Using Flash 10.1 Beta to offload CPU for GPU

[specialist7]

For those of you who are watching the streams and are having lagging problems, especially when firefox/flash uses 80%+ of your CPU, you can download and install Adobe Flash 10.1 Beta. This version of the Flash player utilizes your GPU more to offload the CPU which means less lag . (You may hear your video card working harder so if your CPU is fast enough you really dont need this.)

Link:
Adobe Labs - Downloads: Flash Player 10 Prereleases



Now this is still in beta so it might/might not work for your current GPU but should work for most. It will also help with youtube/flash based websites as well as justin.tv streams. This is also good for laptops/netbooks that work on single core/atom type cpus.

If you install it correctly you will have 'global settings' when your right click or when you do 'About' it will come up as 10.1. If it doesnt install then uninstall your current flash player.

Start -> Control Panel -> Programs and Features -> Adobe Flash Player

Make sure your browsers are closed up and then install the new version.

Any problems just reply .

Note: This works on Windows 7 64-bit, tested it .

[EaTCarbS]

Useful information, thanks!

[Tim]

Did you DL and test it? I'm really curious because watching my own stream on my Q9650 system uses about 50% cpu just for flash.

[specialist7]

Originally Posted by Tim

Did you DL and test it? I'm really curious because watching my own stream on my Q9650 system uses about 50% cpu just for flash.

Yeah I've been using it since beginning of the year and it really helps with watching stream/flash based videos. Something like 50% CPU can reduce it down to maybe 10~% depending on the quality. Especially useful for those netbooks/laptop that only run on single core.

The only con I would see is if your video card gets loud or hot real easily then you may hear it revving up so if you have a CPU that can handle all the processing then there really isnt the need for changing but it wouldnt hurt to try both versions to see how it fairs out.

If you're going to install it make sure that you uninstall the previous version as installing over the old installation might not install it at all.


Here is a short comparison between 10 and 10.1 on YouTube running a 1080p video. Mind you I only have an E8400 OC'ed to 4GHz along with a HD4870 1GB :P but you can see that it takes some load off the CPU, results may vary depending on video card/drivers etc...

[Tim]

Oh wow that is a considerable performance gain!

[Lindline]

Well, GPUs aren't slouches when compared to CPUs.