The next version of Chrome will help older computers catch up with rapidly accelerating Web-based graphics. The upcoming Chrome release will improve the performance of hardware-accelerated 2D animations using Canvas, which include many Web-based games and other graphically-intensive sites.
It will also let systems with older GPUs use SwiftShader for 3D graphics instead of WebGL, which older GPUs can’t handle. It won’t look quite as good, but users with older systems will still get more 3D content than they currently can. The new Chrome beta with these features is available today.
Many of Google’s recent browser-based updates have pushed the envelope on hardware performance. For example, in October, Google released 3D views in Google Maps that use WebGL, so lower-end GPUs can’t display them. Even some relatively new laptops can’t handle WebGL. The new SwiftShader capabilities in Chrome will bring some these 3D graphics to less capable systems.
Other recent Chrome releases contained advanced audio APIs and the ability to run native code inside the browser. Others focused on speeding up page loads by pre-caching pages. Chrome engineers are even building new image formats to push the Web forward. These uncompromising updates were moving pretty quickly for a while, so the next version of Chrome will let older computers catch up.
If you feel like testing Google’s browser capabilities as soon as they come out of the shop, jump in the Chrome beta channel.
