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Adobe announces GPU accelerated Flash

Published on 3rd June 2009 by Tim Smalley

Adobe has announced that GPU accelerated Flash is on the way, but sadly it's going to take longer than we had hoped.

COMPUTEX 2009: Just a day after we were told that while a GPU accelerated Flash player was on the way, there was no timeframe, Adobe has confirmed that it is working to deliver on this with Nvidia and Broadcom.

The Flash player will be accelerated on all Nvidia GPUs and also utilise Broadcom’s Crystal HD chip – the focus is on platforms like Atom and Tegra, which don’t have enough horsepower to play HD Flash videos smoothly using just the CPU.

It’s something we’ve been crying out for for quite some time now.

Although Nvidia didn’t provide a timeline for GPU accelerated Flash, Broadcom did say that it expects its accelerated Flash Player support to start in the first half of 2010. That’s a little later than we were hoping for and, frankly, we’re disappointed we’re going to have to wait that long. Oh well.

Discuss in the forums.

16 Comments

Discuss in the forums Reply

B1GBUD 3rd June 2009, 08:05

How efficient will GPU accelerated flash be? I mean, for most desktops/laptops surely the CPU has enough grunt. Is this aimed only at Atom and Tegra platforms? will it be worth off loading Flash to power hungry devices such as a GPU?

perplekks45 3rd June 2009, 09:57

1st half 2010? That is more than disappointing. But at least it'll be supported by every nVidia chip? Starting from G80 I guess?

Psy-UK 3rd June 2009, 10:48

What about ATi? I wish they would let nVidia add support for CUDA. =|

[USRF]Obiwan 3rd June 2009, 11:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Psy-UK
What about ATi? I wish they would let nVidia add support for CUDA. =|

Thats why I stick with Nvidia, there is no Ati cuda like accelaration to be found anywhere

Goty 3rd June 2009, 11:59

There's really no point for ATI to even try to support flash acceleration because there's no AMD video card paired with a CPU slow enough to need it.

stonedsurd 3rd June 2009, 13:00

To fulfill the only chink in the Ion's armor?
Guess I'll take what I can get. :p

patchcable 3rd June 2009, 15:18

It annoys me in general when announcements like this are made at conventions. I want to hear hyped up statements when the initial ground work has been done. Not just “hey, check out what we can do... but probably not for another 12 months”.

Hamish 3rd June 2009, 15:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by [USRF]Obiwan
Thats why I stick with Nvidia, there is no Ati cuda like accelaration to be found anywhere

what?
AMD has had their cuda equivilent available for ages, they just havent pushed it anywhere near as hard

afaik both now support OpenCL which is much more sane way of doing things anyway

Jojii 3rd June 2009, 16:44

Nvidia just opened they checkbook. Adobe could care less for an Open standard or something rational.

HourBeforeDawn 3rd June 2009, 21:06

ya Im sure its yet another payoff by nVidia to keep there dying CUDA a live a bit longer before DX11 and OpenCL wipe it off the face of the planet

Skill3d 3rd June 2009, 21:50

hmmm nice, playing crysis online via flash =P lol no serious, this i some pretty nice stuff too bad its not ATi :(

perplekks45 3rd June 2009, 23:23

What's with all the nVidia/CUDA hating, HBD?
Yes, OpenCL is better because it's an open [doh!] approach. But do you really have to state the same things in every graphics card related thread?

HourBeforeDawn 3rd June 2009, 23:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by perplekks45
What's with all the nVidia/CUDA hating, HBD?
Yes, OpenCL is better because it's an open [doh!] approach. But do you really have to state the same things in every graphics card related thread?

yes, yes I do :)

perplekks45 5th June 2009, 14:27

Okay, just wanted to know. :p

technogiant 15th June 2009, 08:03

Did anyone mention that open cl is open?

perplekks45 17th June 2009, 02:53

As in "not closed"?

No, don't think so. Thanks.