We’ve received a lot of feedback from our users that the Flash Player on the Mac is much slower than the Player on Windows. There are a variety of technical reasons for this that I wouldn’t have the knowledge to explain. However – there is good news for Mac users out there…
As Tinic Uro, Principal Engineer for the Flash Player, explains in a post on his weblog, the new Flash Player 8 for the Mac has added support for OpenGL.
From the post:
“So, in essence it means that the Flash Player will use OpenGL on OS X 10.2 or newer to display its content if the machine meets the requirements. This is the direct result of working with some Apple engineers which were really helpful in getting us to be confident with these changes. In addition almost every core rendering routine now has an AltiVec implementation, you should see that when profiling using Shark. We spend a lot of time on this in this release.”
* Note: There is currently a bug (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=298961) in Firefox for the Mac that causes very poor performance. The bug has been logged and is being addressed by the Mozilla team. Until then we recommend that Mac users use Safari for browsing Flash content on the Mac.
So it’s a year later and still no real resolution to this? This is embarrasing. FIX THE MAC FLASH PLUGIN!
> So it’s a year later and still no real resolution to this?
Not true. Flash Player 9 was just released, including a universal binary version for Intel-based Macs. Performance is fantastic.
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/
I wouldn’t know if it’s “performance is fantastic” as the installer hangs with “4 items” remaining on my power PC running panther. The same thing happens when I try and install studio 8 only it hangs at 160 items to install. Any thoughts?
Re: flash 9 – Performance may be good on intel macs but its the same old story on older macs. Why don’t you test the thing before you make such claims?
I just downloaded Flash 9 and it’s still running pretty slow on my Mac. With my G5 1.6Ghz with 1 gig of ram there is a noticeable delay with a 230K swf.
I agree completely – FLASH STINKS ON MACS. Why can´t you fix it – its totally embarrassing. I can´t watch flash on my mac in either browser – it SUCKS.
Performance is not “fantastic” at all. Still the same old problems. Using Flash 8 Pro and all my swfs run terribly slow on Mac Safari and Firefox on Mac. These same swfs on the PC are fluid. I have a swf set to 60fps and it looks like it’s running 20fps, ridiculous if you ask me.
Flash 9 player on Safari makes no difference. It is as slow as ever. We need to all write Adobe every day and remind them of this. It has to be fixed.
i just purchased a G5 and it has MAC OSX 10.4.8 and every time i launch flash it doesnt do anything, then if i force quit, it states that flash is not responding, it does this with fireworks too. plese let me knwo whats going on!!
Thank god – a place where people are experiencing the same things. I have just decided today that I will not be upgrading from my PowerBook G4 to an Intel Mac – I am going to buy a PC. And flash is the reason – both the application & the player. Our old P4, now being used as a DB server, runs flash brilliantly compared to my PowerBook, and even the G5 workstation. I love my mac, but cannot stay with it any longer. Flash has become such an amazing environment to fulfill so many and varied briefs – but for whatever reason, my poor mac can’t keep up :(
Why are we all being ignored? I”ve been through several sites now relating to this issue, all have countless posts with no replies or explanations. (http://board.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?t=323463) Something is going on behind the curtains of Adobe/Macromedia on the issue of flash with macs.
We have bought and supported your products without disgrunt, now I think we should be given some sort of explanation as to why or what is taking so long to acknowledge. If the flash players on macs are slow and cannot be fixed reasonably, then please state that, so we all don’t keep creating flash sites that are too intensive for macs. And so that we don’t keep knocking on your door in hopes of awaiting some sort of reasoning.
Mike, out of respect for your loyal customers, for the dignity you have as an honorable citizen, please, please we beg of you, for the love of GOD, acknowledge us.
Hi,
If you are experiencing performance issues, please file a bug: http://www.adobe.com/go/wish
In order for us to follow up on these claims, provide as much information as possible including but not limited to:
OS version
Browser and version
Flash Player version
URL where you are experiencing a difference in performance
Whether you can provide sample media
Thanks,
Emmy Huang
Sr. Product Manager
Flash Player
Very disappointing performance on my new Dual 3 Intel Mac. Flash 9 is crawling, comparing to my old PC. I really wish this issue was fixed, but I guess it will take many years. As a full-time Flash developer/designer who just switched to a Mac this is posing a serious problem.
Just so you know I tried Dale Lafayette’s post above about taking out the transparent window mode in both the object and embed tag and it seemed to work for us. Are there any repercussions we could run into down the line from this fix/hack? What the heck is the transparent wmode for anyway?
[md] Hi, Randy. Glad to hear it. Here’s a technote on the Adobe support center that might explain wmode better.
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_14201
[/md]
Thanks Mike, I think I have version 9 installed now
Wow… 1 year and 3 months after I posted the original comment above and no one has posted anything admitting to the problem from adobe/macromedia nor has flash 9 accumulated to anything more than another let down. I no longer develop anything in flash. A software that changes so much from version to version… Ajax all the way. Still love my mac – loving flash even less. My hopes that Adobe would turn this around have gone up in smoke as well. Cheers all – see you in another year.
