gpu accelerated firefox demo available!!!

[deadrats]

if anyone wants to see what the future of gpu acceleration holds in store, from a performance standpoint, for gpu accelerated apps, here is the one of the first pre-alpha builds of firefox accelerated with the gpu via the direct 2d api:

http://www.basschouten.com/blog1.php/2009/11/22/direct2d-hardware-rendering-a-browser

when you get to this paragraph, you will find a embedded download link:

Feel free to download and try a build of Firefox with Direct2D support here.

i'm testing it right now and i have to say it is significantly faster than the pure software rendering version, i can't wait for the final version.

once you go gpu accelerated, you never go back.

[jagabo]

Just curious, but what are you doing with FireFox that needs to be faster (that's not internet bandwidth limited)? I tried the demo and didn't see any difference.

[deadrats]

Just curious, but what are you doing with FireFox that needs to be faster (that's not internet bandwidth limited)? I tried the demo and didn't see any difference.

if all you're using is one or two tabs at a time you won't see any difference at all, i'm the type of guy that literally has 25 different firefox windows open currently and the least amount of tabs per window is 3 the most is well over 20, once you start, basically as i surf i run across a link that i think i want to read through later, i will open that link in a separate tab for later viewing. as the number of tabs and windows goes up browsing starts to slow down significantly.

you need to keep in mind that when you surf the net there are two basic operations being performed simultaneously, one is downloading the data (html, xml, flash, java, java script, etc) and the other is rendering the data so it can be viewed.

since the rendering is traditionally 2d in nature and since 2d, for the most part, is done via software (which means that the cpu does all the rendering), if you attempt to perform multiple renders simultaneously (for instance, i have firefox setup to start with the last pages i had opened), starting up software based firefox from a current browsing session that i had shutdown takes a while.

also, because of the above, if i happen to be using certain video encoding applications that max out all 4 cores on my X4 620, browser rendering speed does take a noticeable hit, to the point where typing out a post like this results in the letters appearing in a slow jerky motion, much like when you are either running our of ram or virtual memory.

with a gpu accelerated browser this doesn't happen, in fact i can increase the priority of my encoding app (some apps seem to gain a bit of speed from a higher priority setting) and still browse at full speed.

for me, gpu accelerated browsing is like a God sent, i sit here wondering how the hell i ever lived without it.

maybe if you tried both versions on a page with lots of graphics, flash and the like you might see the difference.

[Soopafresh]

Looks like Vista or Windows 7 only.

[jagabo]

maybe if you tried both versions on a page with lots of graphics, flash and the like you might see the difference.

I have Flash, animated GIFs, and most ads blocked so I don't see lots of graphics. I rarely have more than three or four browser windows/tabs open. Guess it won't do anything for me.

[Ron B]

I often find myself with a half dozen Firefox tabs open, usually with some kind of graphics. This GPU acceleration is an interesting concept. Living in the boonies with a 1.5 Mbps internet connection, but an i7 computer, I wonder how it will play out for my situation.
I'm interested; but I cannot tell a lie, I won't fool around with a beta, let alone a "pre alpha". I wish the developers all the best, I hope open source is the future of personal computing.