Flash AIR app's (Desktop) performance considerably worse than same code compiled as Flash Projector

Question

I've created a Flash application (AS3) in CS6 (Mac) that performs as expected when published as a Flash Projector. But when I publish as an AIR app (v3.4.0.2540) the app's performance is about 50% worse than the Projector. I set it to use GPU Hardware Acceleration, render mode is Auto. Are there other settings I should be using? The performance hits come at expected times (when using MOUSE_MOVE and ENTER_FRAME listeners), but it works fine in the stand alone player.

Answer 1

Setting render mode to auto will cause AIR to fall back to the CPU (see "renderMode"). If you are relying on the GPU (you didn't state whether you are or not but it is implied) this would likely cause significant performance degradation.

You need to set render mode to direct or gpu to take advantage of the GPU in AIR. I'm not entirely certain what the difference is but I've always used direct when working with Starling.

Another thing to consider with AIR: are you publishing a release build or a debug build? Debug builds perform considerably worse than release builds.