FULL PRODUCT VERSION :
java version "1.6.0-ea"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.6.0-ea-b35)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.6.0-ea-b35, mixed mode, sharing)

ADDITIONAL OS VERSION INFORMATION :
Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.9-1.667 #1 Tue Nov 2 14:41:25 EST 2004 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
Windows 2000 Professional
WindowsXP Home

A DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM :
Applet loading time has increased by 2x when loading larger applets (~800kb classes) on older systems. There has already been a fix adressing the issue that the animation was done in the event-thread slowing everything down to 1/5 of the normal performance, so on fast systems applets load nearly as fast as before (will go into 1.5.0_04).

However on our older test-machines (P2-350, P3-500, Athlon-800) loading time with jdk-1.6.0b35 is still much higher than with 1.4.2_08, on the P3-500 our applet loads in 6s with 1.4.2 compared to 15s with 1.6.0 (both are warm-start results).
An system-detection would be great, so that on slow machines (< 1Ghz) only a static image of the star is shown.

Especially for applets this can be a very important problem, since most customers expect instant-on startup times...

STEPS TO FOLLOW TO REPRODUCE THE PROBLEM :
Start a mid-size/large applet (1mb+) THAT DOES A LOT OF WORK IN THE INIT() METHOD (class loading, ..) on an old machine (P2-350 or similar).

EXPECTED VERSUS ACTUAL BEHAVIOR :
EXPECTED -
loading performance should be as fast or even better as 1.4.2_08
ACTUAL -
loading performance is at least 2x lower

REPRODUCIBILITY :
This bug can be reproduced always.

CUSTOMER SUBMITTED WORKAROUND :
use 1.4.2_08 instead
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