Flash Player for Mac gets hardware acceleration

GPU decoding for H.264 HD video

Adobe has released a new version of its Flash Player for Mac which enables hardware acceleration of high definition video for the first time.

The Flash Player 10.1.82.76 release requires OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.3 and only uses the new GPU accelerartion on Nvidia GeForce 9400M, GeForce 320M or GeForce GT 330M graphics cards.

There are a few known limitations: Video clips will a width of 864 fall back to software H264 decoding on the Nvidia GeForce 9400M which is an issue with the 9400m drivers. YouTube Clips at 480p resolution must be switched to 720p or 1080p to benefit from hardware acceleration. And clips smaller than 480x320 won't use the GPU for acceleration as the improvements in speed are 'negligible' according to Adobe.

Owners of the increasing amount of Apple hardware sporting ATi video cards don't seem to be getting any love from Adobe, and we fully expect a nasty bout of mud slinging between the two companies over whose fault that is.

The two outfits have been behaving like petulant children for months now.