7 ms·

Chrome will use gpu to render pages

91 points by catalinist 16y ago

walkon 16y ago
Not trying to detract from Chrome here, but IE9 should have a similar ability: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/04/09/Benefits-of-GPU-powered-HTML5.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/04/09/Benefits-of-GPU-...
- cninja 16y ago
  Not trying to detract from IE9 here, but Opera already has a similar ability: http://my.opera.com/core/blog/2009/02/04/vega http://my.opera.com/core/blog/2009/02/04/vega The interesting parts of the article are the implementation details about the sandbox.
  - walkon 16y ago
    The thing about Opera is, it only has around 2.5% of the market. IE9 will probably have over 30% of the browser market within two years, which is a major factor when thinking about any web development, especially with HTML5 features like canvas.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
  - modeless 16y ago
    Opera's hardware acceleration is vaporware. It has not been included in any release of Opera, despite that article being over a year old now.
    - wagh 16y ago
      It's not vaporware. It's been in Opera since 10.5. It isn't being used at all but it's still in the release.
- patrickaljord 16y ago
  The reason it took longer for chrome is that they are trying to sandbox everything, including what goes through the GPU which according to the chrome devs is very difficult and painful. They could have gotten the whole thing to render on the GPU a long time ago if it wasn't for the sandboxing.
  - junkbit 16y ago
    Not to mention doing it on all 3 platforms as well as translating OpenGL to Direct3D on the fly using ANGLE.
  - snprbob86 16y ago
    "took longer"? They are likely to beat IE9 to official release.
- jf 16y ago
  Has. A preview is available for download now: http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/ http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/
nailer 16y ago
Looking forward to this - I frequently scale web pages (my vision isn't great) and it bugs me this common activity still isn't smooth in 2010.
- modeless 16y ago
  Have you tried an iPad? For some reason Mobile Safari is still far better at scaling pages than desktop Safari.
InclinedPlane 16y ago
As exciting as it is for IE9 to enter the next-gen browser wars in earnest I wonder if they are already too late. IE releases are still tied to the years long windows ship cycle, which is a significant disadvantage when all your competitors are on months long cycles. Saddled with such a huge OODA disadvantage as well as all the strategy-tax BS from MS is there any hope? By the time IE9 is actually out Chrome may well have hardware accelerated everything, an LLVM client/plugin model, javascript that runs faster than Java, and client-side Erlang support (or who knows what), with Firefox not far behind. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
- walkon 16y ago
  It does seem too late for them to pull off something like they did with IE6 versus Netscape, but I could see their genuine efforts with IE9 keeping them from getting thrown to the wolves by average users. Many people still using IE regularly probably don't care (or even know) what browser they are using, so if the websites they visit work, they'll probably never think of changing and just take whatever MS puts out. I think IE9 could come in time to at least maintain their total browser share of around 50% over the next five or so years.
  - mike-cardwell 16y ago
    Most people have no idea what a browser is. As long as MS ship IE as the default browser without choice, they will have a massive competitive advantage and keep the majority of users. In European versions of Windows, you now get a choice between which web browser to use. That's about as fair as it's going to get.
- wmf 16y ago
  IE releases are still tied to the years long windows ship cycle Are you saying that IE 9 won't ship until Windows 8 ships? Because what I'v read shows IE 9 shipping in 2011 and Windows 8 in 2012.
  - invisible 16y ago
    If we're going to jump into that line of thought: Vista shipped 3 years late and with half of the "cool" features stripped out. I think the IE 9 team has something to prove now, and it's obvious Microsoft is making a push in making IE not suck.
jjcm 16y ago
Good - Opera, Firefox, and IE9 are all aready going this route. For Chromium not to support this would be a big thorn in their side, especially with their plans to support native code for extensions (aka, "Chrome Apps").
swah 16y ago
I imagine this is related with WebGL support, right?
- Legion 16y ago
  The article says, "New APIs and markup like WebGL and 3D CSS transforms are a major motivation for this work". That's what makes it exciting. Hardware acceleration for rendering the front page of HN: not so exciting. Hardware acceleration for 3D APIs drawing stuff in a canvas tag: very exciting.
est 16y ago
Also Flash 11 is about to support 3D and it looks serious http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20009940-264.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20009940-264.html Unity3D is at a turning point.
- mambodog 16y ago
  Yeah, it is at a turning point, it's about to become plugin-less using Native Client. http://blogs.unity3d.com/2010/05/19/google-android-and-the-future-of-games-on-the-web/ http://blogs.unity3d.com/2010/05/19/google-android-and-the-f...
c00p3r 16y ago
I didn't saw libGLcore.so in `ldd chtomium-browser' output. ^_^
ck2 16y ago
It would have been helpful to have some kind of benchmark to show performance improvements or cpu load reduction. I guess this is more important for advanced features like canvas than regular browsing.
junkbit 16y ago
Matt Cutts tweeted a design document about the technical details https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/developers/design-documents/gpu-accelerated-compositing-in-chrome https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/developers/desig...

