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Introducing Opera 12 alpha

By Huib Kleinhouthuibk. Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:00:00 AM

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The last months Opera 12 snapshots have received two major updates of its JavaScript engine, Carakan, which make it more memory efficient and fully ECMAScript 5.1 compliant. Last week the new HTML 5 parser Ragnarök was added. Today Opera 12 alpha introduces another major technological milestone: full hardware acceleration with WebGL.

WebGL
WebGL in combination with new ECMAscript features like type arrarys makes it possible to develop and run games with high quality graphics in your browser. To demonstrate the possibilities of these new technologies Opera has ported the game Emberwind to HTML5. There are several other demos like Formula 1 and Don't click.

Full hardware acceleration
Opera aims to give the best possible performance for all users. This is why we already have a "software accelerated" backend in Vega. However with the new hardware accelerated backend Opera will draw the whole user interface using the GPU, not just specific elements of the webpage like the canvas element. This will offload the CPU significantly and make it possible to accelerate the rendering of all webpages. On systems with outdated drivers or buggy graphics cards, Opera will fallback to the heavily optimized Vega software rendering engine.

Currently hardware acceleration is in an alpha stage and only uses an OpenGL backend. We would like to get your feedback about how well it works for you. Opera 12 alpha works best with modern graphics cards and up to date drivers. In future snapshot we'll add support for DirectX and more graphics cards. Be aware that testing Opera 12 alpha can trigger bugs in your graphics card and in worst case blue screen your computer.faint scared

Themes
Opera 12 makes it easier than ever to personalize your browser. It's now possible to create simple lightweight themes based on a nice photos or other graphics. It's also easier to install and try out new and existing themes (previously called skins). Try them out here! They are currently only available for Windows and Mac (more information for Linux/FreeBSD users).

Check out what's new in Opera 12 alpha and have fun test driving Opera 12 alpha! knight

WARNING: This is an Opera 12.00 Alpha build: It is not feature complete and may have severe known issues, including crashes, and data loss situations. If you are uncomfortable with this, please use the latest stable Opera instead.

Download

Hardware accelerationNew Opera Labs release, with getUserMedia and Opera Reader

Comments

LeoCG Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:03:26 AM

yes

Let's test.

Vorlander Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:05:50 AM

party

Zimak Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:05:53 AM

doh

Stephen Turrellstve10 Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:07:03 AM

Great work wizard

chuuey Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:08:27 AM

wow, nice smile

netmain Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:09:35 AM

nice work, testing smile

blint63 Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:09:40 AM

Lets roll.

DavideDosky Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:11:18 AM

Yay yes

FitzTN Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:13:31 AM

It's slow and it takes a giant amout of RAM (over 630MB now) without reason. Win 7 x64

Ronit Kumarronitrex Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:15:57 AM

yes

sabisan Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:17:26 AM

On my work-computer with low-end GPU Opera is too slow for normal usage.

Win7x64
Geforce 9500GT

FitzTN Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:20:16 AM

With hardware acceleration disabled is everything "normal" again. My computer is a HP 8710p, and graphic card is nVidia Quadro NVS-320M with drivers 275.33

olli Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:24:28 AM

Originally posted by FitzTN:

With hardware acceleration disabled is everything "normal" again. My computer is a HP 8710p, and graphic card is nVidia Quadro NVS-320M with drivers 275.33



Tried upgrading your drivers?

Think 280.26 is tne latest: http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/notebook-win7-winvista-280.26-whql-driver-uk.html

Do a search here: http://www.nvidia.co.uk/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-uk

I just searched for win32 etc

Rijk Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:24:33 AM

Originally posted by FitzTN:

With hardware acceleration disabled is everything "normal" again. My computer is a HP 8710p, and graphic card is nVidia Quadro NVS-320M with drivers 275.33

This is nicely specific feedback that would be good example comment for http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/2011/10/12/hardware-acceleration

pursanovd Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:26:42 AM

Hanging, slow, eats more than 800Mb...Sometimes adds noise on the screen(on page reloads).
Widows 7 x64 geforce GT 230.
Hope to test this alpha more, but it seems too slow and strange =)
PS: Updated to latest nVidia drivers. Now Opera is fast as hell! =) Small issues on changing tabs(some latency), but overall looks OK. Continuing testing.

sabisan Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:28:53 AM

Originally posted by FitzTN:

With hardware acceleration disabled is everything "normal" again. My computer is a HP 8710p, and graphic card is nVidia Quadro NVS-320M with drivers 275.33



After I disabled hardware acceleration - things get back to normal too.

FitzTN Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:29:48 AM

@Olli: I know, but the newest drivers aren't so stable as 275.33 and are heating GPU a little more, so a lot of people are waiting for a better version to upgrade to. I can test it, if it could solve this problem :-).

@Rijk: I will post it there later, but would like to see if someone else has the same problems.

