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Flash Player can now run C++ code, that is cross complied with the Adobe Flash C++ Compiler. How fast does such code run in comparison to a C++ application running as an EXE, in the context of gaming?

And does GPU rendering performance compare with C++ applications? Or is Flash far behind?

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    \$\begingroup\$ I'm not sure what you've done here. Did you re-ask a question that someone else asked and you answered? Providing the exact same answer for both? \$\endgroup\$
    – House
    Dec 21, 2012 at 19:42
  • \$\begingroup\$ Yes, I did that because my answer was more general and on his page no one would really find it. My answer wasn't about UDK in specific and there was no way I could delete his entire question to broaden the scope. And the answer isn't the "exact same", I modified it for this question. \$\endgroup\$
    – Robin Rodricks
    Dec 22, 2012 at 7:44
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Byte56 blog.stackoverflow.com/2012/05/encyclopedia-stack-exchange \$\endgroup\$
    – Tetrad
    Dec 24, 2012 at 20:14
  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks. I thought the questions would be similar enough for them to be closed as a duplicate, instead of providing the same answer. I see that they're different enough now. \$\endgroup\$
    – House
    Dec 24, 2012 at 20:27

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GPU rendering speed for 3D FlasCC games/apps is likely to be similar to C++ apps for obvious reasons - the actual rendering takes place on the GPU. Flash includes a cross-platfrom shader language (AGAL) to describe GPU kernels (programs run per pixel on the GPU).

CPU/computing speeds however at best reaches 15% the speed of MS VC++ on Windows (tested with a simple encryption function operating on an array of bytes). Some benchmarks for the latest FlasCC are available here, that compare a set of C++ programs running as an EXE and in Flash Player.

This essentially comes down to:

  • Anything you can move to the GPU can possibly be done close to native speeds. This includes rendering, lighting, mip-mapping, and to some extent physics operations (depends on the library)

  • Anything still done on the CPU will be a few times slower than C++, so don't expect to have a million moving objects on screen with full physics even if you can do that with the native (C++) library.

  • Flash vector graphics does not use the GPU and is rendered fully on the CPU. So if you need HUDs (heads up displays) with high-performance 3D vector rendering like what Scaleform provides for C++ apps, don't expect that to be easily possible in Flash Player, unless you're willing to roll your own 3D vector renderer that takes advantage of the GPU to composite vector shapes.

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