Flash Player 8 vs. 7 benchmark tests

There is a new article on Performance Improvements in Flash Player 8 at the Macromedia Developer Center. Along with it is an interesting look at some benchmark tests between Flash Player 8 and 7, and between Windows and Mac.

The new incremental garbage collector in Flash Player 8 (vs. reference-counting in Flash Player 7) is the main reason for reduces memory usage and overall improved performance.

To take advantage of the new player features, it is important to point out that this new player should be adopted much quicker than previous versions, because of an auto-update feature (already in Flash Player 7) with express install (without leaving the playing SWF file). It’ll be easier to convince clients and end-users because of the many new improvements and abilities to do something that was never possible before.

It’s also interesting to see the specs of the test reference machines, which are not your latest/fastest boxes, but more realistic real-world end-user systems:

• Mac OS 10.3 – 800 MHz – 256 MB RAM (1 CPU disabled on dual processor machine)
• Windows XP SP2 – P3 1 GHz – 384 MB RAM