Adobe's Flash Video Acceleration For Linux Works Well

The CPU/system temperature was minimally impacted.

The Phoronix Test Suite shows that in the Flash 10.1 release the average GPU usage was just about 3.5% while with the 10.2 beta now that the GPU can actually be utilized, the average usage is just above 20%. This though isn't too bad and shows that even a low-power GeForce 9400M can handle more than what the 1080p H.264 Flash video can throw its way, which is good news for those finding Flash videos that are even more demanding or are running an even slower GPU. As our earlier tests show, with NVIDIA VDPAU it is possible to experience smooth HD video playback on Linux with a $20 CPU and $30 GPU.

The power consumption when this ASUS netbook was running off its battery and playing back the Flash content was minimally affected by shoving the workload to the GPU rather than the CPU.

If you've been frustrated by Adobe's lack of Linux video acceleration support for its Flash Player, you should be rather happy by the Flash 10.2 release if you are a NVIDIA customer (and once Adobe releases a 64-bit version of the Flash 10.2 plug-in). It is now possible to experience 1080p H.264 content on a Linux desktop with Adobe Flash without it using much of your CPU. However, it is still, sadly, very prone to crashing.