Mysite Design speed

[steve.ledger]

Interesting tool, but it doesn't appear to take into account (download) flash content Hans.

It scores Scotty's page as loading in 1.25 seconds, which of course it doesn't because is hasn't looked at the flash.


Ah, Paul beat me to it

[haakoo]

I think that the pics created in xtreme were used in the highest quality in swishmax.
Therefore the swf takes a long load,think of a HTML page with many big pics.
Better build the swf dynamical;
ie. loading pics only when called for ,this way you create a smoother load.
Or reduce the size of the pics used in the swf.
(just took a peak at your directory and saw you created static swf of the characters you used and the one i downloaded was already 364Kb.)
If you use vector drawings,possible as swf,make them small,as your CPU and your bandwidth goes down the drain because,unlike a bitmap,a vector needs to be redrawn every moment its on screen.

Hans

(tough not completely representative for flash sites its still a handy tool)

[Scotty]

Hi All,
Thanks all for the responses. I am still working on it! (probably forever as I change my design everytime I re-do it). All the feed back is helpfull and appreciated.
for some reason I had trouble with some of the new stuff being updated and replacing the old files.
the new link is
http://members.shaw.ca/macgregorj/Default.html
I used to be Index.html but index.htmls would not update when tansfering new files.
Again Thanks All
Jim

[steve.ledger]

I used to be Index.html but index.htmls would not update when tansfering new files.

This happens when your browser is loading the older files from it's cache. Empty your browser cache and then revisit the URL for the newer updated contents.

[Egg Bramhill]

Hi Hans,

If you use vector drawings,possible as swf,make them small,as your CPU and your bandwidth goes down the drain because,unlike a bitmap,a vector needs to be redrawn every moment its on screen.

Could you explain that in greater detail as I don't understand it.

[pauland]

If you use vector drawings,possible as swf,make them small,as your CPU and your bandwidth goes down the drain because,unlike a bitmap,a vector needs to be redrawn every moment its on screen.

Hans, like Egg, I'm looking forward for an explanation of this. From my point of view it's not really true at all. I would agree if we were discussing a Vectrex games console, but not flash.

Paul

[haakoo]

Hi,

Egg and Paul,here's a page for flash lite in which is described why vectors are cpu consuming.
Couldn't find one for flash ,though,but same applies,you can try it out yourselfs.
It is not the vector object itself but if used many objects and applied transparency,motion and such
(like in this case)

Hans

[pauland]

Hi Hans,

Thanks for the link, but it doesn't support your assertion that

"If you use vector drawings,possible as swf,make them small,as your CPU and your bandwidth goes down the drain because,unlike a bitmap,a vector needs to be redrawn every moment its on screen."

Vectors are not redrawn every moment they are on screen, nor is there a direct correlation between vector size and CPU consumption. Neither is there any correlation between the complexity of vector graphics and bandwidth!

I am aware of the advice given in the link that you gave. It's particularly important in flashlite applications because the CPUs of mobile devices (phones in most cases) aren't that powerful compared to a desktop and the more CPU cycles consumed the greater the drain on the battery. Flash lite applications have to be highly economical and optimised when animating. When not animating they don't redraw vectors continuously.

On the desktop, the CPUs are far faster than those used in mobile devices, so the flashlite guidelines, though applicable have far less weight - in general the availability of CPU power means the conservation of CPU power becomes less important in most cases and particularly irrelevant for vector images where animation does not take place.

Vectors are a highly concise description of a shape and fill and as such they are far smaller in filesize than the bitmap equivalent and correspondingly have improved bandwidth characteristics compared to bitmaps.

Paul

[haakoo]

Some other pointers;
http://aralbalkan.com/759
http://www.firewheeldesign.com/spark..._vs_vector.php

Hans

[pauland]

Some other pointers;
http://aralbalkan.com/759
http://www.firewheeldesign.com/spark..._vs_vector.php

Hans

Thanks Hans - you don't give up without a fight!

The first link you gave describes the efficiency of using vector shapes in flash versus bitmaps. The actual discussion is centered around the efficiency of flash animation where in an animation scenario flash is recalculating vector positions but for bitmaps is using a cached bitmap and therefore just moving pixels about. There's a cutoff between animating a complex vector shape versus animating a cached bitmap image of that same shape. For simple vector shapes, they will be more efficient to animate than the equivalent bitmap image, for complex shapes the opposite will hold true.

The second link describes why bitmaps are supplied for icons in preference to vector shapes. The discussion centres on the fact that while vectors are highly scalable, in practice they are still mapped to a finite pixel screen and so can lose clarity when vector edges don't correspond with exact pixels. Therefore for icons the preference is to provide fixed size bitmaps to ensure maximum clarity.

Both links are entirely irrelevant to the assertion that vectors are redrawn continuously (eating up CPU cycles) when vector images are drawn.

I think the confusion here is related to the idea that static vector images are continually redrawn when in fact that's only true for animations.

Paul