Opera 12 To Bring Ragnarök, GPU Accelerated Graphics

By | October 7, 2011 | 57 Comments

Opera 12 Brings Ragnarök, GPU Accelerated GraphicsDownload pre-alpha now.

The latest weekly build of Opera 12 web browser has few significant changes that are worth mentioning.

First of all, it now includes Ragnarök, Opera’s HTML5 parser engine (you can read more about it here), secondly, improved CSS3 gradient support and lastly, support for CSS3 radial gradients.

There is one more thing that is not yet mentioned. Remember when we said that opera:gpu shows a blank screen page? It now brings the following (when running on Windows 7 with ATI Radeon HD 5670 (DirectX 11) graphics card):

Opera 12 Brings Ragnarök, GPU Accelerated Graphics

However, some Opera 12 build users see something slightly different:

Opera 12 Brings Ragnarök, GPU Accelerated Graphics

Why one instance displays software while other says DirectX 10 remains to be seen.

However, while Opera is yet to make an official announcement, all signs point that Opera 12 will indeed support GPU accelerated graphics.

Download Opera 12 pre-alpha.

[Thanks, Shane Bundy]


About (Author Profile)


Vygantas is a former web designer whose projects are used by companies such as AMD, NVIDIA and departed Westood Studios. Being passionate about software, Vygantas began his journalism carrier back in 2007 when he founded FavBrowser.com. Having said that, he is also an adrenaline junkie who enjoys good books, fitness activities and Forex trading.

  • Leo

    Automatic tab-stacking is the feature I need more.

    • Anonymous

      I see people mentioning this and have not seen it in action (probably forgot to download a snapshot)

      What is it?

      Is it when tabs do not have room they stack?

    • Anon

      Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

    • Anonymous

      Option to disable stacking is the feature I need.

      • http://www.favbrowser.com Vygantas Lipskas

        This. At least disable it for locked tabs.

        • Armin

          Stop the pinning business all together and let users lock their tabs again as they were once able to.

  • IE & Opera FanBoy

    Very good!! Welcome back Opera!

  • OP

    Alpha is just around the corner

    • http://twitter.com/bricky149 Shane Bundy

      Expect Opera 12 Alpha on October 11.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_FRJ32FNCWQPONS46BFZW5TTBJU Jordan

    I’ve been waiting for this day a long, long time. With the release of 11.5 I put Opera down (only temporarily as a way to vent my frustration with them taking so long and making a release based on speed dial), and now it’s time to pick the king back up again.

    Welcome back.

  • http://twitter.com/Andylee_Sato Andylee_Sato

    One thing I don’t know: Is Opera going to be the first to have a full html5 parser or are the others ahead in this point? can’t find anything about that….

    • http://twitter.com/bricky149 Shane Bundy

      I think Chrome was the first, but I found it a bit buggy in HTML5 parsing.

      The first proper one that worked for me was in FF4.

      The only one without an HTML5 parser is Safari. IE9 doesn’t either but IE10 dev builds do.

  • Anonymous

    I sure hope that is a pre- alpha shot.

    Where is the openness that they promised?

    Why is it using DX?

    Where is OpenGL?

    You are saying that windows is going to have DX and you are going to port it to other platforms via OpenGL.

    DX 10 because XP goes up to (artificially) to DX 10 (There was a DX 11 patch for XP if I recall correctly)

    Ok Opera. Wow Me!

    • Cousin333

      As far as I know, it will use DirectX or OpenGL in Windows (down to XP) and OpenGL on any other platforms. And of course, there will be a software fallback just in case… If I got my facts right, DX10 won’t be necessary, but Opera will use it (and DX11 renderer) if available.

    • Anonymous

      That screenshot it fake.   How do I know?  Because I faked to to prove a point that idiots will believe everything they read on the internet….

      If you want to fool other idiots:

      1. Download the latest Opera snapshot.
      2. in your Opera/Styles directory copy opera.css and name it gpu.css
      3. open your language file (in Opera/locale/en/en.lng) change the entry: -1001100739=”Software”

      Fool lots of idiots….

      That is not to say Opera aren’t on the verge of launching their hardware accel, they are clearly (the fact the opera:gpu internal page exists almost certainly suggests this), but nobody has it right now.

