Adobe Flash: A Look At Browsers, Codecs, And System Performance

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After running hundreds of tests and watching hours of the same few videos over and over for the better part of a week, we've come to some interesting conclusions about version 10.1 of Adobe's Flash technology that you're going to want to read about.

Adobe Flash Video: A Case Study

Adobe Flash Video: A Case Study

We looked at five systems and five different Web browsers, with hardware acceleration enabled and disabled, with Windows 7's Aero theme enabled and disabled in windowed and fullscreen mode on all available Youtube resolutions. Furthermore, we tested On2 VP6-, Sorensen Spark-, and H.264-based Flash videos, both in windowed and fullscreen mode.

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Test Hardware
ProcessorsIntel Atom D525 (Dual-Core, 1.8 GHz)Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 (Dual-Core, 1.3 GHz)Intel Core i3-350M (Dual-Core, 2.26 GHz)Intel Core i5-540M (Dual-Core, 2.53 GHz)AMD Athlon II Neo K125 (Single-Core, 1.7 GHz)
Memory4 GB DDR3-10664 GB DDR2-8004 GB DDR3-10664 GB DDR3-13334 GB DDR3-1333
GraphicsNvidia Ion2Intel GMA 3150(Optimus)Intel GMA 4500MHDIntel HD GraphicsNvidia Quadro NVS 3100MAMD Radeon HD 4225
NotebookAsus eeePC 1215NAsus UL20ADell Vostro 3300Lenovo Thinkpad T510Asus eeePC 1215T
Adobe Flash Player10.1.102.64
Operating SystemWindows 7 Home Premium 32-bitWindows 7 Home Premium 64-bitWindows 7 Professional 64-bitWindows 7 Professional 64-bitWindows 7 Home Premium 32-bit
Graphics Driver260.99 (Nvidia)8.14.10.2117 (Intel)8. 14.10.21178. 14.10.2226260.998.782

We've tested with the latest version of Flash, but we felt it was important to note that we saw some performance increases compare to previous versions of the software (Flash Player archive). We saw lower processing overhead, which allowed for higher FPS figures on many high bit rate video files. The scope of this story wasn't to evaluate enhancements from a generational standpoint, but rather to look at the interoperability of how Flash interacts with other software elements during processing.

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Benchmark and Settings
Flash Video Playback, Custom Tom's Hardware Benchmark
Web sitesYouTube: All ResolutionsSevenload: HD off (Default)Boeing: HD on (Default)Windowed and Fullscreen video tested
BrowsersIE8 32-bit: 8.0.7600.1685Chrome: 8.0.552.215Safari: 5.0.3Firefox: 3.6.12Opera: 10.63 (build 3516)
Adobe Flash Player SettingsHardware Enable and Disable
Windows SettingsAero and non-Aero enabled

All Flash videos run within the browser and are played after they are fully loaded into the buffer. Wireless networking was disabled during playback. Furthermore, all CPU usage and FPS values are generated from one-minute test intervals.