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Filed under: Beta, Browsers, Web

Futuremark gets into browser benchmarking with Peacekeeper

Futuremark's 3dMark has long been a favorite way of mine to perform near-crippling tests on freshly-built systems. One of their more recent projects is aimed at a slightly less intimidating foe than 3d gaming: web browser javascript benchmarking.

Called Peacekeeper, the new app makes a lot of sense for Futuremark. As one of the key brands in computer benchmarking, it's only logical that they would want in on comparative browser testing. In Internet Explorer, you'll be asked to install an ActiveX control - other browsers will run the test without any add-ins. Tests were patterned after real-world browsing using sites like YouTube, Facebook, GMail, and Meebo.

To see how your default browser scores, just point it to http://service.futuremark.com/peacekeeper/. Once the test completes, your score will be displayed. To test another browser, just click the button and you'll be given a link to copy and paste.

As with other Futuremark apps, you can also see how your results stack up to other system configurations - including the one currently owning the high score. The Intel Q9650-powered rig posted numbers about four times higher than those of my trusty notebook.

I sure wish Intel would make with the mobile quad cores already.

Filed under: Internet, Beta, Browsers

Will Opera claim the Javascript speed title?

There's no denying that Opera has a loyal following, yet it continues to languish in relative obscurity in the shadows of Firefox and Internet Explorer, and now Google Chrome. Could Opera's new Javascript engine (codenamed Carakan) be the key to more widespread acceptance?

A recent blog entry on the Opera web site states that "Carakan is currently about two and a half times faster at the SunSpider benchmark than the ECMAScript engine in Presto 2.2 (Opera 10 Alpha).

On my laptop running an Intel T5500, Opera 10 posts a total time of 5006.4ms. Even at 2.5 times faster, that's still not as fast as the 1410.2ms Chrome 2.0.160.0 puts up. In fact, the projected 2002.6ms time is 50% slower than Chrome.

That said, Sunspider is only a benchmark. What really matters is how browsers compare to each other in real use, and Opera 10 alpha certainly "feels" like it's competitive with Chrome and Firefox.

The Opera development team also reports that "other benchmarks" with which Carakan is already compatible report results that range from 5 to 50 times faster than Futhark. There's no mention of what the tests involved, but it's fair to say that if those numbers can be translated into real world performance Opera will be in a good position to throw down the gauntlet.

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So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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