Well I just installed this and can't say I notice a huge difference... Jon Stewart used 30% CPU before and still does, although I haven't tried Hulu yet. I have a MacMini 2009 (9400M)
360p HTML5 video via Safari, around 5%.
360p Flash video via Safari, around 31%
I do have the 9400M so I should be among the supported.
Funny thing about it though, when Idle Flash still takes about 8% with the video paused. HTML5 paused takes up 0%.
Adobe can't blame this just on the Mac OS either. Hardware accelerated flash on Windows doesn't perform hardly any better either unless you have a much higher end video card. Can't say for sure but it doesn't look like it's actually taking advantage of acceleration of H.264 in the graphics hardware, just making use of general video acceleration.
Sorry, but if 31% CPU usage on 360p video is the best they can do, goodbye Flash and good riddens!
His take was an interesting one - he said that it was his impression that both Adobe and Apple have global views for their own software environments that do not reflect or incorporate to a great degree what the other is doing or has done well. As a result, they often pass each other like two ships in the night, oblivious of their respective incongruities until they are forced to "collide" with each other *e.g., the recent Flash example). The bottom line, in his opinion, was that either would be immeasurably enriched were the other not in existence, but the computer world at large would be greatly compromised.
This was different, according to him from what he perceived as a malice-driven intent, wherein (his example) Microsoft releases Word for Mac but intentionally cripples it so that it will not have all the advantages of Word for Windows.
...
Your instructor has a handle on part of the problem. The fact is that Adobe has been a very mercurial company for more than two decades. It predates Adobe's purchase of Macromedia and Flash. It predates Adobe's entry into publishing software with its purchase of Aldus, developers of PageMaker. It goes all the way back to the Font Wars, which Adobe precipitated and lost.
Adobe is notorious for making its customers' teeth grind--particularly its Mac customers. "We don't do compatibility upgrades" is Adobe's standard response to customer pleas for support for Apple's latest offerings. Adobe claims also not to do compatibility upgrades for its Windows customers.
At any rate, your instructor is correct. Adobe sees its products as a platform. It will produce its software the way that it sees fit. If Apple and its customers don't like it, then they can just go pound sand. Apple sees its products as part of a holistic experience. Everything added--both hardware and software--should fit into this vision. Personally, I don't see a natural conflict between the two visions. However, Adobe does see it. Because Adobe chose a path that is unnecessarily in conflict with the expectations of third-party Mac developers, we all suffer.
This is going to sound stupid BUT other than happening to catch stories such as this how does one know there are updates to flash? Are these updates installed automatically? I just ran a software update and my system was "up to date."
This is part of the beauty of Adobe's crapware. In spite of Flash providing the most widespread security holes on the planet, Adobe has never seen fit to provide an automatic update mechanism. The company doesn't even provide a straight-forward method for determining if an update is available. (First a user must interrogate their installed version on one site, then compare it against the latest version posted at another URL).
The conspiracy theorist in me wants to believe Adobe has forever neglected to provide an auto-update mechanism because the company wants to maintain security holes for third parties to utilize in commercially viable ways even if they are contrary to users' best interests. (I know, I'm reaching.)
The new adobe hardware accelerated flash build only supports nvidia chips when the new macs are shipping with ati chipsets only, now you know why flash is not allowed in ios devices.
Did Apple perhaps make the switch to ATI just to screw Adobe?
You do make a pertinent point about Adobe Creative Suite, and thanks for sharing your thoughts.
CS3 and CS4 are actually quite useable and though there are differences on both platforms, it's fairly smooth.
In terms of interfaces, certainly Adobe does things their way. Almost any "pro" level application doesn't quite exactly follow all the GUI conventions of their host operating systems. It's tough to do, because pro applications have so much more functions compared to regular applications.
You probably weren't using Adobe during the heady days of CS and CS2. The problem, was, this was when Apple transitioned to Intel. You had to, IIRC, run CS2 in Rosetta mode on Intel Macs, which was, not what you wanted to do when the deadline was around the corner, to say the least. During this time and say circa 2003, there was also other weirdness like Dreamweaver not having proper tabbed document windows on the Mac.
