Here are some notes about the above test:

• The test runs in either of two ten-frame loops. The first loop simply counts the frames and then counts the number of "on idles" that are completed over a period of 20 frames. During each second, it also counts the number of frames the read head has passed through.
  The second loop does two additional things: 1) it checks the location of the mouse during the "on idle" handler and stores this in a variable that displays on the screen every ten frames; 2) The idle handler also throws a puppeted sprite (ball shape) up on the screen to follow the mouse.
• The reason I created this is that, in the year or so I've been doing Director stuff, I've found that the "on idle" is usually the most responsive way to have something follow the mouse around -- and to do checking for things you want to have happen suddenly. This is because the idle usually happens multiple times per frame.
• If you have both PCs and Macs with Shockwave/Netscape -- I strongly encourage you to visit this page and view it with both. I think you'll find the results fascinating.
• A note about the " Average On-Idles per Frame" -- if you are getting a rock steady reading of 1.0, that means that the "On Idle" is really providing no benefit on the platform you are viewing it with. That's because Director is designed to always execute an "On Idle" at least once when it is in a frame script and to only execute it additional times if there is available processor time between EnterFrame and ExitFrame to do so. An interesting facet of this (to me) is the fact that even when my Pentium is racing to milk out that 120 FPS and can't quite get there -- it still generates multiple idle checks per frame. On the other hand, when my Macs are pressed for speed, they drop back to a flat 1.0 idle events per frame.
• On the Mac Platform, simply moving the mouse around on the screen slows execution speed of the Shockwave DCR -- even when there is no checking being done by the DCR for mouse location -- and even when the mouse is not over the DCR itself. Try it! Just wave your mouse around and watch the FPS speed and the speed of the moving ball change!! There is no similar correlation between mouse movement and animation slowdown on a PC.
• At the bottom of the page, I've put links to download either the DCR file or the DIR file for anyone's use. It can also serve as a nice little checker to simply use on various machines you test your productions on. (maybe make it into a projector).

Here's a table summarizing the results which I received with a setting of 120 FPS -- this means I was pushing the processors flat out on every platform. Just so you know: on our PPC 9500, we start to get multiple on-idles once we drop the tempo back below about 45 FPS. Would love to have any feedback from others about their results and thoughts:

Platform Information	Program Status	Typical Frames Per Second	Typical Idles Per Frame	Idles Per Second
.DIR file in Director - Pentium 133 with 32 Megs Memory	No Mouse Checking	approx. 100	approx. 10.0	approx. 1,000
Same	Checking Mouse Location -- mouse not on stage	approx. 65	approx. 3.5	approx. 228
Same	Checking Mouse Location -- mouse actively on stage	approx. 55	approx. 2.5	approx. 138
DCR Over the Web - Pentium 133 with 32 Megs Memory	No Mouse Checking	approx. 104	approx. 18.0	approx. 1,872
Same	Checking Mouse Location -- mouse not on stage	approx. 91	approx. 4.5	approx. 410
Same	Checking Mouse Location -- mouse actively on stage	approx. 77	approx. 3.1	approx. 239
.DIR File in Director - Mac PPC 9500 with 32 Megs Memory	No Mouse Checking	approx. 50	approx. 1.0	approx. 50
Same	Checking Mouse Location -- mouse not on stage	approx. 26	approx. 1.25	approx. 34
Same	Checking Mouse Location -- mouse actively on stage	approx. 14	approx. 1.1	approx. 16
.DCR Over the Web - Mac PPC 9500 with 32 Megs Memory	No Mouse Checking	approx. 12	approx. 1.0	approx. 12
Same	Checking Mouse Location -- mouse not on stage	approx. 7	approx. 1.0	approx. 7
Same	Checking Mouse Location -- mouse actively on stage	approx. 4	approx. 1.0	approx. 4
.DCR Over the Web - Mac Performa 631CD with 16 Megs Memory	No Mouse Checking	approx. 10	approx. 1.0	approx. 10
Same	Checking Mouse Location -- mouse not on stage	approx. 5	approx. 1.0	approx. 5
Same	Checking Mouse Location -- mouse actively on stage	approx. 3	approx. 1.0	approx. 3

Final Notes:
For those of you strictly authoring and looking at your Shockwave stuff on the Web with a Mac -- you can't imagine how much smoother it looks on a PC. In fact, it looks just like when you author it!
Please, please . . . . Macromedia and Netscape and Apple! Make it look as good and run as smooth on the most popular designing platform as it does on the most popular viewing platform!