Performance issues

So after releasing my first flash game project, I have encountered a serious problem: performance.

While testing offline with the standalone file, I never encountered performance problems; the framerate was high and stable. But when I play it inside a browser it slows down heavily, the framerate is at least halfed…

So is the difference so high? And what can I do to improve the performance? Are there any “golden rules” or “no-go”s?

The game I am talking about is http://www.kongregate.com/games/TyFunGames/monochrome

the standalone file can be accessed here:
http://uploaded.to/?id=u3qgb5

Square rooting can be a problem if you do it many times. Redrawing many times should be avoided.

Graphics wise, avoid things that use alpha on a background object – this includes glows/blurs. They can be a real killer.

I haven’t been able to play your game, so I’m not sure which of these apply.

Well of course an exe will run faster than a flash game in a browser. The game doesn’t run slow for me though.

Runs slow for me, but the computer here at work isn’t the greatest…

Standalone will nearly always run faster than the activeX. Its a fact that you have to deal with.

Well, its not a limitation of the plugin.
Its the limitation forced on the plugins by browsers.

Browsers limit the amount of processing a plugin can take up. And Adobe has no plans to circumvent that functionality. So they are meanwhile working towards optimising the processing as best they can.

You can force framerate with some hacks though.

Just search on google for it… I think its on Andre Michelle’s site.

The latest Flash beta does really improve performance when running in a browser ( So games that have set a stupidly high framerate to try and eek out a bit more performance / smoothness are going to fall over badly ).

The main hit in any game is the graphical data, so things to avoid are gradients, alpha, filters ( Some are worse than others ) and vectors. Also throwing around too much data at once will slow Flash right down.

Go to FlashKit games board, there’s a knowledge base sticky there with a link to a huge optimisation thread. There’s some gems hidden within in all the spam in there.

Squize.