Chrome PPAPI (Pepper) performance: Copy to Screen

[esg_tim]

Hey,

Chrome PPAPI (Pepper) performance can be a bottleneck on some intense games. I've profiled our Starling game in Scout, and noticed a huge difference in how long the "Copying to screen" display list step takes.

Using a traditional Flash player plugin (NPAPI, non-debug) the "Copying to screen" display list step takes about 400 ms of a minute of gameplay. Chrome's default Pepper player (PPAPI, non-debug), however, takes 30 seconds of a minute of gameplay. I've tried this on a few different computers, too.

A quick glance at other starling games shows this is the case for pretty much everything - Pepper seems to take its sweet time "Copying to screen", about 50 times as long (or more!).

I'm working to improve performance in other ways, but a solution to this looks like it would be a big win. Any idea of if there's anything I can do to fix this, or is this just a problem with Pepper ... that you guys could sort out?

Thanks!

[jeromiec83223024]

It's hard to say until we profile it whether it's in Flash or Chromium code.

Please file a bug with an example SWF/URL and your sample scout files if possible to http://bugbase.adobe.com/.  This will help me get it assigned and prioritized faster.

If you reply to the thread with the bug number, I'll get an email notification and will escalate it.

[jeromiec83223024]

We're planning a number of enhancements aimed at Starling performance for future releases.  I'd like to get some attention focused on this issue. 

If you could provide the information above, I'd be more than happy to escalate it.

Thanks!

[esg_tim]

Hey, I'll be putting together a bug report before end of day today - sorry for the delay.

Thanks!

[esg_tim]

I have filed the bug report here:

https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm?event=bug&id=3614538

[CraigMurray_]

I thought Google developed PepperFlash?  If so not sure how an Adobe bug will get it fixed.

Here are some related bugs on the Chromium DB

https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=142102

https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=140637

[esg_tim]

As I understand it - Google developed PPAPI - it's an API - and PepperFlash uses this API.

PepperFlash is developed through partnership between Google and Adobe: http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplayer/2012/02/adobe-and-google-partnering-for-flash-player-on-linux.htm... .

"Because of this work, Adobe has been able to partner with Google in providing a “Pepper” implementation of Flash Player for all x86/64 platforms supported by the Google Chrome browser. Google will begin distributing this new Pepper-based Flash Player as part of Chrome on all platforms, including Linux, later this year."

The problem will be somewhere between Pepper Flash and Chromium.

[jeromiec83223024]

Adobe maintains Flash Player for Chrome, and we work closely with the Chrome team to investigate and resolve defects.

[CraigMurray_]

This is a huge problem for us.  So much so that we are very close to ripping Stage3D out of several of our games that use Starling and replacing it with the old copyPixels() approach.

A fix for this would be really, really nice.

[jeromiec83223024]

Thanks for the feedback.  I've escalated it to the engineering team.