Adobe Flash Player 10.1 with nVidia ION test

Flash 10.1 prerelease is here

Finally it’s here. The prerelease of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 is out. Many users with Atom Processors and ION graphic processors have been waiting for this for a long time. The new version will allow people with cheap media computers to view HD-videos on youtube smoothly. This is the test i did.

For our test video I’m using this video clip (720p resolution with audio). First off I’m gonna try it with Adobe Flash 10.0.32.18. I’m doing this experiment with the browser Opera 10 in Windows XP, with all extra functions turned off on an Acer Revolution R3600. The computer has an Intel Atom 230 1.6 GHz processor and nVidia ION 9400M-graphic processor. The reason why GPU acceleration is so important is that the software will rely on the graphic processor instead of CPU (because the atom processor is pretty limp). This allows you to use CPU for other stuff while the GPU is handeling the graphics. Most people rarely use two applications that rely on GPU at once anyways.

CPU graph

The Revolution is a computer that requires GPU acceleration to be able to run HD-videos. I’ve already tested it on 1080i and it’s doing very well as long as I’m using a media player with GPU acceleration. The one I recommend would be Media Player Classic:Home Cinema, but XBMC does also support it. From my experience XBMC doesn’t play as well as MPC:HC.

With only opera running with an empty tab the CPU usage graph looks like this. It’s bouncing a little, but that’s just background processes and problably jing (screen capture application) That shouldnt be any problem.

100% CPU usage

As you can see it’s at almost 100% CPU usage, and it’s unbearable to watch because of the delay and the choppy pictures. Sometimes it’s just hanging, and I’m unable to do anything but closing the browser with task manager. This is the reason we’ve been waiting for a flash player with hardware acceleration and support for ION. I’m curious about trying this with the new version of flash instead, so let’s do this.

I’m downloading the new flash player from this site and installing it on the computer.

60-80% CPU usage

This is what it looks like running with the new flash version prerelease (10.1). It’s not 100% smooth yet, but I hope that ‘ts gonna get better with the final release. The video can be watched with no problems at all both in full screen and in windowed mode. It’s about the same with 1080p just a little more CPU usage, but it can be choppy at times. Especially when playing demanding clips with explosions and lots of change in the picture at once. At least it’s a step in the right direction, and I hope to see more application with GPU acceleration in the future. It’s a great thing for us who have flat wallets and cheap computers!