Yes...I am also pumped for this beta since I have a new Ion-based nettop...and this release is targeted for offloading Flash processing to the GPU.
It's still very beta, but initial reports are very encouraging:
AnandTech: AnandTech Tests GPU Accelerated Flash 10.1 Prerelease
Some highlights for Ion-based systems:
- Dramatic CPU utilization drops for Windowed and Desktop Hulu
- Curiously, not much improvement (and no CPU drop) for full-screen browser-based Hulu...which they are working on
- An issue with some youtube HD videos with non-standard widths for which the plugin defaults (back) to software-based encoding rather than offloading to the GPU. The article has a workaround...and both Adobe and NVidia are working on it
- Getting full benefit also requires updating drivers to new Flash 10.1 optimized drivers: NVIDIA DRIVERS 195.55
ATI is also working on drivers and promises a release for later today.
I am so pumped. I just bought that Atom 330 / Ion nettop for HTPC use and, while acceptable, it has a way to go since Flash has been CPU-based rather than using the GPU. Big props to Adobe for making the Beta public and doing so only days after their recent demo. They had only been promising for a release in 1H2010.