Programmer adds IE 9 graphics acceleration to Firefox
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted November 25th 2009 5:01PM
posted November 25th 2009 5:01PM
Not so fast, Internet Explorer! We know that you have great things in the works for IE 9 -- including Direct2D GPU acceleration, the 2D / vector graphics API that we first laid eyes on in Windows 7. And believe us, that got our attention -- as well as the attention of Mozilla programmer Bas Schouten. It seems that over the weekend, the young man successfully loaded Direct2D support into an alpha build of Firefox 3.7 -- just days after you announced its inclusion in the next version of your web browser. "Things are looking very promising for Direct2D" and Firefox, said Schouten, although "older PCs with pre-D3D10 graphics cards and WDDM 1.0 drivers will not show significant improvements." And we thought that accelerometer support was wild!
Original link of the new google thing http://gizmodo.com/5412801/how-to-try-the-new-google-search
Sounds great! Now if you can just get on that memory-hogging issue...
@conscious
So true. When I help set up friends' computers, I am always hesitant to install Firefox for them. I always end up not doing so, and instead just install Chrome for its speed and security. And they're impressed by its speed alright.
Don't get me wrong. I'm using firefox right now (add-ons rock), but I would never want others to use Firefox if they're not going to utilize it to its fullest to balance out its slow start up and random freezes.
@air on
Chrome is quite a resource hog itself. Tab browsing is a resource hog, unfortunately Firefox is probably the worst of the bunch. Due to work I have to use every browser, but I tend to be in IE the most. Most people use it as their main so I need to use it a lot to make sure their experience is the same.
Still Chrome is amazing if you just have one or two pages/tabs open.
@Region2 Using Firefox irregardless of the number of tabs open, it can climb to over 1GB in memory. Chrome, with 30 tabs open hovers under 200MB. This is just my computer, and results vary, but I'm sticking with Chrome (unless I need to see the weather really fast I open FF for its awesome addons.).
If they fix the memory issues in FF, it will be the perfect browser.
@conscious I'm glad it's a memory hog, cuz if you have memory to spare it's way faster. If you have under 2gb, maybe try chrome, but above 2 you should be fine (I have 8gb on my desktop and 4gb on my laptop, and they're both faster with ff than chrome).
@conscious: I agree Firefox could use work on memory consumption and leakage - that seems to be everyone's main complaint. Personally, I hibernate my work computer at the end of each day (because it is slow so it's better to avoid having to start applications when I get in), but I always make sure to close Firefox as otherwise it would build up to unmanageable memory usage. [In one day's usage it doesn't get near 1GB on my system, though - I know that for sure, since I have virtual memory turned off and only 2GB RAM and I run much heavier apps than Firefox, so I'd definitely notice.]
Unfortunately, though, I suspect that a lot of that leakage is not caused by the relatively high-quality code in the core browser, but by some of those 'cool add-ons' which are relatively lower-quality (less rigorous testing, etc). So to some extent it may be an unavoidable problem associated directly with the benefits of the browser.
@ MJGAMER i still find firefox slower with 4Gb of ram and 10 tabs open. although firefox has adblocker (the reason why i still use firefox when data is at a premium). and slower as in it renders pages half a second slower than chrome and it takes hell of a long time just to show up from a shut-down
@(Unverified) What are YOU implying?
But will firefox run crysis?
@(Unverified)
I un-hid you so i could downrank you some more.
Well oddly enough it will, just wait for one of the streaming games companies to get it together and bam you'll be running crysis in your browser.
If you must, which maybe you do
Sorta curious as to why it took Microsoft announcing it for someone in the FOSS community to add it to Firefox, but good to hear nonetheless. Competition is good for open source as well.
The Firefox developer Bas Schouten has been developing the Direct2D/DirectWrite backend for quite a few weeks now, not "over the weekend" like Engadget just assumed.
@UnixSystemsEngineer
Unless he coded this in about two days, I'm pretty sure he started this before MS's announcment seeing as how I'm using it in a fully functional browser right now.
@(Unverified)
What was the point of your comment?
@(Unverified) It implies that Firefox runs faster. (Please don't ban me).
Anything to make youtube videos load instantly/ faster. It's a little ridiculous how long some videos take to load with my high speed connection.
@Eternity Uh, this won't magically make your internet connection better. This doesn't affect how quickly things get to your computer, only how fast your computer can render stuff once it gets there.
