In short terms: it isn’t slow 🙂
Compared to an native application it is slightly slower but there should be not that much difference. (This is true at least since version 0.42 of JWildfire at which I have tried to optimize the hell out of it ;-)) For the maximum performance you should use Java 7.
I have created some flames for benchmarking. I used Apophysis7X15 as reference because it is very popular. Below are the results (the used *.flame files are linked inside the table):
Render settings: Resolution: 1920×1080, Filter radius: 0.25, spatial oversample 1
- Benchmark01Â
quality 100 quality 500 Apophysis7X15 14.99s 72.61s JWildfire V0.42 18.27s 88.53 - Benchmark02Â
quality 100 quality 500 Apophysis7X15 5.99s 28.04s JWildfire V0.42 8.86s 41.632s - Benchmark03Â
quality 100 quality 500 Apophysis7X15 10.69s 51.06s JWildfire V0.42 12.80s 62.51s