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Is there a technical hurdle that has given Adobe performance problems on OS X? Or is it really just the relative market share leading to few development resourc

by mcav 17y ago

Is there a technical hurdle that has given Adobe performance problems on OS X? Or is it really just the relative market share leading to few development resources on Mac?

peyton 17y ago
It's probably both. Couldn't find the source, but I remember it having to do with the OS X driver API and how it doesn't let you do the same kind of low-level voodoo that makes Flash work on Windows. And with limited resources, Adobe probably hacked something together that ran "Hello world!" and shipped it. I'd like to hear an Adobe engineer's point of view.
lurch_mojoff 17y ago
I don't think Adobe have given any explanation. Neither have they given any sign that they are working on fixing the performance and stability issues. It seems to me that Adobe's position can be summed up like this - "That's not a priority for us. Learn to live with it." As an example of this there is this mini-flamewar between John C. Welch and Adobe's John Dowdell: http://www.bynkii.com/archives/2009/06/doing_it_wrong.html http://www.bynkii.com/archives/2009/06/doing_it_wrong.html
RWilson 17y ago
I would really, really love to know the answer to this too. It's hard to describe my surprise that my 5-year-old PC, with a low power 1.6Ghz CPU, can easily breach 100fps while playing JamLegend, and my 9-month old, dual-core 2.66Ghz MacBook Pro can barely squeak out 40fps. Speaking of framerate in Flash, setting the framerate on a particular SWF does not actually make the SWF run at that framerate, even if the client machine can run at that framerate. Rather, the framerate seems to be more a measure of CPU resources dedicated to running the SWF. For example, back to JamLegend: My MBP can run JamLegend at 40fps, but not if the framerate is set to 40fps. If it's set to 40fps, I'll get 20. It it's set to 60fps, I'll get 30. In order to get 40fps, the framerate has to be set to 100. Meanwhile, on my old XP machine, setting it to 40 gets 40, 60->60, and 100->100. So, very good question, why is it that Flash performance is so different on OS X than Windows?
- jdowdell 17y ago
  True on the framerate -- it's an upper gate. Static video which overburdens a configuration can drop frames to keep up. But interactive presentations need to display each intended frame, and so will drop framerate instead. More here: http://www.kaourantin.net/2006/05/frame-rates-in-flash-player.html http://www.kaourantin.net/2006/05/frame-rates-in-flash-playe... For the "why", that's Adobe Corp's tale to tell, but I haven't yet met a person inside Adobe who wouldn't be very, very happy if Mac/Win performance differences could be made to disappear.
  - RWilson 17y ago
    That's a great link, I had not seen that article before. Though, in practice,the actual framerate to vary from the specified by much more than the -10 / +5 fps that he lists. His final sentences might be relevant to this topic: On high CPU load we might actually cut [the max framerate] into half, e.g. 30 frames/sec. OS X already does this in certain conditions. Wish he had expanded on that a little more. Any idea what conditions cause OS X to halve the framerate?
ZeroGravitas 17y ago
I'd guess any plausible explanation would also have to account for the fact that basically every Adobe product on the Mac has gotten much worse over time with the exception of Lightroom. See this blog post, and the comments that follow for the comments of hardcore Adobe users: http://hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/a-big-assed-post-about-fireworks http://hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/a-big-assed-post-about-fire...
tolmasky 17y ago
Look, let's not kid ourselves, the problem is not technical. I'm sorry, but this stuff isn't rocket science, and even if it was, this plugin has existed for over 20 years, so they should have figured it out by now. Just think to yourself how much better the browser has gotten in that time frame, and its roughly how much worse the plugin has gotten. The reasons are clearly either politics or incompetence. Now, I'm not sure what those politics might be. I don't personally believe that its that Adobe is "angry" at Mac or something, but I for example know that they are absolutely paranoid about accepting changes to the core code (even obvious crasher fixes require a ton of approval and consideration). It really is to their own detriment. Regardless of how big the Mac market may be (its too big now to ignore and getting bigger), its a very powerful market of people that matter: i.e. developers. If Adobe got their act together, they would wipe the floor with JS, HTML5, etc. I mean, they almost do now, its purely due to their inability that they haven't completely and absolutely taken over the web. Of course, the same can be said of standards. Taking 10 years to have any sort of measurable change on the W3C side is equally unacceptable (and we still ended up with a video solution that guarantees Flash will dominate this field for the next 10 years). Its always funny to me when people talk about whether "standards" or "flash" is winning, because it seems like a race where both parties are running backwards.
- imajes 17y ago
  really well said.
- moe 17y ago
  this plugin has existed for over 20 years 14 years. Regardless of how big the Mac market may be (its too big now to ignore and getting bigger) Nu-uh. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Operating_system_usage_share.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Operating_system_usage_sha... because it seems like a race where both parties are running backwards. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1925723,00.html http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1925723,00.ht...
  - tolmasky 17y ago
    14 years Sorry, you are absolutely correct the plugin itself came out in 1996 with the original software having been developed earlier by PenPoint. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Operating_system_usage_share.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Operating_system_usage_sha... Not sure what that is supposed to prove, some would argue that that is a sizable chunk (bigger than Windows 7 currently). But that's really besides the point since the argument was that the people that matter are running it.

