AMD/ATI Accelerating GPU Flash Player 10.1 Too

News
By Marcus Yam
published

That Radeon HD 5800 series card will be VERY good at making Flash go.

Yesterday when Adobe announced its Flash Player 10.1 that'll be coming down the pipe, Nvidia was among the first to chime in saying that its GPUs will be able to accelerate Flash video with GeForce and Ion.

AMD's informed us that it plans to support Adobe Flash Player 10.1 at the same level and in step with the beta release later this year.

"AMD is committed to making the video usage scenario -- playback, editing and transcoding -- a focal point for AMD platform innovation, smartly using the full CPU + GPU assets of our platform to enrich and accelerate the experience," an AMD representative told us.

In fact, at the Adobe MAX event in Los Angeles, Adobe demonstrated a private alpha of Flash Player 10.1 that is supported by the ATI Radeon HD 5800 (the only GPU on the market right now to fully support DirectX 11).

Both Adobe and AMD worked with the DirectX 11 API's compute shader and ATI Stream technology to accelerate Flash performance with the GPU.

Hooray for the growing utility of the GPU beyond just playing 3D games!

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.
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37 Comments Comment from the forums
  • nukemaster
    Maybe one day, my Geforce 4 MX can do that too :p

    For real this is going to make netbooks actually worth it. Flash performance has always been the part that I could not stand.

    Lets hope Intel gets on board as well.
    Reply
  • thackstonns
    Why cant they do this entirely through stream. Why would I have to buy a direct x 11 card for this. My 4870 is still good enough, and I dont see Ati making a chipset for netbooks, so how does this really help anyone. So instead of maxing out a 65 watt part I can max out a 265 watt part. Im not an nvidia fanboy I have ati, but I just can't see where this is relevent.
    Reply
  • virtualban
    Ati accelerated physics?

    Now, that would be a nice treat!
    Reply
  • falchard
    Its called Havok.
    Reply
  • IzzyCraft
    They are doing it though DX11 well that's a bummer for those with ati cards that don't have that unless i mis understood
    Reply
  • abhik
    I thought flash was already accelerated by gfx cards? or was that only open gl?
    Reply
  • I very much doubt that the 58x0 series of cards would be the only AMD GPUs to support flash acceleration.

    After all the main focal point for this technology would be laptops and netbooks and those are as a general rule equipped with far less capable GPU solutions, though definitely enough to handle flash.

    I'd wager the 58x0 were simply used for the demo as it's the first implementation and a way to show off new technology.
    Reply
  • geoffs
    Does this mean that Flash 10.1 can waste even more power than before? Instead of using a very efficient C2D, let's use a GPU that uses 3x as much power.

    Death to Flash.
    Reply
  • thackstonns
    geoffsDoes this mean that Flash 10.1 can waste even more power than before? Instead of using a very efficient C2D, let's use a GPU that uses 3x as much power.Death to Flash.IzzyCraftThey are doing it though DX11 well that's a bummer for those with ati cards that don't have that unless i mis understood
    Okay so I said the same thing as these guys but get 2 negatives. The article said diretx 11. All I am trying to say is how can nvidia do it on a mobile low watt 9400 (ion) that is not a diretx 11 gpu, but ati needs a 5870? Also why would I need flash acceleration for anything but a netbook or mobile device. Most laptops, and desktops can handle flash fine. The only time this becomes relevent is if ati released a mobile gpu like ion.
    Reply
  • mlcloud
    geoffsDoes this mean that Flash 10.1 can waste even more power than before? Instead of using a very efficient C2D, let's use a GPU that uses 3x as much power.Death to Flash.
    What GPU uses three times more power than a processor does? Most GPUs will use 225 watts (PCIe = 75w, 2x6pin 75w), and pairing a GPU that will require extra power connectors with even a duo-core won't get you the magical "3x power consumption". Both parts already consume electricity during idle, might as well put them to use.

    I don't see what you're complaining about.
    Reply