IE9 demoed on Ion-based Eee PC with full GPU acceleration
Although we were a little more focused on Windows Phone 7 Series when we went to MIX 10, Microsoft's other big announcement at the conference was Internet Explorer 9, which offers HTML5 support and support for GPU acceleration throughout the browsing experience. We saw a few demos of the system in action at MIX, but this video from NVIDIA does a little better job showing how helpful that extra GPU boost can be -- IE9 running on the Ion 2-based Eee PC 1201PN smokes a regular Atom-based netbook across a suite of tests. What that's going to mean for battery life is up in the air, especially since the GPU on an Optimus system like the 1201PN kicks in automatically, but it's pretty cool to see a netbook browsing the web at almost desktop-like speeds. Check the video after the break.























Nice, still wont use it though
@synth
Not quite sure about it myself though. Didn't the netbook on the left have the windows aero theme while the one on the right had the windows classic look? It may not make a world of a difference, but I'm sure the aero didn't help the performance of the netbook on the left.
@HotDog
Aero actually helps the performance, it's GPU hardware accelerated. It may eat through more battery power, but it performs better when there's a powerful enough GPU installed (like an Ion for example).
@synth
Wayne: Hey Garth, Extreeeme Close-Up! Whooooaaaaaaa!!!
@Prevacator I know you're right on Aero being GPU accelerated, but isn't the previous poster's point that it's taking away GPU clocks? Much like a processor that has an extra task to run, like anti-virus, trying to encode a movie file slowing down. I don't understand your comment, but I'm definitely not familiar with the Aero process and how it'd help IE.
Smokin'!
Do people who even know what a gpu is still really use internet explorer?
@Scrtcwlvl
They will when IE9 is released if the other browsers don't match this.
@egodfrey
seems like firefox has been doing exactly that (for months now), per Engadget's source link:
http://www.basschouten.com/blog1.php/2009/11/22/direct2d-hardware-rendering-a-browser
@WP7S
yeah how about no. Ie8 better than chrome, currently the fastest browser.
Wait, weren't you InternetExplorer?
@WP7S
Did you forget the whole " don't troll " ban that occurred? Oh and nice name, tool
To bad people don't use ie for this or even know what is. I'll stick with my chrome
@Alexpeegs
sarcasm? this is utterly ridiculous. most people use IE. in fact, there are tons of people who don't even know there are other browsers besides IE.
@Alexpeegs
I wonder if people think IE is made by a bunch of kids. That's what seems like. Microsoft has hundreds of the best engineers working on their software. Maybe 5 years ago they were behind on their browser but now they get it. I use chrome ie and firefox. IE is a great browser. And I surpise myself how
much I use it.
@ror "To bad people don't use ie for this or even know what is" - He means that the people who use IE don't know what IE is. To them, that "e" is "the internet."
@Realityism: Exactly. It isn't helped by the fact that, at least since XP, on the start menu there is an icon labeled internet which points to your default browser, so people assume that's just what the internet is.
Hey where's the internetexplorer fanboy
@Alexpeegs
He got banned and came back through various other names like
InternetExplorer
GoogleSucks
WM7 S
etc...
Hopefully he's been IP banned; don't think he's smart enough to get around it.
@TheGM
how many people are actually on a static ip? i don't know anyone where i am here and it is only available to people with business internet accounts... so after a day or so an ip ban wouldn't matter and you wouldn't need to change anything...
Correct me if i'm wrong.. or different in other areas..
@TerrorX
Ive been banned 34 times on this site and IP banned 7 times when i used to troll this site nov 2007 to april 2009
well the IP banning failed as you only have to change browsers
huh... if only they had this last year
TY! but I will keep firefox and my addblock+flashblock!
Seeing as Google hopes to turn Chrome into an OS, I would expect this to be implement sooner rather than later.
Get me some of those SVG-oids!
@Kyle Krcmaric
http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Graphics/35SVG--oids/Default.xhtml
@Kyle Krcmaric
I was able to play it perfectly well in FF 3.6
@Roisen Funny... so was I, but IE8 prompted me to "open" or "save" the file, rather than launch the page. Awesome.
@Roisen
But in the Flying Images demo, Firefox only gets like 25 FPS for me. (E6600 @ 3 GHz, 8800 GTS 512, 4GB RAM)
@einhanderkiller Flying images, Chrome brings me 1fps under Win XP safe mode T7500, 2.5gb ram, 8400gs running at 102 degree Celsius. Its cool :p
@einhanderkiller
my E6600 is running at default, not overclocked like yours.
