Is Linux flash performance still that bad?

[blur xc]

I've done a few comparisons now, and I'm coming to realize that there's really not a noticeable difference between flash performance between windows and Linux computers. My totally subjective benchmarks - full screen hq videos, youtube, hulu, and vimeo- and teagames.com for interactive flash, mainly tgmotocros 3 (http://www.teagames.com/games/tgmotocross3/play.php) and tgmotocross 3 australia.

On a handful of dual boot machines that I've set up the videos and games play almost identically between systems. On my desktop w/ plenty of hp, tgmotocross 3 plays very fast in both ubuntu and vista. On my daughters EeePC, it plays smoothly on both os's (xp and ubuntu 9.10 nbr), but just in super slow motion. On my sons' laptops, same deal, smooth and almost identical between ubuntu and vista.

So why all the Linux flash grief?

BM

[foxmulder881]

I guess the same attention is not given by Adobe to Linux Flash as opposed to Windows Flash. I know what you're saying. Flash performance on Windows is flawless.

[Keyper7]

I guess the same attention is not given by Adobe to Linux Flash as opposed to Windows Flash. I know what you're saying. Flash performance on Windows is flawless.

Are you sure you know what he is saying? Read his post again and then read your reply.

[LowSky]

everything works fine for me for the most part. the worst problem i'm having is Hulu Desktop runs like horse manure.

[whoop]

I've done a few comparisons now, and I'm coming to realize that there's really not a noticeable difference between flash performance between windows and Linux computers. My totally subjective benchmarks - full screen hq videos, youtube, hulu, and vimeo- and teagames.com for interactive flash, mainly tgmotocros 3 (http://www.teagames.com/games/tgmotocross3/play.php) and tgmotocross 3 australia.

On a handful of dual boot machines that I've set up the videos and games play almost identically between systems. On my desktop w/ plenty of hp, tgmotocross 3 plays very fast in both ubuntu and vista. On my daughters EeePC, it plays smoothly on both os's (xp and ubuntu 9.10 nbr), but just in super slow motion. On my sons' laptops, same deal, smooth and almost identical between ubuntu and vista.

So why all the Linux flash grief?

BM

Running 32 bit linux operating systems? I have found 64 bit flash to be not as stable. The latest version from adobes site is better for 64 bit; still uses a lot of cpu.

[Genius314]

I've noticed a huge difference between Windows XP and Ubuntu on this computer.

Flash, unfortunately, is proprietary, so it either requires support from Adobe (of which Linux users get very little), or it requires reverse-engineering (which takes too long, and is far from perfect).

What we need is a new format, similar to Flash, but open-source friendly. I've seen it proposed before, but never attempted. It's easier said than done, but I think it's necessary for the advancement of FOSS.

[phrostbyte]

I wonder is there any comprehensive Flash benchmark suite? I mean, we can perhaps pinpoint what exactly is causign Flash to suck so bad.

[northwestuntu]

its not great, but works good enough for me :)

[geoken]

What we need is a new format, similar to Flash, but open-source friendly. I've seen it proposed before, but never attempted. It's easier said than done, but I think it's necessary for the advancement of FOSS.

Flash is a standardized specification now. You can read the spec, and assuming you have the knowledge create a player to playback the binary files.

[K.Mandla]

What grief? Works fine for me.

[deathbyswiftwind]

everything works fine for me for the most part. the worst problem i'm having is Hulu Desktop runs like horse manure.

For me the hulu desktop takes a few(like 20) seconds to load but once it is done it runs smoothly and without any problems. Whats your comp stats maybe it has to deal with ram or maybe swap space?

[timsdeepsky]

Works sweet for me in Ubuntu....No worries mon....

[Ric_NYC]

Yes! It is in my computer... and nobody seems to care about it (Adobe, the kernel maintainers, distros, ATI, Nvidia ... etc)

[sudoer541]

YES!!! flash is very bad on Linux! youtube videos lag and even when you play games on facebook lag or they slow down your whole pc. Bad, bad Adobe!

[The Real Dave]

Still worse than on Windows for me, and I avoid it like the plague on my older machine, a 3GHz Celeron, its just not worth it like. My main machine handles it ok, physics games with quite a few particles though run very slow, in comparison to in Windows. Also, Ubuntu (as far as I know) doesn't support shockwave, so Rasterwerks is out :(

[wmcbrine]

Flash is a standardized specification now. You can read the spec, and assuming you have the knowledge create a player to playback the binary files.Citation needed.

Last I looked, there was a spec doc available from Adobe, but you were specifically prohibited from using it to develop a viewer. Bizarre, considering that they themselves give away their viewer but charge for their creation software, yet true. I'm not sure how legal this EULA on a text document is, but anyway.

[alakazam]

I guess the same attention is not given by Adobe to Linux and Mac Flash as opposed to Windows Flash. I know what you're saying. Flash performance on Windows is flawless.



fixed :-&

[phrostbyte]

Citation needed.

