Everybody knows that I love (sarcasm..) Flash. The current Flash player version is 10, however there is a 10.1 Beta 3 release out at the time of this writing, so I decided to give it a go to see how it performs.
The first thing to note is how it’s installed. This is on the download page:
In Windows, this is a five step process.
- Close all web browsers that are open
- Uninstall Flash Player 10 ActiveX
- Uninstall Flash Player 10 Plugin
- Install Flash Player Plugin 10.1
- Install Flash Player ActiveX 10.1
For those wondering, the ActiveX is specifically for Internet Explorer – whether you use it or not.
Testing 10.1 Beta 3
I noticed that everything I use on the web with Flash still works properly. Whether it’s playing video on YouTube, using Flash based web interfaces or what-have-you, everything appeared to work OK.
Part of 10.1′s improvements is supposed to be hardware-accelerated video. The best way to test this is with an HD video like this:
The real test comes by clicking the full-screen button (the four arrows) at bottom right. With the 10.1 player, full-screen playback is much better. On my PC which uses an older nVidia GeForce 8400 GS 512MB card, there were almost no dropped frames and the motion was smooth as silk.
That alone is the best reason to use 10.1.
On the other hand, if you’re not into watching that much video on the internet, you can give it a pass and wait until the official release when out of beta.
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