I have no data to go with, but I would venture that ANY computer that can run Flash 8+ and provide the same “user experience” that I have with Flash on my PC, then they have the capability of supporting basic 3D acceleration via OpenGL.

I am not a game developer (right now…), I don't want 3D for games (right now…). I want it for development of Computer Based Training. I can do some great things in 3D with current software engines like Away3D…but hardware accelerated OpenGL support would enhance what I can do greatly. I would also guess that supporting OpenGL 1.x would actually make a MORE unified user experience for my customers.

I think the user experience is dependent on the developers. If I develop a flash application with thousands of animated vector graphics, then it's going to provide a rotten experience for everyone. That same paradigm must accompany 3D content.

Flash is installed on hundreds of millions of computers. Why not inject a small piece of code to identify what 3D acceleration capabilities are available (during install or upgrade) and report that back to Adobe. That way they can gauge how much support they would have and make a decision based on the analytics received.

Just my 0.02

Jeff, you touched on this as a bit too: if %30-50 of the install base either can't run or has an app running at a different speed than the other %50-70, you have a lot of problems. Imagine if even 30% of the people on Kongregate couldn't run most of the games there (and why doesn't Kongregate support Java applets then, or Unity, or…). If there's a way to provide the same user experience to everyone, that's great, but I don't know how it's possible when you're throwing hardware configurations into the mix. Differing CPU speeds by themselves provide enough issues for game developers (as Troy said, to be developing for XNA is in many ways a lot easier than developing for the web/PC). And if Adobe goes down the path of having different versions of Flash (accelerated or not) or supporting different hardware configurations, we run into the Java problem all over again. This is the worst case scenario.

I think that one of the main reasons Flash has achieved the ubiquity it has is because of the unified user experience. If you're targeting %50-70 of Flash's install base, then why not go with something like Unity which will be more accepted by the demographic you're developing for and provides the functionality you need?

As for the tools, well Ben and I have said our piece directly to Adobe. Flex Builder (Flash Builder…) needs to be 100 times better. I've reiterated it to every Adobe evangelist I can find. We just need more people on the bandwagon.

Ben, great post.

I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to ask for OpenGL 1.4 or 1.5 hardware acceleration capabilities from Flash Player. I would venture that at least 80% of your userbase can support this, probably more. I know that it would be a massive benefit for me (not doing games, doing online training for the military and utilizing basic 3D models for teaching how military hardware works would be a huge boon). Right now, my IT manager is pushing Silverlight over Flash and we are doggedly going back and forth about which is better. My argument is for ubiquity, his is for speed of coding and features. Cmon…even the playing field a bit .

tx, jd/adobe

On the other hand, if Adobe were to include some form of hardware acceleration, there are new ranges of games that could be made. I am a game designer that just wants to make FUN games, so I do not care if we have enough 3D power to make uncanny valley, sweat rolling off the football player characters, but I would not mind enough power to make a decent flight simulator.

I think a nice compromise would be for Adobe to provide a level of hardware support that might reach 50-70% of the installed base. Since Adobe can keep stats on the players, they would be able to tell developers how big the installed base is. Then, as we are creating games, we could make the business decision to go for 1BB people or something smaller, say 500MM.

What I don't want to see is an arms race of technology that is a constantly changing bar requiring tons of QA and product testing for many different hardware configurations. We've all done that in the PC market, and actually still continue to do do today. I don't want to go back.

-Jeff Tunnell, PushButton Labs, Managing Partner

We've seen this evolution play out a lot of times with everything, not just scripting languages, not just game engines, not even just in software.

You simply cannot add power and flexibility without also adding complexity.

AS3 so far has indeed done a fantastic job of straddling that line.