is different).

On my Mac Mini, Hulu Desktop would easily take up 100% of the C2D, but I blame that on Apple and partially on Adobe for making a poor plugin, but their hands are sort of tied, and that my Mini is ~3 years old.

It wasn't much better on Windows either until very recently. The issue doesn't lie with Apple or Adobe when it comes to offloading stuff to the GPU. It probably lies with the GPU card makers that don't provide proper drivers on Mac OS X. Something I do blame Adobe is the amount of CPU Flash requires in the first place. It's nowhere near as high when playing other media types that aren't being offloaded to the GPU.

There are enough other things that bother me about Flash: No 64-bit support (luckily Safari 64-bit can run 32-bit plugins, but that isn't the case with browsers on Windows) and no multi-core support either from what I can tell.

[-Razorfold]

.Neo, on 26 August 2010 - 16:08, said:

It wasn't much better on Windows either until very recently. The issue doesn't lie with Apple or Adobe when it comes to offloading stuff to the GPU. It probably lies with the GPU card makers that don't provide proper drivers on Mac OS X. Something I do blame Adobe is the amount of CPU Flash requires in the first place. It's nowhere near as high when playing other media types that aren't being offloaded to the GPU.

Well until recently Apple didn't make that code available so there was nothing adobe could do.

And even before 10.1, a 1080p movie on youtube would take up 40-60%. With 10.1 its like 20%.

Quote

There are enough other things that bother me about Flash: No 64-bit support (luckily Safari 64-bit can run 32-bit plugins, but that isn't the case with browsers on Windows) and no multi-core support either from what I can tell.

Well I think the only 64bit browser on Windows is IE. I dunno about multi-core support, but since so much of it is now offloaded onto the gpu it really isn't needed.

[.Neo]

/- Razorfold, on 26 August 2010 - 16:51, said:

Well I think the only 64bit browser on Windows is IE. I dunno about multi-core support, but since so much of it is now offloaded onto the gpu it really isn't needed.

64-bit browsers won't come off the ground pretty much because of plugin suppport right? As far as I'm aware Safari 4 and 5 on Mac OS X Snow Leopard are the only two browsers that can run in 64-bit while maintaining 32-bit plugin support. Multi-Core support would be nice on Mac OS X.

/- Razorfold, on 26 August 2010 - 16:51, said:

Well until recently Apple didn't make that code available so there was nothing adobe could do.

And even before 10.1, a 1080p movie on youtube would take up 40-60%. With 10.1 its like 20%.

There wasn't much point in making the code available since the driver backend didn't exist. For most cards, like my ATI Radeon HD 4870, it still doesn't exist.

[-Razorfold]

Quote

64-bit browsers won't come off the ground pretty much because of plugin suppport right?

I think that goes both ways..adobe can just claim well no 64bit browsers exist and get away with it.

That said, I do think its time they actually bother designing one and more browsers go 64bit.

[+Rudy]

/- Razorfold, on 26 August 2010 - 17:11, said:

I think that goes both ways..adobe can just claim well no 64bit browsers exist and get away with it.

That said, I do think its time they actually bother designing one and more browsers go 64bit.

Even IE6 had a 64bit version

[Hardcore Til I Die]

.Neo, on 25 August 2010 - 22:49, said:

Taking along quite a fair amount of battery in the processes. And before you begin claiming otherwise, I have a HTC Desire and Legend lying next to me right now.

Also, I'm not claiming Flash doesn't run "fine" on the above configuration. It does, however, use an insane amount of processing power.

Yes it uses quite a bit of battery and yes it uses processing power - just like on a laptop/desktop - what's your point? It uses a lot of processing power but the Desire can handle it. You wouldn't want apps to only utilise half the processing power available would you?!

[-Razorfold]

Rudy, on 26 August 2010 - 17:17, said:

Even IE6 had a 64bit version

I did say the only browser on Windows with 64bit support is IE

[1759]

.Neo, on 26 August 2010 - 16:08, said:

It wasn't much better on Windows either until very recently. The issue doesn't lie with Apple or Adobe when it comes to offloading stuff to the GPU. It probably lies with the GPU card makers that don't provide proper drivers on Mac OS X. Something I do blame Adobe is the amount of CPU Flash requires in the first place. It's nowhere near as high when playing other media types that aren't being offloaded to the GPU.

There are enough other things that bother me about Flash: No 64-bit support (luckily Safari 64-bit can run 32-bit plugins, but that isn't the case with browsers on Windows) and no multi-core support either from what I can tell.

Apple has to open up on graphics, if they want better support, and as far as I could gather, the recent H.264 video support that they released, and Adobe incorporated into Gala, only works with Nvidia GPU's and only a few of them at that - no ATI support. The ATI GPU's are more than capable, but Apple doesn't feel the need to get off their ass and release all the required documentation, API support, etc.

I mean my ATI 5770 card has full support through OpenGL 4.0 under Windows, so that means that ATI is up to the task, but even capable HW under OSX doesn't support those extensions, not even up through 3.2/3.3. (same goes with the recent Nvidia GPU's)

Same thing with Steam - Windows does it better. For such a closed system, you'd think Apple could do a better job. Windows does games and multimedia better then OSX. All Apple users can up for, is for HTML5 to take off sooner, rather than later, as they're at Apple's whim, as they'll only support what they feel like supporting. Adobe, Nvidia, and ATI have to work within that too.

[+Brando212]

if i remember correctly, firefox 4 is supposed to have a 64bit version that can run 32bit plugins by the time it reaches final

[.Neo]

/- Razorfold, on 26 August 2010 - 17:11, said:

I think that goes both ways..adobe can just claim well no 64bit browsers exist and get away with it.

That said, I do think its time they actually bother designing one and more browsers go 64bit.

There's Safari on Mac OS X and Internet Explorer on Windows. Two popular browsers on their respective platform.

Hardcore Til I Die, on 26 August 2010 - 17:20, said:

Yes it uses quite a bit of battery and yes it uses processing power - just like on a laptop/desktop - what's your point? It uses a lot of processing power but the Desire can handle it. You wouldn't want apps to only utilise half the processing power available would you?!

My point is the Desire's battery drains like crazy when watching Flash content compared to a regular movie, which definitely isn't a pro. Whether the Desire can handle it or not is also questionable as I've seen enough content that doesn't play smoothly.

[PreKe]

Phenom II, on 20 August 2010 - 09:08, said:

Want flash to work in a browser?

Android, Nokia, WM

http://get.skyfire.com/

I wouldn't recommend Skyfire. The company is really dodgy. They are liars, and don't have a business model that actually works. To be able to handle all that video, they must be selling your private information to advertisers or something.

[-Razorfold]

PreKe, on 03 September 2010 - 07:59, said:

I wouldn't recommend Skyfire. The company is really dodgy. They are liars, and don't have a business model that actually works. To be able to handle all that video, they must be selling your private information to advertisers or something.

[+Boz]

And imagine.. all these folks on neowin not having problems with Flash on any Android phone (neither have I to be honest).. and these are all flash apps and players that are not specifically tailored for mobile but for desktop..AND THEY RUN FINE!

Next year when people update their sites and applications to specifically work with mobile Flash will truly show it's potential and performance.

Multitouch, Geolocation and all the goodies work just fine in Flash now if a developer uses those APIs.

HTML5 apps for example you can't even run most of them in the browser. You have to specifically write code using supported hardware accelerated web-kit transforms on mobile to get some performance boost. It's ridiculous.

At the latest huge Flash conference there are was talk about mobile development, writing one and publishing RIA and games and so on on multiple devices without rewriting a single piece of code etc..

Flash is unbelievable.

[PreKe]

/- Razorfold, on 03 September 2010 - 09:46, said:

What?

Skyfire keeps lying and dodging tough questions.

A while ago people were asking how on earth Skyfire could stay in business. The Skyfire execs assured the market that they were doing just great, and that their video compression technology was so amazing they actually made money. A few months later, Skyfire had to pull out of developing countries in a desperate attempt to cut costs.

And now Skyfire keeps hammering in the message that it "converts Flash to HTML5", which is simply impossible since HTML5 is a markup language, while Flash is a multimedia format. Yet another lie.

Basically, the company has a history of lies and distortions, and no known business model that would keep them in business.