Top Flash Misperceptions : Flash is a CPU Hog
This is one of the most prevalent misperceptions associated with Flash. Basically, the myth is that Flash uses an inordinate amount of CPU compared to other, similar technologies.
Before looking in more detail at this misperception, I think it is important to point out that when one makes the statement “Flash is a CPU hog”, they are making a comparison of Flash CPU usage to some baseline. This then begs the question: Flash uses a lot of CPU compared to what? By comparing Flash CPU usage to other similar technologies and content, it becomes clear that Flash CPU usage is not excessive for the type of content that it displays and executes.
If the comparison is between Flash based dynamic, multi-media content and static HTML documents, then, of course, Flash content is going to use more CPU. It is doing a lot more stuff, potentially including loading data, playing audio and / or video, drawing and animating content, responding to user input, and so on. The nature of multimedia content is that it is doing more, and thus requires more CPU resources. Thus, if the comparison is against static web documents, then yes, Flash does use more CPU, although a more apt statement would be “Multimedia content uses more CPU”. However, this only answers the question whether Flash uses more CPU than static HTML documents, and does not address the misperception that Flash uses an inordinate amount of CPU for what it does.
A more useful comparison is to look at Flash CPU usage relative CPU usage of content running in other similar technologies. If you look at other technologies that can provide some Flash like capabilities in the browser, such as HTML 5 / CSS 3 and Canvas, you will find that Flash does not necessarily use a particularly high amount of CPU for what is is doing. Indeed, dynamic HTML 5 / Canvas based examples use CPU amounts comparable to (and in many cases significantly more than) similar Flash content. For example, I posted some benchmarks of CPU usage for for some popular HTML 5 / Canvas examples. Lets look at the results:
MacHeist Dynamic Canvas / JavaScript animation example
| Mac | Windows | |
|---|---|---|
| Google Chrome | 95% | 80% |
| Safari | 25% | 80% |
| Firefox | 100% | 40% |
| Internet Explorer | NA | 0% |
9elements JavaScript / Canvas Dynamic Animation Example
| Mac | Windows | |
|---|---|---|
| Google Chrome | 100% | 96% |
| Safari | 98% | 104% |
| Firefox | 100% – 170% | 72% |
| Internet Explorer | NA | Did Not Work |
As you can see from the numbers, CPU usage for the HTML 5 / Canvas examples are generally taxing the CPU.
Now, the benchmarks above are comparing relative CPU performance of content across browsers and operating systems, and are not meant to be a comparison of HTML 5 and Flash CPU performance (since the content is different). It does show though, that in general, multimedia content taxes the CPU. If you are interested in a more direct comparison of performance between various multimedia technologies, then check out the tests done at themaninblue.com. This is one specific test but it shows that if anything, Flash performance is on par (if not better in some cases) with comparable technologies.
Now, there is currently one potential exception to this, and that is video playback. Looking at the video performance numbers posted at Streaming Learning Center, you can see that in some configurations, Flash video can require more CPU resources than H.264 video played back directly in the browser. Specifically, on Safari on Mac, H.264 video played back via the browser, uses significantly less CPU than video played back via the Flash Player. The reason for this discrepancy in performance is due to the availability of hardware accelerated video playback for H.264 video played directly within Safari on Mac. Hardware accelerated playback on Mac was not available for the Flash Player. On browser / operating system combinations where Flash also has access to hardware acceleration, Flash video playback CPU usage is comparable to native browser playback usage. As you would expect, if hardware acceleration is not available to the Flash Player, yet is available to the browser (such as on Safari on Mac), then Flash is going to require more CPU.
On this last point, it is important to note that Apple has recently begun to make available some of the APIs required to allow the Flash Player to hardware accelerate video playback on the Mac. Adobe has posted an early Flash Player build, code-named “Gala”, which has the ability to leverage the GPU for video playback on the Mac. Early results are showing improvements in CPU utilization and indicate Flash Player CPU usage for video playback in “Gala” is becoming comparable to hardware accelerated video played back directly within in the browser.
So, when looking at Flash CPU usage compared to other multimedia technologies, then no, Flash does not use an inordinate amount of CPU. While Flash content can at times use high amounts of CPU, this is a result of the nature of the content, and not necessarily specific to the Flash runtime.
Note, just to be clear, I am not suggesting that there is no room for improvement in Flash Player CPU usage (there is). However, the statement that Flash is a CPU Hog, or uses an inordinate amount of CPU is not correct.
