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Subject: Re: FLASH: 256 colors and speed
From: Troy M. Gilbert
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 23:23:22 GMT

>I agree there's a missing factor here and I don't think the replies on this
>list have identified it.

Sounds like a challenge... I'll crack out the ole performance profilers and
try to figure out why this is happening... hopefully my graphics
programming experience will shed some light... I'll report back to the list
soon.

>>If I change the monitor
>>settings of a computer to 256 colors and then play a movie (that played OK
>>at 16 or 32 bits color) it plays A LOT slower. �why?.
>My hunch is that the processor must dither the bitmap or gradient
>background from the original colors down to 256 colors. Since you have an

This is right, though I'm surprised it only happens in the above mentioned
cases. Flash is a true-color based graphics system (as opposed to GIF,
which is palette or indexed-color based). When you run your graphics card
at 256 colors (or 16 colors) you are using an indexed graphics mode. All of
Flash's graphics must first be generated at in a true-color buffer then
that buffer is dithered to the screen and it's palette. Dithering is not
always fast, but under Windows' it can be done rather quickly using the
Video for Windows subsystem (now ActiveMovie). It handles the dithering and
is done at a hardware level.

Well, that was probably more than you wanted to know...

Troy.




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Replies
  FLASH: 256 colors and speed, Fernando Pieschac�n
  Re: FLASH: Educational Flash, Wayne Townsend
  FLASH: Frame rate, FP
  Re: FLASH: Frame rate, John Croteau
  Re: FLASH: Frame rate, Colin Moock
  Re: FLASH: 256 colors and speed, Marc Hoffman

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