myflashportal

Clearing up all confusion and Myth on Flash Player’s GPU/Video Card acceleration

manmeng — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 04:25:15 +0000

Hi there bros and sis,

I think this is quite an important research to do that to clear up all confusions and misconception of the GPU acceleration in Flash Player 10.
Though a brief research has been done to clarify this, but i think i will look up on more information in this.

The first site below proven to answer most of the important questions, I have extracted few points from the site.
http://www.kaourantin.net/2008/05/what-does-gpu-acceleration-mean.html

Now to the tricky part, things which will cause endless confusion if not explained:

1. Just because the Flash Player is using the video card for rendering does not mean it will be faster. In the majority of cases your content will become slower.
… Content has to be specifically designed to work well with GPU functionality. The software rasterizer in the Flash Player can optimize a lot of cases the GPU cannot optimize, you as the designer will have to be aware of what a GPU does and adapt your content accordingly.

2. The hardware requirements for the GPU mode are stiff. You will need at least a DirectX 9 class card.
… So if Aero Glass does not work well on your machine the Flash Player will likely not be able to run well either in GPU mode

3. Pixel fidelity is not guaranteed when you use the GPU mode. You have to expect that content will look different on different machines, even colors might not match perfectly. This includes video.

4. Here is an example, left shows it running using the new gpu mode, right using the normal mode. This a video which is 320×240 pixels large showing red text and as you notice the gpu mode arguably looks better as the hardware does UV blending: (see attached picture)

5. Please do not blindly enable either new mode (gpu or direct) in your content. Creating a GPU based context in the browser is very expensive and will drain memory and CPU resources to the point where the browser will become unresponsive.

6. GPU functionality ties us together with the video card manufacturers and their drivers. Given that you can expect that a significant amount of customers will not be able to view your content if you enable this mode due to driver incompabilities, and various defects in the software stack.

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Second site to further elaborate the points above : http://techreport.com/discussions.x/15710

We gave the new plug-in a shot, and while we didn’t see a huge difference in CPU usage on a Core 2 Duo E6400…
…Uro says web developers actually have to enable GPU acceleration manually in the code…

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Sites from adobe also DIDN’T clearly document and explain this feature. (It seems they are really unsure themselves)
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb405445

Adobe recommends DirectX 9.0 or later (on Windows) and Shader Model 3.0…
…If your video display card is not detected as a supported card, GPU effects and preferences will not be visible within the application…

GeForce 9 Series
9600GT, 9800 (single GPU variant one)

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More digging on adobe site found me this :
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/systemreqs/index.html
…Flash Player will use software mode for systems that do not meet the system requirements…

http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flash_Player:9:Update:Full-Screen_Mode:Demos (scroll all the way down)
…Most of the demos that utilizes Hardware scaling are basically full screen videos instead of interactive contents.

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Conclusion : The GPU acceleration is still at its very preliminary stage and we can’t depend on it for performance control. And to enable this mode, we have to use it INSIDE browser since I can’t seem to find anyone ‘answer’ to the question if this is possible to be utilize outside of a browser.

[Tips] Transitioning from AS2 to AS3, What you need to know

manmeng — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 06:36:07 +0000

A quality article off actionscript.org :

AS 3.0 Coming From 2.0

Bryan Grezeszak is a freelance AS3 developer and a FlashDen flash component and template author. He is a thorough expert of both ActionScript 2.0 and 3.0, and is more than willing to answer any questions you may have.
Articles of 3 series by : http://www.actionscript.org/resources/auth…Bryan-Grezeszak

Start with : http://www.actionscript.org/resources/arti…le-1/Page1.html
Follow up with : http://www.actionscript.org/resources/arti…le-2/Page1.html
End with : http://www.actionscript.org/resources/arti…le-3/Page1.html

Comments on the articles :

Seriously it would worth your 20 minutes read on all of the article. Worth every single bits your seconds spent on questioning on the changes and things you have to adapt from AS2 to AS3. Especially the one that deals with the million dollar question…What is a static class? You can find the answer on the second article.

