Central folder for images and sounds to reuse them or NOT???

Gerry,

I feel like you are trying to find a single correct approach that will fit all. If my impression is correct - I am afraid there are unrealistic expectations in finding an authority that will provide answers leading to perfection. There are no hard and fast rules. And not everything is under your control.

Without knowing business logic, objectives, and application architecture it is impossible to define optimal approaches.

To summarize what I already stated, based on my experience and realities of Internet based applications here are some of my PERSONAL approaches (which may be sub-optimal or even totally wrong under some circumstances):

1. Never bake any non-Flash technology specific assets/mime types into application. Bitmaps, text files (XML included), videos, sounds, fonts, etc. should reside outside of application and either be loaded at runtime from CDN (or whatever entity plays role of CDN) or from local drive.
2. Don’t aggregate assets into SWFs – use them separately. One exception is fonts.
3. Use streaming protocols instead of progressive downloads whenever viable including RTMP and HTTP dynamic streaming (as a side note – HTTP dynamic streaming is always viable for it is as cheap as dirt).
4. The only rare exception to the rule 1 is when streaming assets (videos or sounds) must be synched with scripted animations on frame-by-frame basis.
5. Define each application phase readiness as an absolute minimum of available data and assets to start user experience as soon as possible. If a phase needs N external assets – load all of them in a burst and start user experience immediately.
6. (As a flavor of 5) Load assets on as needed basis. Don't agonize over anticipating of user actions more than one step ahead.
7. Never include any configuration data with the code – always write data providers that load external configuration data as a rule.
8. Use RSL whenever possible.
9. (As an extension of 8) Don’t include any code that is not mission-critical for the application’s top level. Load additional code when wanted as in points 5 and 6.
10. If visuals must be scaled – consider using vector graphics first.
11. For simple shapes use vector graphics.
12. If 10 or 11 are not feasible – stick with external bitmaps.

I don’t have anything to say about complex animations for my line of work does not require dealing with it. But, still, if you have an opportunity to use GPU an obvious choice would be to utilize bitmap and manipulate BitmapData.

Unfortunately, without good server side there is always a ceiling to performance. This is to your observations regarding Facebook games performance. I am definitely spoiled in a sense that I have the best CDN and Cloud capabilities at my fingertips. I don’t have to agonize over server side performance. For you it is, probably, a different story because you may not have enough financial resources to employ such monsters as AKAMAI and Amazon Cloud (although Amazon is getting more and more agreeable with small business pocket).

As far as platforms go – cross-platform uniformity and compatibility is still a dream. You will have to cater to particular platform in a large extend. It just helps to have an architecture that allows for an efficient parts replacement.

Again, all this is theoretical in my opinion. If something is decent – screw perfection! What is an optimal balance between quantity and quality in your business? How much your users are willing to wait for an experience? How badly waiting time affects quality? As soon as benchmarks hit tolerable levels – it may be a good enough excuse for moving on.