Peek at the Core of 3D, WebGL, and Hardware Acceleration

March 2, 2011 · by .ed

At Opera, we know you expect us to keep innovating and to open the web for as many users as possible, it's part of what we do. That's why I'm happy to share this little bit of news with you about the progress being made on WebGL and hardware acceleration for web browsing. Our Core developers explain it in much greater detail here.

WebGL

WebGL stands for Web Graphics Library. A development of the Khronos group, WebGL is used for writing web applications utilizing hardware accelerated 3D graphics in JavaScript. Our developers have been a part of the standardization process since the beginning.

More Operating Systems, More Devices

Like Opera some other web browsers offer full hardware acceleration of all draw operations for Windows Vista/7, but at Opera we handle things in a different way. We want everyone to be able to experience rich content on the web. "Our implementation will run on any OS with sufficient hardware support." Tim Johansson explains, "This means we can have full hardware acceleration on Windows XP, Linux, Mac OS X and OpenGL ES 2 capable devices such as recent smart-phones and web-enabled TVs."

Opera will offer the same rich future web content to more devices, new devices, and older devices.

So, if you're into experimental downloads and providing feedback, or doing you're own testing, pass through to the Core Concerns blog ...and read the disclaimers!

Readers' comments 14

Left under the original article, as archived.

Charles SchlossWednesday, March 2, 2011 5:47:37 AM
TamilWednesday, March 2, 2011 5:49:11 AM
d4rkn1ghtWednesday, March 2, 2011 6:28:58 AM
KlausHollWednesday, March 2, 2011 7:11:56 AM
WebGl and HWA rules!
But now it doesn't work for me
I am waiting when Core team will make DirectX support
DanielWednesday, March 2, 2011 7:20:25 AM
Wow! I've gotta' have a play with this!
walterWednesday, March 2, 2011 7:40:22 AM
Mağruf ÇolakoğluWednesday, March 2, 2011 8:02:02 AM
Zdenko TimulakWednesday, March 2, 2011 9:48:57 AM
AhsanUllahBurkiWednesday, March 2, 2011 11:05:22 AM
i love opera..fastest complete browser
cobaWednesday, March 2, 2011 2:15:26 PM
I'm waiting, thanks.
Manuel Andreas KuhnWednesday, March 2, 2011 5:20:03 PM
Downloadsquad made a comparison of FF4, this Opera Build, Chrome 10 and IE9.

Heres the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU-cpc8XpDo
Nico ThomasWednesday, March 2, 2011 11:16:43 PM
"or doing you're own testing, pass through to the Core Concerns blog ...and read the disclaimers!"

Isn't it "your" instead of "you're" in that context?

Grtz,
~ Nephatiu
AbandonShip?Thursday, March 3, 2011 10:12:42 PM
" will run on any OS with sufficient hardware support." Tim Johansson explains, "This means we can have full hardware acceleration on Windows XP, Linux, Mac OS X "

-> NICE !

I want a Time-Mashine (to use it today)
cobaSaturday, March 12, 2011 6:02:16 PM
Do this support on XP 64 bit server 2003?