Flash’s only hope for survival is the streaming server… but how long till that is eaten up by something better?
flash runs like 2x faster on my 2-yr old powerbook g4 than it does on my brand spankin’ new macbook pro
i mean … it’s really embarassing, guys. truly.
I develop Flash apps on PC and have always avoided Macs in general because of these performance issues. Recently, I developed an app that is bound for deployment on a system that runs on Mac Minis. I found that where I was getting 30 fps all day long on my old PC, the Mac would give me average 28 with NOTHING moving… and would drop to 3 or 4 fps on standard easing motions through code.
However – when I installed the latest STANDALONE Flash 9 player on the Mac Mini, it runs the swf pretty much just as fast as the PC.
BUT – for some reason, the other Mac Minis (identical machines to this one) that we’ve tried it on, which all have Flash Player 9 running, run about the same as this one did with FP8… 3-4 fps on the animations…
I’m wondering if there was perhaps a recent fix in the player and the other machines have an older version of FP9? I also noticed that on the other machines, if you drag the Flash Player window around, the whole window redraw (mac interface) jerks around at 3-4 fps… but then you grab the fFinder window and drag it and it’s smooth as silk…
hmmm……
-r
I got it to work in Safari, although it has a few quirks… but I have been able to simulate them on my PC. I have found sparse documentation on little known facts (or bugs) in my experimentation and development in flash. Dynamic Text loaded from an html file cannot be masked easily. THAT one took me awhile. My website aforementioned (robertovalenzuelaphotography.com) uses the Stage object which I have read now is problematic when you want to retrieve the size of the Flash object on screen. I believe this was the root of my problem in Safari. I managed to fix it by painstakingly going over my code and trying bits and pieces until it worked. So, resolved so far. My next adventure will continue with my personal site: daqre.com. Thanks for all your sentiments!
D
I have been using flash on mac since FLASH 5 and i must admit that every version for mac keeps getting worse, Flash 5 on OS 9 was quite bearable to work with and i have even produced multimedia CDs with it (although performance was nowhere compared to PC versions).
Since i switched to OSX Flash has become unbearable to the point that (despite being a diehard mac fan) i had to switch to PC because of it! Flash 8 Pro is so slow and chunky i coulnd’t bear desinging a simple flash banner! let alone produce full websites. and let’s not mention the player (browser and standalone) which are crap to say the least.
i don’t know who is the problem here if flash or OS X but something has to be done as from what i see in forums more flash designers are switching to PCs. lets just hope CS3 solves some issues but i doubt it!
[md] I think you’ll find significant improvements in performance and usability on the Mac with Flash CS3 Professional. It’s the first universal binary version of Flash for the Intel-based Mac. [/md]
Well…
I’m developing a website on my Mac(MacBookPro 17″ 2.16Ghz 2GB-ram) with Flex and Flash cs3.
I’m testing on both Safari and Firefox with Flash-Player 9.
Just some lousy as3-tweens.
Still no difference.. annoying
me too, the flash version just wont play smoothly on the mac safari, firefox with the latest flash player 9 installed…the flash was done in flash cs3…wonder whats wrong and how to even fix this issue when many people are on macs..
I’m assuming this is the real reason why were not seeing flash enabled in the browser on the iPhone – because the performance will stink and be an embarrassment to the product.
That’s it!!! I’m switching to PC for sure. Adobe & Apple shame on you!!
Its been a while. Still, no change. Flash on any Mac based web browser is not acceptable. Nothings changed since I complained about it here, back in 2005.
I still design on a PPC Powerbook G4, but I test it on a 2000 Compaq laptop…… now thats pathetic!
Oh well, it is what it is…. be nice if someone put forth some effort to fix…. ah heck, at the very least respond to the issue, but instead it can be our little inside joke about Flash plug-ins on a Mac.
“Garbage”
Thanks again for the half-ass product.
Regards,
cL
At the moment, there is no fix or any solution to
this big problem.
I dont know why Macromedia dont make anything about that! i cant believe it.
3 Months past since the last post… I try my luck:
Very funny how you try and do as if nobody at Adobe would know about this problem :-D
Seems like nobody there uses Apples…hmmm
This is just nuts. I am a very die hard mac fan as well, I work with MIT (who has a hell of a lot of macs) and our offices in Boston to design Recommendation engines…..
Anyway, I noticed that MIT is now using a lot less Flash, I am very sad to hear about people hopping ship due to Flash’s short comings on the MAC. It’s amazing how powerful apps can be.
I just felt the need to post.. it’s all the same story over here. Maybe we can remote desktop into pcs and run a browser for simple flash animations? Hahaha… my goodness.
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I've spent a good deal of time learning flash, really disappointed to see this is a universal issue… i thought by looking into this further i'd find a solution, not loads of people all with the same unsolvable issue! does this mean i've now got to learn html5?? not more learning… <sigh>