I wouldn't say Adobe is malicious, but they keeping up with Apple has always been a tenuous proposition. First was the transition to OS X. Then the transition to Intel. Then to Cocoa. Then to 64-bit. Somehow they were enough on the same page recently for software users to enjoy Adobe stuff on the Mac. Not all the blame can be put on Adobe, to be fair, Apple moves in certain directions and you can't expect Adobe to follow lockstep at every turn.
The sore point emerged due to iPhone and iPad being so huge, and Apple outright denying Flash usage. Adobe's assumption was always, well, we can release anything on the Mac as long as customers are happy *enough* with it, or they have no choice (eg. Flash websites and videos). The game changed when Adobe Flash and especially the big selling point of converting Flash to iPhone apps, was disallowed on iOS. This was a big shift. Suddenly Adobe is like, WTF?
The saga continues to unfold.
Thank you for your reflections. As usual, I find your insights especially informative on what I am presently engaged in. You are so right - my experience with Adobe began with CS5 so I missed those interesting times you related that dealt with previous iterations.
I hadn't thought about it until you pointed it out - but Adobe has been between a rock and a "juggernaut" - especially given the unintended connection that has been thrust upon them with mobile computing. As you pointed out - the transition train went fairly quickly through OS X, then Intel, Cocoa, 64-bit, who knows what Apple has planned next (e.g., I remember reading about a position Apple was hiring for that involved a totally new parameter that had never been done before - or something like that). Viewed from the perspective you've painted, I can see where a reasonable person might be inclined to at least be empathetic, if not sympathetic, with the challenges confronting Adobe. When someone is in the middle of a sea change, it is not as obvious as it will be to the historian that writes about it decades later. In a sense, Adobe et al. may not be as aware of the "big picture" as one might - at first take - imagine. I'm sure they're getting there, however.
As you so aptly put it, the saga continues to unfold...
Again, thank you for your kind contribution. It is always appreciated.
I don't know what Flash smut you guys watch, I just watch the normal banner ads and play lots of Flash games, and Flash Player hasn't crashed for months here...
Gamehouse and King.com games crash the Flash plug in Safari on my MacBook Pro i7 all the time. Sometimes they crash Safari too.
i bought a 2008 macbook pro(512MB 8600GT) for more than $2,000 and it already feels obsolete
i have to make it last one more year until the 3yr warranty runs out. It sucks having an 8600gt and not being able to use its full potential!! do you think the hardware acceleration would make it run cooler?? if so i'll keep my an eye out some sort of hack.
Your macbook don't really need GPU "hardware acceleration", the only reason you may need it is if you are already using 80%+ of your CPU with other programs while watching YouTube, then gpu acceleration will be useful. It won't make it cooler, it will make it hotter in fact, GPU runs hotter then CPUs.
The ones that find it useful are the ones having a very crappy CPU paired with a kick asz graphics card, not likely. Or the guy is trying to be productive trying runing multiple sht in the background while watching youtube HD at the same time.
Since you sound like a tech noob, I'd recommend get a laptop cooler along with changing your heat paste to the latest Artic silver mx-3(won't short your circuits). Also buy some compressed air and blow the crap out of your macbook where ever there is a hole, should turn off your mac before doing that.
Your instructor has a handle on part of the problem. The fact is that Adobe has been a very mercurial company for more than two decades. It predates Adobe's purchase of Macromedia and Flash. It predates Adobe's entry into publishing software with its purchase of Aldus, developers of PageMaker. It goes all the way back to the Font Wars, which Adobe precipitated and lost.
Adobe is notorious for making its customers' teeth grind--particularly its Mac customers. "We don't do compatibility upgrades" is Adobe's standard response to customer pleas for support for Apple's latest offerings. Adobe claims also not to do compatibility upgrades for its Windows customers.
