A perpetual source of contradiction, is he, who self-destructs, predictably, time and time again.
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Adobe Launches Flash Player 10.1 Prerelease Build
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A perpetual source of contradiction, is he, who self-destructs, predictably, time and time again.
Great avatar, BTW!
I remember when this thread was about Flash performance...
Has anyone else been able to try it out under Windows 7 and using the latest ATI Catalyst 9.11 drivers? I've managed to get it working and it has cut my CPU% in half to 6-10% and on the GPU side you see a solid 22-24%.
The only significant problem that I've found is that it degrades the sharpness of all Flash objects compared to the stable version of Flash. The transition between windowed and full screen is much more sluggish as well. There are a few bugs to get worked out.
OpenGL is primarily a 3D acceleration standard the last time I checked. How will that help accelerate H264 compressed video on cards that support it without OS support? If it's so simple, why doesn't Apple themselves support that acceleration on ALL cards that can use it instead of just the newest 9400 series Nvidia? Why doesn't a 3rd party like XBMC support it on all cards if all they have to do is use OpenGL??? I'm not an expert on OpenGL, but I don't think it works that way, which is to say I don't think OpenGL supports hardware decompression of H264 video or it would be in a lot of software already. I think it belongs in the video card drivers with underlying hooks possibly being needed in the operating system as well? I'm guessing that Apple simply has no real interest in updating all their older video card drivers (mine is only just over 1 year old in my MBP, for example). If they would offer the needed information to oh say Nvidia and let them update their own drivers like they do for Windows and even Linux, well.... somehow I think we'd see a LOT more optimization and support for features like that. But Apple seems to value being secretive more than having top-notch video support.
They already have to provide their own an H.264 decoder for Linux and OS X. That's actually the core of the problem we're talking about here - the fact that the H.264 decoder has to be written as a software process instead of using the hardware-accelerated H.264 decoder which may or may not be physically present depending on the capabilities of the video chipset.
In Linux (and OS X, and Windows, for that matter), the video chipset itself is a privileged device. Normal user code is not permitted to directly talk to it - the virtual memory subsystem of any modern operating system explicitly prohibits it.
Instead, software has to go through an API exposed by the kernel. Windows' published API happens to include a single entry point, generic enough to be applicable no matter what particular video card you're using, that explicitly provides access to the dedicated H.264 hardware accelerator if it exists in your video card.
On the other hand, if the published API for your OS doesn't include a standard entry point to access a particular feature of the video hardware, then the software has no choice but to to do without that hardware feature.
In Linux, for example, even if the kernel module for your particular video card does provide an entry point to access H.264 acceleration, there's likely going to be different entry points, with different calling conventions, for every different card that is introduced. In order for any software developer to make practical use of such features, all the driver vendors would have to agree to a single H.264 wrapper API that exposes the same entry points and the same calling conventions for every video card on the market.
In the absence of such agreement among vendors, software developers are left with the daunting task of either creating custom versions of their code to access the unique H.264 hardware decoding circuits of each different video card on the market, or the much more palatable option of decoding H.264 in software instead of hardware. The latter is exactly what the Flash player does.
In OS X, starting with 10.6 (however, previous users would be out of luck), OpenCL would be a good starting point for an alternative fall-back solution, which would still involve writing a software H.264 decoder, but the software could be executed on the GPU rather than on the CPU. Although likely less optimal than directly accessing the dedicated H.264 decoding hardware itself, this option would probably be better than doing it all in the CPU.
-1
This is what I was talking about various pages back.
In summary: VAAPI - Supports all the major vendors
Is this really true?
I seem to recall that for nVidia at least, you can download mac drivers for at least some of their high end cards used in the Mac Pro. As for open CL, I also remember reading that hardware acceleration takes place on all of the discrete graphics offerings released since Snow Leopard shipped, at least since 10.6.2. What is your source supporting 9400M only hardware acceleration for open CL. All Macs have had hardware acceleration of 3d video output for sometime.
I seem to recall that for nVidia at least, you can download mac drivers for at least some of their high end cards used in the Mac Pro. As for open CL, I also remember reading that hardware acceleration takes place on all of the discrete graphics offerings released since Snow Leopard shipped, at least since 10.6.2. What is your source supporting 9400M only hardware acceleration for open CL. All Macs have had hardware acceleration of 3d video output for sometime.
willdenow: Magnus was not talking about OpenCL, but hardware assisted H.264 decoding.
The discussion about Linux APIs doesn't explain why Apple is only supporting the 9400M, and then not exposing that support to software other than Quicktime X. Hardware support has been there for years, but Apple's graphics driver engineers appear to lack the resources to fully enable the hardware Apple has privileged knowledge to use (there is nothing unique about the NVidia Purevideo in the 9400M). I also wonder if the hardware support gets deactivated if (klunky) switching to the faster 9600M on the same machine - which would be a farce indeed!!!
Come on, Apple were also incapable of rewriting the Intel graphics drivers to be 64bit capable in the nearly two years that Snow Leopard was in development, and only got those out in 10.6.2 IIUC. They still haven't got hybrid-SLI working, even with the exclusive first-pick on the NVidia chipsets when the 9400M+9600M macbooks came out. They still have yet to support OpenGL 3, even when OpenGL is a core of the OS X graphics system. Et cētera et cētera. This really does smell of an overwhelmed, or undermanned engineering team.
And so, watching H.264 encoded content, including Flash content with 10.1 on most Macs is and will be a slower and inefficient process compared to cheap plastic commodity PCs running that software from Redmond (and even reformatted to run Linux, VAAPI seems to support ATI, NVidia, Intel And S3!)
