Hardware acceleration in Browsers..heads up for Opera Users.

gazjam · 16 Mar 2011 at 18:18

eagerly anticipating IE9 just because of the much advertised above feature.
I use Opera, and dont really want to change but I would if the hardware thing was as good as it seemed to be.

As a Opera user I was curious about IE9's hardware accelleration and how it would make the web faster as it used your graphics card to accelerate screen draws etc.
Should I change browsers?
I thought, why hasn't opera got this..?

Turns out it HAS, but only from a beta "work in progress" build.
Tried it, happy to say it work PERFECT for me..and a helluva helluva lot faster.

It used OpenGL to accelerate the browser..unlike IE9 though it accellerates everything whilst browsing, not just screen redraws etc.

If you run Opera..give it a whirl, just remember that dependant on your PC config, it might not work properly!

Grab it here:
http://my.opera.com/core/blog/2011/02/28/webgl-and-hardware-acceleration-2

SiriusB · 16 Mar 2011 at 18:37

Much better!

gazjam · 16 Mar 2011 at 19:14

MarcLister · 17 Mar 2011 at 22:27

I'll give this a try over the weekend.

Saw your post in the Opera 11 thread gazjam and paid a visit.

paradigm · 18 Mar 2011 at 08:43

gazjam said:
Tried it, happy to say it work PERFECT for me..and a helluva helluva lot faster.

Perfect?

I get random rendering errors all over the place. Text is jagged, lines can be broken, resizing the window fixes it, until I have to scroll again.

Very disappointed.

Vimes · 18 Mar 2011 at 10:28

let me count...(1,2,3,4,5)

yup that's all the Opera users now notified gazam, great job

Sorry to report back that I had tried that build previously and the rendering was horrible. Then again the link isn't working for me right now that you have posted.

Throrik · 18 Mar 2011 at 13:59

BETA is BETA? Of course it's not going to work perfectly as it's you know, a BETA...

gazjam · 19 Mar 2011 at 12:04

Pretty perfect for me...think Im lucky.

Only niggle seems to be the scaling of banner images when Im zooming in and out of webpages..

but really...so what?

Im sticking with it, at least until I discover something thats REALLY broke in it!

miller745 · 19 Mar 2011 at 12:58

paradigm said:
Perfect?

I get random rendering errors all over the place. Text is jagged, lines can be broken, resizing the window fixes it, until I have to scroll again.

Very disappointed.

Mines perfect, until I scroll then everything goes blurry

rctneil · 19 Mar 2011 at 13:07

I might give this build a go hen I get home later. I'm running the 11.10 beta at the moment. Once I redid my speeddial it runs perfectly. HW acceleration is something i am definitely looking forward to.

HighlandeR · 19 Mar 2011 at 14:30

any word on firefox lol ?

spirits247 · 19 Mar 2011 at 15:27

Haven't tried the latest Catalyst, but GPU accelerated browsers keep on revving up my GPU (ATI 6850) to max clocks and add 10-15C to its temp compared to just Windows Aero. I'm talking about just simple operations as well, like scrolling a webpage. Browser was already lightening fast, so don't see much difference for general browsing. Obviously WebGL content gets a big boost and anything designed to make use of the GPU on a webpage.

Unless they can keep the clocks and power/temps lower, like when using Windows Aero, for general browsing I don't see the point of GPU accelerated browsers as they are actually less efficient than just using the CPU (which isn't short of cores these days).

Hopefully the latest Catalyst and browsers solves the issue of high GPU usage for simple screen scolling and everyday browsing.

HighlandeR · 19 Mar 2011 at 15:43

thx I was thinking the last thing I want is my gpu to be revving up or being used.... why not waste the cores on the gpu when theres plenty

Think give a while and it will be better in the future...