ATI and Intel Update, 11/19/2009:

After uninstalling Flash 10.1, reinstalling, rebooting, and switching to the High Performance power profile (instead of Balanced), some of the Hulu problems noted on the previous page seemed to clear up slightly. We already tested with the latest Intel drivers, so that wasn't the issue. Additional testing revealed that if you disable GPU acceleration with 10.1 (and restart your browser), the Hulu 480p problems are not present, but we continue to have difficulties with Hulu 480p playback on the GMA 4500MHD with GPU acceleration enabled on all the videos we've tested. The 360p videos work without any problems. Here are the updated results, including results from the Gateway NV52 HD 3200 laptop using the Catalyst 9.11 drivers. We've also added the data for 10.1 with GPU acceleration disabled as a point of reference.

Intel GMA 4500MHD (Gateway NV58)

Updated Gateway NV58 (GMA 4500MHD)
Full Screen 1366x768 Performance
  Flash 10.0 Flash 10.1
(GPU)
Flash 10.1
(No GPU)
Hulu 720p - CPU 61% 37% 69%
Hulu 720p - FPS 26.3 24.7 25.3
Hulu 480p - CPU 58% 56% 68%
Hulu 480p - FPS 35.9 10.9 33.9
YouTube 720p - CPU 32% 24% 37%
YouTube 720p - FPS (Dropped) 26.5 (0) 24.0 (0) 19.5 (104)

Starting with Intel, the results have only changed slightly. We can now use Flash 10.1 in all cases, but we have to disable GPU acceleration for certain videos. This may be an issue similar to NVIDIA stating that ION has problems with YouTube HD videos that are 854 pixels wide; hopefully it will be cleared up with driver and/or Flash updates. HD Flash on the other hand definitely benefits from the GPU acceleration and DXVA in Flash 10.1. The Hulu HD Legend of the Seeker video has CPU usage drop 24% while the 720p Prince of Persia trailer on YouTube reduces CPU usage by 8%. Hulu's The Office does reduce CPU usage 2%, but frame rates drop from 30+ FPS to only 10 FPS.

Turning off GPU acceleration in Flash 10.1 shows where and how much the 4500MHD is helping. The YouTube HD trailer drops to around 20 FPS with occasional dropped frames causing noticeable stuttering, and CPU usage jumps 13%. Hulu HD playback remains smooth, but CPU usage jumps 32%, so the DXVA acceleration clearly helps a lot in this instance. Standard Hulu videos like The Office return to a smooth frame rate, but CPU usage is 10% higher than Flash 10.0. Overall, since the Intel GMA 4500MHD with a T6500 CPU manages to handle Flash video up to 720p in full screen mode using Flash 10.0, the 10.1 update isn't critical right now. If you're using a CULV processor (or a display with a higher resolution), Flash 10.1 may be more beneficial. We'll look at that scenario in a future article.

ATI HD 3200 (Gateway NV52)

Gateway NV52 (ATI HD 3200)
Full Screen 1366x768 Performance
  Flash 10.0 Flash 10.1
(GPU)
Flash 10.1
(No GPU)
Hulu 720p - CPU 76% 56% 76%
Hulu 720p - FPS 13.2 24.5 24.5
Hulu 480p - CPU 72% 62% 73%
Hulu 480p - FPS 12.7 34.9 31.3
YouTube 720p - CPU 53% 22% 42%
YouTube 720p - FPS (Dropped) 26.0 (0) 24.0 (0) 21.3 (103)

With the updated Catalyst 9.11 drivers, our results were a lot better than before. Previously, using Flash 10.0 we were unable to view either of the Hulu videos (720p or 480p) in full screen mode without severe stuttering. YouTube HD on the other hand worked fine with 0 dropped frames. Moving to Flash 10.1 with DXVA GPU acceleration, we now see smooth frame rates on all Hulu content and lower CPU usage for both Hulu and YouTube videos. YouTube CPU usage on the Prince of Persia trailer drops 31%, Hulu's Legend of the Seeker drops CPU use 20% while nearly doubling the frame rate (i.e. from dropping half the frames to showing everything), and 480p Hulu drops CPU usage 10% with frame rates almost tripling (from ~13 FPS to over 30 FPS for what appears to be 30 FPS video content).

Disabling the GPU acceleration in Flash 10.1 still results in a better experience at Hulu than Flash 10.0, with roughly the same CPU load but no stuttering. YouTube HD is similar to the GMA 4500MHD in this case, with a frame rate of 21 FPS and slight stuttering. Unlike the Intel platform, if you have an ATI card and a moderate CPU it appears that Flash 10.1 is a clear win.

Flash on GM45 and Ion Laptops Huge Improvements under OS X & Final Words
Comments Locked

135 Comments

View All Comments

  • Adasha - Tuesday, November 17, 2009 - link

    I would hate to live in your ideal world. I bet you'd be happier if we got rid of all GUIs and reverted to command line only.
  • B3an - Tuesday, November 17, 2009 - link

    I'd also like to add, that the bad Flash performance in many things like Flash based ads, is nearly always down to the web developer of the ad itself. SO many of them could be made to use less CPU power, or even get file size way down.
    It's nearly always down to web design amatures who dont know the following:
    What image files types are best suited for what they're doing,
    When to use vector graphics instead of jpegs,
    And what quality settings and Flash publishing settings to use.
  • Voldenuit - Tuesday, November 17, 2009 - link

    There's also the problem of Flash chewing resources when the application is in the background (eg if I'm playing a game and would like/need to keep my browser open).

    Users should have control over what applications run on their PCs, and the fact that Flash doesn't let you do this is a strike against Adobe (already not the most consumer-friendly company out there).

    We have anti-spyware, anti-virus, anti-phising as recommended and standard on most systems. I say anti-Flash should be just as important.
  • danacee - Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - link

    Even with a 9500GT that plays back 1080p mkv beautifully flash player chugs. It also only uses one core! What the hell, atleast you'd think it would multithreaded. The Atom D510 may be pathetically weak, but it goes to show how far adobe's heads are up their asses when even with supported cpu/gpu on a supported OS (Win XP/Vista x64) flash is still such a piece of garbage it can only grab one thread of a cpu.
  • marosy - Thursday, December 16, 2010 - link

    Anand, I'd like to congratulate to you for this article. I learn a lot from your articles.
    It seems that the bug with the 8400GS has been fixed in Adobe Flash Player 10.2 Beta.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now