Flash Lite performance

Unlike a PC, an embedded device is often limited by the limited CPU speed, RAM, memory and is optimized for the particular application. When it comes to running Flash player on such device, often the expectations are that Flash should run 'as good as' desktop player, if not better.

As a matter of fact, Flash Lite is designed to perform much better in terms of memory footprint as well as runtime memory consumption on an identical device running Flash 8. Adobe has also simplified support for several of the computationally intensive features in Flash Lite that eases load on CPU. These include gradient and filters. Take a look at the Adobe page, and you'll realize that quite a few CPU intensive features that are not required in embedded system are not included.

The performance on the embedded devices is a function of almost entire features that make up the device. If I had to make a list, it will be as follows:
- Content
- CPU
- RAM
- OS
- Display size
- Other (device drivers, other applications running on the device etc.)

So if you are looking to port Flash player on a device, and write an application, be very careful of these factors. Minimum recommendation is 200 MHz CPU with 32 MB RM from Adobe's web site. But that doesn't mean that it'll play youtube videos for you at reasonable fps. It will vary based on the available memory. Even two devices, with identical configurations, running different OS will have different performance.

In the subsequent posts, I'll elaborate more on each of these and offer some insights how they can impact the performance.