At any rate, your instructor is correct. Adobe sees its products as a platform. It will produce its software the way that it sees fit. If Apple and its customers don't like it, then they can just go pound sand. Apple sees its products as part of a holistic experience. Everything added--both hardware and software--should fit into this vision. Personally, I don't see a natural conflict between the two visions. However, Adobe does see it. Because Adobe chose a path that is unnecessarily in conflict with the expectations of third-party Mac developers, we all suffer.
I wanted to also thank you for your time and interesting comments. As a rank beginner in the world of digital media application and development, I find it particularly helpful to hear about the backdrop of history that led to the present situation (as I now find it and experience it). Knowing how important it is to understand the historical aspect of a system (and being woefully lacking in this regard), I am really grateful when someone like yourself or NVIDIA2008 takes the time to express succinctly in a matter of a few paragraphs what it would otherwise take me much longer to approximate by personal research.
Your willingness to help a noobie like me in this regard - to appreciate the global aspects of a situation that underlie the application (or project) at hand - is just one of the things that makes this board a treasured resource for me.
Isn't Snow Leopard 64 bit supposed to sandbox Safari plugins to prevent them from crashing the entire browser? Has anyone seen this working?
It's my understanding that the sandbox is a Safari 5 feature, not a feature limited to the 64-bit fork.
Quote:
Originally Posted by meh 2
...
I hadn't thought about it until you pointed it out - but Adobe has been between a rock and a "juggernaut" - especially given the unintended connection that has been thrust upon them with mobile computing. ...
Adobe put itself exactly where it is. Many companies that have made a lot fewer bad decisions have gone out of business. The great mystery is why Adobe has not followed them.
No. I wish. I have an early mac pro. Early pcie ati is back compatible. Nvidia not so nice.
I replaced two failed 7300 gt's with a pc video card an actual ATI branded radeon hd 4870/512. I flashed it with the Mac EFI rom and had it up and running in minutes. It thinks I have. No limitations on it either. I'm quite pleased. I can now use STEAM and my MAYA renders are much faster and look fantastic. Cost me $80. A steal at apple's price.
Never in a million years. Apple is lagging so seriously on GPU support that it just isn't funny. By the time they update their API's, Nvidia and ATI will have moved on by several generations.
But the sooner Flash goes away, the better.
I don't think that can happen while Windows users are happy with Flash - and they are. I wouldn't be surprised if number of people don't like it even more now that SJ is so pissed off with Adobe
I do have the 9400M so I should be among the supported.
Funny thing about it though, when Idle Flash still takes about 8% with the video paused. HTML5 paused takes up 0%.
Adobe can't blame this just on the Mac OS either. Hardware accelerated flash on Windows doesn't perform hardly any better either unless you have a much higher end video card. Can't say for sure but it doesn't look like it's actually taking advantage of acceleration of H.264 in the graphics hardware, just making use of general video acceleration.
Sorry, but if 31% CPU usage on 360p video is the best they can do, goodbye Flash and good riddens!
The developer's blog notes the following:
Video clips will a width of 864 fallback to software H264 decoding on the nVidia GeForce 9400M. This is a known limitation of the GeForce 9400M drivers. Unfortunately, YouTube Clips at 480p resolution often use a width of 864. Switch to 720p or 1080p to benefit from hardware acceleration for these clips.The hardware decoder will not be used for video with frame dimensions smaller than 480×320. For video smaller than that size, the cpu/speed improvements for using the GPU rather than the CPU are negligible.
Those restrictions are dictated by NVIDIA and Apple.
But yeah, 31% CPU usage on 360p video, maybe they need to learn something from VLC.
Did Apple perhaps make the switch to ATI just to screw Adobe?
Nope, it's just that ATI's 5000 GPUs are really great GPUs... Nvidia has been struggling with 40nm production and their new Fermi architecture for the past year or so, and finally managed to get things moving again, and managed to deliver reasonable performance-per-watt with the Nvidia 460.
