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Introducing Opera 12 alpha

October 13, 2011 · by Huib Kleinhout

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 On systems with outdated drivers or buggy graphics cards, Opera will fallback to the heavily optimized Vega software rendering engine.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

Readers' comments

Comments left by My Opera members under the original post: the first 50, as archived.

  • LeoCGThursday, October 13, 2011 7:03:26 AM

    yes

    Let's test.

  • VorlanderThursday, October 13, 2011 7:05:50 AM

    party

  • ZimakThursday, October 13, 2011 7:05:53 AM

    doh

  • Stephen Turrellstve10Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:07:03 AM

    Great work wizard

  • chuueyThursday, October 13, 2011 7:08:27 AM

    wow, nice smile

  • netmainThursday, October 13, 2011 7:09:35 AM

    nice work, testing smile

  • blint63Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:09:40 AM

    Lets roll.

  • DavideDoskyThursday, October 13, 2011 7:11:18 AM

    Yay yes

  • FitzTNThursday, 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 KumarronitrexThursday, October 13, 2011 7:15:57 AM

    yes

  • sabisanThursday, 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

  • FitzTNThursday, 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

  • olliThursday, 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

  • RijkThursday, 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

  • pursanovdThursday, 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.

  • sabisanThursday, 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.

  • FitzTNThursday, 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.

  • sonique88Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:30:27 AM

    WHY NOT DISABLE OPTION TAB STACK ????????????

    SUUUUUUUUUUUX OPTION AND NOT DISABLE


    very long time liar
    diasable option first finel relased the teb stack

    but no option disable

    liar team

  • DrillSargeThursday, October 13, 2011 7:36:20 AM

    this snapshot takes 400-600 megs of ram oO

  • AECXThursday, 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.

  • raghunandan85Thursday, 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

  • eruptThursday, 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?

  • MichałEmdekThursday, 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

  • АлександрDragonLPThursday, October 13, 2011 7:39:37 AM

    NO WORK

    http://alteredqualia.com/three/examples/webgl_cars.html

    cry

  • prasi666Thursday, 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

  • eruptThursday, 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

  • ugly95Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:44:45 AM

    The demos run nicely on my fairly old HD3850.

    I also notice the Speed Dial swap animations are very smooth. In previous snapshots the animation was choppy.

  • АлександрDragonLPThursday, 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

  • MichałEmdekThursday, 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.

  • fisherman10Thursday, October 13, 2011 7:50:35 AM

    starred icon in gmail looks wrong.

  • KilokilozaThursday, 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.

  • StrabsThursday, 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.

  • TigTexThursday, 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 MwambacoreymwambaThursday, 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

  • hurugThursday, October 13, 2011 7:57:48 AM

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

  • MichałEmdekThursday, 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_channimuchanThursday, October 13, 2011 8:00:01 AM

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

  • btyopThursday, 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)

  • XombiemubaidrThursday, October 13, 2011 8:03:20 AM

    love love

  • ClashCityRockerclashcityrockerThursday, 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.

  • xeon0541Thursday, 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

  • zogsterThursday, October 13, 2011 8:06:48 AM

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

  • christopoThursday, October 13, 2011 8:08:21 AM

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

  • MaximSailorMaxThursday, 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

  • wellofsoulsThursday, October 13, 2011 8:12:31 AM

    great!!! cheers cheers cheers

  • DanieldesicThursday, 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

  • eliotcougarThursday, 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...

  • VitaliyVarrkanThursday, 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

  • joshasThursday, 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.

  • FluxidThursday, 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.

About this article

Published inDesktop Team blog
DateOctober 13, 2011
AuthorHuib Kleinhout
Tagswebgl, 12, alpha, themes, hardware acceleration, 3d
OriginalInternet Archive

The Red O » Developers » Desktop Team blog » Introducing Opera 12 alpha

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