[Sites] Sites that you can play

manmeng — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:07:17 +0000

LOCO ROCO 2

Unscrew America

NHK Kosen 2008

Cooking Mama Kills Animals

Source : kotaku

AS3 : Country Combobox Selector

manmeng — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:07:51 +0000

I’d think some of us really will run into frustration when dealing with 100 over countries to be keyed into their combobox, manually everytime if their job deals with forms that has , country selection.

Here’s a sample function that will aid and speed up your process, assuming you have a ComboBox named cbCountry.

function cbCountryAddItem() {
var countryArray:Array = ["Afghanistan", "Åland Islands", "Albania", "Algeria", "American Samoa", "Andorra", "Angola", "Anguilla", "Antarctica", "Antigua and Barbuda", "Argentina", "Armenia", "Aruba", "Australia", "Austria", "Azerbaijan", "Bahamas", "Bahrain", "Bangladesh", "Barbados", "Belarus", "Belgium", "Belize", "Benin", "Bermuda", "Bhutan", "Bolivia", "Bosnia and Herzegovina", "Botswana", "Bouvet Island", "Brazil", "British Indian Ocean territory", "Brunei Darussalam", "Bulgaria", "Burkina Faso", "Burundi", "Cambodia", "Cameroon", "Canada", "Cape Verde", "Cayman Islands", "Central African Republic", "Chad", "Chile", "China", "Christmas Island", "Cocos (Keeling) Islands", "Colombia", "Comoros", "Congo", "Congo, Democratic Republic", "Cook Islands", "Costa Rica", "Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast)", "Croatia (Hrvatska)", "Cuba", "Cyprus", "Czech Republic", "Denmark", "Djibouti", "Dominica", "Dominican Republic", "East Timor", "Ecuador", "Egypt", "El Salvador", "Equatorial Guinea", "Eritrea", "Estonia", "Ethiopia", "Falkland Islands", "Faroe Islands", "Fiji", "Finland", "France", "French Guiana", "French Polynesia", "French Southern Territories", "Gabon", "Gambia", "Georgia", "Germany", "Ghana", "Gibraltar", "Greece", "Greenland", "Grenada", "Guadeloupe", "Guam", "Guatemala", "Guinea", "Guinea-Bissau", "Guyana", "Haiti", "Heard and McDonald Islands", "Honduras", "Hong Kong", "Hungary", "Iceland", "India", "Indonesia", "Iran", "Iraq", "Ireland", "Israel", "Italy", "Jamaica", "Japan", "Jordan", "Kazakhstan", "Kenya", "Kiribati", "Korea (north)", "Korea (south)", "Kuwait", "Kyrgyzstan", "Lao People's Democratic Republic", "Latvia", "Lebanon", "Lesotho", "Liberia", "Libyan Arab Jamahiriya", "Liechtenstein", "Lithuania", "Luxembourg", "Macao", "Macedonia, Former Yugoslav Republic Of", "Madagascar", "Malawi", "Malaysia", "Maldives", "Mali", "Malta", "Marshall Islands", "Martinique", "Mauritania", "Mauritius", "Mayotte", "Mexico", "Micronesia", "Moldova", "Monaco", "Mongolia", "Montserrat", "Morocco", "Mozambique", "Myanmar", "Namibia", "Nauru", "Nepal", "Netherlands", "Netherlands Antilles", "New Caledonia", "New Zealand", "Nicaragua", "Niger", "Nigeria", "Niue", "Norfolk Island", "Northern Mariana Islands", "Norway", "Oman", "Pakistan", "Palau", "Palestinian Territories", "Panama", "Papua New Guinea", "Paraguay", "Peru", "Philippines", "Pitcairn", "Poland", "Portugal", "Puerto Rico", "Qatar", "Réunion", "Romania", "Russian Federation", "Rwanda", "Saint Helena", "Saint Kitts and Nevis", "Saint Lucia", "Saint Pierre and Miquelon", "Saint Vincent and the Grenadines", "Samoa", "San Marino", "Sao Tome and Principe", "Saudi Arabia", "Senegal", "Serbia and Montenegro", "Seychelles", "Sierra Leone", "Singapore", "Slovakia", "Slovenia", "Solomon Islands", "Somalia", "South Africa", "South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands", "Spain", "Sri Lanka", "Sudan", "Suriname", "Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands", "Swaziland", "Sweden", "Switzerland", "Syria", "Taiwan", "Tajikistan", "Tanzania", "Thailand", "Togo", "Tokelau", "Tonga", "Trinidad and Tobago", "Tunisia", "Turkey", "Turkmenistan", "Turks and Caicos Islands", "Tuvalu", "Uganda", "Ukraine", "United Arab Emirates", "United Kingdom", "United States of America", "Uruguay", "Uzbekistan", "Vanuatu", "Vatican City", "Venezuela", "Vietnam", "Virgin Islands (British)", "Virgin Islands (US)", "Wallis and Futuna Islands", "Western Sahara", "Yemen", "Zaire", "Zambia", "Zimbabwe"]

