In conventional forming processes, quasi-static conditions are a good approximation and numerical process optimization is the state of the art in industrial practice. Nevertheless, there is still a substantial need for research in the field of identification of material parameters. In production technologies with high forming velocities, it is no longer acceptable to neglect the dependency of the hardening on the forming speed. Therefore, a method for determining material characteristics in processes with high forming speeds was developed by designing and implementing a test setup and an inverse parameter identification. Two acceleration concepts were realized: a pneumatically driven one and an electromagnetically driven one. The method was verified for a mild steel and an aluminum alloy proving that the identified material parameters allow numerical modeling of high-speed processes with good accuracy. The determined material parameters for steel show significant differences for different stress states. For specimen geometries with predominantly uniaxial tensile strain at forming speeds in the order of 10(4)-10(5)/s the determined yield stress was nearly twice as high compared to shear samples; an effect which does not occur under quasi-static loading. This trend suggests a triaxiality-dependent rate dependence, which might be attributed to shear band induced strain localization and adiabatic heating.