No worries, you're welcome. The biggest transition now for Adobe is the mobile space. And they need to get cracking on getting their current and new products working well on Android, Blackberry and iOS. But just like Microsoft, they're so heavily invested in desktop/laptop PCs and corporate environments, they're slowly adapting to the mobile market.
Quote:
Originally Posted by meh 2
Thank you for your reflections. As usual, I find your insights especially informative on what I am presently engaged in. You are so right - my experience with Adobe began with CS5 so I missed those interesting times you related that dealt with previous iterations.
I hadn't thought about it until you pointed it out - but Adobe has been between a rock and a "juggernaut" - especially given the unintended connection that has been thrust upon them with mobile computing. As you pointed out - the transition train went fairly quickly through OS X, then Intel, Cocoa, 64-bit, who knows what Apple has planned next (e.g., I remember reading about a position Apple was hiring for that involved a totally new parameter that had never been done before - or something like that). Viewed from the perspective you've painted, I can see where a reasonable person might be inclined to at least be empathetic, if not sympathetic, with the challenges confronting Adobe. When someone is in the middle of a sea change, it is not as obvious as it will be to the historian that writes about it decades later. In a sense, Adobe et al. may not be as aware of the "big picture" as one might - at first take - imagine. I'm sure they're getting there, however.
As you so aptly put it, the saga continues to unfold...
Again, thank you for your kind contribution. It is always appreciated.
Video clips will a width of 864 fallback to software H264 decoding on the nVidia GeForce 9400M. This is a known limitation of the GeForce 9400M drivers. Unfortunately, YouTube Clips at 480p resolution often use a width of 864. Switch to 720p or 1080p to benefit from hardware acceleration for these clips.The hardware decoder will not be used for video with frame dimensions smaller than 480×320. For video smaller than that size, the cpu/speed improvements for using the GPU rather than the CPU are negligible.
Those restrictions are dictated by NVIDIA and Apple.
But yeah, 31% CPU usage on 360p video, maybe they need to learn something from VLC.
Apple could learn something from VLC, and it's associated H.264 decoders, far superior QT, not to mention it can play just about any video file.
As far as Flash, it does run well on Windows, primarily because the video drivers are better, and since I use Chrome, if it does crash, you just nuke that particular tab.
IIRC, Flash acceleration isn't supported on the Nvidia 8600 in OSX, but it is in Windows. Flash may be this or that on OSX, but Apple offers terrible video drivers, so even capable HW doesn't work, heck, Flash acceleration won't even work on the current crop of ATI GPU's, and I have a 5770 in my desktop, it maybe hits 35% when running 1080p or 4k content on YT.
It's almost like Apple is doing as much as they can, in order to make sure Flash dies on OSX too.
Apple could learn something from VLC, and it's associated H.264 decoders, far superior QT, not to mention it can play just about any video file.
As far as Flash, it does run well on Windows, primarily because the video drivers are better, and since I use Chrome, if it does crash, you just nuke that particular tab.
Which is what comes across my mind - if VLC plays so well on Windows and Mac, what's their secret? Is there anything Adobe can learn from that?
VLC sure isn't saying, "oh, your video drivers suck so our performance goes down the toilet"... You can throw almost anything at VLC nowadays on Windows or Mac and it handles it all pretty well.
with Apple being 5-10% of the pc market, Adobe only allocates about the same amount of resource to OSX development. figure CS takes about 95% of that and the remaining 5% is fought for between the two persons that work for flash and lightroom cubicles.
Thats not true. You have to look at the money that comes into Adobe. About 45% (last time I checked) of all income coming into Adobe is from Macintosh software...that leaves 55% for windows. They build their software on that scale, not the scale of the PC market as a whole.
Comments
Well I just installed this and can't say I notice a huge difference... Jon Stewart used 30% CPU before and still does, although I haven't tried Hulu yet. I have a MacMini 2009 (9400M)
360p HTML5 video via Safari, around 5%.
360p Flash video via Safari, around 31%
I do have the 9400M so I should be among the supported.
