AS1.0 preloader not showing til whole movie loaded

[mindrail]

Hi
I have 2 scenes, 1 - loader, 2 - main.
scene loader has 100 frames.
loader frame 1 in the actions layer is this code:

LOADED = Math.round(getBytesLoaded());
TOTAL = Math.round(getBytesTotal());
PERCENT = (LOADED/TOTAL)*100;

if (PERCENT > 0) {
play();
} else {
gotoAndPlay(1);
}

then every 10 frames there's similar code, with the PERCENT variable being measured relative to that which is being loaded, so
frame 50 is

<snip>

if (PERCENT > 50) {
play();
} else {
gotoAndPlay(50);
}

then frame 100

<snip>

if (PERCENT > 100) {
nextScene();
} else {
gotoAndPlay(100);
}

so you get the idea. In between is the continuance of my loader animation.

I expect that onload, the loader scene loads quick, starts playing, and the animation progresses sometime maybe pausing at a 'checkpoint' frame waiting for the PERCENT variable to be > that specified in that particular if statement and then continues for the next 9 frames until the next checkpoint. At the end, if we have the whole movie loaded, nextScene moves us to the main scene.

But, what it happening is that I load the movie in Safari and in the activity window I can see the movie loading, but the loader scene of the movie doesn't start playing until the whole file has loaded. At this point, it then runs through the loader without pausing and goes straight onto the main scene. This obviously obfuscates the need to have it there in the first place. I put a dynamic text field to check PERCENT and when the scene shows up it's already 99.9->100% and so that's why the loader skims through and finishes.

I have studio MX (2002) so am limited to Actionscript 1.0. It's a pain, but that's a necessary limitation.

Can anybody help me? I'm thinking about problems with load order but nothing is fixing it. The site is for broadband users only so I'm not expecting it to pause much, but I wanna see feedback immediately. Is there another way?

Thanks v much IA
M