91 points by catalinist 16y ago

Not trying to detract from Chrome here, but IE9 should have a similar ability: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/04/09/Benefits-of-GPU-powered-HTML5.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/04/09/Benefits-of-GPU-...

cninja 16y ago
Not trying to detract from IE9 here, but Opera already has a similar ability: http://my.opera.com/core/blog/2009/02/04/vega http://my.opera.com/core/blog/2009/02/04/vega The interesting parts of the article are the implementation details about the sandbox.
- walkon 16y ago
  The thing about Opera is, it only has around 2.5% of the market. IE9 will probably have over 30% of the browser market within two years, which is a major factor when thinking about any web development, especially with HTML5 features like canvas.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- modeless 16y ago
  Opera's hardware acceleration is vaporware. It has not been included in any release of Opera, despite that article being over a year old now.
  - wagh 16y ago
    It's not vaporware. It's been in Opera since 10.5. It isn't being used at all but it's still in the release.
patrickaljord 16y ago
The reason it took longer for chrome is that they are trying to sandbox everything, including what goes through the GPU which according to the chrome devs is very difficult and painful. They could have gotten the whole thing to render on the GPU a long time ago if it wasn't for the sandboxing.
- junkbit 16y ago
  Not to mention doing it on all 3 platforms as well as translating OpenGL to Direct3D on the fly using ANGLE.
- snprbob86 16y ago
  "took longer"? They are likely to beat IE9 to official release.
jf 16y ago
Has. A preview is available for download now: http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/ http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/

nailer 16y ago

Looking forward to this - I frequently scale web pages (my vision isn't great) and it bugs me this common activity still isn't smooth in 2010.

modeless 16y ago
Have you tried an iPad? For some reason Mobile Safari is still far better at scaling pages than desktop Safari.

InclinedPlane 16y ago

As exciting as it is for IE9 to enter the next-gen browser wars in earnest I wonder if they are already too late. IE releases are still tied to the years long windows ship cycle, which is a significant disadvantage when all your competitors are on months long cycles. Saddled with such a huge OODA disadvantage as well as all the strategy-tax BS from MS is there any hope? By the time IE9 is actually out Chrome may well have hardware accelerated everything, an LLVM client/plugin model, javascript that runs faster than Java, and client-side Erlang support (or who knows what), with Firefox not far behind. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

walkon 16y ago
It does seem too late for them to pull off something like they did with IE6 versus Netscape, but I could see their genuine efforts with IE9 keeping them from getting thrown to the wolves by average users. Many people still using IE regularly probably don't care (or even know) what browser they are using, so if the websites they visit work, they'll probably never think of changing and just take whatever MS puts out. I think IE9 could come in time to at least maintain their total browser share of around 50% over the next five or so years.
- mike-cardwell 16y ago
  Most people have no idea what a browser is. As long as MS ship IE as the default browser without choice, they will have a massive competitive advantage and keep the majority of users. In European versions of Windows, you now get a choice between which web browser to use. That's about as fair as it's going to get.
wmf 16y ago
IE releases are still tied to the years long windows ship cycle Are you saying that IE 9 won't ship until Windows 8 ships? Because what I'v read shows IE 9 shipping in 2011 and Windows 8 in 2012.
- invisible 16y ago
  If we're going to jump into that line of thought: Vista shipped 3 years late and with half of the "cool" features stripped out. I think the IE 9 team has something to prove now, and it's obvious Microsoft is making a push in making IE not suck.

jjcm 16y ago

Good - Opera, Firefox, and IE9 are all aready going this route. For Chromium not to support this would be a big thorn in their side, especially with their plans to support native code for extensions (aka, "Chrome Apps").

swah 16y ago

I imagine this is related with WebGL support, right?

Legion 16y ago
The article says, "New APIs and markup like WebGL and 3D CSS transforms are a major motivation for this work". That's what makes it exciting. Hardware acceleration for rendering the front page of HN: not so exciting. Hardware acceleration for 3D APIs drawing stuff in a canvas tag: very exciting.

est 16y ago

Also Flash 11 is about to support 3D and it looks serious http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20009940-264.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20009940-264.html Unity3D is at a turning point.

mambodog 16y ago
Yeah, it is at a turning point, it's about to become plugin-less using Native Client. http://blogs.unity3d.com/2010/05/19/google-android-and-the-future-of-games-on-the-web/ http://blogs.unity3d.com/2010/05/19/google-android-and-the-f...

c00p3r 16y ago

I didn't saw libGLcore.so in `ldd chtomium-browser' output. ^_^

ck2 16y ago

It would have been helpful to have some kind of benchmark to show performance improvements or cpu load reduction. I guess this is more important for advanced features like canvas than regular browsing.

junkbit 16y ago

Matt Cutts tweeted a design document about the technical details https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/developers/design-documents/gpu-accelerated-compositing-in-chrome https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/developers/desig...