3D Games with GPU acceleration in Flash Player

MR.B

MR.B

MR.B

Associate
Joined
11 Aug 2004
Posts
1,820
Location
London
With the release of Adobe Flash Player 10 it now can use the GPU to accelerate images, effects and 3D. As well as use GPU acceleration for Flash based video (like Youtube, or HD video within Flash for instance).

I think this is a big thing, which is why i'm posting about it. New kinds of 3D games (that actually look decent) could start appearing that you simply play in your web browser window. Or websites could start having 3D interfaces.
Before V10, to do anything that even looked 3D in flash took up massive amounts of CPU power, and applying effects to video in real-time was pretty much out of the question. I could have made the most simple 3D things in Flash that would have completely crippled my 3.8GHz quad-core. Vector based graphics do not run at all well on CPU's.
I know other things like Java can do some of this stuff, but not to the same extent, and with the same kind of performance as Flash.

Anyway, here are some playable 3D demo's.. Click on the images to run them....
Demo's

- Obviously you need Flash Player 10 for them to work.
 
Last edited:
nice, some bad 3D modelling on that isometric view but yea it'd be sweet if someone remade xcom in it ;)

I don't really like the dynamic subdivision in those first two demos though. It gives them that flickering when you stop moving. Hopefully that's just the demo itself rather then the engine.
 
What's Flash actually like to write 3D graphics in? Does it support it properly, or do you have to hack it together?
 
They will also use CPU (of course!), just like any game, but they will now also use GPU aswell.

This particular flash based 3D engine can also run in Flash player 9 but with no GPU acceleration, so it runs about 60% slower. If you uninstall FP10 and try running one of the demo's full screen linked in my first post, your'll see how poorly they run. The resolution in these demo's also scales according to the browser window size, so if i have the window full screen on my 2560x1600 monitor, then the demo runs at that res. I get about 30 - 50FPS average at this res, which is ******* crazy performance for a web browser.

Weebull said:
What's Flash actually like to write 3D graphics in? Does it support it properly, or do you have to hack it together?
Click to expand...

In Flash CS4 you can now very easily make 3D things, with little or no coding. And with effects and video acceleration as far as i know (aint got CS4, was only out 2 days ago) you have the option to enable GPU acceleration when you publish the Flash file (save it as a .swf). But to do more advanced stuff like the demo's i linked you need to download separate components, like the Alternativa3D engine those demo's use. Then when Flash Player is loaded it loads in the Alternativa3D components/scripts that are also on the server.
 
Last edited:
Weebull said:
Also, that polygon recalculation/triangulation shiz is proper weird. How on earth is that efficient?
Click to expand...

It's like that as it's on a low quality setting, when you stop moving you will noticed things get smoothed out/AA'ed. It's to make it run ok on poor machines.
 
ffs, this has totally destroyed my browsers flash, can't view any flash stuff at all now.

Sounds like a basic problem but I can't fix it. Un-installed and reinstalled flash so many times, even changed browser.
 
How long does flash 10 take to install - it's been going for 15 mins on the website... all i'm getting is the flash logo with the green scroll bar going on and on and on...
 
MR.B said:
It's like that as it's on a low quality setting, when you stop moving you will noticed things get smoothed out/AA'ed. It's to make it run ok on poor machines.
Click to expand...
Nah, not that, the BSP (I assume) system where things gain more polygons as you get closer. Sometimes it seems to do it logically, and just subdivide the existing polygons, but other times, especially when you get right next to things, it just goes "Eh, polys wherever we feel like!", which doesn't strike me as efficient calculating.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom