Here's a startling observation: the Flash Player on the Wii appears to run better than the one on my MacBook Pro (2.16 Core Duo). At least for this simple test SWF.
The Flash performance on the Wii article by Aral Balkan, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England License.
With the movie's frame rate set to 60 fps, I'm getting frame rates in the range of 41-52 FPS on my notebook (FireFox). Under Safari, the average rates are higher (49-52 FPS). On Windows, under Parallels, I'm getting 39-42 FPS for FireFox, 38-41 on Opera and a pretty steady 50 FPS on IE (49-51 FPS).
On the Wii? The darn thing is staring at me at 61 FPS at the moment! :)
Now, here's the craziest thing: In the sample SWf, if I move the cursor to the top-left corner of the screen, the frame rate drops to about 34 FPS.
What can cause such a drop in frame rate?
Not having tested with another SWF, I don't know whether this behavior is a quirk of the player or the specific test SWF. If it's the latter, could it mean that Math.sin() and Math.atan2() -- which are used in the enterFrame loop that updates the position and orientation of the arrow pointer -- are somehow more computationally intensive with smaller numbers? Needless to say, I can't observe this same behavior on my Mac.
Granted, this is a very simple example but it looks like the Flash player's performance on the Wii isn't that bad at all.
Have you done any performance tests for the Flash Player on the Wii? Feel free to share your observations in the comments.
See also: Flashing the Nintendo Wii.
The Flash performance on the Wii article by Aral Balkan, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England License.
My guess is that the player has some functionality stripped out of it & performance increases could be gained by that. Its just a guess though.
One way to test is with the published Flash games at wiicade.com
Hmm, Wii, my wife wants one. But they are sold out … probably for several months or longer …. same situation like with the DS Lite.
Hi Aral..
Are you sure the WII FP is the exact same as the OS X/windows ?
Interesting! However, I’ve found that testing FPS with movies that don’t do much computation is usually not so meaningful. You might want to try adding many calculations per frame to start taxing the CPU.
Yeah, you mentioned the Wii has FP7? You probobly have FP9 on your MBP.
I wonder what the fps would be on MBP with FP7. And I wonder which version of FP7 the Wii has.
And I wonder why you’re so observant = ] They were hoping no one noticed!!! lol
My guesses:
- Wii code execution is a lot slower
- Wii graphics compositing may be a lot faster (makes sense – it’s a game system, but that would require a custom build of the player that uses the GPU on Wii)
50fps might also be a “magic framerate” on the Mac, as it seems to hug 49-51fps pretty tightly on my MacBook regardless of cursor movement. I don’t know if that issue still exists when playing fp7 content in 9, but it seems hauntingly familiar.
Hi Savvas, yep, they’re all set to 60fps (they’re the same file) :)
I meen the distribution of the Flash Player..
From Mike Downey’s blog:”(for the xbox)they’re not simply shipping the browser plugin like the Wii and PS3 are. Microsoft created a custom implementation of the Flash Player that is embedded in the Xbox 360 OS and allows for standalone SWF files to play.”
I don’t have a wii so i didn’t knew that Wii has the original plugin i thought that Nintendo made a “remix” on the FP..But i guess because of Opera in Wii i should guess it..
Anyway i’m really really happy the flashy baby is embed in all mayor consoles..I wish PSP could have the FP9..
Here’s few demos that I tested with Wii, most quite slow, some require newer flash-version http://www.flashscene.org/content/blogsection/5/28/
[...] I’m still waiting for GAME to get new stock in so I can finally play around with the Nintendo Wii, but in the meantime I’m checking the net for the opinions of Flash users regarding the performance of the plug-in. It seems it’s pretty good; Aral Balkan’s latest post seems to indicate you can get very respectable framerates from it; 61 FPS from this test. [...]
[...] . fwiidom.org . wiiplayable.com . aral balkan 1 . aral balkan 2 . wiihacks . wiiNintendo [...]
[...] . fwiidom.org . wiiplayable.com . aral balkan 1 . aral balkan 2 . wiihacks . wiiNintendo . freesome.com [...]
I think I know what’s happening. First of all, its very likely you are comparing the Flash Player to the FlashLite player – two very different animals. However, I believe the problem you are seeing is common to all Flash Players. (BTW there is no Microsoft Flash Player). As someone who has been actively porting the player for almost a year, I recognize this as an artifact of Flash’s “dirty rectangle” strategy. Given the position of the text you are updating, and the effect of dragging the arrow in the upper left, you are creating an almost-fullscreen bitmap, since Flash merges the dirty rectangles into a single larger one.
Hi Chris,
The Wii has Flash, not Flash Lite (so I was comparing Flash to Flash) :) What you’re saying about dirty rectangles make sense. Thanks!
Forgive me for bothering you with such a basic noobie Q, but your blog entries about Flash on the Wii console are the first indication I’ve seen that the Wii supports Flash, contrary to an error message I keep getting.
I have a Wii running Opera and keep getting a message that I didn’t have the Flash plugin. When I browsed to Adobe, the website said there is no version of Flash for “your platform”, and I could not find any mention of Flash for the Wii on Adobe’s website.
The website that gave me trouble is (okay, don’t hurt yourself while you ROTFLMAO) webkinz.com.
Can you tell me:
1. where to find the proper version of Flash for the Wii — and specifically to install as a plugin for the Wii Opera browser (I have the latest Wii OS and Opera updates)
2. how to install it on the Wii
Thanks!
In regards to Michael’s post, I am having the same issues. I cannot hear any sound on myspace and the same ordeal with webkinz. Can anyone offer some friendly advice on how to correct this problem?
Thank you!
-Jay
——————————–
Michael
Forgive me for bothering you with such a basic noobie Q, but your blog entries about Flash on the Wii console are the first indication I’ve seen that the Wii supports Flash, contrary to an error message I keep getting.
I have a Wii running Opera and keep getting a message that I didn’t have the Flash plugin. When I browsed to Adobe, the website said there is no version of Flash for “your platform”, and I could not find any mention of Flash for the Wii on Adobe’s website.
The website that gave me trouble is (okay, don’t hurt yourself while you ROTFLMAO) webkinz.com.
Can you tell me:
1. where to find the proper version of Flash for the Wii — and specifically to install as a plugin for the Wii Opera browser (I have the latest Wii OS and Opera updates)
2. how to install it on the Wii
Thanks!
I’m making a flash game right now (with lots and lots of hittests) en a very big scene…
On any pc it runs very smoothly at any fps… but on the wii even on 12fps it can’t do all my calculations at the right time…
it’s a hell to get this game working smoothly on the wii
Hello, I am also trying to run the Webkinz site on the Wii in the opera browser. It tells me I don’t have flash installed. Cant download and install the adobe flash for this platform. Can this be resolved? Is anyone able to run Webkinz.com on the wii?
Thanks
[...] Flash Performance on the Wii [...]
Enjoyed your post. Thanks!
Nice post! GA is also my biggest earning. However, its not a much.:)
Thats Too nice, when it comes in india hope it can make a Rocking place for youngster.. hope that come true.
I HAVE A ACOUNT ON WEBKINZ AND WHEN I TRY TO ENTER WEBKINZ WORLD MY NEW CRAP’N WII™SAY “NOT ENOUGH MEMORY TO DISPLAY [FLASH CONTENT?]” PLUS IT IS VERY SLOW. TELL ME HOW TO GET ON WEBKINZ.
We just did our first Wii specific test for a client and got a horrible 5fps or so.. we have music running in the bkg, clipEvent(enterframe) is running, which can be a hog.. so maybe the key is limiting clipEvents…
i cant play webkinz games on my computer