Funny thing about it though, when Idle Flash still takes about 8% with the video paused. HTML5 paused takes up 0%.
Adobe can't blame this just on the Mac OS either. Hardware accelerated flash on Windows doesn't perform hardly any better either unless you have a much higher end video card. Can't say for sure but it doesn't look like it's actually taking advantage of acceleration of H.264 in the graphics hardware, just making use of general video acceleration.
Sorry, but if 31% CPU usage on 360p video is the best they can do, goodbye Flash and good riddens!
...
His take was an interesting one - he said that it was his impression that both Adobe and Apple have global views for their own software environments that do not reflect or incorporate to a great degree what the other is doing or has done well. As a result, they often pass each other like two ships in the night, oblivious of their respective incongruities until they are forced to "collide" with each other *e.g., the recent Flash example). The bottom line, in his opinion, was that either would be immeasurably enriched were the other not in existence, but the computer world at large would be greatly compromised.
This was different, according to him from what he perceived as a malice-driven intent, wherein (his example) Microsoft releases Word for Mac but intentionally cripples it so that it will not have all the advantages of Word for Windows.
...
Your instructor has a handle on part of the problem. The fact is that Adobe has been a very mercurial company for more than two decades. It predates Adobe's purchase of Macromedia and Flash. It predates Adobe's entry into publishing software with its purchase of Aldus, developers of PageMaker. It goes all the way back to the Font Wars, which Adobe precipitated and lost.
Adobe is notorious for making its customers' teeth grind--particularly its Mac customers. "We don't do compatibility upgrades" is Adobe's standard response to customer pleas for support for Apple's latest offerings. Adobe claims also not to do compatibility upgrades for its Windows customers.
At any rate, your instructor is correct. Adobe sees its products as a platform. It will produce its software the way that it sees fit. If Apple and its customers don't like it, then they can just go pound sand. Apple sees its products as part of a holistic experience. Everything added--both hardware and software--should fit into this vision. Personally, I don't see a natural conflict between the two visions. However, Adobe does see it. Because Adobe chose a path that is unnecessarily in conflict with the expectations of third-party Mac developers, we all suffer.
This is going to sound stupid BUT other than happening to catch stories such as this how does one know there are updates to flash? Are these updates installed automatically? I just ran a software update and my system was "up to date."
This is part of the beauty of Adobe's crapware. In spite of Flash providing the most widespread security holes on the planet, Adobe has never seen fit to provide an automatic update mechanism. The company doesn't even provide a straight-forward method for determining if an update is available. (First a user must interrogate their installed version on one site, then compare it against the latest version posted at another URL).
The conspiracy theorist in me wants to believe Adobe has forever neglected to provide an auto-update mechanism because the company wants to maintain security holes for third parties to utilize in commercially viable ways even if they are contrary to users' best interests. (I know, I'm reaching.)
The new adobe hardware accelerated flash build only supports nvidia chips when the new macs are shipping with ati chipsets only, now you know why flash is not allowed in ios devices.
Did Apple perhaps make the switch to ATI just to screw Adobe?
You do make a pertinent point about Adobe Creative Suite, and thanks for sharing your thoughts.
CS3 and CS4 are actually quite useable and though there are differences on both platforms, it's fairly smooth.
In terms of interfaces, certainly Adobe does things their way. Almost any "pro" level application doesn't quite exactly follow all the GUI conventions of their host operating systems. It's tough to do, because pro applications have so much more functions compared to regular applications.
You probably weren't using Adobe during the heady days of CS and CS2. The problem, was, this was when Apple transitioned to Intel. You had to, IIRC, run CS2 in Rosetta mode on Intel Macs, which was, not what you wanted to do when the deadline was around the corner, to say the least. During this time and say circa 2003, there was also other weirdness like Dreamweaver not having proper tabbed document windows on the Mac.
