Internet Explorer 11 Will Use Your GPU to Make Everything Fast
Microsoft's next-generation web browser will use your graphics hardware for more than just Crysis.
Besides Windows 8.1, another big topic at Microsoft Build 2013 is Internet Explorer 11. Not surprisingly, IE11 was designed with touch technologies heavily in mind, given the new focus of Windows 8 and the new generation of devices. IE11 will also allow users to pin active and live tiles to the Start Screen, rather than just a static link. Websites that still use mouse-over hover features, such a Ebay's navigation tabs, rarely worked well on tablets, but IE11 preserves that functionality.
Under the hood, IE11 has further speed improvements. Microsoft boasts that current testing has IE11 performing better on the SunSpider benchmark better than the rest of the pack. Microsoft further demonstrated its speed leadership by showing off a WebGL page with a rotating Windows logo. On IE11, the animations were smooth, while running the same demo on Firefox was very slow and laggy. A similar grass growing demo called Lawn Mark also showed IE11 as being faster than the latest Google Chrome.
While we're sure that the engineering team has done what it can to optimize performance in software, a the performance delta shown between IE11 and the rest is all thanks to hardware acceleration. All the demonstrations were GPU accelerated. Not only did the video acceleration make multimedia smoother, but also the rendering of text, the scrolling of web pages, and the entire JPEG pipeline. Microsoft claims that IE11 renders text 30% faster than the competition.
Other improvements behind the scenes include web pre-fetching, pre-render, and instant back navigation. This means less waiting and could be a boon to those on slower connections. IE11 will also support adaptive streaming, which will make for a better YouTube experience. Microsoft also demonstrated Netflix running inside the browser in HTML5 -- no Silverlight plugin needed.
Just as how Windows 8.1 allows for more multi-window option, so too does IE11. Other new features include tabs displaying in the modern app mode, as well as syncing of tabs, favorites and frequently visited sites across devices -- if the user chooses to. Taking a page from other browsers, IE11 offers a feature called Reading List that can save a webpage for future reading.
IE11 is shaping up to be a browser that will change people's perceptions of Internet Explorer. To reach as big a reach as possible, IE11 will also be available on Windows 7.
Those interested in checking out a preview of IE11 right now can find it on the Windows Store.
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
-
This is awesome, I hope Google and Mozilla implement this into their browsers, makes browsing awesome for gamers :DReply
This would also be an effective move on the 360 I think -
Cryio "Internet Explorer 11 Will Use Your GPU to Make Everything Fast"Reply
Weren't versions 9 and10 already doing this with dazzling results?
More to the point, it seem Internet Explorer 11 will do with hardware acceleration what Opera intentionally wanted. Accelerate EVERYTHING, including the UI and the text itself. -
Cryio It's also sad to see how Opera pioneered HWA, yet they are the last of the bunch to actually implement it. Soon not even in their own engine.Reply -
plattyaj I'd prefer it if they just fixed it to work with all the sites, or bits of sites they broke with IE10!Reply -
Jerky_san Wouldn't this mean increased power consumption as if you have a discrete card it may be unable to bring the power to idle consumption?Reply -
fleeb Firefox does not draw 70 W more power despite hardware acceleration option has been part of it since v4.Reply -
irish_adam The slowness of IE updates means that even if it is faster at launch their lead will be gone in a few weeks and by the time IE12 comes IE11 will be uselessReply