PowerFox Web Browser - A brand new browser for PowerPC (Beta)

[atarixle]

@Jazzzny himself said the graphics acceleration wouldn't make much difference. Besides that wouldn't account for the disparity between similar machines.

Oh, sorry, then I go your previous post wrong ... I minstakenly believed it compared Aquafox to Powerfox.
Knowing that GPU acceleration wouldn't make a huge difference is actually good for my Powerbook G4 12", as a previous post here descripes problems with the built-in GPU, and Jazzzny is about to blacklist it (it's the Nvidia FX5200 if I remember correctly).

EDIT: I see in this Forum it is still allowed to list all the owned devices in the signature ... may be I actually will add some of my machines too, while I guess I'd better limit it to my PowerPC machines.

 

[Jazzzny]

After some more testing, I believe that our graphics acceleration actually does provide a pretty nice performance gain, especially on machines with weaker processors on graphics-heavy tasks such as playing video. It seems like offloading the browser redraw to the GPU has really helped with performance in that regard.

 

[Dronecatcher]

After some more testing, I believe that our graphics acceleration actually does provide a pretty nice performance gain, especially on machines with weaker processors on graphics-heavy tasks such as playing video. It seems like offloading the browser redraw to the GPU has really helped with performance in that regard.

I just can't figure why my G5 is only good for 360P but @OuchMyFaceyHole 's G5 does 1080P - 0.3Ghz shouldn't make that much difference?
And the Quadro card I know for a fact is no improvement for GUI and video over the 6600 - despite the OpenMark score.

 

[barracuda156]

And the Quadro card I know for a fact is no improvement for GUI and video over the 6600

Based on what?

 

[Dronecatcher]

Based on what?

My tests:

Do I Need A Better Graphics Card....

That's the question I've asked myself again and again when I've suspected I could just get that little bit more performance out of my machine..... So, spying a NVIDIA Quadro FX4500 on ebay for a reasonable(ish) price, I decided to find out. My existing card was a NVIDIA Geforce 6600 which is...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[barracuda156]

My tests:

Do I Need A Better Graphics Card....

That's the question I've asked myself again and again when I've suspected I could just get that little bit more performance out of my machine..... So, spying a NVIDIA Quadro FX4500 on ebay for a reasonable(ish) price, I decided to find out. My existing card was a NVIDIA Geforce 6600 which is...

forums.macrumors.com

It doesn’t necessarily follow from that post that there is “no improvement for GUI and video over the 6600” though. It just shows that in some scenarios the difference is negligible. I agree that results look generally disappointing, yet they are inconclusive (at least nothing there justifies “for a fact” part).

 

[Dronecatcher]

It doesn’t necessarily follow from that post that there is “no improvement for GUI and video over the 6600” though. It just shows that in some scenarios the difference is negligible. I agree that results look generally disappointing, yet they are inconclusive (at least nothing there justifies “for a fact” part).

Why would I do comprehensive tests that aren't relevant to my everyday use to prove the capabilities of the card? The card is allegedly good for gaming and CAD - 2 things I don't do.

I did tests that were absolutely relevant to the performance increase I was expecting.

 

[MacFoxG4]

So glad to see this browser for PPC! Typing this from my Sawtooth now. The Sawtooth has a 1.5ghz CPU upgrade instead of the original CPU. This browser has been working great so far. Making bookmarks works, downloading files works, the forum works and TenFour Fox PEP works with this browser too. I did try playing a YouTube video and it played, but then a warning would pop up about a script and no matter if I clicked stop the script or continue, the video would freeze at the 1 minute mark. Reloading the page doesn't fix it and hitting pause and waiting a few seconds for the video to buffer doesn't fix it either. Not sure of resolution, but it was a good framerate with only brief stutters. Still, for one glorious minute I was able to get in browser YouTube on this Mac for the first time in years.

