14 DAY TRIAL // Approximately one month ago, Adobe, the developer of some of the most popular applications on today's personal computers, announced the release of its Flash Player 10.1, a beta solution that would enable PC users to enjoy a better visual experience when dealing with the latest high-definition videos. The beta version of Adobe's Flash Player 10.1 would enable Flash-based videos to be rendered with the help of the graphics processing unit, while also offering an improved memory utilization and management, better start-up time, CPU usage and rendering/scripting performance.
Following the release, graphics chip makers were quick to roll out new drivers for their current GPUs, enabling users to take advantage of the performance enhancements in the new Flash Player 10.1. On that note, we decided to take matters in our own hands and test how the new Flash Player would take advantage of the available GPU resources, in an attempt to provide users with a better video experience for Flash-enabled videos. At that time, we only had an NVIDIA ION-based system that would be suitable for the testing procedure, but we did want to see how AMD's solutions would benefit from the new Flash player.
Last week, we were given that very chance, allowing us to see if the company's latest set of drivers, the Catalyst Software Suite 9.11 would provide users with a better Flash video performance. From the beginning, we should note that the AMD-based configuration is part of a different performance category, compared to the NVIDIA ION-based solution. Users of NVIDIA's ION chipset are among the ones that will mostly benefit from the features and performance enhancements that were implemented into Adobe's Flash Player 10.1 Unfortunately, AMD's presence in the netbook and nettop space isn't as established as Intel's position, although the chip maker has some solutions that would benefit from the new technology.
Our AMD configuration was made out of a 785-based Gigabyte motherboard, one of AMD's latest Athlon II processors with support for DDR3 memory and the integrated Radeon HD 4200 DirectX 10.1 graphics engine. As mentioned above, we had to deal with a better processor, better memory and a graphics engine that supports DirectX 10.1 applications. What this means is that we can't really compare the performance of our AMD platform with the performance we got from the NVIDIA ION-based system, as they are different configurations all together.
Before we start detailing our experience with AMD's support for the Adobe Flash 10.1 player, we should point out that the Catalyst Suite 9.11 set of drivers will only enable Flash 10.1 support for a limited number of Radeon GPUs, including the Radeon HD 4000, HD 5000, Mobility Radeon HD 4000 graphics series (or higher), Radeon HD 3000 integrated graphics (or higher), FirePro V3750, V5700, V7750, V8700 and V8750 graphics accelerators. Such is the case for NVIDIA GPUs, with a compatibility list available through this link.
Flash 10.1 Beta Experience on Radeon HD 4200 integrated GPU
As we mentioned in our previous article on the Flash 10.1 experience, using NVIDIA's ION platform, we decided to hold out on our judgments regarding the performance of AMD's hardware with Flash 10.1 Beta. When the Gigabyte GA-MA785GT-UD3H motherboard arrived at our doorsteps, we had that very chance, thanks to the built-in AMD 785G chipset. The platform was accompanied by the AMD Phenom II X2 550 45nm-based dual-core processor, paired with a couple of 2GB DDR3 memory modules, from Corsair.
As you can see from the specifications, we were expecting this platform to allow us to run Flash videos at both 720p and 1080p resolutions, without having to install Adobe's Flash 10.1 Beta player. This is certainly a step forward, compared to the NVIDIA ION-based solution we previously tested, which failed to provide us with the necessary support to run Full-HD movies. As we mentioned in our previous article, the performance limitations of the dual-core Atom processor are pretty clear in such tests, which is where a chipset solution like that of NVIDIA's and the support enabled by Adobe, will come as a real benefit to end-users.
As we did with the NVIDIA ION, we put the Radeon HD 4200 integrated graphics through a series of runs with a YouTube video that was available in both 720p and 1080p resolutions, while also featuring the 'Show Video Info' option, that can provide us with statistics on the performance of our rig with the said video. In addition, we also kept a close eye on the performance of the CPU and its usage, while playing the video.
For this purpose, we went with “The Dark Knight HD 1080p Trailer”, available on YouTube, testing the platform in both 720p and 1080p resolutions and using both versions of Flash, namely the generally available Flash 10 and the Beta version of the company's upcoming Flash 10.1.
When running the configuration with the standard Flash 10 player, the YouTube video was playing at between 28 FPS to 31 FPS, with only 2 frames dropped and an average CPU usage of between 18% to 23%, for the 720p video. In the 1080p mode, the platform was giving us an average of about 27FPS to 30FPS, with about 30 frames dropped and a CPU utilization of about 20% to 27%. After installing the Flash 10.1 player, the numbers showed some improvement, especially in the 720p mode, where the video was running at between 30FPS to 34FPS, with no dropped frames and an average CPU utilization of between 19% to 23%. Things were not as clear when dealing with the 1080p video, with numbers showing an average of between 29FPS to 32FPS with the CPU usage at between 25% to 32% and only one frame dropped.
We can say that, while we definitely saw some improvements with Adobe Flash 10.1, the visual differences aren't all that noticeable, at least not from the end-user's perspective. While both tests were conducted in the same manner as with the NVIDIA ION platform, running videos in Flash 10.1 doesn't appear to significantly offload the CPU. We will try to update the article, as soon as we get our hands on a platform that is a bit more comparable to that of NVIDIA's ION and consequently see how the upcoming Flash 10.1 will enable fans of the netbook and nettop segment experience better quality for their Flash videos.