Flash 10.1 Solution (I think!) - Play HD Youtube!

LATEST NEWS (February 16, 2010)

1) If you are running Windows 7, you should be using Intel's newest drivers for the GMA 500 graphics chipset. These were released in January and include support for Flash hardware acceleration under Flashplayer Beta 1. You no longer need to run outdated drivers to get hardware acceleration. DRIVERS: http://developer.intel.com/design/chips ... /tools.htm

2) You will need Flashplayer Beta 1, which is no longer available on Adobe's website. Beta 2 does yet work with the GMA 500 chipset. If you need a copy of Flashplayer Beta 1, please send me a private message through the forum. Include an email address so I can send it to you.

3) You still can't play 1080p Youtube content with Flash Beta 1. All you will see is a green image with distortion at the top; however, 720p Youtube videos play just fine.

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**** All of the info below is from the original post ***
UPDATE: I think I found the solution to hardware accelerated Flash Video under Windows 7 (and presumably Vista). Previously, my test video was a 1 FPS slideshow whenever I played it in HD. Now it plays smoothly once cached - even at full screen. TEST VIDEO:

UPDATE2: HD Hulu video plays decently when windowed. However, you notice some dropped frames, especially when you go to full screen. Still, it's a world of difference. It's actually watchable. I'm not sure if this is due to optimizations or if we are getting true hardware acceleration, because CPU is around 85%-90% with spikes to 100% at times.

UPDATE3: 1080p Youtube doesn't appear to work (example: Zombie Land trailer). The video stayed green with distortions up top. Still, you will now be able to smoothly play most web video, including "normal" HD Youtube. CORRECTION: 720p plays fine. You only get graphical corruption when jumping up to 1080p.


INSTRUCTIONS:

1) Uninstall all old versions of Flashplayer, it's plugins, ActiveX, and adobe downloader.
2) Install graphics driver version 7.14.10.1006 (Vista). If you are running Windows 7, you'll have to change the properties of the EXE file so that it runs in Windows Vista SP2 compatibility mode. That's what I did.
3) Install driver and restart computer
4) Install flashplayer active X and plugin for version 10.1: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/
[I also freshly opened and closed each of my browsers at this stage, though it's doubtful that is a necessary step]
5) Restart computer. Now HD Youtube should play smoothly at ~70% CPU utilization after the video has finished caching.


*** CONCLUSION: You'll have to use a slightly outdated Windows Vista driver to get it working without video artifacts under Windows 7. The driver version above is the answer.

Here's a direct download link for driver 7.14.10.2006 courtesy of the Windows 7 Sticky and Josh5183:
http://stuff.josh.sc/aao751h/drivers/aa ... 0.1006.zip

Here's a link to Adobe Flashplayer 10.1 Beta:
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/


720p Youtube (Works!)



1080p Youtube (Does NOT Work):

 

Re: Flash 10.1 supports GPU Acceleration! But not GMA 500!?

I guess we will just have to wait for adobe to make flash 10.1 support the gma 500 with the newest drivers playing hd video content on the internet is imo one of the only thing missing, to make this small pc really good.

 

Re: Flash 10.1 supports GPU Acceleration! But not GMA 500!?

Indeed. That's about the only thing, as it handles all other typical tasks just fine.

Just curious, but is anyone running one of the older graphics driver versions who feels like testing this? Basically, you just uninstall flashplayer, then install the new version (located in the first post). Restart your computer and see if Hulu or Youtube videos play without artifacts. I'll try this myself when I get a chance, but I don't have the time right now to be rolling back drivers - too much work to be done.

 

Re: Flash 10.1 supports GPU Acceleration! But not GMA 500!?

Adobe is aware of the problem and seems less than forward about saying what they will do about it... in fact they claim in the following thread that the GMA500 is not capable of H264 video!

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/526017?tstart=0

Shameful to blame a piece of compliant hardware for failings in their own beta release!

 

Re: Flash 10.1 supports GPU Acceleration! But not GMA 500!?

Clearly the person who responded to that comment was confusing the GMA 500 for a different GPU. They were probably thinking about the GMA 950 that is in most netbooks.

