14 DAY TRIAL // The graphics advances that Internet Explorer 9 brings to the table by harnessing the power of the GPU will be leveraged by the next versions of both Silverlight and Flash.
Silverlight 5 and Flash 10.2 are designed to play nice with IE9 hardware acceleration, enabling a new level of graphics performance for content built with the two technologies, and richer web experiences for end users.
Ted Johnson, Program Manager Lead for Web Graphics welcomed the delivery of a Flash Player 10.2 Beta with Internet Explorer 9 hardware-accelerated rendering support which early adopters had been able to test in Flash Player “Square.”
“Flash Player 10.2 beta includes Internet Explorer 9 GPU support. In some of our tests this has yielded up to 35% improvement in rendering performance with Microsoft’s latest browser. Some other features are less about big numbers but little details that make experiences better,” revealed Adobe’s Tom Nguyen.
“Other features of the new Flash Player 10.2 beta that mirror those available in IE9 include hardware-accelerated video playback and sub-pixel text rendering enhancements,” Johnson added.
“We applaud Adobe’s work to harness the full power of the PC and their use of the new hardware-acceleration-friendly ISurfacePresenter interface of IE9. This new IE9 interface is intended specifically to improve the performance of DirectX-based ActiveX controls.”
In addition to new Flash-powered GPU accelerated experiences in IE9, developers will also be able to push Silverlight content to the next level.
At the start of this month, Microsoft announced that it will wrap up Silverlight 5 by the end of 2011, with the Beta due in the first half of the coming year.
Of course, the software giant has planned for Silverlight 5 to also support IE9 hardware acceleration, although devs will need to wait a little longer before they will actually be able to play with a Beta release.
“Silverlight 5 offers improved media support and rich UI capabilities: Hardware Decode and presentation of H.264 improve performance for lower-power devices to render high-definition video using GPU support,” reads the description of one of the new features in Silverlight 5.
Flash 10.2 Beta is already available for download, and the Redmond company noted that it can be used in conjunction with the IE9 beta released in September 2010.
“If you’re one of the over 15 million users who have now downloaded and installed Internet Explorer 9 Beta and you’re in a beta kind of mood, you may want to check out this beta version of Flash and see how it performs in your environment. Like all beta software, the beta of Flash Player 10.2 is pre-release software and may have bugs and other incompatibilities,” Johnson revealed.
Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Beta is available for download here.
Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Platform Preview 7 (PP7) is available for download here. Flash Player 10.2 Beta for Windows is available for download here.
Flash Player 10.2 Beta for Linux is available for download here.
Flash Player 10.2 Beta for Mac is available for download here.