 

[Jazzzny]

Hey all, I've prepared a new release of PowerFox for PPC:

Release 26.2.1 PowerPC Beta · Jazzzny/powerfox-browser

Beta release for PowerPC Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Fixed OpenGL acceleration on ATI X1000 series GPUs Fixed black window issue on GeForce FX series GPUs Fixed crash on launch on non-QECI GPUs (i.e. Rad...

github.com

• Fixed OpenGL acceleration on ATI X1000 series GPUs
• Fixed black window issue on GeForce FX series GPUs
• Fixed crash on launch on non-QECI GPUs (i.e. Radeon 9200, GeForce 4MX, etc.)
• Fixed blue hue on videos when the browser is running without OpenGL acceleration

Enjoy, and let me know what you think.
- Jazzzny

 

[barracuda156]

Still, for one glorious minute I was able to get in browser YouTube on this Mac for the first time in years.

Specifically for YouTube you could use QMPlay2, which will arguably have a better performance than any browser in principle.

 

[MacFoxG4]

Specifically for YouTube you could use QMPlay2, which will arguably have a better performance than any browser in principle.

I just thought it would be fun to try in browser YouTube on this new browser. I normally use PPCMC to download videos and play them on QuickTime/VLC. Been doing so ever since PPCMC 7 came out.

 

[z970]

It's alive!! It's finally alive!!

My jaw hit the floor when I first saw the record-high frame rate of page scrolling in PowerFox for PPC, and then after some coaxing was able to smoothly stream a 720p video in regular YouTube without any tricks or user agents, which hasn't been possible for nearly a decade (and even then we needed WebKit to reach such feats)! Furthermore most web apps I tested function perfectly, and everything renders properly! And this is all just an early baseline on a clean slate, WITHOUT a JIT engine, and BEFORE any compiler or config optimization! TFF45 FPR32 could NEVER get this caliber of performance in an equally rudimentary state, yet the user experience on a 2005 G5 is now literally almost completely indistinguishable from a 2006 C2D because the playing field has just become level! At long last, the hardware is finally firing on all cylinders!

This is groundbreaking! Considering these are now over 20-year-old processors, the importance to end user accessibility of being able to leverage full GPU acceleration for content rendering and page manipulation cannot be overstated (for example to allow the CPU to fully concentrate on running DOM workers or executing JS unhindered, or the rest of the OS and all of its daemons for that matter), let alone the simultaneous update to a 10-year-newer codebase than the previously latest available; I never thought such things were possible, I was thoroughly convinced the modern web on PPC OS X was dead and gone! But this is a completely new development platform altogether with entirely untapped potential, meaning PowerFox is easily the most significant software breakthrough for the average user to happen to these systems since the genesis of TenFourFox in 2010!

This means I may very well be able to switch back to my beloved Leopard full-time, in which case I foresee a refresh to foxPEP just around the corner! Indeed, if this is what this Fox can do straight out of the box, I can't wait to see what the rest of UXP can achieve after some upgrades and well-placed fine-tuning! We have just entered a brand new era!

Thank you, @Jazzzny! You (and dbsoft) are superheroes among men!

 

[atarixle]

dang! Now that I wanted to try it on my G5, I just booted into Leopard via Firewire. But the iMac does not have Airport so it lacks of the USB-Wifi-drivers. But resizing the Window is previewing some of the performance. I am looking forward to install Leopard plus the Wifi-drivers to my iMac G5.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Still, for one glorious minute I was able to get in browser YouTube on this Mac for the first time in years.

Doesn't TenFiveTube work for you?

 

[MacFoxG4]

Doesn't TenFiveTube work for you?

I tried it once and I believe it worked, but in browser YouTube isn’t that important to me on PPC. I just saw other users trying in browser YouTube on this browser and I thought I would try it out too.