Resources
- Relative Performance of Rich Media Content across Browsers and Operating Systems
- Flash Player: CPU Hog or Hot Tamale? It Depends.
- “HTML5″ versus Flash: Animation Benchmarking
- Comparison of performance of Flash Player 10.1 and HTML 5 on Mobile Devices
- H.264 hardware decoding in Mac OS X
- Flash Player “Gala” Public Pre-release preview
- Testing Flash Player 10.1 for the Mac
Please keep comments constructive and on topic. Off topic comments may be moderated / deleted.
Great to see more facts about Flash performance. It’s telling that the voices spreading rumor about poor Flash performance rarely show you what they use to base their comparisons on.
leef
10 May 10 at 1:09 pm
Flash is a CPU Hog. It really is. BUT there are good reasons for this, as you have pointed out. I think people are complaining because they do not realize what the web would look like without Flash. If Flash were to be removed from the web, it would be a rather dry and boring business. I’m a creative person. I like striking visuals. Flash does this best. Every time someone tells me to check out “this most amazing site” it is a Flash site. You’ve got to give a little to get, well actually, quite a lot in return.
Sam
10 May 10 at 1:11 pm
yep, many of the much-hyped HTML/css/javascript animation demos (most recently the css3 spider-man intro demo) slow this poor macbook air to a crawl…
bunnyhero
10 May 10 at 1:20 pm
How can CPU usage be “100% – 170%”?
Brian Sexton
10 May 10 at 1:26 pm
@sam
–
Flash is a CPU Hog. It really is.
–
Actually, as the post discusses, Flash CPU usage is comparable, if not better than similar technologies. So yes, playing back multimedia content can use large amounts of CPU (certainly more than a static web page). However, that CPU usage is due to the nature of the content and not necessarily the player.
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
mikechambers
10 May 10 at 1:29 pm
@brian sexton
–
How can CPU usage be “100% – 170%”?
–
This is discussed in the original article:
http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2010/03/01/relative-performance-of-rich-media-content-across-browsers-and-operating-systems/
–
All numbers below show CPU usage as a total of all CPU resources available on the system. This means that if you are running on a machine with more than one core processor, then CPU usage can be over 100%. This is how Mac shows CPU usage, and I feel it gives a clearer picture of how much CPU any individual item is using. Windows CPU usage have been normalized to show CPU usage in terms of this overall CPU usage.
–
Hope that helps clarify…
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
mikechambers
10 May 10 at 1:50 pm
If I understand you correctly, when Chrome shows that Flash is consuming 100% CPU on a tab I haven’t looked at for days and is consuming large amounts of memory on that tab, slowing down my whole system, Flash is unable to detect this (as the browser does with long running JavaScript) and is unable to stop the swf?
In that case, Flash _is_ a CPU hog.
—————————–
Mike Chambers:
There is a difference between JavaScript script timeouts, and content that continues to run. Flash will also give an error if a script is taking to long to run.
If you were to run other content on a tab for a couple of days, such as a Java Applet or something like:
http://alteredqualia.com/canvasmol/#TNT
(which kicks ass btw), I think you would find that it would also consume an inordinate amount of resources.
Regardless, Flash Player 10.1 has added support for throttling content running on tabs without focus. You can find more info on that at:
http://blog.kaourantin.net/?p=82
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
RichB
10 May 10 at 2:02 pm
As a Mac-based Flash developer (12 years running), I can attest to the fact that performance has gotten better, especially since the intro of Intel-based Macs.
The only thing that still bothers us is the performance on laptops when not connected to a power source. Animations slow down dramatically.
I wonder if anything can be done in that respect.
Charles
10 May 10 at 2:39 pm
Most users agree it is a CPU hog and not because they took the time to compare the CPU usage, but because they noticed the fan speed went up when they watch a couple of youtube videos.
prime
10 May 10 at 2:44 pm
As a Flash Developer I’ve always found the “Flash is a CPU hog” argument anecdotal at best. It will be nice to have this data when I inevitably find myself having this discussion again.
Part of the blame for Flash taxing the CPU should be placed on Flash Developers. Devs (all devs – not just Flash) can write some pretty inefficient code if they aren’t careful. Unfortunately the failure to distinguish between flaws in the content and the underlying plugin results in Flash being categorically “bad” in some people’s opinion.
bhad
10 May 10 at 3:12 pm
Nice to see facts-based posts like this to lighten and helps making clear in people’s mind that what is said about Flash is often false.
Thanks Mike !
Ah, if only people could stop rehearsing theses old and worn arguments…
Bertrand
10 May 10 at 3:33 pm
[...] One of the most annoying misconceptions concerning the Flash platform and the Flash Player is that it is a CPU hog. In these times when a lot of people are acting like the introduction of canvas is the second coming of rich web content (it isn’t, it’s more like the advent of Lutheranism) this delusion is more prevalent than ever, and it’s such a shame that an amazing runtime is being put down for all the wrong reasons. In fact, the Flash Player, while imperfect, is anything other than a resource hog – as Mike Chambers eloquently explains in his latest blog post. [...]
Who are you calling a hog?
10 May 10 at 3:37 pm
End users typically have highly unoptimized machines running a large list of who knows what tasks concurrently. At least a good portion of your haters are probably in that range.
I realize the hardware relevant Mac issues, but on my three PC’s at home using Opera and Firefox, it is consistently JS that is causing unresponsiveness, lag, and page weirdness. The crap still doesnt work right for anything other than text with some static pics on a page. Even Google’s little top left menu fade in is suddenly causing my browser to jerk. figuratively
tcs
10 May 10 at 3:40 pm
[...] Read this article: Top Flash Misperceptions : Flash is a CPU Hog at Mike Chambers [...]
Top Flash Misperceptions : Flash is a CPU Hog at Mike Chambers | Flash Designers
10 May 10 at 4:21 pm
I always felt that flash was a “CPU Hog” compared to local applications running on the computer. Flash is not normally compared to HTML5 or Javascript by your normal web user. They compare it to similar “multimedia” experiences they have. Such as programs that are written in c++ or are dedicated programs running on the operating system and not over the internet or in a VM.
It is a good pre-emptive article, but I don’t think its a response to the actual experiences people are talking about.
daganev
10 May 10 at 4:41 pm
Any software/plugin that does something consumes cpu.
One of the good and bad things about Flash Players is its open access to produce content in, hence banner ads. A good developer knows how to knock cpu in flash down, its a tad harder with video decoding/player – BUT thats the same with playing any video on any device/platform. The down fall with having open access and nearly un-restrictive rights publish is that un-optimized content can make it into the web.
These tests show a few things, the relative un-optimized state HTML5/canvas is in (remember it is not a public released). And Flash player browser based plugin without GPU access.
The state of play with all of these technologies seems to be at a point where rapid evolution must happen. Of course flash will evolve to provide even better performance.
Calming the “Vs” babble with tests like is definitely a good thing.
Thanks Mike.
Elliot Rock
10 May 10 at 4:46 pm
@prime
–
Most users agree it is a CPU hog and not because they took the time to compare the CPU usage, but because they noticed the fan speed went up when they watch a couple of youtube videos.
–
Yes, that is correct, they are comparing it to static HTML pages, which is not really an appropriate comparison.
Thus the misperception that that Flash uses an inordinate amount of CPU for what it is doing.
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
mikechambers
10 May 10 at 5:15 pm
Thanks, Mike. That makes sense of a sort.
On a related note, I have long found it interesting that people often blame “Flash” (meaning Flash Player) alone for having poor performance or hogging CPUs rather than directing some of their blame toward Web publishers who put several pieces of Flash content, JavaScript, etc. per page; developers of particular problematic Flash content; or themselves for loading so much rich content simultaneously.
Brian Sexton
10 May 10 at 5:41 pm
When running a very simple Flex app inside the browser, the flash player does not use an inordinate amount of CPU. It’s just when watching videos or having lots of animations that start slowing down my computer.
But it’s the same thing with html5-video and javascript/canvas-animations. They slow down my computer too…
Most people compare flash video/animation to the google homepage… FAIL ;)
Georges Jentgen
10 May 10 at 11:20 pm
http://www.craftymind.com/guimark2
By far the best performance comparison so far, sound methodology, thorough explanation. Especially pay attention to the last two paragraphs.
Cheers, M
May
11 May 10 at 1:28 am
[...] Top Flash Misperceptions : Flash is a CPU Hog Flash is commonly dubbed as a CPU hog, but often the comparisons aren’t made between similar technologies. It’s generally on par, if not better, with comparable technologies, with the exception of video playback. [Mike Chambers] [...]