DrillSarge Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:36:20 AM

this snapshot takes 400-600 megs of ram oO

AECX Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:36:43 AM

This build does not work at all. It doesn't even launch under Linux Mint 11 64 bit. Had to uninstall and reinstall build 1090 to get Opera working again.

raghunandan85 Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:37:53 AM

Blurry fonts and UI elements. And quite slow (say to open tabs) + memory hog (>800MB with 10 tabs) with few tabs too. The blur clears once I hover over the UI elements.

How can I turn off hardware acceleration?

Windows7x64, NVIDIA 6200TC

erupt Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:38:06 AM

Originally posted by raghunandan85:

How can I turn off hardware acceleration?

Read this link, section: Testing. http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/2011/10/12/hardware-acceleration

Where can we get a list of the supported GPUs?

MichałEmdek Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:39:22 AM

Very nice. :-)

But tab bar is cut off on KDE:
http://simplest-image-hosting.net/jpg-0-plasma-desktoppb4961

But UI reacts like it was normal (I can click few pixels under buttons to access them).

EDIT
Whole rendering of page and UI (except of menu bar which still has incorrect background) is moved up:
http://simplest-image-hosting.net/jpg-0-plasma-desktopew4961

prasi666 Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:40:40 AM

no problems over here! (Win7 x64, C2D 2,66 GHz, HD 4350)

it's very fast and consumes as much RAM as always.

good work! smile

erupt Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:43:46 AM

Originally posted by DragonLP:

NO WORKhttp://alteredqualia.com/three/examples/webgl_cars.html

Have you checked in opera:gpu if your system actually works with HWA? "If the page says "Vega backend Software", try to upgrade your driver. Note that some cards are not supported by the vendor anymore, and these may still be blocked even if you have the latest driver for that card."

Read the full story on http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/2011/10/12/hardware-acceleration

АлександрDragonLP Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:45:11 AM

Originally posted by erupt:

Originally posted by DragonLP:

NO WORKhttp://alteredqualia.com/three/examples/webgl_cars.html

Have you checked in opera:gpu if your system actually works with HWA? "If the page says "Vega backend Software", try to upgrade your driver. Note that some cards are not supported by the vendor anymore, and these may still be blocked even if you have the latest driver for that card."

Read the full story on http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/2011/10/12/hardware-acceleration

Vega backend - OpenGl

MichałEmdek Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:47:01 AM

Originally posted by erupt:

Originally posted by DragonLP:

NO WORKhttp://alteredqualia.com/three/examples/webgl_cars.html

Have you checked in opera:gpu if your system actually works with HWA?


Mine has and this doesn't work (other examples works so far), hoiwever shows FPS but screen is black.

fisherman10 Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:50:35 AM

starred icon in gmail looks wrong.

Kilokiloza Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:52:27 AM

Originally posted by sabisan:

Originally posted by FitzTN:

With hardware acceleration disabled is everything "normal" again. My computer is a HP 8710p, and graphic card is nVidia Quadro NVS-320M with drivers 275.33



After I disabled hardware acceleration - things get back to normal too.

I have the same laptop... running Nvidia 285.38 drivers, Windows 7 x64... have also disabled gpu acceleration and it this snapshot now usable again. Very slow, sluggish, unresponsive with it on... memory sitting at the 1GB usage mark.

Strabs Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:56:08 AM

I am missing the _ [] x box on the right upper hand side.
Using windows 7 x32.

Also this release seems to have a high memory consumption and cpu usage.

TigTex Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:56:19 AM

Windows xp x64 with geforce fx5700 (drivers: nvidia 175.19 - latest for this gpu).
100% cpu usage, takes more than 2 minutes to have a completely distorted window browser with no rendering at all.

Sugestion: disable HW aceleration by default.

This Opera snapshot is unusable to me (1st time this happens)

Corey Mwambacoreymwamba Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:56:45 AM

Emberwind is running much faster here - I don't have hardware acceleration because my laptop is too old, but this build is really good and fast - in fact faster and more stable than the current stable. Great work.

openSUSE 11.3, 2GB RAM, Intel 855GM

hurug Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:57:48 AM

The close button (right up corner) is no longer visible.

MichałEmdek Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:59:16 AM

Disabling Hardware Acceleration fixes rendering bug here, everything is shown correctly and reacts normally to mouse events.
Also I'm adding next bug in KDE style, incorrect message box background:
http://simplest-image-hosting.net/jpg-0-plasma-desktopsg4961

nimu_channimuchan Thursday, October 13, 2011 8:00:01 AM

Thank you!! Very nice. downloading Now!!wink up

btyop Thursday, October 13, 2011 8:01:31 AM

Originally posted by pursanovd:

PS: Updated to latest nVidia drivers. Now Opera is fast as hell! =) Small issues on changing tabs(some latency), but overall looks OK. Continuing testing.


Agree with latency on changing tab, and closing tabs too. RAM consumption relatively much higher than previous snapshot, hopefully it's not a leak.

Smooth scrolling somewhat feels choppy in this build.