@Eternity Flash, which is what most of the online media runs on, (as of now) is CPU dependant. They are working on GPU acceleration though
@Eternity
Try downloading the new Flash 10.1 beta. It adds graphic hardware support. It seems to make a difference on my laptop, with the HD on YouTube at least. It doesn't stutter at all now.
@Eternity It doesn't matter how fast your connection is if youtube's servers aren't as fast. I get 25mbps downloads according to a speed test, but I've never found a server that can download at that speed. It does help out on simultaneous downloads though.
Thanks for the tips. I noticed all my other video sites loaded fine except for youtube. Then again I guess i don't blame them because they are the highest traffic video site on the. Must put much strain on their servers I guess?
Well there you go, Microsoft copying Firefox yet again, just like they did with Browser Sandboxing, One process per tab, and a privacy mode. Wait, did I read the article wrong?
@Tyrax
good one.. yeah microsoft copied the code even BEFORE it was written.I am not a MS fanboy in the least, but you sir, are just fanning flames that do not exist.
@sys2matk Your browser must not support tags.
@sys2matk Your browser must not support sarcasm tags. Engadget does not support comments within triangle brackets.
Bad title. "Programmer adds IE 9 graphics acceleration to Firefox" - this code was developed independently, not pasted from IE 9.
Why not OpenGL? Using Direct2D libraries ensures this will only work on Windows.
@(Unverified)
Why support a api that's on life support?
@hiro256
OpenGL is not on life support. Look what's happening on mobiles (hint: OpenGL). And there's no DirectX outside of Windows (Mac, Linux, mobile devices, etc.).
@(Unverified) There is something wrong with this article. It is hard to believe that Firefox would have anything to do with Direct2D. It is either not true, or Bas Schouten was just laid off from Microsoft and has no clue how open source projects being developed.
@hiro256 Only MS shills think OpenGL is on life support.
@(Unverified) They're going to add Windows 7 taskbar support too. Even though it's cross-platform it does make sense to take advantage of the special capabilities of whatever system it's running on. And does OpenGL offer something equivalent to Direct2D anyways?
@hiro256 *an* API?
@Oli D
No, he means an API specifically designed for this (ie clutter)
@(Unverified)
To be precise mobiles use OpenGL ES ;)
How does accelerating parts of an app with OpenGL work under Linux?
@(Unverified) Because OpenGL is the wrong tool for the job? In general using a 3D API is overkill. You're talking about instantiating a very hefty context to do some very lightweight stuff. Direct2D is optimized specifically for this kind of purpose. As for platform dependence, drawing code is already platform dependent. Now it's just using Direct2D instead of GDI.
The biggest reason not to use OpenGL for this purpose though, is that OpenGL isn't compatible with DirectX... you can't be using both at the same time. And DWM in Vista and Win7 uses DirectX. Create an OpenGL rendering context and DWM turns off, leaving your user with no Aero Glass or window compositing while your program is running. That would be a substandard experience.
@jepzilla
OpenGL also has 2D functionality FYI, and I agree they should use that over DX.
As for the title, it's also wrong since IE9 doesn't exist yet.
@birotunda
W7 taskbar support is already in the 3.6 Beta, works great to see all the thumbnails of your tabs.
just days you announced its inclusion in the next version of your web browser
Someone please fix that.
@(Unverified) because he's black
nice work firefox, 3.7 looks like its going to have everything that chrome and IE9 will have, obviously it wont be as fast as chrome but apart from that ff 3.7 looks great!
@(Unverified)
Go to the source link, download the browser (it runs standalone and doesn't need installing) then run that test link were you move, rotate and resize the pics.
It's like night and day. I'm on the Chrome dev channel (4.0.249.11) and there is significant lag --like 3fps-- when I drag the pic above the other pics (it's fine while dragging over the gray background but still slower than FF 3.7).
With the Firefox nightly I can do anything and never see any lag,
Glad to see this is coming to firefox as well. Hopefully this will speed firefox up some. Opera 10.1 and Chrome have become significantly faster than firefox. I would change my default browser if not for about 10 add-ons that I can;t live with out.
I love chrome except for that fact that whenever I open it up it shamelessly displays all of the porn I have been watching from the last session.
@poematik14 Man up to your porn dude!
@poematik14
LOL! You know there's an Icognito button when you hit the wrench. Use that.
@poematik14
You can also tell it not to show the most visited sites:)
@N900
haha! sounds like this isn't your first rodeo ;)