Android Outsells the iPhone Edition « Codealis
11 May 10 at 3:07 am
Good post Mike. Is “Top Flash Misperceptions” going to become a series?
Lawrie
11 May 10 at 3:17 am
I think the biggest problem is the fact that so many developers use and abuse Flash hence I hardly see it as positive to blame Adobe because some developers abuse Flash – in the same way that many years ago people use to abuse Java.
What ends up having is advertisers use Flash which ends up sucking up more CPU than is required; so imagine when you have a single page with three or four pieces of flash content and the consequences. It isn’t pretty but I don’t think there is much one can do about it. The move to HTML5 will simply move the content from Flash to HTML5 based technologies and thus we’re back to square one with now the HTML5 technologies hogging the CPU’s.
I kind of wish, deep down in side, that Adobe banned the use of Flash for advertisements as to force advertises back to use static images or animated gifs and leave Flash for what it is good for rather than abusing it like its no bodies business.
Kawaii Gardiner
11 May 10 at 4:49 am
Isn’t this all a bit of a moot point, the whole reason of a computer is to use the cpu to do stuff, if you are browsing through a flash site or watching a video, then you are gonna use computer resources.
I suppose the issue here is when the user is multitasking – but in the situations stated I would say its unlikely that they are
Paul
11 May 10 at 5:35 am
There may be good technical reasons why Flash runs the CPU at close to 100% during video, but users don’t like having hot machines after normal use (video is normal now).
If Flash can’t find a way to get down to cooler CPU usage then something else will come along and do it.
Adam Wride
11 May 10 at 6:45 am
And probably most of the people complaining about Flash being a CPU Hog are browsing those myspace pages full with lots of instances of flash player running mp3 players, videos, slideshows and whatnot, pages put together by unaware users too.
That happens with some big name portals too though, everybody loves to cram their home pages with as much ads/interactive stuff as possible to get more revenue.
If anything, Flash is guilty of providing them with an easy way to do that.
And there’s one untold fact, old cpu’s won’t run things smoothly after a couple of software upgrades… the endless loop I call it: upgrade software to get new goodies and soon you’ll need to upgrade hardware, which in turn will drive you to upgrade the software to enjoy the latest stuff… which again will lead to upgrade hardware and so on… My quad core mac is on the 2nd. software update round now… let’s see how long it lasts being speedy until a replacement is needed.
Being a musician also, I really enjoy having good old hardware synths/guitars/etc. that won’t require upgrades at all for generations :)
Freddy
11 May 10 at 7:52 am
while this article is true, video playing (which is one of the main flash usage these days) on a flash based players like youtube will use more than 80% cpu, but the same video playing on non flash based players will use around 20% cpu, and this is both without the hardware acceleration. so flash in this instance is a cpu hog
MJ
11 May 10 at 8:13 am
Flash is a 100%, unquestionable, uncomparable CPU hog…when it spins out of control, and this is the biggest problem. Because it can have stability issues (it’s the only thing that crashes my tabs in Chrome, for instance), the pathological worst case is a plugin that takes up all available resources, usually while consuming unbelievable amounts of memory at the same time. If I see that my CPU usage on my Mac/Safari is pinned, I start looking for tabs that have flash in them and shut them down first. This is what saves me.
The problem with Flash is less that well programmed content is an issue, it’s that there’s a lot of crap out there, and the crap Flash is worse than the crap other technology. :/
——————-
Mike Chambers
Yes, if a developer rights poor code that is CPU and memory intensive, then the resulting content will probably use a lot of CPU and memory. However, that applies to pretty much any technology / runtime, and is not something unique to Flash.
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
Jan Goh
11 May 10 at 8:51 am
Hmm. I find the blog entry and the comments not to match my personal experience.
Using Chrome on my MacBook Pro for casual browsing the process running Flash regularly consumes 80%+ of the CPU even though the particular page that contains Flash content is not visible or I have closed the tab. I am frequently shutting down the browser or killing the Flash OS process.
I have heard differing explanations about why it is so (Steve Jobs: “Flash sucks”, Adobe: “Apple did not (until very recently) offer an API to the GPU”).
Regardless, most of the time when my CPU is bogged down it is because of Flash. So I think the “CPU Hog” is well deserved.
——————-
Mike Chambers
If you close the tab that the Flash content is on, then Flash is no longer running.
In Flash Player 10.1, Flash content which is not visible or is on a background tab will be throttled, see:
http://blog.kaourantin.net/?p=82
for more info.
However, again, this is nothing specific to Flash. If you load up a bunch of Canvas demos, and Silverlight content, and then put them onto background tabs, I expect you will see high levels of CPU usage.
Basically, if you run content that can be CPU intensive, such as multimedia content, then you should expect that when you have a lot of that content on background tabs, CPU usage will be high.
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
Okeemokee
11 May 10 at 9:06 am
On second reading, I think the blog post is objective with data, so my previous post is a little unfair. However, the issue of why it would keep using consuming CPU even out of view is baffling. Not sure if this happens with built in browser graphics.
Okeemokee
11 May 10 at 9:13 am
Well, Flash is a CPU hog. As any exotic super car is a gas hog. There’s no way to get around it. If you want to do certain things, you have to pay the price.
The problem with Flash is that it is sorta forced on everyone – even those who can’t pay for all that gas.
I remember my mac mini 1.4GZ, I could not do anything else on the box if flash was playing. Three ads on a web page was crippling.
And you won’t see it on the iToys anytime soon simply because they don’t have enough horsepower to run Flash.
———————-
Mike Chambers:
Yes, having multiple pieces of Flash content on a page can be an issue, especially if all of those pieces are doing something that might be CPU intensive.
However, again, this isnt something unique to Flash. If you had the same content in HTML 5 / Canvas or say, Silverlight, I would expect that you would see a similar amount of stress on the CPU.
In general, it is an issue exacerbated by advertising, since web publishers often want to have multiple, rich ads on the page, in hopes of maximizing revenue.
mike chambers
mesh@adobe.com
Jules Gravinese
11 May 10 at 10:12 am
Hi, nice theme. I use it too. :)
Anyway, I do think Flash is slow. However, I think I “use” Flash mostly for watching video. The only way I know to objectively find out is by watching the same video on YouTube with the Flash plugin and then with HTML5. Both runs are with Safari on my MacBookPro. With Flash, both cores run around 57% according to MenuMeters. On long videos, the fans spin up quite obnoxiously. With HTML5, both cores stay around 15% and the fans never kick on.
Maybe it’s just that Flash on Mac is bad. If so, and if Adobe wants to get into the iPhone/iPad, maybe they should make Flash rock on the Mac first. It sure would shut people up (including myself).
I understand the bit of the APIs and I can’t wait to try out that beta.
Brian Mauter
11 May 10 at 12:41 pm
Thanks for this, Mike. As a Flash developer, I’ve been feeling the crunch of Apple’s anti-Adobe crusade, and constantly find myself defending Flash as an appropriate medium for many web applications (particularly action-heavy gaming).
So tt’s very nice to have an objective article to point to next time I hear about what a resource pit Flash is.
Dan
11 May 10 at 12:44 pm
Back when the macheist splash animation was up, I recreated it in flash to compare CPU use – on both PC and mac it was substantially lower (on a PC almost 10x lower in fact) using flash to animate rather than the canvas/JS approach in the original page: http://www.eastcoastinteractive.co.uk/test/flashheist/
Mike Duguid
11 May 10 at 2:51 pm
[...] APIs (though it is now partially allowing adobe to use..on a flash beta).. You can read this on Top Flash Misperceptions : Flash is a CPU Hog at Mike Chambers My point is that it is – not nice to spread FUD … just for the sake of Apple love… – Ok I [...]
MacTalk Podcast #122 - Bru Ray - MacTalk Forums
12 May 10 at 5:02 am
I know its your job to defend Flash. However, I say let everyone cry about it and cry about it; let HTML 5 come into play without any fighting from the Flash side. What’s going to end up happening is developers who are just starting out and learning on their own are going to be writing some horrible, horrible javascript. Better yet, they’ll be using jQuery and when something goes wrong, they won’t know how to fix it. The issues start at the developer. When I use Flash, I optimize and optimize. I break out of my loops whenever possible and set everything back to null. I don’t seem to have any memory leaks or CPU issues whatsoever. What’ll be even better is when companies hire these new developers to do HTML5 for their mobile sites and their bad practices will make their little iPhone crash instead.
Jack
12 May 10 at 10:24 am
Browser developers have full, or near-full, control over the efficiency of Canvas and H.264 video rendering. They have little to no control over the efficiency of Flash. That’s the crux of the matter.
Marcus
13 May 10 at 12:40 pm
Thanks for Mike’s post with data and numbers, and references to external web documentations.
You did mention the Microsoft product which is in direct competition against Flash — Silverlight — in your replies to others’ messages. I wonder if you are aware of any H.264 playback comparison between Silverlight and Flash regarding CPU usage, especially on MacBook or other Mac platforms.
TC
13 May 10 at 2:25 pm
@Jack,
Agreed 100%. I’m kind of wondering what happens when people don’t have a particular technology to blame as a scapegoat for bad development practices. My hope is that we’ll finally blame bad developers, and all the good devs will get paid enough money to buy mansions wherever they want :)
Robert
17 May 10 at 11:49 am
I recently started animating with jquery to appease iPhone users and stay up with the new trend.
But… the fairly simple slide-show animation I would run in flash at about 20-30% cpu is chewing 80-98% in FF and not even smooth due to the lower fps.
Obviously some of it will be down to my comparable jquery skills but it seems obvious to me that manipulating css via a timer is going to be more costly than using Flash.
And because of the cpu chewage I ended up on this page. Makes me start to wonder where all the javascript hype came from.
Ben
17 May 10 at 6:23 pm
Sorry, but raw CPU usage numbers are completely useless. If I am doing a complex animation with high frame rates (a game would fit this description), I am sure going to use as much CPU as the system can spare.
This is regardless of other running applications – a decent OS will give the background tasks enough cycles for them to do their jobs. At some point the context switching and random time slices will be detrimental to the user experience, but that’s to be expected.
Only if we can devise a standard set of tests, implemented with JS/Canvas and Flash, then we can measure something.
This is just Flash propaganda.
Stephen Eilert
18 May 10 at 5:41 am
Well, i have been testing some CSS3 examples lately… and for god’s sake:
http://neography.com/journal/our-solar-system-in-css3/
Take a look at this one. A SIMPLE animation like that takes 30% of my 4 processors Computer core… Really? I am doing a website in flash that has much more complex calculations than that simple example or many others can have… and it takes LESS processor resources!
Imagine the web when CSS is used like that to animate sites in a flashy way… well I don’t see how it is going to have a better performance than Flash! At least for now!
Martin Fernández Lombana
21 May 10 at 2:24 am
And, to all those saying that Adobe is trying to block somehow HTML5, well… go read some posts… inside this blog, or other non-Adobe-ish blogs! Don’t you see that Adobe embraces HTML5? It would be ridiculous not to do so, the problem is that HTML5 can not replace FLASH, but, hey, if you want to do Flash-Like, sites in CSS3, HTML5 etc be my guest. If, at the end, everybody sees that html5 takes less resources, is as smooth as Flash, is as intuitive and has an OOP framework as powerful as AS3 is… AND IF (AND ONLY IF) the experience of HTML5 rich web-sites is ubiquitous and it behaves EXACTLY the same in all the browsers… (without you expending more time making your website compatible with 500 browsers (Firefox, opera, safari, chrome… and every unique mobile device in the world) everybody is going to adopt it. Now, someone could say, we don’t want that! (Then what do you want? I am just describing the paradise in terms of web-development).
The problem is this is not going to happen. (I would like to be wrong, believe me). HTML5 and JS adepts for animation purposes have it wrong. If Flash developers do not embrace this technology is not because we are lazy or because we don’t want to learn new stuff. It is because I, as the 98% of the Flash community uses HTML5/PHP and JS as well, BUT to serve other purposes. The truly original purpose for that technology: Layout information and represent it in a simple way for reading purposes! You can’t (for now) create a website in HTML5 that engages and immerse the spectator as Flash does.
Just to make my point, I don’t think flash is good for every website, IT IS NOT. There are some sites that do not need flash at all, because they are using flash to emulate HTML behavior… that is a waste of time because it doesn’t bring anything new. Now, on the other hand, we are assisting at the exact opposite scenario: HTML5 trying to emulate Flash Websites. I don’t say it is bad, because any new feature that we can bring to the web is always somehow beneficial… but, please, right now, and given the compatibility problems of HTML/HTML5/CSS, the slow adoption of new browsers by the general mass, and the slow evolution of HTML itself, it is impossible to take HTML5 as a serious replacement for Flash. It can’t deliver. Prove me wrong and I would be happy to eat my own words!