for (var i = 0; i cbCountry.addItem({ label: countryArray[i], data:countryArray[i] })
}
}

Adobe CS4 Official Launch, Malaysia.

momochizabuza — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 01:05:58 +0000

Behold, this is, your shortcut to brilliant!

This 11 Nov, 3 Adobe Evangelists will come to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, demonstrating the latest feature of Adobe CS4, the latest software from Adobe. The event will be held at Hotel Shangri-La, Kuala Lumpur. The 3 Evangelist are

Karl Soule
Paul Burnett ( last 4 month he was here for Adobe Masters Tour )
Tim Cole

So reserve your seat now, for something brilliant.

[Tutorial] AIR Updater for Flash

manmeng — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 08:09:22 +0000

Download file : http://www.myflashportal.com/tutorials/air/updater/update.zip
Download sample application : http://www.myflashportal.com/tutorials/air/updater/update.air

SUMMARY
Rejoice brothers and sisters! I had finally figured out the mystery of updating your Adobe AIR app that is built using Flash! Thank god through all the reference provided. But though Adobe announced that there is a framework for AIR, but they weren’t plan it for Flash, only for HTML/Javascript and Flex Flavour. I had a quick look on it, it’s really simple, and fast. Unlike the old time where we need to go through the pain of Updater class.

TUTORIALS
Coming soon. Working now. Will write when go home, you can have a quick look on the file, leave a comment or something if you have something that you are not sure . It’s pretty straightforward.

Create an app, give it a version number
Edit the versions.xml, put in the appropriate details
Upload it on the server and see the magic
Make sure that the version number for your app on the server is DIFFERENT from the one you are testing locally to avoid problem arising.

EXTRA NOTE
The ZIP file provided is created with intention that you can see the update in action, hence the version 1.0 on the fla file and the versions.xml (on myflashportal server) is 1.1.

I did not provide the Digital Certification file because you can create it on your own. I will provide a more detail when I get back.

Changing Landscapes

manmeng — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:32:11 +0000

Life Changing Box
Do not be fooled by the modest look of this picture, the site does more to awe you only. As I always experienced, a good site doesn’t need to be running fully in 3D to make people go Wow. But instead, this site cleverly uses user interaction and clear crisp high quality video to make the experience engaging. I especially like the ease of use in obtaining the information through drag ‘n drop mechanism, instead of the usual boring boxy layout.

Kilo Studio
This would be one of the rare gem that is shining on its way up on the scene. Based from our neighbour country, Singapore, it will certainly has some deep intense power within that we can’t wait for them to unleash it. Congratulation to their recent limelight in THEFWA on Lumina Live.

