Webplayer deliberately caping the framerate?

Questions & Answers
1

As a standalone, my game runs at approx. 180fps in fullscreen mode as well as windowed mode. In the webplayer (tested using Firefox 3.6.1 and IE8) it runs with a constant 32fps. When I switch to fullscreen in the Webplayer (resizing to actual fullscreen resolution, no upscaling) it runs with exactly 64fps. Is the Webplayer deliberately caping the framerate? Any thoughts on why this is happening?

P.S.: I measured this using a Core i5 running winXP + NVidia 9600 GT. I also tested this on an Intel dual core running Win7 + onboard gfx and fps were fluctating between 40 and 60 fps, which seemed reasonble because of the onboard gfx and standalone behaviour on that machine.

I am measuring the frames per second using an in-game script as well as using Fraps. Both show identical results.

2

Yes, the framerate is capped in the webplayer. Which numbers you get depends on the browser and the OS. (e.g., Safari on OS X is actually not capped in non-fullscreen mode.)

3

Well you can kind of “disable” the cap in the webplayer, however browser games live in a different environment. Running as fast as possible can massively lower the browsers performance. Keep in mind that your webpage is probably not the only one loaded. If your game expects to have full power, create a standalone build.

Anyways take a look at Application.targetFrameRate and the example in the code section.

4

Well you can kind of “disable” the cap in the webplayer, however browser games live in a different environment. Running as fast as possible can massively lower the browsers performance. Keep in mind that your webpage is probably not the only one loaded. If your game expects to have full power, create a standalone build.
Anyways take a look at https://www.zz.com.ve and the example in the code section.