ActionScript 3 Performance Tuning

Ted Patrick
Flex Evangelist Adobe Systems

2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.

Overview

Premature Optimization How Flash Player and ActionScript work Strong Typing - variables, events, return types Measuring Performance

2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.

Premature Optimization More Computing sins are committed in the name of e ciency than any other reason including blind stupidity W.A. Wulf Premature Optimization is the root of all evil. - Hoare and Knuth Bottlenecks occur in surprising places, so dont try to second guess and put in a speed hack until you have proven thats where the bottleneck is. - Rob Pike

2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.

How Flash Player works One Frame Cycle

ActionScript Execution

Graphics Rendering

ActionScript Frame & Network Events

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AVM2 Architecture

2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.

How Flash Player works

Flash Player presents a single thread of execution Flash Player is multi-threaded!!! Rendering and ActionScript are executed sequentially. The player will do everything you ask it to do. Do to much in one frame cycle a script-timeout occurs. Defer AS execution to next frame cycle with:
mx.core.UIComponent.callLater()

2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.

Typing optimizes bytecode!

Typing optimizes bytecode! Typing optimizes bytecode! Typing optimizes bytecode!

2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.

Typing optimizes bytecode!

Typing a ects member access. Two Performance Cases for member access

Strong references are equivalent to C++ member access

Must use dot operator for member Must use strong typing No typing Use of [member] access

Weak references are a hash lookup

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Member Access Examples

instance.x instance[3] This stu happens a lot!!!

2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.

Typing Examples

function a ( o ) { return o; } function b ( o ) { return o.x; } function c ( o:Object ) { return o.x; }

// RETURN WEAK // WEAK // RETURN WEAK // WEAK // RETURN WEAK // WEAK

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Typing Examples
class Base extends Object { var x:int; // STRONG var y:int; // STRONG var z; // WEAK } function a ( o:Base ) { return o.z; } function b ( o:Base ):int { return o.x; } // RETURN WEAK // WEAK // RETURN STRONG // STRONG

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Typing Examples

dynamic class Base extends Object { var x:int; // STRONG var y:int; // STRONG } function a ( o:Base ) { return o.z; } function a ( o:Base ):int { return o.x; } // RETURN WEAK // WEAK // RETURN STRONG // STRONG

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Typing Examples
dynamic class Base extends Object { var x:int; // STRONG } class Example extends Base { var z:int //STRONG } function a ( o:Example ):int { return o.y; } function a ( o:Example ):int { return o.x; } // RETURN STRONG // WEAK // RETURN STRONG // STRONG

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Array Member Access Arrays include fast path for dense portion Member access is as fast as C++ in dense portion var a:Array = [1,2,3,4,5]; a[1000] = 2010; a[1001] = 2011; a[2]; a[1000];

//FAST PATH //SLOW PATH

Demo

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Typing with int, uint, Number

Avoid implicit type conversion Math operations can induce type conversion Sometimes just using Number is more e cient.

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Strong Typing improves productivity

Simpli ed debugging Compiler will throw compile-time errors Code hinting in Flex Builder is based on Strong Typing

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Contact Info

Ted Patrick Flex Evangelist http://www.on ex.org ted@adobe.com

2006 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.

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