Adobe Flash 10.1 Ushers In GPU Accelerated Flash!

Legit Processor Reviews

Manufacturer:	Adobe
Product:	Flash v10.1
Date:	Thu, Dec 17, 2009 - 12:00 AM
Written By:	Matt Collins -
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The Benchmark Results

The Flash Benchmark 8 test software is a Flash application that puts the system through varying levels of graphics tests, starting with lower requirements and moving higher until the system can no longer attain an average of 25 FPS. Being a Flash application, it's results are based on the version of Flash, the browser, and the operating system. As such, the above chart displays results for Flash 10 and 10.1 between all three test browsers and between the two test systems. Each test was run twice, with the average taken as the final reading.

While there is a lot of information packed into this chart, try to avoid number-numbness and keep in mind that the lighter-orange color is Flash 10.1. In summary, there are a lot of conclusions we can make. For instance, the Zotac board had more power than the ASUS netbook, which makes sense considering the Zotac board sports NVIDIA's GeForce 9400m discrete graphics chipset. We can also see that Chrome has the worst ratings across the board, while Firefox performs best with Flash 10.0 and Internet Explorer performs best with Flash 10.1.

Surprisingly, tests between 10.0 and 10.1 were very similar for each browser, with the exclusion of Internet Explorer that unexplainably found a very significant performance boost. This might indicate that the Flash 10.1 pre-release is currently more complete for Internet Explorer than for Firefox or Chrome, or that the plug-in structures of Firefox and Chrome limit individual plug-in performance in some way. Chrome, for instance, has a sandboxed strategy to plugins that quite clearly imposes some performance constraints on the Flash plugin. Nonetheless, it appears that Flash 10.1 currently does not boast many performance gains unless users happen to still use Internet Explorer. Confusing, right?

Now on to the topic of the hour, which is our benchmark looking specifically at video processing. To perform this test, I located a YouTube video offered in SD, 720P, and 1080P resolutions. I then loaded perfmon.exe on the Zotac IONITX-A-U to measure a running average of CPU usage over a 1 minute period of streaming. In each test, the first minute of the video was played back without any other activity on the system. As such, the results bundle together browser and Flash playback CPU utilization, representing an accurate real-world usage test.

It's easy to see in the chart above what an incredible difference Flash 10.1 makes! With Flash 10.0, SD played smoothly, while 720P lost a barely noticeable number of frames and 1080P played terribly, bogging down the entire computer so much that Internet Explorer locked up and the process had to be killed in Task Manager. Firefox had a similar locking result, though it did eventually respond on its own. A credit to Google's Chrome sandboxing approach, closing out the browser was immediate even if the video playback was the worst.

Switch forward to Flash 10.1, and the difference is light and day! CPU utilization across all three browsers was cut down to cool, easily manageable figures, while playback of all three modes was smooth and the browsers remained responsive. I was so surprised with the outcome of the 720P and 1080P tests that I reran the experiment multiple times. Of course, it begins to make sense when considering the fact that Flash 10.1 uses hardware acceleration to decompress the streaming video, meaning the CPU is largely babysitting in-memory data transfers while the GPU performs the fancy high-def work.

After experiencing both sides of the coin, the only thing I can say is that Adobe has prepared an excellent upgrade to its Flash product line. Well, after two years of H.264 support, it's about time.

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Page 1 - Adobe Boosts Flash's HD Playback Performance
Page 2 - The Benchmark Results

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