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The facts that Flash performs just as poorly on Linux as on OS X, and far worse on a fast PowerPC (youtube is painfully choppy on a G5 Quad) than a slow x86 (yo

by Zak 17y ago

The facts that Flash performs just as poorly on Linux as on OS X, and far worse on a fast PowerPC (youtube is painfully choppy on a G5 Quad) than a slow x86 (youtube is tolerable on an Atom) suggest explanations that differ from the Adobe party line.

the100rabh 17y ago
yeah why does Flash run so poorly on my 166Mhz P1. Crappy s/w right. Yeah its become fancy to criticize Adobe and flash, for everything.
- Locke1689 17y ago
  Your account is new so I'm going to give you some advice: generally people on Hacker News have a reasonably high technical baseline and it would do you well to assume so. For example, a number of FFmpeg and x264 developers frequent the site and we have a pretty good idea of how video decoding works.
- radley 17y ago
  I think it was sarcasm...
  - telemachos 17y ago
    I think it was sarcasm... A sense of which, unfortunately, is in very, very low supply around here.
    - kelnos 17y ago
      I quite easily recognized it as sarcasm. But it still wasn't funny. It was just kinda dumb and obvious.
      - telemachos 17y ago
        I wasn't discussing whether or not the post was funny. I don't care if it was funny. I was reacting to what I think is an occasional problem with HN. In a nutshell, some people here take "serious" so far that it turns into "puritanically self-righteously lacking in any sense or awareness of humor or irony." That can lead to really bizzare misfires of communication. Case in point is the reaction to a recent comment by Jrockway's on the anti-IRS nutcase: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1135693 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1135693 (again, please don't feel the need to say whether you find his comment funny or in poor taste or whatever).
        kelnos 17y ago
        I think the comment you link to is actually kinda an odd illustration of your point[1]: the first reply (Poe's rule) clearly recognizes it as humor and suggests that others will take it overly-seriously. The second reply is somewhere in the middle -- at least it didn't start out with "OMG you are a terrible person how could you say that!!!11" I don't know who jrockway is: maybe he's making a joke, and maybe not. It's more likely that he's making a joke, but you never can tell on teh intarwebs... even in a place like HN. Regardless, I wouldn't consider pw0ncakes' comment puritanical or self-righteous in the least: in fact he/she slightly revels in the possibility of fat-cat execs getting their comeuppance. [1] Though I don't disagree with your point; I have indeed seen the issue of which you speak, though I can't think of any specific examples.
  - dreyfiz 17y ago
    No, it was just plain dumb.
    - kierank 17y ago
      To play devil's advocate a little bit it's funny how all the negativity is now focused on Adobe when not many months ago it was all focused on Apple's App Store policy.
      - Zev 17y ago
        Apple's fixed the criticisms from a few months ago (long submission updates, poor/inconsistent private API policy, etc). Not to say that you wouldn't have to look far to find new criticisms (their recent removal of "adult" apps, to name one). Adobe, on the other hand, hasn't fixed any of their problems. And they've had much longer to fix their problems than Apple has. Hell, it took less time for Apple to create a problem that had to be fixed then for Adobe to fix their problems.
        kierank 17y ago
        Well the Apple App Store problems were merely procedural issues whereas the Adobe issues are technically difficult problems that haven't been solved well by anyone and aren't helped by platform/codec war politics.
        Zev 17y ago
        Institutional problems can be as hard to fix as technical problems. Whats going on at Adobe might be both types of problems. (Not to say Apple has an institutional problem, but, speaking in general.)
        Zak 17y ago
        From what I know of the issue, the technical problems with Flash are not difficult to solve. The fundamental problem seems to be that Adobe is not willing to put in the effort to make Flash work well on multiple platforms.
DarkShikari 17y ago
and far worse on a fast PowerPC This is because Mainconcept's H.264 decoder doesn't have Altivec optimizations, only x86 SIMD. The VP6 and FLV decoders, as far as I know, do have Altivec, probably because back when they were released, PowerPC was a significant market.
yuvi 17y ago
The best explanation I've seen is http://www.kaourantin.net/2010/02/core-animation.html http://www.kaourantin.net/2010/02/core-animation.html when you also realize that for video playback and animation in general, OpenGL > Core Animation > Quartz 2D > QuickDraw for OS X 10.2 and newer (I think QuickDraw was better pre-compositing.)
danh 17y ago
Also, Flash often, rather surprisingly, uses more CPU cycles when a video is paused than e.g. VLC does actually playing the darned thing (on OS X). I guess this must be because Apple doesn't allow Adobe access to its proprietary, hardware based empty loop optimizations...
papersmith 17y ago
In my experience flash under Linux was much worse than OS X. One of the main reasons I switched to OS X was to make flex development less painful.
- Zak 17y ago
  The overall experience is worse on Linux, with sound issues and on 64-bit Linux, clickable areas that don't line up with the visible controls. I was just talking about CPU usage.
- stevenwei 17y ago
  You were doing Flex development on Linux? I'm so sorry... We tried that once but gave up after finding out that turning on a blur filter would segfault the Flash Player. Whoops!
ninjac0der 17y ago
Not a good way to make your point in my opinion. 3D rendering is also slower on both OSX and linux distributions. I don't doubt Adobe and their software is a problem, but I also think it's become far to popular to blame everything on Adobe.

by Zak 17y ago

the100rabh 17y ago

yeah why does Flash run so poorly on my 166Mhz P1. Crappy s/w right. Yeah its become fancy to criticize Adobe and flash, for everything.

Locke1689 17y ago
Your account is new so I'm going to give you some advice: generally people on Hacker News have a reasonably high technical baseline and it would do you well to assume so. For example, a number of FFmpeg and x264 developers frequent the site and we have a pretty good idea of how video decoding works.
radley 17y ago
I think it was sarcasm...
- telemachos 17y ago
  I think it was sarcasm... A sense of which, unfortunately, is in very, very low supply around here.
  - kelnos 17y ago
    I quite easily recognized it as sarcasm. But it still wasn't funny. It was just kinda dumb and obvious.
    - telemachos 17y ago
      I wasn't discussing whether or not the post was funny. I don't care if it was funny. I was reacting to what I think is an occasional problem with HN. In a nutshell, some people here take "serious" so far that it turns into "puritanically self-righteously lacking in any sense or awareness of humor or irony." That can lead to really bizzare misfires of communication. Case in point is the reaction to a recent comment by Jrockway's on the anti-IRS nutcase: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1135693 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1135693 (again, please don't feel the need to say whether you find his comment funny or in poor taste or whatever).
      - kelnos 17y ago
        I think the comment you link to is actually kinda an odd illustration of your point[1]: the first reply (Poe's rule) clearly recognizes it as humor and suggests that others will take it overly-seriously. The second reply is somewhere in the middle -- at least it didn't start out with "OMG you are a terrible person how could you say that!!!11" I don't know who jrockway is: maybe he's making a joke, and maybe not. It's more likely that he's making a joke, but you never can tell on teh intarwebs... even in a place like HN. Regardless, I wouldn't consider pw0ncakes' comment puritanical or self-righteous in the least: in fact he/she slightly revels in the possibility of fat-cat execs getting their comeuppance. [1] Though I don't disagree with your point; I have indeed seen the issue of which you speak, though I can't think of any specific examples.
- dreyfiz 17y ago
  No, it was just plain dumb.
  - kierank 17y ago
    To play devil's advocate a little bit it's funny how all the negativity is now focused on Adobe when not many months ago it was all focused on Apple's App Store policy.
    - Zev 17y ago
      Apple's fixed the criticisms from a few months ago (long submission updates, poor/inconsistent private API policy, etc). Not to say that you wouldn't have to look far to find new criticisms (their recent removal of "adult" apps, to name one). Adobe, on the other hand, hasn't fixed any of their problems. And they've had much longer to fix their problems than Apple has. Hell, it took less time for Apple to create a problem that had to be fixed then for Adobe to fix their problems.
      - kierank 17y ago
        Well the Apple App Store problems were merely procedural issues whereas the Adobe issues are technically difficult problems that haven't been solved well by anyone and aren't helped by platform/codec war politics.
        Zev 17y ago
        Institutional problems can be as hard to fix as technical problems. Whats going on at Adobe might be both types of problems. (Not to say Apple has an institutional problem, but, speaking in general.)
        Zak 17y ago
        From what I know of the issue, the technical problems with Flash are not difficult to solve. The fundamental problem seems to be that Adobe is not willing to put in the effort to make Flash work well on multiple platforms.

DarkShikari 17y ago

and far worse on a fast PowerPC This is because Mainconcept's H.264 decoder doesn't have Altivec optimizations, only x86 SIMD. The VP6 and FLV decoders, as far as I know, do have Altivec, probably because back when they were released, PowerPC was a significant market.

yuvi 17y ago

The best explanation I've seen is http://www.kaourantin.net/2010/02/core-animation.html http://www.kaourantin.net/2010/02/core-animation.html when you also realize that for video playback and animation in general, OpenGL > Core Animation > Quartz 2D > QuickDraw for OS X 10.2 and newer (I think QuickDraw was better pre-compositing.)

danh 17y ago

Also, Flash often, rather surprisingly, uses more CPU cycles when a video is paused than e.g. VLC does actually playing the darned thing (on OS X). I guess this must be because Apple doesn't allow Adobe access to its proprietary, hardware based empty loop optimizations...

papersmith 17y ago

In my experience flash under Linux was much worse than OS X. One of the main reasons I switched to OS X was to make flex development less painful.

Zak 17y ago
The overall experience is worse on Linux, with sound issues and on 64-bit Linux, clickable areas that don't line up with the visible controls. I was just talking about CPU usage.
stevenwei 17y ago
You were doing Flex development on Linux? I'm so sorry... We tried that once but gave up after finding out that turning on a blur filter would segfault the Flash Player. Whoops!

ninjac0der 17y ago

Not a good way to make your point in my opinion. 3D rendering is also slower on both OSX and linux distributions. I don't doubt Adobe and their software is a problem, but I also think it's become far to popular to blame everything on Adobe.