 

[SimoSbara]

It works very well on my 15" PowerBook G4 1.33 GHz/1.5 GB! I can't believe that now it is possible to stream an HD video from youtube and render correctly modern webpages. Can't wait to see JIT implementation for ppc and ppc64 😆

Has anyone tried to install an AD blocker? Thanks

 

[Jazzzny]

You can install UBlock Legacy (fork of UBlock origin) from https://github.com/UCyborg/uBlock-for-firefox-legacy/releases

 

[Dronecatcher]

After a thorough shakedown today, here are my observations comparing PowerFox on my Dual G5 vs Core Duo iMac:

Power Mac G5 Dual Core 2.0Ghz 5Gb RAM Nvidia 6600LE GPU (128Mb)

BBC News - Fail
X - Fail
Instagram - Fail
Facebook - Works
Bandcamp - Works
Soundcloud - Fail
Youtube 360P - Works
Youtube 720P - Fail
Youtube 1080P - Fail


iMac Core Duo 2.0Ghz 2Gb RAM ATI X1600 GPU (128Mb)

BBC News - Works
X - Works
Instagram - Works
Facebook - Works
Bandcamp - Works
Soundcloud - Works
Youtube 360P - Works
Youtube 720P - Works
Youtube 1080P - Works

PowerFox on early intel is nothing short of miraculous - on PPC…just not happening.

 

[Appleuser201]

It works very well on my 15" PowerBook G4 1.33 GHz/1.5 GB! I can't believe that now it is possible to stream an HD video from youtube and render correctly modern webpages. Can't wait to see JIT implementation for ppc and ppc64 😆

Has anyone tried to install an AD blocker? Thanks

What's the max quality of smooth video playback from the YouTube website that you've been able to achieve on the G4? I may be getting a cheap used G4 iBook tommorow so that'll be fun to try out with Powerfox.

 

[Jazzzny]

To be a bit cheeky - are you sure you're using PowerFox?

Not sure why you seem to be having so many issues. The Intel and PPC builds are literally the same codebase, I've only encountered a handful of 10.5/PPC exclusive issues and they're pretty much all related to the lack of JIT and they don't break websites. I do not consider poor browser performance to be a "fail", if that is your criteria.

I've seen with my own eyes, desktop YouTube in 1080p playing fine on a G5 + 7800 GT, and many users have confirmed these findings too.

 

[Appleuser201]

To be a bit cheeky - are you sure you're using PowerFox?

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Not sure why you seem to be having so many issues. The Intel and PPC builds are literally the same codebase, I've only encountered a handful of 10.5/PPC exclusive issues and they're pretty much all related to the lack of JIT and they don't break websites.

I've seen with my own eyes, desktop YouTube in 1080p playing fine on a G5 + 7800 GT, and many users have confirmed these findings too.

I think this browser is excellent from everything I hear and I want to thank you for your hardwork, time, and dedication to bring this browser to the PPC platform. With that being said, I'd love to see a short video of 1080p browser playback being done on a G5. Or even a screenshot of a video playing on the G5 with the "stats for nerds" open that shows the frames being displayed and dropped. If someone can do that, I'll most certainly believe it. It just seems impossible to fathom without having seen it.

 

[Dronecatcher]

To be a bit cheeky - are you sure you're using PowerFox?

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Not sure why you seem to be having so many issues. The Intel and PPC builds are literally the same codebase, I've only encountered a handful of 10.5/PPC exclusive issues and they're pretty much all related to the lack of JIT and they don't break websites. I do not consider poor browser performance to be a "fail", if that is your criteria.

I've seen with my own eyes, desktop YouTube in 1080p playing fine on a G5 + 7800 GT, and many users have confirmed these findings too.

Well on your examples, X isn't logged in and Bandcamp isn't playing anything - I can get to those screens but the trouble starts after trying to login/do anything.

A fail is website not rendering/crashing the browser (BBC News everytime) or being incredibly slow whilst running the CPUs at 100%.

I'm no novice at squeezing every possible bit of efficiency out of PowerPCs - I'm reporting what I'm finding.

 

[Jazzzny]

"stats for nerds"

This is also over VNC, which carries a moderate CPU overhead.

 

[Dronecatcher]

What machine/GPU is it?

 

[Jazzzny]

This is the development machine that I have been loaned remote access to. It is a Power Mac G5 Quad with NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT.