Adobe Flash is one of the more demanding video formats we have, but is also one of the most frequently used. Back in October Adobe revealed that it was working on implemented support for GPU acceleration with version 10.1 of Adobe Flash. The company has released a beta version of Adobe Flash 10.1 where the user can test the new support for GPU acceleration.
This early version of Flash 10.1 lacks complete support, but both of AMD’s and NVIDIA’s latest generation of graphics cards. Adobe Flash 10.1 use DXVA for accelerating accelerating flash video and all graphics cards supporting DXVA2 can help during playback of flash video, with the proper driver installed.
At Anandtech they have published the first test of GPU acceleration in Adobe Flash 10.1 and the results are promising, especially on NVIDIA’s integrated ION platform. Unfortunately they didn’t manage to get AMD’s graphics cards working, but new drivers are expected any time now.
Even on Mac Adobe’s new software makes a difference, despite the fact that Apple doesn’t offer Adobe full support of doing so.
GPU acceleration of flash video isn’t a day too late, especially as the mobile market can now enjoy flash without draining the whole battery in 4 seconds. We look forward to the final version of Adobe Flash 10.1, which will hopefully reduce the loads on our poor systems that flash can be. The beta version can be found at the official website.