8800 gt is running at default too
in IE9 preview I get 64fps with default (64 images), but when I up the images to 256 I get roughly 34fps.
you can see how well IE9 preview does with images and zoom level. zoom in all the way and stop the rotation by pointing the mouse in the center of the rotating images. see how clean they look? no jagged edges.
anyone can go try them out at: http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/
@Kyle Krcmaric
Try pressing N to go into nebula mode. Killed the performance for me on FF 3.0.19.
On the flying images test, with 64 icons in the middle of the screen (where performance was the lowest) I was getting 7 FPS. This is probably because firefox doesn't use the GPU at all, at least not my version. CPU usage for firefox.exe was pegged at 25%. Seems FF 3.0.x isn't multithreaded or built for GPU use at all. Sure shows in other stuff. I don't know how many times firefox has locked up while its pegged at 25%, doing stuff. Or how many times a video stutters because some page reloads and messes everything up. I should upgrade......
For flying images I get
Opera 10.51: Anywhere between 20 and 50fps
Firefox 3.6.2: ~12-15fps
IE 8.0.6001.18904: ~4fps with a lot of screen tearing
Safari 5.0.307.1 and Chrome 4.05: ~3fps
when using 36 pics on a Q6600 & 512MB 8800GT
It would seem that both Opera 10.5 and FF3.6 use the GPU, but I think Operas JS engine is better (it's certainly faster from what I've seen), which may have something to do with it.
@Alphathon on Safari 4.0.5 on 10.6.3 I got 60 fps with 36 images, though in Chrome I got 5 fps if I was lucky. Currently using the 9400m, I'm guessing still Safari is hardware accelerated?
Lawl, he said "Ah-soos". I might be wrong, but I thought it was pronounced like "A-suhs".
@Physicsguy89
I'm pretty sure that's how Asus pronounces it...
@Physicsguy89
its ay-soos.
@Dr Blight
Hmm, I learn something everyday.
@Physicsguy89 Everyone I know says Ah-zus... Oh well...
@Physicsguy89
It's supposed to be pronounced "Ah-soos" because it's supposed to be the end of the word PegASUS.
@Physicsguy89 If you call ASUS' support line you'll hear them pronounce their own company's name and this guy is saying it the right way. I was surprised as well the first time I called since I'd been calling them Ay-sus. lol
@Metayoshi: Since when is Pegasus pronounced that way? Perhaps its an American pronunciation, but in the UK we pronounce it "Peg-ah-sus", with the sus being pronounced using the same sound as in bus or cuss, but shorter.
I hope it makes it into other browsers soon (mostly Chrome and Opera, my one-two punch).
please read this blog post http://writing.wikinut.com/Concepts%3A-Do-they-ever-go-near-the-production-line/15dk_p66/
If it's on par with other browsers then there's no reason I won't give it a try. Saying that you won't even consider it because it's IE is just reverse fanboyism x.x
@Roisen How can you be a fanboy when you're rooting for the browser known as Anything But Internet Explorer? I don't use IE because, as a web developer, Microsoft's complete non-commitment to web standards made my life extremely frustrating. You had to code once to standards, and then go back through and tweak everything to not break IE.
The only reason that IE is starting to turn around is that they lost a lot of market share, and now they pretty much have to comply with standards in order to be viable. And I still refuse to use it because someone has to keep Microsoft from having so much market share that IE can go back to its old ways. Never again.
@Realityism
You just failed to define 'Standard' properly. With 90% of the market, IE was the standard, and anyone doing standard web development targeted that browser.
They still have 66% of the market, IE standards still overrule web standards.
Now if only we could get FF to support some HTML 4 standards before they go all CSS3 draft on us.
I've never understood the GPU driven mini PC thing,....GPUs pull as much if not more juice when working,....it all seems like they are just covering up a crappy CPU with a 10% more(non-existent) efficiency.
Now I resent Nvidea. They act as though its ION technology that made the netbook faster... their comparison is to taut Ion, by comparing it to an integrated GPU, INSTEAD of comparing discrete vs. discrete.. They're showing off IE9 abilities... which is great for IE, but that Nvidea suggest its technology that they ALONE can tap in to is as misleading as their naming convention. I officially trust them as much as I trust Apple's marketing.
@TrumanHW I was thinking the same thing.
It's like the point they're trying to make is that GPU acceleration works better on *book with a dedicated GPU then a *book without one.
Like no s***
@TrumanHW
try out the rest and see how they run in chrome
http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/