Last I looked, there was a spec doc available from Adobe, but you were specifically prohibited from using it to develop a viewer. Bizarre, considering that they themselves give away their viewer but charge for their creation software, yet true. I'm not sure how legal this EULA on a text document is, but anyway.

You are right in that they used to have that limitation, but recently they completely opened up the specification to SWF for any purpose: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/

[wmcbrine]

You are right in that they used to have that limitation, but recently they completely opened up the specification to SWF for any purpose: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/Great news! This should help Gnash and swfdec a lot. Maybe it's time I checked them out again?

[s3a]

Adobe's flash player for linux works flawlessly apart from high CPU usage. Gnash, on the other hand, works well but not all the time. It is an improvement from the previous non-playable youtube videos.

[phrostbyte]

Adobe's flash player for linux works flawlessly apart from high CPU usage. Gnash, on the other hand, works well but not all the time. It is an improvement from the previous non-playable youtube videos.

I find that Gnash works well with the random Flash animation / cartoon you find on the 'net. However, YouTube seems to be a giant ball of fail on Gnash :confused:

Maybe with a combination of Gnash and youtube-greasemonkey to totem Flash can be removed with good effect

[Exodist]

I've done a few comparisons now, and I'm coming to realize that there's really not a noticeable difference between flash performance between windows and Linux computers. My totally subjective benchmarks - full screen hq videos, youtube, hulu, and vimeo- and teagames.com for interactive flash, mainly tgmotocros 3 (http://www.teagames.com/games/tgmotocross3/play.php) and tgmotocross 3 australia.

On a handful of dual boot machines that I've set up the videos and games play almost identically between systems. On my desktop w/ plenty of hp, tgmotocross 3 plays very fast in both ubuntu and vista. On my daughters EeePC, it plays smoothly on both os's (xp and ubuntu 9.10 nbr), but just in super slow motion. On my sons' laptops, same deal, smooth and almost identical between ubuntu and vista.

So why all the Linux flash grief?

BM

It works very good on both (Win and Lin) systems for me also. But does seem that the Win version is a little more refined.

[Icehuck]

When I use flash with any Linux system my CPU will always fluctuate from 30% to 100% usage. When I use windows, I might see my CPU usage get to about 3%.

[sandyd]

I've done a few comparisons now, and I'm coming to realize that there's really not a noticeable difference between flash performance between windows and Linux computers. My totally subjective benchmarks - full screen hq videos, youtube, hulu, and vimeo- and teagames.com for interactive flash, mainly tgmotocros 3 (http://www.teagames.com/games/tgmotocross3/play.php) and tgmotocross 3 australia.

On a handful of dual boot machines that I've set up the videos and games play almost identically between systems. On my desktop w/ plenty of hp, tgmotocross 3 plays very fast in both ubuntu and vista. On my daughters EeePC, it plays smoothly on both os's (xp and ubuntu 9.10 nbr), but just in super slow motion. On my sons' laptops, same deal, smooth and almost identical between ubuntu and vista.

So why all the Linux flash grief?

BM
its a problem caused both by video drivers + flash

if you notice, the fps in linux is way lower than in windows.

but hey i have to say. the video drivers are getting there- their a huge improvement from 4-5 years ago where they reallly sucked. However, i don't think weel be getting =to windows video performance for some time

[phrostbyte]

its a problem caused both by video drivers + flash

if you notice, the fps in linux is way lower than in windows.

but hey i have to say. the video drivers are getting there- their a huge improvement from 4-5 years ago where they reallly sucked. However, i don't think weel be getting =to windows video performance for some time

How true is this though. I keep hearing how crappy X.org is, and no one ever seems to back it up with any kind of evidence or benchmark or anything. The only benchmark I've ever done that compares rendering between Ubuntu and Windows 7 is this: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8572247&postcount=26

And it seems to show that X.org is kicking Windows's butt. Honestly I think a lot of these kinds of criticisms are just hot air by Linux haters, which then somehow get repeated by Linux enthusiasts as "the truth".

[phrostbyte]

Here is a Flash benchmark:

http://www.craftymind.com/factory/guimark/GUIMark_Flex3.html

It's not very comprehensive though. We should find one that can test video too.

This benchmark seems to uncover flaws in the Flash renderer.

[mamamia88]

i really think it depends on the videocard and what version of flash you are using

[foxmulder881]

Are you sure you know what he is saying? Read his post again and then read your reply.

Yeah I must have skipped over the OP's post too quickly. I still stand by what I said though, Linux vs Windows Flash performance, Windows wins hands-down. Sorry Linux. :(

[Khakilang]

My Linux flash work flawlessly.

[blur xc]

Here is a Flash benchmark:

http://www.craftymind.com/factory/guimark/GUIMark_Flex3.html

It's not very comprehensive though. We should find one that can test video too.

This benchmark seems to uncover flaws in the Flash renderer.

Very interesting-

Just for fun- could those of you that state your linux flash stinks, that also dual boot (apples to apples), post your fps from that benchmark on both your linux and windows os?

I'll give it a whirl when I get home.

