Thorium

[Dixel]

11 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

However, I could update to the more unofficial 307.90 version which was offered by Microsoft but there was never any need to do that. And I don't think such a minor update could change anything. 

@AstroSkipper, respectfully, drivers from Microsoft can't be unofficial. Example of waht people think in terms of minor update going from .xx to .90. Microsft labs extensively tested that drivers, especially during that era, with browsers being on one of the first places in the test. Example 347.88 vs 347.90 (Microsoft).

"I tried them out, and I definitely prefer them to the 347.88 WHQLs. Seem to be smoother to me."

"All good to my experience"

https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/347-90-version-on-windows-update.397826/page-3

 

[D.Draker]

15 hours ago, Dave-H said:

Not seen any problems with icons.

But the fonts aren't sharp. They are smudged.

[UCyborg]

8 hours ago, 66cats said:

Is there a way to test GPU acceleration?

You already did, it broke WebGL for you (and me).

I get million errors in chrome://gpu, Google Street View is useless as nothing renders at all. Old dev build of Chromium 39 is fine, at least old WebGL games work and are playable, HexGL, QuakeJS etc.

Forgot to try forcing OpenGL, doesn't work in old Chromium here and I guess it's a long shot with these hacks as well, but OpenGL is the only way to access full potential of DX 10.1+ GPUs on XP, at least in theory.

There is improvement in CSS animations, eg. the ones on this site on people's profiles, where you can click the big picture and it expands, it was very choppy before, now they're smooth. YouTube is better, at least you can tell 720p@60FPS from 720p@30FPS, still some frame drops, maybe it's just due to overhead as XP lacks desktop composition.

NVIDIA drivers for XP never inspired confidence in my experience, so who knows much they are or aren't a factor.

[IDA-RE-things]

I should add, that you should not expect from this "D3D9 HW Rendering Acceleartion" feature, enabled for XP, -- of some impossible in current state of other browser code.

It will do some speedup on intermediate level computers.  Especially while Youtube videos watching.

Not intended for WebGL tests. may be _anything_ with it.

Its just restored possibility to do that acceleration in some cases on XP. When Chromuim removed it in the past.

On power computers, its may be no differences in rendering/speed. And I'm personally not use it on power computer, because of some disadvantages of that mode.

[AstroSkipper]

8 hours ago, chermany4ever said:

Yeah! That did it!

It's starting up fine, hasn't crashed again. Now to install extensions, import bookmarks and keep testing to see how it behaves.

Thanks Astro!!! First you brought my comment here and then you helped me. You leave me speechless my friend. Thank you!!!

You're welcome! Glad it finally works for you.  TBH, your hardware is much more recent and powerful than mine. Therefore, I couldn't imagine that Thorium does not run on your system at all, but does on my ancient box from 2000.  The manual execution of the command I posted for you is actually just a test whether the Thorium browser can be started in your system at all or not. I observed in my installation that from time to time the execution of the batch file didn't do anything for whatever reason. Thus, I modified the code of this batch starter file and compiled it to an EXE file which now runs reliably without any problems.  BTW, I brought your comment here as a deeper discussion would have been off-topic in @roytam1's browser thread. This thread here is a better place to get help in terms of Thorium related stuff and discuss its issues. 

Edited May 29, 2024 by AstroSkipper
Update of content

[AstroSkipper]

Just a small note. Due to the circumstance that the hardware acceleration does not work properly on my old machine, I have reverted my Chrome XP API Adapter from version 1.2.0.5058 to version 1.2.0.5057 which now runs smoothly again on my machine. 

[AstroSkipper]

5 hours ago, Dixel said:

@AstroSkipper, respectfully, drivers from Microsoft can't be unofficial. Example of waht people think in terms of minor update going from .xx to .90. Microsft labs extensively tested that drivers, especially during that era, with browsers being on one of the first places in the test. Example 347.88 vs 347.90 (Microsoft).

"I tried them out, and I definitely prefer them to the 347.88 WHQLs. Seem to be smoother to me."