I wouldn't say Adobe is malicious, but they keeping up with Apple has always been a tenuous proposition. First was the transition to OS X. Then the transition to Intel. Then to Cocoa. Then to 64-bit. Somehow they were enough on the same page recently for software users to enjoy Adobe stuff on the Mac. Not all the blame can be put on Adobe, to be fair, Apple moves in certain directions and you can't expect Adobe to follow lockstep at every turn.
The sore point emerged due to iPhone and iPad being so huge, and Apple outright denying Flash usage. Adobe's assumption was always, well, we can release anything on the Mac as long as customers are happy *enough* with it, or they have no choice (eg. Flash websites and videos). The game changed when Adobe Flash and especially the big selling point of converting Flash to iPhone apps, was disallowed on iOS. This was a big shift. Suddenly Adobe is like, WTF?
The saga continues to unfold.
Thank you for your reflections. As usual, I find your insights especially informative on what I am presently engaged in. You are so right - my experience with Adobe began with CS5 so I missed those interesting times you related that dealt with previous iterations.
I hadn't thought about it until you pointed it out - but Adobe has been between a rock and a "juggernaut" - especially given the unintended connection that has been thrust upon them with mobile computing. As you pointed out - the transition train went fairly quickly through OS X, then Intel, Cocoa, 64-bit, who knows what Apple has planned next (e.g., I remember reading about a position Apple was hiring for that involved a totally new parameter that had never been done before - or something like that). Viewed from the perspective you've painted, I can see where a reasonable person might be inclined to at least be empathetic, if not sympathetic, with the challenges confronting Adobe. When someone is in the middle of a sea change, it is not as obvious as it will be to the historian that writes about it decades later. In a sense, Adobe et al. may not be as aware of the "big picture" as one might - at first take - imagine. I'm sure they're getting there, however.
As you so aptly put it, the saga continues to unfold...
Again, thank you for your kind contribution. It is always appreciated.
I wonder if this version also fixes te fact that Flash now crashes every browser on my Mac about 60% of the time.
Isn't Snow Leopard 64 bit supposed to sandbox Safari plugins to prevent them from crashing the entire browser? Has anyone seen this working?
I don't know what Flash smut you guys watch, I just watch the normal banner ads and play lots of Flash games, and Flash Player hasn't crashed for months here...
Gamehouse and King.com games crash the Flash plug in Safari on my MacBook Pro i7 all the time. Sometimes they crash Safari too.
i bought a 2008 macbook pro(512MB 8600GT) for more than $2,000 and it already feels obsolete
i have to make it last one more year until the 3yr warranty runs out. It sucks having an 8600gt and not being able to use its full potential!! do you think the hardware acceleration would make it run cooler?? if so i'll keep my an eye out some sort of hack.
Your macbook don't really need GPU "hardware acceleration", the only reason you may need it is if you are already using 80%+ of your CPU with other programs while watching YouTube, then gpu acceleration will be useful. It won't make it cooler, it will make it hotter in fact, GPU runs hotter then CPUs.
The ones that find it useful are the ones having a very crappy CPU paired with a kick asz graphics card, not likely. Or the guy is trying to be productive trying runing multiple sht in the background while watching youtube HD at the same time.
Since you sound like a tech noob, I'd recommend get a laptop cooler along with changing your heat paste to the latest Artic silver mx-3(won't short your circuits). Also buy some compressed air and blow the crap out of your macbook where ever there is a hole, should turn off your mac before doing that.
Your instructor has a handle on part of the problem. The fact is that Adobe has been a very mercurial company for more than two decades. It predates Adobe's purchase of Macromedia and Flash. It predates Adobe's entry into publishing software with its purchase of Aldus, developers of PageMaker. It goes all the way back to the Font Wars, which Adobe precipitated and lost.
Adobe is notorious for making its customers' teeth grind--particularly its Mac customers. "We don't do compatibility upgrades" is Adobe's standard response to customer pleas for support for Apple's latest offerings. Adobe claims also not to do compatibility upgrades for its Windows customers.
