Got a tip for us? Share it...
• • RSS

Adobe Enables Mac Hardware-Accelerated Decoding in Updated Flash Player 10.1

Tuesday August 10, 2010 5:18 pm PDT by Eric Slivka

As noted by project manager Thibault Imbert, Adobe's Flash Player 10.1 for Mac has been updated to enable hardware-accelerated decoding of video content, offering smoother playback, lower system resource usage, and longer battery life for portable devices.

We just pushed a few minutes ago a new version of the Flash Player 10.1.82.76 containing a nice feature that was in beta until now called "Gala". Yes, H.264 GPU decoding in Mac OSX is now officially enabled in the Flash Player.

You should notice now a nice difference when playing H.264 content on your Mac in terms of CPU usage. We rarely enable new features in security releases but we really wanted to enable such a cool feature.

Adobe released Flash Player 10.1 in June, but did not include hardware acceleration for the Mac OS X platform in that release. Users willing to run a beta version of Flash Player have, however, been able to access the feature with a pair of "Gala" preview releases pushed out over the past several months.

According to Adobe, hardware acceleration is supported on the following models:

- MacBooks shipped after January 21st, 2009
- Mac Minis shipped after March 3rd, 2009
- MacBook Pros shipped after October 14th, 2008
- iMacs which shipped after the first quarter of 2009

The new version of Flash Player is available through Adobe's download site.
[ 287 comments ]

Top Rated Comments

(View all)

Avatar
Eidorian
20 months ago
What about all that fancy new ATI powered hardware?
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
Chaszmyr
20 months ago
Not available on any Mac Pro models?
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
tmt345
20 months ago
What do the compatible computers all have in common?

Thanks
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
Brinkman
20 months ago

According to Adobe, hardware acceleration is supported on the following models:

- MacBooks shipped after January 21st, 2009
- Mac Minis shipped after March 3rd, 2009
- MacBook Pros shipped after October 14th, 2008
- iMacs which shipped after the first quarter of 2009


I wish they did it based on model number not release date.

When were the 4,1 MBP's released?
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
O and A
20 months ago
Strange complatibility list.... what exactly enables the GPU?
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
definitive
20 months ago
nice. gonna go try it out right now. hopefully it won't choke firefox like the previous version.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
KnightWRX
20 months ago

What do the compatible computers all have in common?

Thanks


Strange complatibility list.... what exactly enables the GPU?


They are those that Apple supports in their provided API :

http://www.macrumors.com/2010/04/22/apple-opens-door-to-hardware-accelerated-decoding-of-h-264-in-flash-and-other-platforms/

Blame Apple for the limited hardware support.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
saxon48
20 months ago
Sweet. Guess it's safe to get off the "Gala" preview I've been using for the past few months.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
inlovewithi
20 months ago

What do the compatible computers all have in common?

Thanks


Apple has allowed GPU acceleration on only the GPUs in those models.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
wrldwzrd89
20 months ago
Just downloaded and installed the update. Don't notice anything different - probably because my computer's GPU is not on the supported list.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives

[ Read All Comments ]