My Opera
Introducing Opera 12 alpha
By Huib Kleinhouthuibk. Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:00:00 AM
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 On systems with outdated drivers or buggy graphics cards, Opera will fallback to the heavily optimized Vega software rendering engine.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.
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!
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
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.
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!
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
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Maurits Korsemauritskorse # Thursday, October 13, 2011 12:47:51 PM
For me it seems to be good enough to work normally with it! Well done guys!
Some issues I came across are mainly graphical:
- border radius do not always seem to look good (ie buttons on old gmail theme)
- padding in inline progress bar is not sufficient.
- Emberwind game seems to have some artefacts in the black border/outlines around the text chars.
- Restart after crash causes window to not be properly sized: first it is stretched all to the bottom of the screen. Using the top-right resisze button then causes the screen to move up a little to hight (hiding half of the buttons and tabs), next resize seems to work, although sometimes the windows menu bar is slightly covered with a lighter line (seems to be some shadow artefacts)
- crash when selecting text (at least when ::selection is used in style sheet)
- sometimes fonts seem blurry (too much anti aliasing?), sometimes not anti aliased at all).
system:
Win 7 pro
ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series
(btw. never noticed this before, but the red warning above this textarea is blinking slowly red/black ??)
DayderDay # Thursday, October 13, 2011 12:50:58 PM
BernG # Thursday, October 13, 2011 12:51:57 PM
So slow that I had to fall back to 1090. This happens when hardware acceleration is set to disabled. I can't use acceleration anyway since my legacy video drivers for my old video card does not support it.
Charles SchlossChas4 # Thursday, October 13, 2011 12:52:25 PM
Check for update after selected on Mac, the text and buttons are missing OS x 10.7.2
predator2104 # Thursday, October 13, 2011 12:56:40 PM
How??
tenplus1 # Thursday, October 13, 2011 1:01:10 PM
Also, the 'plugins on demand' problem is still there, when enabled it should stop all flash from loading but I still see things loading in the background with the 'show inside address bar'... This is NOT saving any bandwidth for users...
kleber # Thursday, October 13, 2011 1:21:27 PM
Originally posted by predator2104:
There is a article in here: http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/operas-lightweight-themes/netmen # Thursday, October 13, 2011 1:26:44 PM
morbit # Thursday, October 13, 2011 1:27:35 PM
$ ./opera-next
No kernel support for execution fencing, disabling texture tiling
No kernel support for execution fencing, disabling texture tiling
Only spawned black window (license dialogue)?.
FreeBSD 9.0-BETA3 #0 r226310 amd64, dwm 5.9
GM45 with xf86-video-intel-2.7.1_4
*Yes, it was license dialogue. After literally blindly accepting, browser
window is also blank.
eliotcougar # Thursday, October 13, 2011 1:29:03 PM
Everything is smooth and fast... Microsoft's tests are very fast (7 seconds in SpeedReading, 7600 Revolutions in Psychedelic)
Most importantly, I don't experience any lags or stutter...
Both systems are Windows 7 x64, same CPU, same amount of RAM, same video driver version (285.26)... The only difference is the video card model...
DillonAstrophizz # Thursday, October 13, 2011 1:29:44 PM
fisherman10 # Thursday, October 13, 2011 1:34:12 PM
happens too frequently and it's very irritating.
Robsonrobsonpc # Thursday, October 13, 2011 2:01:07 PM
Seven 64 bits
AMD V140 - 2GB DDR3 - ATI HD 4250 - 250GB HDD
Sylwester Kosiksylwesterkosik # Thursday, October 13, 2011 2:01:47 PM
Aha, and most important: http://i54.tinypic.com/548y9s.jpg
...after 60 sec of use.
Sorry but now I can't use Opera Browser.
Please fix this as soon as possible !!
earth01 # Thursday, October 13, 2011 2:04:49 PM
alharawi # Thursday, October 13, 2011 2:06:37 PM
Originally posted by harlekinmond:
Confirmed in some random case, when opening a web page or a opera:xxxxx page. Closing the page solved the problem and everything came back to normal.
