ATI Catalyst 9.11 WHQL Released, GPU Flash

Awesome! AMD/ATi leading the way on PCs once again!

1) Where is official 64-bit flash support?
2) When can we dump this bloatware?

I wish more cards were supported. 4000/5000 series, really? Any computer with at kind of GPU in it should have enough CPU power to handle HD YouTube. If they lowered the requirement down to 2000 series and up, it would help a lot more people with crappy CPUs (Like mine, Athlon 64 2800!)

I wonder if this is a hardware limitation, a software limitation (Due to it being incomplete) or just an odd business decision.

It's sad that something like Flash actually needs GPU acceleration.

Sucks to be nVidia right now. They must be pissing themselves over all of these releases

poor nVidia, if ATi can manage to get more cards out the door to lower price, nVidia is pretty much done

I have both Flash 10.1 prerelease and 9.11 CCC+drivers, and I have to say, I am pretty happy with the result. Xp64, AMD 710x3 @ 3.55ghz, 4gb 1092mhz memory, and 4870 512mb videocard. I monitored my GPU-z while running 1080p HD movie trailers off firefox, and it is definitely quicker to play, and maintains smoothness while moving windows around, an overall more fluid experience. Neato. The GPU load peaked at about 10% while doing some limited testing.

Should do wonders for porn, too!

no...it also support "ALL" the DX 10 cards
AMD Desktop Product Family Support
ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 Series
ATI Radeon™ HD 5700 Series
ATI Radeon™ HD 4890 Series
ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 X2 Series
ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 Series
ATI Radeon™ HD 4700 Series
ATI Radeon™ HD 4600 Series
ATI Radeon™ HD 4550 Series
ATI Radeon™ HD 4350 Series
ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 X2 Series
ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 Series
ATI Radeon™ HD 3600 Series
ATI Radeon™ HD 3400 Series
ATI Radeon™ HD 2900 Series
ATI Radeon™ HD 2600 Series
ATI Radeon™ HD 2400 Series

Oh lovely, now I just have to wait for 6 months for Dell to release the same driver for my laptop.


Well, actually I'll just use Mobility Modder.

"no...it also support "ALL" the DX 10 cards"

The catalyst drivers does, the GPU offloading of flash does not.

nVidia actually has the better implementation, working of any NV80+ card IIRC. I have a Radeon 4870 myself and under Win 7 x64 all I get is slower loadign flash followed by 100% CPU usage, a black flash window and then the flash player crashes.

Needless to say there's a lot of work to be done still.

10.0 works fine in the meanwhile.

Im pretty sure G80 doesnt, but newer cards do. Its up to Adobe

Same set up here but everything works fine. I am using Opera as a browser though so maybe that has something to do with it? Your using the newest Catalyst drivers?

Just checked IE and Firefox they work fine for me with flash content.

I've been running beta 10.12 now for quite some time. OpenCL ftw.

You forgot the integrated GPUs.

I am happy to report that it has been working flawlessly on my HD3200. With an AMD Athlon X2 QL-60 (1.9 ghz), while watching 480p hulu videos, my CPU usage went from ~60% to ~40% and, more importantly, went from stuttery to quite smooth playback. I couldn't have been more happy about this development from Adobe

Looking forward to testing out the combo on my laptop. Maybe I can finally eliminate the annoying hulu stutter!

are you sure of the HD3870 support by Flash 10.1 beta?

Been looking forward to 9.11 drivers after the fail of 9.9 and 9.10

Not to sound like an angry old fart, but, i would rather see more
GPU accelerated graphics rendering done on the GPU with flash, not just
video decoding, my CPU does the decoding pretty well on its own,
but crowded Flashgames with lots of units lag with max antialiasing on

So, rather skip the videodecoding, its not needed. the rendering needs a
boost though, since flash is ass-slow.

Let me add that it will be beneficial for people
with slower CPUs though.

I have an 8800gt and it works. It isn't that much off a difference in cpu usage tho.

