Application in Flash/Player 8 slow in loading media .swf files

[Liliane]

I have this CBT course application developed in Flash/Player 8, with external files in xml, and mdb, all encased in Zinc 2.5. The content for the course comes from html pages with embedded movie .swf files. The .swf files are in the range of 29KB and 150KB in size. They are very slow to download between 2 min and 3 min for each page. How can I increase the speed?

[KDLA]

Are you sure this is attributable to the files, not your web server? I would check into the load your server's handling, see if lack of bandwidth is an issue.

KDLA

[Liliane]

I really appreciated the prompt answer. Since then I have enlisted the help of our CIS person. He does not think the bandwidth is a problem. The CBT course runs on the C:\. However I tested it on different machines (Pentium 4)--mine has dual VGAs and it is slow, two other machines, also in the software section, are slow and a third is not slow. One in another section has nothing loaded but the internet and ran well. I tested it at home on my old Gateway Profile 3 (Pentium III) and it ran well. So I compared the processor models, speed, and RAM. All the machines have more GHz, RAM than required for Flash/Player 8. I don't know what to think now.

[KDLA]

Next thing to do would be to check the coding of your pages; see if they validate. Could be that you have some bad scripting in there which is causing a major delay in the browser's rendering of the page and thus downloading the components.

KDLA

[Liliane]

What a great mentor you are! All afternoon I had the attention of our CIS persons. They removed the dual VGA cards and worked with only the integrated card on the motherboard. They also watched the performance of my system, as they ran the project, using selective data (read, write, time, page, etc..) and it was clear that a huge amount of time was needed each time a page with graphics was read, dropping when displayed. They offered the solution to preload all the graphics to memory to avoid the I/O time from the C:\.
It seems that is what you were trying to tell me about the bandwidth. And you were correct afterall.
On the other hand, your second suggestion could be a good one because there is an embedded browser to display the content. Buttons have to be delayed from being pressed while the browser is still downloading. The browser is also loaded when the page is changed.
Will I tackle a preloading procedure first? Can I preload perhaps 100 movies?
I am writing a memo to my boss about these suggestions. I am also going on leave and will be back on the 7 Jan 08. I am new at doing such project with Flash. I hope I can reconnect with you. Many thanks for the contact.
I wish you a Merry Christmas.

[KDLA]

Well, preloading is good when you have a few images, but when you are talking 100 movies -- I'm not sure if that's the best bet. Preloading objects doesn't actually change your download time, but subsequent pages appear to load faster because the objects have been placed in the cache. But do you want to burden a visitor's cache to load all those movies? If they have a low threshold set on their cache, they may not be able to preload everything anyway. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you meant, however 100 items in a preload function just doesn't seem right to me.

KDLA

[Liliane]

Thank you for good reasoning. I created a preloader for three graphics/movies and as you said the time is not acceptable for our users. I spent the week gathering more data on the computers than ran OK versus computers running slow. The RAM on graphics cards, configuration, or setting did not make any difference. I went out of the building (on base) and tested 2 computers. Found 5 (1 is a laptop) out 11 single CRT computers tested work well. All dual CRT computers work slow. Removed my dual graphics card and ran with the motherboard card and there were no change. I think I will forget about the hardware for a while.