Win 7 32-bit. ATI Mobility Radeon HD 530v (driver: 8.743.2.2000)

mubaidr Thursday, October 13, 2011 8:03:20 AM

love love

ClashCityRockerclashcityrocker Thursday, October 13, 2011 8:05:08 AM

Performance seems chuggy on my system (quadcore X64, Windows 7, GeForce 7600 GS/PCI/SSE2, latest Geforce drivers).

But then it's alpha, and they have told us how to disable hardware accel. However I think it needs some serious work before beta.

xeon0541 Thursday, October 13, 2011 8:06:01 AM

when i click the cancel button on download dialog box that causing crash


windows xp sp3
display card: intel Q35 epxress chipset family

zogster Thursday, October 13, 2011 8:06:48 AM

Wow opera is very fast now. Good work Opera team !!!!

christopo Thursday, October 13, 2011 8:08:21 AM

How can i disable unfocusing effect on text? http://savepic.su/278594.png

MaximSailorMax Thursday, October 13, 2011 8:10:17 AM

New themes looks very strange on Windows XP + Opera with Main menu bar is on (no hardware acceleration) smile

wellofsouls Thursday, October 13, 2011 8:12:31 AM

great!!! cheers cheers cheers

Danieldesic Thursday, October 13, 2011 8:13:46 AM

I've had Opera Next crash out a couple of times while viewing the Formula 1 demo. It's fine just looking at it but if I do something else it can crash... but the crash report window doesn't load properly

eliotcougar Thursday, October 13, 2011 8:15:17 AM

Hardware "Accelerated" rendering is much slower than Software on GeForce 8400 GS... Everything is slower: scrolling, opening/closing tabs, tests on that Microsoft's IE10 testdrive website... I guess this card is too slow to be supported...

Windows7 x64

PS: I'll try this build on 8800GS later at home...

VitaliyVarrkan Thursday, October 13, 2011 8:18:10 AM

I'm sad.. It's so laggy with enabled HWA. Win 7 Ultimate x64 / GeForce GTX560Ti / Driver 280.26 WHQL

joshas Thursday, October 13, 2011 8:19:43 AM

WebGL support, finally! Thank you.
It is nice to see WebGL demos working in Opera, where Chromium gives video card not supported error on Linux. Of course, there were some crashes and interface sometimes act funny when WebGL demo runs, but I hope it will be fixed until Beta.
Overall perceived 3D performance I think is on par with Flash 11.
Tested on Ubuntu Linux 11.04 x86_64 with ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT video card with Catalyst drivers.

Fluxid Thursday, October 13, 2011 8:21:57 AM

Vega backend: OpenGL
Blocklist version: 1
Blocklist status for: 2D Supported
Blocklist status for: 3D Blocked driver version
Reason for 3D status: Mesa before 7.10.3 hangs when compiling shaders.
GL_VENDOR: Tungsten Graphics, Inc
GL_RENDERER: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Ironlake Desktop x86/MMX/SSE2
GL_VERSION: 2.1 Mesa 7.10.2

Sabayon GNU/Linux x86 with WMII window manager:

1. When switching windows Opera window appears black for a while
2. Opera's window titlebar doesn't appear active though window IS active
3. It takes few seconds to redraw window when changing its size
4. On http://magazyn-arigato.pl/ - the image carousel on the right hang for a while on last frame

Apart from that... it's friggin' fast. Zooming pages work super fast, while in stable opera 11.51 it hangs and stutters. Canvas animations are superfast too. I'm impressed.
Psychedelic browsing: 2046rpm while on stable only 7.
I guess it's the case where It Just Works (except WebGL)
And I'm checking it on my work computer which is poor, I'll test it later on my home computer with ATI card.

Didn't notice memory problems at all.

GreLI Thursday, October 13, 2011 8:23:47 AM

Transitions are still same (or nearly same) bloody slow on C2D E7500, GeForce GTS 250 with OpenGL backend (Win7 x64). Even tab animation is slow when hardware acceleration is off.
Glad to see pages with a lot of CSS3 working more smoothly. E.g. http://leaverou.github.com/prefixfree/, but glitches still present when you scroll while loading.
WebGL up
New themes are cool. I would like to see something like Firefox Sunset theme but in Opera style.
But there is many bugs with themes sad
1. No border on themed version (tried Brushed Metal).
2. Sometimes window doesn't fit correctly screen when maximizing it. Like it placed a little higher (about 10 pixels).
3. Window is not maximizing when dragging it to the top edge of the screen (Win7 feature) or by double clicking on the title (above tabs).
4. Reverting back to standard theme causes bugs with chrome:
http://thumbs.myopera.com/sz/colx/GreLI/albums/2448141/Op12themesbug.png?1318494848 - .
However, the latter isn't reproducing when hardware acceleration is off.

eliotcougar Thursday, October 13, 2011 8:24:53 AM

Originally posted by Varrkan:

I'm sad.. It's so laggy with enabled HWA. Win 7 Ultimate x64 / GeForce GTX560Ti / Driver 280.26 WHQL


Well... This means that the problem with my 8400GS is not it being slow, but rather some problem with HWA in Opera...

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