Tuesday 30 June 2009

GPU accelerated Flash

Recently there has been a lot of take about Adobe finally bringing GPU acceleration to Flash but did you know that Flash on Linux already supports this?

Flash on Linux uses OpenGL to render video making it acceleratable (new word?) by your GPU. "But wait" I hear you say "I've got (insert name of stronking great graphics card here) and I can't play YouTube in HD" This is because the Flash GPU acceleration won't work with compiz enabled.

Whilst researching this issue I've come across a solution. Obviously everytime you want to watch a flash video smoothly you don't want to be messing around with the "Appearance" settings to disable compiz. There is, however, an easier way!

Enter Compiz-Switch a small application whose only role in life is to swich off compiz if compiz is enabled and switch it back on if it isn't.

Hitting this button just before you click on a YouTube link will allow Flash to use the full power of you stonking great graphics card and render that HD YouTube experience you've been craving smoothly.

Find the Compiz-Switch program here at http://forlong.blogage.de/en and look in the sidebar under projects for the latest build of Compiz-Switch

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