At any rate, your instructor is correct. Adobe sees its products as a platform. It will produce its software the way that it sees fit. If Apple and its customers don't like it, then they can just go pound sand. Apple sees its products as part of a holistic experience. Everything added--both hardware and software--should fit into this vision. Personally, I don't see a natural conflict between the two visions. However, Adobe does see it. Because Adobe chose a path that is unnecessarily in conflict with the expectations of third-party Mac developers, we all suffer.
I wanted to also thank you for your time and interesting comments. As a rank beginner in the world of digital media application and development, I find it particularly helpful to hear about the backdrop of history that led to the present situation (as I now find it and experience it). Knowing how important it is to understand the historical aspect of a system (and being woefully lacking in this regard), I am really grateful when someone like yourself or NVIDIA2008 takes the time to express succinctly in a matter of a few paragraphs what it would otherwise take me much longer to approximate by personal research.
Your willingness to help a noobie like me in this regard - to appreciate the global aspects of a situation that underlie the application (or project) at hand - is just one of the things that makes this board a treasured resource for me.
I cannot thank you enough.
MEH II
Gamehouse and King.com games crash the Flash plug in Safari on my MacBook Pro i7 all the time. Sometimes they crash Safari too.
I play the latest games on Kongregate, and I have i5 MacBook Pro 2010. They work pretty well. Hey, at least we have some games for our OSX!
Isn't Snow Leopard 64 bit supposed to sandbox Safari plugins to prevent them from crashing the entire browser? Has anyone seen this working?
It's my understanding that the sandbox is a Safari 5 feature, not a feature limited to the 64-bit fork.
...
I hadn't thought about it until you pointed it out - but Adobe has been between a rock and a "juggernaut" - especially given the unintended connection that has been thrust upon them with mobile computing. ...
Adobe put itself exactly where it is. Many companies that have made a lot fewer bad decisions have gone out of business. The great mystery is why Adobe has not followed them.
Seriously, do you even use Adobe CS products. You seem to be just copying what others say. As a matter of fact, "innovative" is a good thing.
Excuse me - I do use the creative suites. WTF. MFPS.
Could you upgrade to an Nvidia card?
No. I wish. I have an early mac pro. Early pcie ati is back compatible. Nvidia not so nice.
I replaced two failed 7300 gt's with a pc video card an actual ATI branded radeon hd 4870/512. I flashed it with the Mac EFI rom and had it up and running in minutes. It thinks I have. No limitations on it either. I'm quite pleased. I can now use STEAM and my MAYA renders are much faster and look fantastic. Cost me $80. A steal at apple's price.
Apple...Update...Support?
Never in a million years. Apple is lagging so seriously on GPU support that it just isn't funny. By the time they update their API's, Nvidia and ATI will have moved on by several generations.
But the sooner Flash goes away, the better.
I don't think that can happen while Windows users are happy with Flash - and they are. I wouldn't be surprised if number of people don't like it even more now that SJ is so pissed off with Adobe
360p HTML5 video via Safari, around 5%.
360p Flash video via Safari, around 31%
I do have the 9400M so I should be among the supported.
Funny thing about it though, when Idle Flash still takes about 8% with the video paused. HTML5 paused takes up 0%.
Adobe can't blame this just on the Mac OS either. Hardware accelerated flash on Windows doesn't perform hardly any better either unless you have a much higher end video card. Can't say for sure but it doesn't look like it's actually taking advantage of acceleration of H.264 in the graphics hardware, just making use of general video acceleration.
Sorry, but if 31% CPU usage on 360p video is the best they can do, goodbye Flash and good riddens!
The developer's blog notes the following:
Video clips will a width of 864 fallback to software H264 decoding on the nVidia GeForce 9400M. This is a known limitation of the GeForce 9400M drivers. Unfortunately, YouTube Clips at 480p resolution often use a width of 864. Switch to 720p or 1080p to benefit from hardware acceleration for these clips. The hardware decoder will not be used for video with frame dimensions smaller than 480×320. For video smaller than that size, the cpu/speed improvements for using the GPU rather than the CPU are negligible.