Flash Can’t Be Indexed by Search Engine, NOT!

manmeng — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 05:51:36 +0000

Finally, the day has come, actually a month ago to be precise, search engine companies has admitted believes they are able to index contents inside the SWF of a site. This is cool, why? Let’s say you are building an entire site in flash and you are not sure if it will be search-able by website surfers. No worries now, why? Look at the article from : http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=9224&tag=nl.e539

Excerpts from the site :

…Adobe’s help, Google can now better read the content on sites that use Adobe Flash technology, helping users find more relevant information when conducting…

And besides that, if you are looking into deep-linking your Flash sites, something like 2Advanced’s site. You can do it with SWFAddress!

More 3D Love and Experiments

manmeng — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 05:28:46 +0000

Some kind of toy made of Papervision again, but this time around, I’m just sharing due to it’s creative use of the medium instead of it offering any source, probably it will inspire you in some ‘portal-game-like’ kind of interface.

via Den Inavov Blog

Sharp
It would be tough sometimes if we are to combine technology and art, but that would be the greatest joy to gain from achieving it. This site portrays something the usual electrical store site wouldn’t do, to make the item or product itself an art. Quite conceptual at first, but as you go through the entire site, it seems to unveil more and making more sense to you. And from my observation, it’s built upon AS3, why you say? Because it threw an explicit error window to me when there’s some URL not found inside.

Virgin Eye
I would say this might not be groundbreaking for tech enthusiast that has seen millions of data visualisation at least, from Digg. Which you take existing data and beautify it in a way to human, it makes more sense to them. But in this case, instead of using data generated from user, Virgin Eye took a different approach in using it’s existing data from all it’s business and delivered in a ’sonar’ like look. Just how the Airspace terminals operates.

Rock Your Lock – JC Penny
While having your conversation with your friend through the webcam can be satisfying and enjoying, you may never know how much mor fun it can bring you when you can turn yourself into some superstar through some Flash sites that can make your webcam more ‘usable’ and ‘fun’. Realtime webcam image manipulation. This site includes not only one but most of the effects that we flashers has seen all these while in manipulating bitmap datas. Of course this might not be new to those who is fortunate enough to own a Mac that has iChat/Photo Booth installed by default which also features some of the effect. But this is definitely some commercial/technology breakthrough for the agency/studio that pulled this off. Strong and smooth backend definitely.

Create a 3D environment with Flash Player 10 API

Following back the post from our friends here, I had stumbled across this cool feature that gotoAndLearn by Lee Brimelow covered on the features that Flash Player 10 provides. This includes with only few lines and no additional plugins, you will able to build a 3D environment! Cool eh! That requires almost 0 knowledge of Papervision. Of course before getting started, you will need to have the Flash Player 10 Beta plugin installed to see the effect. Well, here comes the question, will this replace the overly poweful API by those 3D engine such as Papervision or Sandy3D? The answer is No. Because the flash 3D API/SDK still remains as a basic development tool for those who is looking to quickly chunk out a fast method for their client, but if they’re looking for a more hardcore implementation, the open source APIs is the way to go.

Delicious 3Dness in Flash

manmeng — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 03:31:11 +0000

It has been a while that we see much breakthrough, except because we always see breakthrough in Papervision3D, this time around, it’s really something magnificent and different from the usual stuff we see, and not sure if it’s really made out of papervision, or some effects branch. This is the genius from Japan, known as Roxik, which popularize the ‘dancing 3d avatar’ some time ago and got Pepsi Japan to acquire his engine in their campaign in creating custom avatar and dance to it. Really really cool. Even his minimalistic portfolio approach already can stun you to death.

The unique thing here is :

He doesn’t seem to release his source code publicly.
The engine has some sort of massive optimisation! And includes Depth of Field as well! Whoa!
The engine known by him as : Sharikura.