BM

[crimesaucer]

Here is a Flash benchmark:

http://www.craftymind.com/factory/guimark/GUIMark_Flex3.html

It's not very comprehensive though. We should find one that can test video too.

This benchmark seems to uncover flaws in the Flash renderer.

I think that benchmark test just "Manchurian Candidated" me! All I remember is that I felt very dizzy... like the room was spinning, and there were some pulsating stars, the color red (am I communist now?), and it felt like I was on some old military air field. Oh yeah, I was reading everything in Latin or some other foreign tongue.


With that joke said, my FPS score was: 24.97.

[foxmulder881]

My Linux flash work flawlessly.

I wasn't disputing the fact it doesn't work on Linux because it does.
I was simply stating that it does use more cpu usage than that on Windows and performance can be a little more sketchy.

[leef]

Yes it is that bad, the CPU usage in linux is terrible compared to windows, it's almost like they are doing it on purpose. I had trouble viewing content on a brand new acer aspire revo running linux that is easily viewed on a 5 year old bottom of the line dell running windows.

[HappyFeet]

Honestly I think a lot of these kinds of criticisms are just hot air by Linux haters, which then somehow get repeated by Linux enthusiasts as "the truth".

There's a lot of that going around lately. People hear something, and because it's on the net, it must be true.

Btw, flash has always worked great for me on a few different computers.

[phrostbyte]

Very interesting-

Just for fun- could those of you that state your linux flash stinks, that also dual boot (apples to apples), post your fps from that benchmark on both your linux and windows os?

I'll give it a whirl when I get home.

BM

I got Max FPS on that benchmark, but it's clear something broken because it flickers. Does it flicker for anyone else?

[chriswyatt]

Videos sometimes flicker yes, doesn't happen often though.

[Uncle Spellbinder]

Yes it is that bad, the CPU usage in linux is terrible compared to windows, it's almost like they are doing it on purpose. I had trouble viewing content on a brand new acer aspire revo running linux that is easily viewed on a 5 year old bottom of the line dell running windows.

Ubuntu Jaunty/OpenSUSE dual booting on a 5 year old Pentium 4 Gateway. Flash performs equally well as on my Windows 7/Karmic dual boot machine.

Haven't had Flash issues since before Intrepid.

[h2z]

I tested windows xp and ubuntu karmic on the same machine with the only difference being catalyst 9.11 on windows while ubuntu was running 9.10 (envyng):

Windows XP: 60.11
Ubuntu (2.6.31-16, X 1.6.4): 33.8


Hardware is: Athlon II X2 250, 2 gig ram, Radeon 4770. Both OS'es are running firefox 3.5.6 and adobe flash 10,0,42,34.

It is very disturbing for me as firefox slows to a crawl when chatting on facebook for more than a few minutes :(

EDIT: It seems the facebook chat crawl is OS agnostic.

[Barrucadu]

I don't have Windows installed on this computer, but I decided to do the benchmark anyway.

Average FPS: 24.04
No flickering, computer remained responsive throughout test. I did hear the CPU fan speed up though.

Kernel: 2.6.32.2, X server: 1.7.3.902, graphics: xf86-video-ati (from git), flash: 10.0.42.34, browser: Opera 10.10.

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 (2.1GHz), graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon HD2600, memory: 3GB DDR2

[blur xc]

Well, I finally got around to doing some of my own comparisons and the results did in fact surprise me.

Asus Eee PC, Intel Atom 1.6ghz 1gig ram, gma 950 graphics:
XP home - 14 - 17fps, 65 - 80% cpu
9.10 nbr- 9 - 11fps, 50 - 100% cpu

Desktop, 3ghz Core 2 Duo 4gig ram, Nvidia 9600 GT 512mb ram:
Vista - 58 - 62fps, 59 - 76% cpu, both cores evenly loaded
9.04 - 24 - 25fps, 15 - 75% cpu, alternating cores, one core was at 15%, the other at 75%.

So, it appears that Linux flash isn't multi threaded, but even so playing tg motocross in Ubuntu seems to play faster than in Vista. But my wife said that fishworld (on facebook) plays a lot better in Vista. It chugs a bit on a tank that has a lot of fish in it, and some of the graphics don't display properly.

BM

[wmcbrine]

I tried Gnash again. It wouldn't do the benchmark page. So I tried a YouTube video as a benchmark... and as bad as Adobe Flash is, Gnash still underperformed it, taking even more CPU, and getting out of sync. :(

I'd try swfdec, but it seems like it hasn't been updated in a year.

[Ylon]

Here is a Flash benchmark:

http://www.craftymind.com/factory/guimark/GUIMark_Flex3.html

It's not very comprehensive though. We should find one that can test video too.

This benchmark seems to uncover flaws in the Flash renderer.

Gnome+Compiz(cube) (CPU 100% fixed)
Opera: 11~13
Chrome: 12~14

JWM (CPU to 50-80%)
Opera, Chrome, Firefox: 13~15



ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 (Opensource driver) on Centrino 1.5Ghz