 

Thanks for this update! I get to finally watch HD in youtube!!!
I did what you wrote here, uninstalled the previous flash plugins then restarted my netbook.
I'm running on Vista with SP2 and the GMA500 version 7.14.10.1006

I can only play 720p HD videos in youtube though with a FULL SCREEN. Its just a bit pixelated but its very watchable not irritating in full screen.
The screen turned green and crashed when I tried playing the 1080p.
Looking good. I hope Adobe updates this so that I can get to love my netbook again.

I tested this video at 720p and it worked flawlessly :mrgreen: -

 

Superb. I'm glad that you have confirmed that it works on your system, too. I'm guessing this will work on most GMA 500 laptops running Vista or Windows 7. As you noticed, we are still out of luck with 1080p YouTube (I also get the green screen), but still a huge breakthrough.

 

Thank you. This works pretty well with win7 and ie. Would prefer the newest driver, as it has other fixes, but i'll manage at the moment. Wonder who will fix this, intel or adobe?

 

Wow this has breathed new life in to my 751h! Thanks so much for doing all the research and getting this figured out!

 

You are quite welcome. And I hope other people catch on to this fix. The ability to play 720p flash video on an Atom powered netbook is great. It finally does what was promised to us when the Acer 751 was released (i.e. they said it would play HD video - which was only partially true at the time, since playing HD video off the hard disk didn't work out-of-the-box and since HD Flash video was not accelerated).

 

For Windows XP on a AO751h, any solutions?

Downloaded the latest GMA500 drivers and Flash 10.1 Beta and still no streaming HD youtube video

Any help would be appreciated.

 

I don't have XP, so I can't do any testing. However, you might try rolling back to the previous driver version to see if it works. Otherwise, there's nothing to do but wait...

Just curious, but are you getting corrupted video? Or just not getting hardware acceleration (i.e. flash video still plays poorly)?

PS: If you still have a ".edu" email address you can upgrade to Windows 7 for about $30. http://www.microsoft.com/student/en/us/ ... ows-7.aspx

 

GMA 500 driver for XP doesn't even use DXVA in normal player so i don't think it should works for Flash...I tried IEGD driver , but YouTube HD doesn't work too.

 

You need to use a player that utilize DXVA no matter what OS you are using. WMP plays most 1080HD perfectly in XP.

 

Flashplayer 10.1 *does* use DXVA to output flash video from most sites (youtube, Hulu, normal streaming flash videos). So the question is whether it is working under Windows XP. Hopefully he installed the beta 10.1 flashplayer in both the activeX and plugin version. Hopefully he tried it in Internet Explorer and other browsers. Hopefully he did full restarts after installing the new flashplayer. Then, he should either be getting graphical corruption (not working) or properly accelerated videos. Unless something else is amiss under Windows XP.

 

i tried the steps here and for some reason now when i try to watch a video in youtube or hulu my Firefox sees to crash and i get system pop up windows that keep telling me to update my graphic driver. I'm running on vista .. one of the main reasons i bought this netbook was so i could watch some video's and movies on the go along with handling my school work but it seemed to let me down in the video aspect...should i just update the driver or is there another option ? thanks for the help thou , appreciate it

 

Sorry to hear that.

Try completely uninstalling the graphics drivers first, then reinstalling them after rebooting your system. After that, see if it works. If not, step two would be to try another browser to see if it's isolated to Firefox. Other things to try: Turn off all of the Aero features. Maybe the older drivers don't play nicely with some of Vista's fancier graphical features.

Vista shouldn't be giving you warnings about the driver age. I was running that graphics driver under vista for a long time. Up until a month ago, actually, when I upgraded to Windows 7. And I'm running that driver right now under Windows 7 without issue or warnings.

 

I installed the 10.1 version of the plugin and active-x. I did reboot after installing both flash 10.1 components as well as a reboot after updating the gma500 driver. I don't get any artifacts during video playback, what I do get is poorly accelerated video, I'd say about 1 f.p.s.

It seems to be a flash problem as the same HD video, once downloaded, plays without a problem (even in full screen) with the bundled powerdvd software.

 

I agree that it sounds like a problem with Flashplayer itself. Hopefully they'll get it resolved for the official release. For now, it looks like Windows XP people are out of luck...

 

Someone has posted a workaround that lets you play Youtube videos via Windows Media Player. I know that doesn't fix the problems you guys are having with Flash 10.1, but it may satisfy some people for now. viewtopic.php?f=87&t=18930