Adobe: Flash Player 10.2 to be 10 times more efficient

[Emil]

Adobe has come out and made some stunning claims about the recently announced Flash 10.2, which is currently in beta. The new version is 10 times more efficient in CPU usage compared to version 10.1 of the plug-in, which is when Flash first got GPU acceleration.

The improvement is possible thanks to a new feature called Stage Video, an API that delivers high performance video playback across platforms and which can shift most of the work for Flash video to the GPU. It leverages complete hardware acceleration: not only does the GPU offload H.264 hardware decoding (introduced in Flash Player 10.1), but it also handles the rest of the video rendering pipeline, including color conversion, scaling, and blitting. Stage Video requires Flash developers to update the code in video players, so simply updating to the new player won't automatically improve CPU usage on all sites, although YouTube has already updated its player and others will likely follow.

"In addition to decoding the data, [Flash] has to convert YUV data to the RGB colorspace and combine the image with other Flash elements," Adobe Engineer Mike Melanson said in a statement. "Then it has to cooperate with another application (web browser) to present the video to the user… It plays linear media files from start to finish while combining the video with a wide array of graphical and interactive elements (buttons, bitmaps, vector graphics, filters), as well as providing network, webcam, and microphone facilities, all programmable via a full-featured scripting language."

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https://www.techspot.com/news/41625-adobe-flash-player-102-to-be-10-times-more-efficient.html

 

[kakarlus]

good news

 

[IAMTHESTIG]

Awesome... glad to see Adobe on the ball with this. I look forward to trying it out.

 

[Jeybyrd]

Ok.

Now how about a version of flash that's fully operational on 64-bit browsers.

 

[Emil]

Jeybyrd said:
Ok.

Now how about a version of flash that's fully operational on 64-bit browsers.

In the works; https://www.techspot.com/news/40287-adobe-releases-64bit-flash-preview-for-windows-mac-linux.html

 

[Guest]

will adobe fix multiple monitor issue where you can keep a full screen video active whilst working on another screen?

 

[Guest]

but how does this translate into a gain for the end user if flash offloads resource usage elsewhere instead of reducing it overall?

 

[Guest]

How about they just optimize the bloody decoding code instead? If CoreAVC can do it, so can they!
Think about those poor computers that don't have hardware acceleration!
A netbook can play 720p fine with CoreAVC, yet struggles even with the lowest 480p in flash.

 

[fpsgamerJR62]

It's good that Adobe continues to improve Flash although I have yet to notice any marked improvement in viewing web video whether on my laptop with motherboard graphics or my desktop with discrete Nvidia graphics. Part of the reason could be the limited bandwith of my 1-Mbps DSL line.

 

[ET3D]

I was happy when I saw the title, but disappointed when I read this referred to video only. Flash games and applications can be huge CPU hogs, and it would be nice if they got some acceleration too.

 

[edison5do]

Nice, nice Youtube gets speeded up by the gpu, I hope site like GameSpot & Gametrailers get this update fast enough.

 

[Guest]

cuz the GPU is much more efficient at video decode & rendering than the CPU

 

[avoidz]

What does this mean for users (like me) with low-end video cards, like GF 5200s? Will Flash still function as before after the newer versions offload to the GPU, or will my system grind to a stuttering halt?

 

[satty]

This is good news. Flash is the most annoying part in the web for me.

 

[SNGX1275]

will adobe fix multiple monitor issue where you can keep a full screen video active whilst working on another screen?

Thought that was addressed in the last version.

What does this mean for users (like me) with low-end video cards, like GF 5200s? Will Flash still function as before after the newer versions offload to the GPU, or will my system grind to a stuttering halt?

Should function the same (no gpu decoding) as before.

 

[Guest]

Adobe is shaking in their boots because of html5 .. and because internet explorer 9 will utilize the gpu my feeling is adobe is afraid they are gonna be run clear out of business .. well what with everyone having copies of their software they sell being torrented around the planet and any person that is actually a programmer will hardly pay the unholy prices they want for that crap-ware .. hell I hope they fail! but that's just me!

 

[David Henderson]

This is good news for Adobe Flash users.Now it will be more helpful.