Results: Flash
The GUIMark 2 Flash performance of a browser is extremely dependent on the available version of the Flash player. We have seen performance differences of up to 80% with different versions of Flash. We used the latest Flash 10.2 for this test run. No surprises here – IE9 remains the dominant Flash browser. IE9 loses only one discipline – however with a significant distance. The Flash Text test, a test which simulates dynamically changing text and column sizes, yielded a very low score on the notebook. Firefox 4 shows much improved scores over Firefox 3.6, but trails IE overall. IE wins this category 5:1 for a cumulative standing of 7:7.
Results: HTML5
GUIMark2 runs the three Flash tests in HTML5 versions and we are seeing a different picture here. Firefox wins all three tests on the desktop system with the fast graphics card while IE claims two wins on the notebook. The new standing is 11:9 in favor of Firefox. If we add the result of HTML5test.com (Firefox4: 249, IE9:135), the lead grows to 13:9.
Asteroids C2D is among the best independent Canvas 2D tests available and simulates scenarios of complex HTML5 games and effects with drawImage, drawImage scaling, alpha, composition, shadows and text functions. IE9 excels in this test and seems to be at least one generation ahead of its rivals. It distances Firefox by a factor of almost 4:1. The new standing: 13:11.
Microsoft’s Mr. Potato Gun test has also been among our favorites and it appears as if Microsoft has made tremendous progress in this particular benchmark since IE9 Beta. IE9 is about three times as fast and Firefox in this acceleration test. 13:13.
Since there is reason to believe that Microsoft could give its IE9 an unfair advantage in its own benchmarks over its rivals, we have added Mozilla’s HW acceleration stress test to our lineup. Both browsers score 64 fps on the notebook, but IE9 virtually destroys Firefox on the desktop with 287 vs. 91 fps. The final standing is 14:15 for IE9.
Conclusion
All right. Take the 14:15 result for IE9 with a grain of salt. There are plenty of benchmarks out there that cater to the individual strengths of browsers and if you wanted Mozilla to win, you surely can set it up that way. We haven’t set this benchmark up with that result in mind and it does not matter anyway. Firefox 4 and IE9 are substantially upgraded browsers when compared to their predecessors and show few weaknesses in any benchmark. It is somewhat obvious that Firefox has a great JavaScript engine, while it is apparent that IE9′s greatest potential lies in hardware acceleration. IE9′s hardware acceleration engine is the one to beat today.
Firefox 4 is a solid and modern browser that, however, may arrive a bit too late. It delivers on its expectations, but it lost its excitement somewhere between beta 7 and beta 12. The browser is competitive, but Mozilla cannot waste any time with Firefox 5. Firefox 4 could possibly stop the market share bleeding, but it does not have the unique feature set and appeal to win users back from Chrome. Once there is a conclusive web app integration and the sync feature is much easier to use, we should see Firefox gaining traction again.
Pages: 1 2
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
