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Adobe Goes To Flash 10.1, Forgoes Security Fix For 10

Posted by timothy on from the expert-level-linkage dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The recent critical zero-day security flaw in Flash 10 may have fast-tracked the release of Flash 10.1 today. Adobe 10.1 boasts the much anticipated H.264 hardware acceleration. Except for Linux and Mac OS (PDF): 'Flash Player 10.1, H.264 hardware acceleration is not supported under Linux and Mac OS. Linux currently lacks a developed standard API that supports H.264 hardware video decoding, and Mac OS X does not expose access to the required APIs.' Your humble anonymous reporter, who is using Fedora Linux with a ATI IGP 340M, is very pleased that the developers of the OSS drivers have provided hardware acceleration for my GPU ('glxinfo : direct rendering: Yes,' 'OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI R100 (RS200 4337) 20090101 NO-TCL DRI2'), but even if Adobe did provide hardware acceleration for H.264 on Linux, they wouldn't provide it for me because they disable it for GPUs with SGI in the Client vendor string. Adobe 10.1, with all its goodness, now gives me around 95% CPU usage as opposed to about 75% with the previous release. Good times. I anticipate my Windows friends will have a much better experience."

4 of 320 comments (clear)

  1. Idiot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Wow, you mean a computationally intensive process like video decompression makes laptops work hard???

    My god! What shocking news!

  2. The new API is unusable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    They did, but the new API is completely useless - it's only for a certain patch level of Mac OS X 10.6.

    Imagine you're the type of idiot to use Macs - do you know what patch level of 10.6 you're using? Do you know if it supports accelerated H.264 decoding? Yeah, I didn't think so. Imagine trying to support that.

    Adobe still supports Mac OS X 10.4. This alone makes Apple's "new" API completely fucking useless, since you can only use it if you only target the absolute latest Mac OS X 10.6.

    Until Apple gets around to supporting their existing OSs, their new API is completely useless for anyone trying to support actual Mac users. The only people with 10.6 are people who bought new Macs with it, since 10.6 adds absolutely NOTHING useful over 10.5.

    1. Re:The new API is unusable by drinkypoo · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Why did you make your comment a reply to mine when you address zero of the points I raised?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  3. Re:Apple provided APIs by indiechild · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Steve told the truth all along: Adobe's been lazy.