      • http://twitter.com/bricky149 Shane Bundy

        Good thing I checked opera:gpu before reading this. So I wasn’t fooled. :)

      • Anonymous

        I did do opera:gpu before posting.

        Even if its a CSS hack it doesn’t mean that opera ISNT going to include this into V12.

        You are right though. Some people need to check facts before publishing.

        I’m guessing you question everything the media holds true.

        • http://twitter.com/bricky149 Shane Bundy

          The media can be deceiving. Fully agree with you on that comment.

        • http://my.opera.com/rafaelluik Rafael

          Hmm, presumably the first screenshot is from a user who’s graphic card / system settings doesn’t allow HA while the second might be a HA generated and stylized page.

          I don’t want to upset everyone but opera:gpu existence and content doesn’t means it’ll get into 12 final. They could be just testing it on the snapshots and internal stuff and all but it’ll be kept as a secret URL for testing on 12.0 while they completely develop HA on Opera and release it later as 12.5…

          • Anonymous

            Well if they do not include it then they will lose what small user base they had.

            It is not because it is a needed feature but the promises which they cannot seem to deliver.

            Deceiving at it’s best.

          • Grrblt

            They never said they would include it in version 12, so no promises will have been broken. You are the one who’s deceiving people.

          • Anonymous

            I never said they are deceiving users by not including HWA in version 12.

            Re-read please.

            It might help you

          • Grrblt

            Yes you did, but I’ll play along. Who and how exactly do you believe they are deceiving?

          • Anonymous

            What happens when I win?

            Will you donate to my paypal?

          • Grrblt

            Oh, look at you. You can’t even come up with an answer to my question. If you’re going to play the “that’s not what I said game”, you need to have an alternative interpretation that you can argue is what you really said. Since you apparently don’t even have that, it would be less embarrassing for you to just drop it right away.

          • Anonymous

            You are sad.

            Maybe read through some forum posts and blogs at Opera before you come crying to me about a foul.

            I am not here to do your homework.

            Take it or leave it.

          • Grrblt

            Why do you keep replying if you’re only going to skirt the issue? I asked you what you think you said, you’ve had two chances to tell me now so the fact that you haven’t only proves my point. Such a pathetic attempt to save face. Everyone who can read knows exactly what you said, so I’m not even going to start trying to figure out why you think you can change what you said by pointing to things on other blogs. You’re simply a stupid person who cannot admit a mistake.

          • Anonymous

            Why do you keep replying?

            IF you think you are right you shouldn’t be swayed by a reply.

            You are an idiot. You write something, throw it out the window then write something else.

            You mentioned game. I said what would I win? You disregarded that an started to attack me.

            Are you always right? Do you bicker like a 2 year old?

            Then you are sad.

            ————-

            You are yet one of those fanboys that are pissed at the company and seem to diss negativity at those whom see the true plight. Frog Man.

          • Grrblt

            I keep replying because the shit your write is too dumb not to be opposed. The only game I’ve mentioned is the one you keep playing; saying “no that’s not what I said” at every turn. You’re not going to get anything because it’s not possible for you to win it. It’s only possible to look more like an idiot with every post you make, until you stop playing it.

            Yes, I’m pretty much always right. It balances out by how you are pretty much always wrong.

          • Anonymous

            Seeing by your comments; you pretty much just pick a bone with anyone that oposses you. You defend one product. You claim shit. You are unable to offer a compromise. You will have to do much better than that if you want people to take you seriously.

            Thank you for playing

            Thank you for the ignorance.
            Hit me up next time and we’ll play again. Bye!

          • http://my.opera.com/rafaelluik Rafael

            Which promises? I mean, hardware acceleration wasn’t promised to be on 12.0.

      • Swapnil

        It is obvious that opera:gpu is under construction. And for the ones shouting that there is no OpenGL backend, then the opera:gpu page is currently a static page showing Vega backend as Software for almost all users. Don’t know how some users managed to get DX 10 as the backed.

    • http://twitter.com/bricky149 Shane Bundy

      Yes, this is a pre-alpha build of Opera.

      They did promise DX as well as OGL (which they already have) and they also said they will release it “when it’s ready”.

