Adobe Flash 10.2b Makes Better Use of Your GPU

By Marcus Yam
published

Put that graphical muscle to good use!

The current version of Adobe Flash at 10.1 offloads some of the internet video rendering to the GPU, but not all of it. Flash 10.1 offloaded H.264 decoding to hardware, and now in the next iteration at 10.2, now in beta, Adobe is moving the entire video rendering pipeline to the GPU.

This means that the video hardware will take care of video decode as well as color conversion, scaling, and blitting. With this sort of load put on the GPU, this means that CPU utilization for even 1080p video will be almost nothing.

This is thanks to a new API called Stage Video, which is already being used in Google TV for playback of HD Flash videos.

Stage Video works across different browsers and platforms and will work with all existing video and SWF files.

The current beta is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Windows users get the bonus of Internet Explorer 9 hardware acceleration support.

Of course, we don't recommend anyone other than developers and the most adventurous of users to install this until it's out of beta.

Hit up all the details here.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
32 Comments Comment from the forums
  • LATTEH
    SWEET!!
    Reply
  • zybch
    This'll make flash on apple products even worse as they mostly lack the graphics power to do anything.
    Reply
  • rbarone69
    "Of course, we don't recommend anyone other than developers and the most adventurous of users to install this until it's out of beta."

    Really? Are we talking of damage that cant be undone? I mean I'm not having my wife install it because she doesnt know how to uninstall the random BS apps she installs and I hate having to deal with her constant talking... And she really doesnt care about CPU usage or even know what a CPU is let alone how to see how much it uses. I give her shiny buttons and she clicks on them, end of story.

    So anyone caring about CPU usage (I'd think most of tomshardware community) could manage uninstalling the app if it caused problems...
    Reply
  • joytech22
    And here i was thinking flash 10.1 already did this!

    I didn't actually notice much CPU usage anyway, but this should definitely help with any future HTPC's i build, just chuck in a cheap CPU and a 8400GS or something (Well i have one lying around anyway) and there you go, a system with Full HD playback for internet content!
    Reply
  • thartist
    Then, i'm adventurous.
    Reply
  • Villers
    Lol! @ rbarone69, sounds just like me & my wife haha.
    Reply
  • robd007
    lol yea i kinda already thought it did this too, but if they can make us think they did it without actually doin it yet they gotta be doin something right... :D
    Reply
  • jrharbort
    Great, but will it fix the random freezes and BSoDs that 10.1 gave me CONSTANTLY? I'm still using 10.0.45.2 since it's still the only stable release for me.
    Reply
  • keplenk
    Does this include the Broadcom Crystal minipcie cards?
    Reply
  • mister g
    keplenkDoes this include the Broadcom Crystal minipcie cards?Probably not, unless Broadcam releases an update for all products; which isn't likely to happen since only OEMs use the chips in laptops and they don't like to do anything for you after you bought the laptop. (Unless you bought their warrenty plans, then they try even less)
    Reply