Cheers,
Martin Fernández Lombana
21 May 10 at 2:46 am
The biggest problem with all this is measuring CPU only when its a co-processor GPU that makes the difference.
Unless in both cases both processors are instrumented properly, then its still all junk metrics.
full screen h.264 on most SOC uses high gpu cycles, especially in vbr modes non baseline, the cpu is nothing but doing traffic cop workloads.
Jeff
30 May 10 at 2:56 pm
To please iPhone / iPad users and Mr. Job, I am converting my simple flash slideshow into javascript (mootools) / css. I was very surprise to hear my laptop’s fan turning on after few second each time I launched the slide show.
I compared the flash version to the javascript / css version and found out that:
- with flash, Safari process shows 4% to 5% CPU consumption
- with javascript/css, Safari shows 100% – 104% CPU consumption hence the need for the fan.
No other applications front-end applications ran. The amount of CPU allocated to background tasks was minimal in both cases compared to Safari process CPU usage.
So from my perspective, the argument Mr. Jobs made about flash being an iPhone / iPad battery drain is totally bogus. iPhone and iPad are hardware platform and should not force developers / users to a specific tool set / technology. Can you imagine if Microsoft obliged developers to go through an approval process or if they decide put a stop on all Apple product because they are draining the battery? But when Apple does it, it’s normal. Go figure…
Nam
19 Jun 10 at 2:08 pm
I don’t think it get’s Adobe “off the hook” by saying other technologies are slower. If the performance characteristics of flash are such that it use is limited in some way, let’s say playing youtube videos impacts drag gestures on other components to the point where they frustrate the user, then you can draw conclusion that flash performance is an issue.
That being said, the user demand and consumption of processing resources is unlimited so there will be limitations at some point. Developers will and are pushing that envelope.
However, when it comes to Apple making a broad statement about the suitability of Flash on a particular class of devices relative to other technologes, this comparison goes a long way to exposing the real purpose behind the campaign which is to allow Apple to retain control of the application space. Apple trying to play God, and while I agree that influencing the performance and quality criteria of applications is noble, that role really should fall on the users who vote with their feet.
As Flash developers, the best way to combat this performance myth and the imposition of Apple’s control strategy is to write functional, rich, well performing and customer valuable applications for Flash supporting platforms. Everything else will follow.
Danny
12 Jul 10 at 3:29 pm
I base my CPU hogging comparison not to non-flash websites, html5 content or the like. I base my comparison strictly on the difference between Flash Player 10 as opposed to all previous versions I have had running on my system.
I noticed that with my previous versions of flash, which were also downloading, processing, drawing and animating video and managing audio feeds, I was able to perform additional tasks on my machine without hesitation. The moment the Flash upgrade hit, I am able to watch only about 10 minutes of video before the video lags, jumps, skips, then eventually force closes. This hypothesis has been tested more than ten times, the outcome being the same each time, regardless of website used, and ensuring all unnecessary processes were closed.
I never had this problem with previous versions of Flash content. Can you tell me what the difference is and why my machine ran very well with previous flash versions and why my machine now runs like an x86 after streaming a very short amount of video?
I also noticed that when I close my browser (Firefox in this case), and run CCleaner, then reopen my browser, the streaming content is back up to speed, for another 10 minutes. Why is that?
Conclusion: Flash is a CPU hog. *Correction: Flash 10 is a CPU hog.
Marcus
28 Jan 11 at 9:03 am
We put a man on the moon in 1969 with less CPU processing power on both the Apollo 11 command module and the LM than is generated by today’s TI-83 calculator. Why, 42 years later, is Adobe Flash using 100% CPU to playback a simple video clip on CPU’s that are hundreds if not thousands of times more powerful than a TI-83? The ratio of processing power to computer evolution just don’t make sense here; it points to inferior/inefficient technology in the system somewhere.
jnhks
28 Jun 11 at 6:52 pm
look at this :
http://www.yopsolo.fr/wp/2011/09/05/flash-vs-html5-video-performance-test/
Man this is a HD FULLSCREEN video it’s not using 100% of my CPU.
So you can watch a cool HD video AND in the same move control your Apollo 11 command module.
This is the difference between today and 1969 jnhks ;)
YopSolo
6 May 12 at 1:54 am