Flash Player 10 beta (Astro) is finally available on Adobe Labs. It comes with amazing new filters and effects and GPU rendering that relieves the CPU and hopefully gives a massive performance boost for 3D engines, apps and videos.

Key New Features

3D Effects - Easily transform and animate any display object through 3D space while retaining full interactivity.  Fast, lightweight, and native 3D effects make motion that was previously reserved for expert users available to everyone.  Complex effects are simple with APIs that extend what you already know.

Custom Filters and Effects - Create and share your own portable filters, blend modes, and fills using Adobe Pixel Bender™, the same technology used for many After Effects CS3 filters. Shaders in Flash Player are about 1KB and can be scripted and animated at runtime.

Advanced Text Layout - A new, highly flexible text layout engine, co-existing with TextField, enables innovation in creating new text controls by providing low-level access to text offering right-to-left and vertical text layout, plus support for typographic elements like ligatures.

Enhanced Drawing API - Runtime drawing is easier and more powerful with re-styleable properties, 3D APIs, and a new way of drawing sophisticated shapes without having to code them line by line.

Visual Performance Improvements – Applications and videos will run smoother and faster with expanded use of hardware acceleration.  By moving several visual processing tasks to the video card, the CPU is free to do more.

Related Links:

Read this excellent article about GPU acceleration in Flash Player 10:
http://www.kaourantin.net/2008/05/what-does-gpu-acceleration-mean.html

How to compile for Flash Player 10 Astro:
http://etc.joshspoon.com/2008/05/16/how-to-compile-and-examples-for-flash-player-10-or-astro-beta/
http://www.gotoandlearn.com/player.php?id=73