Cristiancristianer # Thursday, October 13, 2011 2:12:05 PM
r2x0t # Thursday, October 13, 2011 2:14:47 PM
Using latest NVidia drivers, GTX 470 card.
**EDIT: Happens all the time, even with software vega renderer!
Also for some reason, when acceleration is enabled, Opera is taking much more CPU as well - ~60% when just scrolling this page. That's more than triple of what software renderer uses and it's enough to cause other programs to stutter.
One more problem with GPU accel: On dual monitor setup with two cards, you can't move window from one desktop to another. GPU rendering is locked to 1st card and will not draw anything on 2nd one. I guess it's impossible to render one half of the window on one GPU and other half on other, but at least moving entire window from one desktop to another should work. (DSK-348175)
Visual bug: When dragging tab, small preview that follows mouse is flickering a lot when moving over other tabs.
I hope for Opera 12.0, *REGRESSIONS* gets higher priority, I'm still stuck with 10.something version because functionality I need is broken in later versions.
feld # Thursday, October 13, 2011 2:17:29 PM
OS: FreeBSD 8-STABLE amd64
GL_VENDOR NVIDIA Corporation
GL_RENDERER GeForce 9300 GE/PCI/SSE2
GL_VERSION 3.3.0 NVIDIA 285.05.09
Paulo Aguiarpauloaguia # Thursday, October 13, 2011 2:17:54 PM
If I turn off HW acceleration all is good
Windows XP
GL_VENDOR NVIDIA Corporation
GL_RENDERER GeForce 7300 GS/PCI/SSE2
GL_VERSION 2.1.2
ownedowns # Thursday, October 13, 2011 2:22:12 PM
Random text and picure blurring.
Blurring text on scrolling.
Scrolling is choppy on many web pages.
Even opera interface is blurry sometimes (and every time on start).
Blurring google search results when I place mouse over result link.
Something is wrong with "right click popup menu" shadow. It's flashing when moving mouse over it's menus and submenus.
Most of the time tab previews are flashing then disappear.
OS: WinXP Pro 32bit
GPU: nVidia 7600GS 256MB AGP8x, driver version 280.26
CPU: AthlonXP 2500+ (no SSE2)
fisherman10 # Thursday, October 13, 2011 2:22:30 PM
krnlpk # Thursday, October 13, 2011 2:22:36 PM
Not working on same hardware on linux amd64 (Arch Linux), driver i910, inter graphic card 3150. opera:gpu shows that opengl is present, but no acceleration at all is working.
flatter # Thursday, October 13, 2011 2:24:10 PM
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...
Very funny. I had such card. It's good enough for Quake 3 and bad for the browser? Opera have so complex graphics?
czeci # Thursday, October 13, 2011 2:28:00 PM
Old-Nick # Thursday, October 13, 2011 2:32:18 PM
GregorW # Thursday, October 13, 2011 2:36:43 PM
They no longer work in this version.
(Windows XP, other programs are fine.)
Joonas Lehtolahtigodjonez # Thursday, October 13, 2011 2:41:25 PM
The scrolling seems a bit annoying with scroll wheel, it doesn't draw the new content immediately but you can see a "ghost" image of the old content there for split second. With smooth scrolling that's quite annoying. Interestingly with autoscroll using the middle mouse button that does not happen and the new content seems to appear immediately during scrolling.
7l2um # Thursday, October 13, 2011 2:42:02 PM
The cause occurs when the following is described in skin.ini.
[Generic]
Selected text color = #fffff0
Selected text bgcolor = #bc1b45
Selected text color nofocus = #fffff0
Selected text bgcolor nofocus = #bc1b45
I do not understand whether this is bug or it is the one depending on the change in the specification.
And, the bug(DSK-333391 & DSK-345019) of the japanese input method(uim-skk) has not been fixed yet. Fix it Pleeeaaase!