      Hope it’s sooner than later.

    • Anonymous

      “Where is the openness that they promised?”

      URL?

      “Why is it using DX?”Because that’s what you use on Windows?

      • Anonymous

        Why don’t you find something for yourself.

        I got one person agreeing.

        I cannot go back through god knowns when to pull some article.

        But DX is closed source.

        • Anonymous

          No URL? False claim then.

          Windows is closed source. Relevance?

  • http://martin.suchan.id.email.cz/ Martin Suchan

    This is a great news, but still Opera needs to implement Drag&Drop support. It is the only browser not supporting this feature and for some reason every time I mention this in some discussion I got deleted :)

    • Anonymous

      just because other browsers support it does not mean Opera needs to.   From what I recall it’s not even part of the ratified HTML5 standard…

      I don’t think I have ever found a need for it.

      • http://twitter.com/bricky149 Shane Bundy

        I have. I use it all the time in Firefox and Chrome. If Opera had D&D it would be even better.

    • Anonymous

      Opera may be intentionally avoiding implementation of the Drag and Drop API.

      Read this passionate rant against it on QuirksMode. If you are sensitive to profuse profanity usage, you may want to install my Opera PageScrubber extension before visiting the page. :)

  • Dkgfmdfg

    tried it, it scores 321 on HTML5 test, while firefox 8 scores 314

    but firefox displays it better, the score font is smooth, while on all the other browsers ive tried – ie9, opera 12, chrome 16 its not smooth

    my conclusion is that firefox is the browser of the highest quality

    • Kai

      I must say I recently comared some fonts in Opera and FF by making them both fullscreen and tabbing between the two, and Opera looked better, I have the feeling FF had Problems with the hinting.
      But try it out yourself: (I used FF 7.0.1 and Opera 11.51)
      http://kai.middleton.de/kiste/?soundschnipselTest

      By the way, I desinged the site .)

      • Dkgfmdfg

        as i said – things are displayed the best with Firefox on my computer, i just tried that webpage and only firefox displayed the weird space font, all other browsers used times new roman, or something like that

        • http://twitter.com/bricky149 Shane Bundy

          Nope. Fonts definitely work in both FF and Opera. Looks indifferent to me.

    • Cousin333

      In fact, it scores 331 points after you manually switch on WebSocket support here: opera:config#UserPrefs|EnableWebSockets

  • Mikah

    Just noticed the opera:config info buttons actually work no more try & pray for the moment at least.

    • Anonymous

      Its been working a few builds back.

    • http://my.opera.com/rafaelluik Rafael

      The help link above it has more content anyway.

  • Mikah

    The cats out of the bag  Hardware acceleration snapshot on Thursday & Opera 12 final with Hardware acceleration by end of the year.
    http://www.opera.com/portal/unw/

    http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20118416-264/opera-12-to-get-graphics-hardware-boost/

    Will it be just Windows for now ? I will be seriously impressed if Windows XP benefits in the Alpha releases. 

    • Anonymous

      Thats a relief. Be sure to submit it to Vygantas.

      • Mikah

        The snapshot is tomorrow he’ll spot that.
        “Everything is accelerated,” said Jan Standal, Opera’s vice president of desktop products, in an interview today at the company’s Up North Web press event here about Opera 12. “The whole user interface.” Specifically, that means hardware acceleration for Cascading Style Sheets transitions and animations, for Canvas 2D drawing, and for text, he said. And Opera 12 gets support for the WebGL 3D graphics technology–also hardware-acclerated.”
        Sounds great but expect bugs & lots of graphics cards not supported ?

  • Mikah

    The register has focused more on the mobile side
    I particularly like
    “Two versions are available for mobile users: both use Opera’s vast global cloud surfing infrastructure (recently copied by Amazon)”
    and
    “ Most, if not almost all innovations in desktop web browsing over the past decade have been created at Opera – and then shamelessly cloned by copycats: from tabs, to speed dial, to proxy acceleration. What’s new in 12 is less visually dramatic.The bleeding-edge desktop Opera, version 12, includes support for hardware acceleration via WebGL, with Angry Birds one of the games showcased.”

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/11/opera_browser_new_technologies/

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