by mcav 17y ago

Is there a technical hurdle that has given Adobe performance problems on OS X? Or is it really just the relative market share leading to few development resources on Mac?

peyton 17y ago

It's probably both. Couldn't find the source, but I remember it having to do with the OS X driver API and how it doesn't let you do the same kind of low-level voodoo that makes Flash work on Windows. And with limited resources, Adobe probably hacked something together that ran "Hello world!" and shipped it. I'd like to hear an Adobe engineer's point of view.

lurch_mojoff 17y ago

I don't think Adobe have given any explanation. Neither have they given any sign that they are working on fixing the performance and stability issues. It seems to me that Adobe's position can be summed up like this - "That's not a priority for us. Learn to live with it." As an example of this there is this mini-flamewar between John C. Welch and Adobe's John Dowdell: http://www.bynkii.com/archives/2009/06/doing_it_wrong.html http://www.bynkii.com/archives/2009/06/doing_it_wrong.html

RWilson 17y ago

I would really, really love to know the answer to this too. It's hard to describe my surprise that my 5-year-old PC, with a low power 1.6Ghz CPU, can easily breach 100fps while playing JamLegend, and my 9-month old, dual-core 2.66Ghz MacBook Pro can barely squeak out 40fps. Speaking of framerate in Flash, setting the framerate on a particular SWF does not actually make the SWF run at that framerate, even if the client machine can run at that framerate. Rather, the framerate seems to be more a measure of CPU resources dedicated to running the SWF. For example, back to JamLegend: My MBP can run JamLegend at 40fps, but not if the framerate is set to 40fps. If it's set to 40fps, I'll get 20. It it's set to 60fps, I'll get 30. In order to get 40fps, the framerate has to be set to 100. Meanwhile, on my old XP machine, setting it to 40 gets 40, 60->60, and 100->100. So, very good question, why is it that Flash performance is so different on OS X than Windows?

jdowdell 17y ago
True on the framerate -- it's an upper gate. Static video which overburdens a configuration can drop frames to keep up. But interactive presentations need to display each intended frame, and so will drop framerate instead. More here: http://www.kaourantin.net/2006/05/frame-rates-in-flash-player.html http://www.kaourantin.net/2006/05/frame-rates-in-flash-playe... For the "why", that's Adobe Corp's tale to tell, but I haven't yet met a person inside Adobe who wouldn't be very, very happy if Mac/Win performance differences could be made to disappear.
- RWilson 17y ago
  That's a great link, I had not seen that article before. Though, in practice,the actual framerate to vary from the specified by much more than the -10 / +5 fps that he lists. His final sentences might be relevant to this topic: On high CPU load we might actually cut [the max framerate] into half, e.g. 30 frames/sec. OS X already does this in certain conditions. Wish he had expanded on that a little more. Any idea what conditions cause OS X to halve the framerate?

ZeroGravitas 17y ago

I'd guess any plausible explanation would also have to account for the fact that basically every Adobe product on the Mac has gotten much worse over time with the exception of Lightroom. See this blog post, and the comments that follow for the comments of hardcore Adobe users: http://hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/a-big-assed-post-about-fireworks http://hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/a-big-assed-post-about-fire...

tolmasky 17y ago

Look, let's not kid ourselves, the problem is not technical. I'm sorry, but this stuff isn't rocket science, and even if it was, this plugin has existed for over 20 years, so they should have figured it out by now. Just think to yourself how much better the browser has gotten in that time frame, and its roughly how much worse the plugin has gotten. The reasons are clearly either politics or incompetence. Now, I'm not sure what those politics might be. I don't personally believe that its that Adobe is "angry" at Mac or something, but I for example know that they are absolutely paranoid about accepting changes to the core code (even obvious crasher fixes require a ton of approval and consideration). It really is to their own detriment. Regardless of how big the Mac market may be (its too big now to ignore and getting bigger), its a very powerful market of people that matter: i.e. developers. If Adobe got their act together, they would wipe the floor with JS, HTML5, etc. I mean, they almost do now, its purely due to their inability that they haven't completely and absolutely taken over the web. Of course, the same can be said of standards. Taking 10 years to have any sort of measurable change on the W3C side is equally unacceptable (and we still ended up with a video solution that guarantees Flash will dominate this field for the next 10 years). Its always funny to me when people talk about whether "standards" or "flash" is winning, because it seems like a race where both parties are running backwards.

imajes 17y ago
really well said.
moe 17y ago
this plugin has existed for over 20 years 14 years. Regardless of how big the Mac market may be (its too big now to ignore and getting bigger) Nu-uh. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Operating_system_usage_share.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Operating_system_usage_sha... because it seems like a race where both parties are running backwards. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1925723,00.html http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1925723,00.ht...
- tolmasky 17y ago
  14 years Sorry, you are absolutely correct the plugin itself came out in 1996 with the original software having been developed earlier by PenPoint. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Operating_system_usage_share.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Operating_system_usage_sha... Not sure what that is supposed to prove, some would argue that that is a sizable chunk (bigger than Windows 7 currently). But that's really besides the point since the argument was that the people that matter are running it.