IE 10 Platform Preview

[Cosimo]

Demonstration:

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Platform preview download:

http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Info/Downloads/Default.html

 

[theheyes]

I thought this was a joke or a typo, but I was wrong. Some of the new demos look nice.

The thing with desktop GPU accelerated browsers is that I wonder how much potential is going to be untapped in the longer term. More and more people are browsing the web on less powerful hardware. Laptops are replacing PCs, netbooks are replacing laptops, tablets are replacing netbooks and in some cases mobile phones are replacing all of the above for web browsing.

Generally websites are designed with the lowest denominator in mind, and if you want something more flashy and interactive then, dare I say it, "there's an app for that."

 

[sarge78]

Even more impressive was the system running it (and that probably explains the performance deficit between the other browsers?)

 

[SiriusB]

I thought this was a joke or a typo, but I was wrong. Some of the new demos look nice.

The thing with desktop GPU accelerated browsers is that I wonder how much potential is going to be untapped in the longer term. More and more people are browsing the web on less powerful hardware. Laptops are replacing PCs, netbooks are replacing laptops, tablets are replacing netbooks and in some cases mobile phones are replacing all of the above for web browsing.

Generally websites are designed with the lowest denominator in mind, and if you want something more flashy and interactive then, dare I say it, "there's an app for that."

Yet those devices are getting more powerful. Look at the latest smartphones and tablets, they're starting to bristle with dual core CPUs and have dedicated GPU chips. People may start browsing more on mobile devices, but these devices are very capable already.

 

[MR.B]

Just googled IE10 and found this thread about it hah.
I like IE9 though, so i'm happy if they improve on it further. IE9 seems to also render literally everything with the GPU, even standard text, so i've noticed things run smoothest with it. Other browsers have limited or partial GPU support. Maybe this time they will FINALLY have a spellchecker.

But i'm more in interested in the new Flash Player 11 though. IE10 will be just another browser, but FP 11 will bring in a new era to the web of real 3D, and 3D games with console-level graphics as it has access to DirectX/OpenGL. It will do for 3D what it did for video.

Flash Player 11 Demo's:

Max Racer
Realistic head
Water manipulation
Zombie Tycoon (seems to be a finished game!)
Ducks
Metallic head
Doom 3 flying head

You need the early Incubator Build to view them. But the Max Racer demo is especially impressive. PGR level graphics in a browser. HTML5/WebGL could possibly do something like this one day, but at the moment the dev tools are a long way off, and browsers still have trouble rendering simple web pages the same. This level of compexity would be a nightmare. I always avoid HTML/JavaScript/CSS for anything remotely interactive/animated/complex when making sites, it's such a mess and a headache compared to flash developement.

 

[unwashed potato!]

is there any benefit to being able to render 500 fish in a fish bowl through your browse without using flash? i feel like although it's great they can do it quickly I've never once had the need for anything like this from my browser.

 

[conoflex]

It can't be as rubbish as IE 9 is that wrecked a lot of my stuff gadgets icons etc.

 

[MR.B]

is there any benefit to being able to render 500 fish in a fish bowl through your browse without using flash?

Well it's just an example on how many things can be animated smoothly... but one of many uses would be that if you can render that many 2D fish smoothly, then you can make a HTML5 game for instance that has tons of 2D characters moving around. Before GPU acceleration moving just few images around would be painful on a high end CPU. So this is why you've never used it - no one made it because of this reason.

The main problem though is that for animation and games Flash is an infinitely better choice. It's way easier to use, has far better dev tools, and can do more advanced animations and other things HTML5 just cant do. Plus it will always look and work exactly the same in any browser on any OS/device. Unlike HTML5 it also gets yearly updates with new features.

 

[3dcandy]

I guess the fact that Chrome and Firefox have vastly accelerated browser development has fuelled this...