Even tho it isnt ATI, my netbook with the Ion graphics from nvidia saw a HUGE boost in performance with the flash 10.1 update. I'm a happy camper!! Nvidia isn't probably as scared as people think, because the computers that really need it, like netbooks, are benefiting more.

I have a Athalon 64 3500+ with Radeon 4550 and I see an improvement with Hulu playback, but not enough to do 1920x1080 playback. CPU still up at 100%. At smaller resolutions the video is a lot better. I have about a 20% drop in CPU usage.

Fanboi's posting here seem to be p*ssing all over themselves about this release. But is doesn't even work.

Testing with AMD GPUs: Doesn't Work Yet

Update 4: AMD has released Catalyst 9.11 with Flash support for Radeon HD 5000 series and 4000 series GPUs. No word on integrated graphics platforms. We've begun testing but the drivers don't seem to enable H.264 decode acceleration under Hulu at this point, waiting for a response from AMD.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3678&p=3

"Same set up here but everything works fine. I am using Opera as a browser though so maybe that has something to do with it? Your using the newest Catalyst drivers?

Just checked IE and Firefox they work fine for me with flash content."

I am using 9.11, yes.

However, a cleanup of my installed software and a couple of reboots later I've now gotten 10.1 working without crashing. The impact on CPU usage is fairly negligible though, as I went from ~35-40% CPU usage to ~25-30% when playing 720p content on YouTube. The videos are also noticeably blocky but that seems to be a general issue that I'm sure will be addressed.

It's a bit disappointing so far, considering that the difference between GPU-supported decoding for Matroska-contained H.264 content in 720p is the difference between ~25% and ~1-2% CPU usage.

I'll still stick to 10.0 for now but hopefully we'll see more optimization and bug-fixing over the coming months.

I'm using Chrome under Win7 x64 myself but I doubt the browser platform matters much, unless the ActiveX-version performs significantly different.

I don't think they're pissing themselves at all. Don't worry, when it's their turn, heads will turn, and they will get the limelight, until, subsequently ATI goes on the defensive and the cycle will continue to drive prices down and technology forward! I own an nvidia, and you could even call me a 'fanboy' but I am so happy that ATI continues to push the envolope...this is great news for all!

Well, actually, in this case, no. Nvidia has, as of today, better support for GPU flash acceleration. Like said above, Anandtech has the story on it.

I have ATI Radeon HD 3300 Graphics and I have some version of Catalyst installed. I'm not at home so I can't go look, but it must not be 9.9 or 9.10, because it seems to work OK. Before I install 9.11, do I need to uninstall the old version, or can I install over it?

If I uninstall the old drivers, will it go to some kind of VGA default mode, or is it possible to end up with no video at all?

WTF Toms! Nvidia came out with drivers for this a week ago and you didn't say anything! ATI comes out with support and you write an entire article on it?!? How biased are you these days! And where on earth are your articles on fermi? First MIMD GPU and you have nothing to say...no input at all....I don't believe that.

Not really, at least not where flash is concerned. ATI does have the GPU advantage right now, but Nvidia has a wider range of support for flash acceleration, basically every card dating back to the 8600 GTS is supported. They've also supported flash acceleration for a longer period of time. Catalyst 9.11 WHQL is the first ATI driver release to support this feature and even then acceleration is still somewhat spotted and buggy.

the release notes says 4000 series and up will have acceleration, so those of us with 3000 series are out of luck

GPU Acceleration of H.264 video content using Adobe Flash
Player 10.1 Beta

This release of ATI Catalyst™ supports the new Hardware Acceleration features of
Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta for video encoded in the H.264 format. Adobe Flash Player
10.1 Beta introduces hardware-based H.264 video decoding to deliver smooth video
playback, reduce system resource utilization, and preserve battery life. Adobe Flash
Player 10.1 Beta is expected to be available for download from Adobe Labs
(labs.adobe.com) before the end of the year. This feature is supported on the ATI Radeon
HD 5800, ATI Radeon HD 5700 and ATI Radeon HD 4000 Series of products.