Those restrictions are dictated by NVIDIA and Apple.
But yeah, 31% CPU usage on 360p video, maybe they need to learn something from VLC.
Did Apple perhaps make the switch to ATI just to screw Adobe?
Nope, it's just that ATI's 5000 GPUs are really great GPUs... Nvidia has been struggling with 40nm production and their new Fermi architecture for the past year or so, and finally managed to get things moving again, and managed to deliver reasonable performance-per-watt with the Nvidia 460.
Thank you for your reflections. As usual, I find your insights especially informative on what I am presently engaged in. You are so right - my experience with Adobe began with CS5 so I missed those interesting times you related that dealt with previous iterations.
I hadn't thought about it until you pointed it out - but Adobe has been between a rock and a "juggernaut" - especially given the unintended connection that has been thrust upon them with mobile computing. As you pointed out - the transition train went fairly quickly through OS X, then Intel, Cocoa, 64-bit, who knows what Apple has planned next (e.g., I remember reading about a position Apple was hiring for that involved a totally new parameter that had never been done before - or something like that). Viewed from the perspective you've painted, I can see where a reasonable person might be inclined to at least be empathetic, if not sympathetic, with the challenges confronting Adobe. When someone is in the middle of a sea change, it is not as obvious as it will be to the historian that writes about it decades later. In a sense, Adobe et al. may not be as aware of the "big picture" as one might - at first take - imagine. I'm sure they're getting there, however.
As you so aptly put it, the saga continues to unfold...
Again, thank you for your kind contribution. It is always appreciated.
The developer's blog notes the following:
Video clips will a width of 864 fallback to software H264 decoding on the nVidia GeForce 9400M. This is a known limitation of the GeForce 9400M drivers. Unfortunately, YouTube Clips at 480p resolution often use a width of 864. Switch to 720p or 1080p to benefit from hardware acceleration for these clips. The hardware decoder will not be used for video with frame dimensions smaller than 480×320. For video smaller than that size, the cpu/speed improvements for using the GPU rather than the CPU are negligible.
Those restrictions are dictated by NVIDIA and Apple.
But yeah, 31% CPU usage on 360p video, maybe they need to learn something from VLC.
Apple could learn something from VLC, and it's associated H.264 decoders, far superior QT, not to mention it can play just about any video file.
As far as Flash, it does run well on Windows, primarily because the video drivers are better, and since I use Chrome, if it does crash, you just nuke that particular tab.
IIRC, Flash acceleration isn't supported on the Nvidia 8600 in OSX, but it is in Windows. Flash may be this or that on OSX, but Apple offers terrible video drivers, so even capable HW doesn't work, heck, Flash acceleration won't even work on the current crop of ATI GPU's, and I have a 5770 in my desktop, it maybe hits 35% when running 1080p or 4k content on YT.
It's almost like Apple is doing as much as they can, in order to make sure Flash dies on OSX too.
Apple could learn something from VLC, and it's associated H.264 decoders, far superior QT, not to mention it can play just about any video file.
As far as Flash, it does run well on Windows, primarily because the video drivers are better, and since I use Chrome, if it does crash, you just nuke that particular tab.
Which is what comes across my mind - if VLC plays so well on Windows and Mac, what's their secret? Is there anything Adobe can learn from that?
VLC sure isn't saying, "oh, your video drivers suck so our performance goes down the toilet"... You can throw almost anything at VLC nowadays on Windows or Mac and it handles it all pretty well.
with Apple being 5-10% of the pc market, Adobe only allocates about the same amount of resource to OSX development. figure CS takes about 95% of that and the remaining 5% is fought for between the two persons that work for flash and lightroom cubicles.
Thats not true. You have to look at the money that comes into Adobe. About 45% (last time I checked) of all income coming into Adobe is from Macintosh software...that leaves 55% for windows. They build their software on that scale, not the scale of the PC market as a whole.