The discussion about Linux APIs doesn't explain why Apple is only supporting the 9400M, and then not exposing that support to software other than Quicktime X. Hardware support has been there for years, but Apple's graphics driver engineers appear to lack the resources to fully enable the hardware Apple has privileged knowledge to use (there is nothing unique about the NVidia Purevideo in the 9400M). I also wonder if the hardware support gets deactivated if (klunky) switching to the faster 9600M on the same machine - which would be a farce indeed!!!
Come on, Apple were also incapable of rewriting the Intel graphics drivers to be 64bit capable in the nearly two years that Snow Leopard was in development, and only got those out in 10.6.2 IIUC. They still haven't got hybrid-SLI working, even with the exclusive first-pick on the NVidia chipsets when the 9400M+9600M macbooks came out. They still have yet to support OpenGL 3, even when OpenGL is a core of the OS X graphics system. Et cētera et cētera. This really does smell of an overwhelmed, or undermanned engineering team.
And so, watching H.264 encoded content, including Flash content with 10.1 on most Macs is and will be a slower and inefficient process compared to cheap plastic commodity PCs running that software from Redmond (and even reformatted to run Linux, VAAPI seems to support ATI, NVidia, Intel And S3!)
I tried it. My 4890 reaches 4% usage and my CPU hovers around 5%. But flash videos look a bit... off. As you said, not as sharp. The full screen transitioning doesn't seem any different to me, but it might just be the 4890 and quad core talking.
What Apple needs to do is come out with a developer tool that brings together all the open standards technologies in one location so that Flash/Shockwave/Dreamweaver can all be replaced with an Apple tool. If they can show to web developers that they can easily give up Flash by providing a better developer tool - you would see a mass movement.
The alternative, however, is Apple talking to Microsoft, and working with Microsoft to develop whole suite of developer tools around Silverlight where they're jointly developed and marketed together. What ever the case - I want to see Flash destroyed.
Regarding the whining about interfaces someone mention earlier - there is NOTHING stopping Adobe from using OpenCL interfaces for video decoding - that is what they're therefore. The reason why they don't is that they don't want to have to do any work that requires them doing the least amount humanly possible.
The silverlight idea isn't a bad one.
I'm surprised adobe even went this far with flash ;] GPU-accelerated flash video? It took them long enough!
I think that would be incredible. Sort of an iWeb Pro (just like Aperture is a step up from iPhoto and Final Cut from iMovie, in a general sense). They don't have a product in that spot yet, and it's a logical place to go. A combination Dreamweaver/Flash competitor that could do real animation just using HTML/CSS/JavaScript. Apple could do it too, I think. Might not produce the cleanest code if iWeb is an example, but it would validate and it would certainly look good.
I'd rather not see Silverlight take the place of Flash, I don't think it's ultimately a better option, but I would love to see Flash begin to be displaced.
jW
Indeed. The last thing I want to see is MS worm their way to the top of another market.
Did you see how they're going to leverage a lot of DirectX APIs in Internet Explorer 9? Yep, Microsoft misses the days when the Web was mostly an IE/Windows affair. They want to bring those days back.
Indeed. The last thing I want to see is MS worm their way to the top of another market.
Did you see how they're going to leverage a lot of DirectX APIs in Internet Explorer 9? Yep, Microsoft misses the days when the Web was mostly an IE/Windows affair. They want to bring those days back.
Ahhh, Netscape annihilation nostalgia...
I'm sure you're just as furious about Apple using their components in Windows for Safari, iTunes, and their support software.Indeed. The last thing I want to see is MS worm their way to the top of another market.
Did you see how they're going to leverage a lot of DirectX APIs in Internet Explorer 9? Yep, Microsoft misses the days when the Web was mostly an IE/Windows affair. They want to bring those days back.
But Apple still pushes an Open Standard, HTML5 with H.264. Microsoft will probably push DirectX components.
Well Microsoft can do whatever magic they want to improve Internet Explorer. As long as they get off their asses on web standard compliance whatever they use on the backend for rendering is up to them.
It doesn't mean I'll be dropping FireFox on Windows or Safari on OS X.
It's funny but I can view flash on my Macs... nothing seems crippled here. Seems like people need to keep the cracked code off their bastardized systems... I wouldn't miss flash @ all if it wasn't there really... it's disabled on my machine (click to flash) and only to do something I positively have to do do I instantiate it. If all you do is browse the web then your locked into it... I can do what I need to do on my Mac even uninstalling flash COMPLETELY!
Who cares? Just the kids do watching each other act like idiots on YT! Great use for flash by the way! Believe me.. I can live without flash and laughing baby he he. I have probably seen maybe 1 or 2 really trick flash websites that I visited once or twice... big deal. Not a computing deal breaker for me. Do people notice that a lot of sites have the RSS feed option on them? Hmm... I wonder why?
Bring on HTML 5!
Who cares? Just the kids do watching each other act like idiots on YT! Great use for flash by the way! Believe me.. I can live without flash and laughing baby he he. I have probably seen maybe 1 or 2 really trick flash websites that I visited once or twice... big deal. Not a computing deal breaker for me. Do people notice that a lot of sites have the RSS feed option on them? Hmm... I wonder why?
Bring on HTML 5!
Direct* components will be used by IE9 to render the HTML, not to provide a non-standard API to developers.
It all starts from there.
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while they continue to author sites with the same interoperable standards patterns
Thats a hoot, its hardly standard if Coders have to write special CSS just for IE.