On both my desktop and laptop, I am seeing extremely poor performance when testing SWFs in my browser (IE or Firefox) but good performance when testing in the debugger. Both systems have an NVidia GeForce video card and Intel processors with integrated video chips. I tried researching this issue online and found that it was supposedly fixed in AIR 15, but I am still seeing it in apps published in AIR 16.
The apps are in release mode, any performance-degrading debug features disabled. I am absolutely confident that this is not a problem with my code, because it happens even in new projects with almost nothing on the stage.
Related discussions that claim the issue is fixed:
Limit to 40fps, unless in browser? « Starling Forum - Note I experience the opposite problem; my apps run at 40fps in the browser on my desktop (20 on my laptop), but at 60fps in the debugger.
Feature#3651843 - Air Debugger vs. Air Release performance - Waiting for GPU