Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview: Investigated
by Brian Klug on March 17, 2010 11:44 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
GPU Accelerated HTML5
The strongest bid IE 9 is trying to make against its competitors is that of superior, GPU-driven performance. For quite some time, the bar has been steadily raised in the JavaScript engine domain by continual competing releases of Chrome, Firefox, and Opera. However, HTML5 <video> asset tags mean that (should the standard catch on) browsers themselves (rather than plug-ins) will be a huge contributing factor for playback performance. Microsoft showed a rather compelling demo with two GPU-accelerated videos simultaneously playing back in the browser on a (ostensibly ION-based) netbook with minimal to no stutter. Surprisingly, HTML5 <video> is not enabled in the consumer preview out now. Microsoft offers a relatively curt explanation why:
"The demo of HTML5 <video> at MIX10 was a preview of a future release of the Platform Preview."
It's likely that there still are GPU vendor-specific issues that need to be worked on before they're comfortable releasing a build with support. Until then, it's impossible to really know how IE 9 HTML5 video playback stacks up against Chrome and Firefox's implementations.
In addition, they showcased the subpixel-rendering capabilities that they can leverage that other browsers still lack.
But the big performance boon comes for both 2D and 3D HTML5 display acceleration. One of the demos given the most stage presence during the keynote consisted of a grid of spinning browser logos nicknamed "spinning images." It represents what Microsoft considers an ideal showcase for the dramatic performance increases possible with GPU accelerated graphics in-browser. I went ahead and decided to run my own tests across a number of browsers. Pay attention to image quality as well.
First up is IE 8, which struggled to render a mere 1-2 FPS. You can see the banding which was evident virtually the entire time. Image quality, however, is good.
Next up is Safari 4.0.4. Image quality of the scaled logos in the extreme back and far front is likewise very good, however Safari too struggles to render more than 2-3 FPS.
Next, Firefox 3.6. Performance here is dramatically better than Safari or IE 6, however look at the images in the extreme background and extreme foreground. There's obvious image-degrading nearest-neighbor downsampling going on, resulting in horribly blocky logos. Performance is more than acceptable, but comes at the price of quality.
Chrome's performance is surprisingly bad given its stellar reputation for performance, but unsurprising given the poor performance of its WebKit brethren, Safari. Again, image quality is very good, likely at the cost of performance.
Finally, IE 9 Platform Preview gives the highest performance yet, at around 58-60 FPS. At the same time however, image quality sits somewhere between Firefox 3.6 and Safari/Chrome/IE 8. It's obvious that there's some downsampling here that isn't 100% quality-friendly, however, there's significantly less blocking. Detail is still a bit strange inside the black Safari logo.
Obviously, we have to take these results with a bit of skepticism; the IE team has had the time to optimize their platform preview to the technology demo they saw think shows off their platform best. That said, there are clear and obvious performance benefits to be had from GPU acceleration in the browser.
It hasn't been made entirely clear what system requirements are necessary for GPU accelerated content, however, they're apprently enough to completely preclude Windows XP from running IE 9 platform preview. Integration is likely tied to Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) given the strict Windows Vista (with a platform update) or Windows 7 requirement.
Final Words
Whatever the case, it's obvious that Microsoft has heard developers plea for improved standards compliance and dramatic performance improvements across what remains the world's largest browser platform. Microsoft has been acting a lot like Google or Apple lately, evidenced through an open feedback platform preview such as IE 9, and showing an awareness for the seriousness of both its competitors browser and mobile device offerings.
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vol7ron - Thursday, March 18, 2010 - link
Thank you for posting this, all of it. I was going to say something, but I thought, "why?" Some people are incorrigible.Omega215D - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - link
these Acid3 tests are pretty useless at gauging anything.kb9fcc - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - link
Yeah, especially when your browsers come in dead last all the time...I saw an article yesterday at Redmond Channel Partners Online about how badly IE8 does up against a JavaScript test suite Google has called Sputnik. Unlike Acid3 which only has 100 tests, Sputnik has over 5000, all based on the standards. It would be interesting to see how IE9 does against Sputnik.
Oh, and no, Chrome didn't do the best. It places third with 218 errors. Opera did the best (78 errors) followed by Safari (159 errors), Firefox placed fourth (259 errors), and way out of the pack IE8 at 463.
The original article is here:
http://rcpmag.com/articles/2010/03/15/ie-8-finishe...">http://rcpmag.com/articles/2010/03/15/i...es-last-...
Sputnik can be found here:
http://sputnik.googlelabs.com/">http://sputnik.googlelabs.com/
JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - link
The funny thing is that in general use, I've tried all of the major browsers (FF, IE8, Chrome, Opera, and Safari) and I always end up feeling Firefox does the best at consistently loading pages in a reasonably fast time. Opera and Chrome both feel sluggish on some of the Facebook pages (games) I visit, for example. That's the problem with benchmarks: companies optimize for benchmarks, but just because you're the fastest at, say, 3DMark doesn't make your hardware/software the fastest in real-world situations.yyrkoon - Friday, March 19, 2010 - link
Chrome feels sluggish ?I had to ditch Firefox, because it was *very* sluggish. I had been running Chrome for, oh, I do not know, about 8 months I guess, and was used to it's performance. Then, when I switched to Windows 7 Enterprise x64 ( Ultimate ), I had a problem with Chrome functioning properly. So, I did what I think any normal ( in the know ) user would do, and switched to Firefox. My god, was it terribly slow in rendering pages.
SO, I tried the latest beta on the off chance that it would work ok with Windows 7 x64 . . . and man, I have to tell you. It spanks the crap out of Firefox. Not even a problem so far.
Anyways, we all have our preferences, and no I am not trying to pander anything, but this has been my own experience. Personally, I am very glad Chrome is out there.
Oh, and sure, the occasional web page will not load right( but in the last 3 months, this has only been once ), but I have yet to determine whether that is a standards issue, or if the given pages are at fault. Really, I do not care, my experience has been that good.
vol7ron - Thursday, March 18, 2010 - link
A few years ago I was IE-only.Then, around the era of tabbed browsing, I began using Firefox.
With the bounty of add-ons that Firefox has, I've used it as my primary development browser, however Chrome is my new favorite for just viewing pages. Why? It's still a load-time issue. Firefox has so many useful add-ons that it takes forever to start up and load into memory; this undoubtedly will change once I get my hands on my first SSD, but until then, it takes too long to just "Google something real quick."
Chrome is so lightweight (even with the few add-ons I've installed) and it loads pages like a breeze.
medi01 - Thursday, March 18, 2010 - link
I've never cared about the speed, though it's pretty fast, but more about the features.Opera has far superior list out of the box features:
mouse gestures,
"undo" on closing pages (!!!)
custom search angines
storing favorites/custom search in opera repository (you make a bookmark at work and it shows up in all your opera's)
built-in ad blocker
As far as Firefox goes, it's the best one to use when developing web pages, or customizatin, but even it's tabs do not fully satisfy me, pages just keep poping up in a new browser window instead of tab, no matter what I do.
gavjof - Monday, March 22, 2010 - link
CTRL Click. That will work ;)strikeback03 - Friday, March 19, 2010 - link
Some of that must come down to individual installations, as open in new tab works fine for me. Also you can undo closing tabs in FF, not sure about whole windows.Nice to see Opera finally added a ad blocker
Shadowmaster625 - Friday, March 19, 2010 - link
I like the mail client too. And emailing the page youre on with 2 clicks is useful also. But I really like being able to block ANY ad I see. And not just ads. I even block stuff like the Anandtech logo up at the top of the screen. lol. I dislike distractions.