Adobe rides hardware acceleration with latest Flash Player
Adobe launched its Flash Player 10.2 with hardware accelerated video. The gist is that Adobe says it can now deliver video more efficiently with less strain on your PC.
Flash Player 10.2 shed its beta tag and is now available for Windows, Mac and Linux. The enhancement, dubbed Staged Video, lets Web sites use hardware acceleration for video. In a blog post, Adobe noted:
Flash Player using Stage Video can effortlessly play beautiful 1080p HD video with just 1-15% CPU usage on a common Mac or Windows computer* – working across platforms and browsers, it will enable the best video experience for the most people. Many millions of additional PCs, from netbooks to desktops, can now become slick HD home theaters on the web.
And let's not forget the footnote. Adobe said:
* For example, using Flash Player 10.2 with Stage Video hardware acceleration, we’ve tested a Mac Mini released two years ago and a low-powered GPU-enabled Windows netbook playing smooth full HD 1080p video using less than 8% of the CPU; more powerful computers use even less.
Among other key features:
- Multiple monitor full screen support;
- Better sub-pixel rendering;
- IE 9 hardware accelerated rendering support.