***************************
Debian Squeeze x86_64
Openbox: 3.4.11.1-1
uim-skk: 1:1.5.7-9.1
GPU: Radeon Xpress 1250(RS600)
voyager75000 # Thursday, October 13, 2011 2:48:49 PM
juicemz # Thursday, October 13, 2011 2:55:52 PM
So I'm very sorry, but i had to disable HWA. I really don't like idea to use HWA on the whole browser GUI, CPUs nowadays are fast enough and most people will have low performance GPUs in their notebooks etc...and why would you want 2 components of your notebook to produce heat instead of one?
I also tried to use Themes with HWA disabled, but it won't let me minimize Opera by clicking on the taskbar when using any of them...
Still i like the new combined url- and web-search, nice work there!
It would be nice though, if you could use a different search provider in the search field than in the address bar!
foxtrotangeltown # Thursday, October 13, 2011 3:00:47 PM
nesl247 # Thursday, October 13, 2011 3:09:17 PM
Alwyn van DeventerFunkyMunky1723 # Thursday, October 13, 2011 3:09:23 PM
The links at the top of the page should have drop-down links when you hover over them - which do not function in this version of Opera. Thus, you can only navigate to the top hierarchy pages of the individual sections, but not the subsections.
Marekmtww # Thursday, October 13, 2011 3:13:48 PM
Originally posted by mtww:
With a clean install works fine, update ... crash.Obese MauriceObeseMaurice # Thursday, October 13, 2011 3:14:52 PM
Alwyn van DeventerFunkyMunky1723 # Thursday, October 13, 2011 3:18:15 PM
Or at least not once you installed one of the standard themes...
Ferrisferrisnox # Thursday, October 13, 2011 3:18:41 PM
michalmisiu # Thursday, October 13, 2011 3:19:47 PM
http://simplest-image-hosting.net/png-0-opera-gont-bug
RobMintsoft # Thursday, October 13, 2011 3:28:13 PM
It appears that this is related to alpha or box-shadows, especially with extension popups.
minho # Thursday, October 13, 2011 3:33:32 PM
ubuntu 11.10 x32
Bugfixer # Thursday, October 13, 2011 3:33:44 PM
Win7 32Bit
Geforce 7600GS
Driver version 280.26
ChrisSlamdex # Thursday, October 13, 2011 3:35:26 PM
Originally posted by Mintsoft:
Could you be more vague? It not difficult enough to understand what exactly you are talking about... Who needs a proper description and actual examples?eilegz # Thursday, October 13, 2011 3:39:24 PM
My main issue for now its that the menu bar do not get change in the background by THEME elements so obviously it will look very out of place, plus are we really need the highlight there? its there a way to disable it....
here its the image of my current theme as you see the only element that it looks out of place its the menu bar
http://imgur.com/9RgRd
JackWagon # Thursday, October 13, 2011 3:50:57 PM
Also, I don't mean to insult anyone's intelligence, but for neophyte Linux users, I would imagine you will need to install 3rd party proprietary drivers to realize the full potential of your video adapter to accelerate Opera.
Kudos, Opera team. I'm in love.
Maximmax1c # Thursday, October 13, 2011 3:54:08 PM
bleicher # Thursday, October 13, 2011 3:56:24 PM
kameman # Thursday, October 13, 2011 3:59:26 PM
could anyone confirm??
Arsenytarc # Thursday, October 13, 2011 4:05:16 PM
Originally posted by alharawi:
Confirmed. 10.7.2
Also there're random empty rectangle blocks with different sizes over whole interface.
Radial gradients from http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/css3-radial-gradients/radial_gradients_demo.html are not work at all
Léon McGregorleonmcg # Thursday, October 13, 2011 4:05:41 PM
Nvidia geforce 6150SE Display adapter
1.75 GB RAM, dual processor
no GPU
Does not take up lots of Ram [338 MB], but still seems to run slowly.
All Text, images an links appear Blurry, but still readable. when mouse hovers over a link or bookmark folder, the text unblurrs.
The browser crashes whenever speed dial is accessed.
Taskbar thumbnails take a long time to load.