Do display objects outside of stage bounds still get rendered by Flash?

Question

If an object exists outside of Flash's stage boundaries, is on the Display List, and is visible, is it causing a performance hit from Flash rendering it? In other words, does Flash render what isn't seen?

This leads me to believe so: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/170203/how-do-you-make-flash-not-render-an-object-on-the-stage

Answer 1

No, Flash renders at its final step only the stage. However it renders an object also in other circumstances (e.g. bitmapData.draw(displayObject)).

Of course those people from the question to refer to are right that the bounds of a DisplayObject have to be evaluated etc. In the end: if you want something not to be rendered, it should not be on the stage or set to visible = false if it is temporary.