"All good to my experience"

https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/347-90-version-on-windows-update.397826/page-3

 

Thanks again for your assessment!  What I actually meant was the fact that NVIDIA does not offer the driver version 307.90 but 307.83 as the latest version for the Geforce series 6. Generally, I am very careful when it comes to updating graphics card drivers in my very old system, as I have had some very unpleasant experiences in the past. But I will create a current image of my system and then test the version 307.90 offered by Microsoft. 

Edited May 29, 2024 by AstroSkipper

[Dixel]

3 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

What I actually meant was the fact that NVIDIA does not offer the driver version 307.90 but 307.83 as the latest version for the Geforce series 6.

And what I meant is, if a driver is WHQL, it can't be unofficial, esp. since Microsoft gives that stamp.

With WHQL you can be sure it wasn't tampered.

I don't know how much it will help with browser acceleration on that old card though. 

Edited May 29, 2024 by Dixel
punctuation

[AstroSkipper]

4 minutes ago, Dixel said:

I don't know how much it will help with browser acceleration on that old card though. 

I don't know, either. Trial and error is the only method to gain clarity.  But I assume it won't do anything in terms of hardware acceleration in Thorium when it comes to my acient NVIDIA Geforce 6200. 

[NotHereToPlayGames]

9 minutes ago, Dixel said:

With WHQL you can be sure it wasn't tampered.

I wouldn't go that far.

I have seen drivers "patched" and still retain their "whql" stamp-of-approval.

You can run across them quite frequently on "overclocking" forums.

They are used for "slipstreaming" the driver onto your installation media that would not otherwise install because the driver installs at a very very very early stage of installation.

Primarily to add support for motherboards that were not originally supported.

[Dixel]

3 hours ago, NotHereToPlayGames said:

I wouldn't go that far.

I have seen drivers "patched" and still retain their "whql" stamp-of-approval.

You can run across them quite frequently on "overclocking" forums.

They are used for "slipstreaming" the driver onto your installation media that would not otherwise install because the driver installs at a very very very early stage of installation.

Primarily to add support for motherboards that were not originally supported.

That's not applicable to this precise case when @AstroSkipper is going to download that WHQL driver directly from Microsoft website to check if it helps with the browser, and it had been written and explained in the previous replies.

Are you trying to imply it can be tampered on by the evil hackers on-the-fly, during the download?

[AstroSkipper]

7 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

Just a small note. Due to the circumstance that the hardware acceleration does not work properly on my old machine, I have reverted my Chrome XP API Adapter from version 1.2.0.5058 to version 1.2.0.5057 which now runs smoothly again on my machine. 

Today, the Chrome XP API Adapter has been updated to version 1.2.0.5059. I installed it and did not add the two flags in terms of hardware acceleration. That works for my old machine. 

[66cats]

11 hours ago, UCyborg said:

it broke WebGL for you (and me).

That it did. Just ran MotionMark 1.3. There is a difference:

Without GPU: 

With GPU:

There's also a slight (5%) but repeatable difference in Speedmark 3.0

[chermany4ever]

10 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

TBH, your hardware is much more recent and powerful than mine. Therefore, I couldn't imagine that Thorium does not run on your system at all, but does on my ancient box from 2000. 

Believe it or not I kept thinking about that quasi-discussion of 'too old' hardware, I mean, we all come from there, we all have an old pc in the wardrobe that worked great and we loved and stopped using due to lack of compatibility, not because it didn't work anymore. We should restrict people who are too young or have too new hardware to enter these threads or require a special permit for kids. This is hardcore, you shouldn't be here. 

 

10 hours ago, AstroSkipper said:

hardware acceleration does not work properly on my old machine

Not having that much technical knowledge, everything I experience is trial and error, so my conclusions are what I come to from an intuitive manner and I agree with those who say it's better to disable hardware acceleration. I've found the browser works better when I disable that option on my machine.

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After a few hours of testing the only page I'm having problems with is Google Drive. Already tried to sync my account in another window, disabling the extensions and can't solve it. The page loads and looks fine but when it finishes loading and stop, it crashes. Does anyone else have the same problem? 

Edited May 29, 2024 by chermany4ever
update

[AstroSkipper]

14 minutes ago, chermany4ever said:

After a few hours of testing the only page I'm having problems with is Google Drive. Already tried to sync my account in another window, disabling the extensions and can't solve it. The page loads and looks fine but when it finishes loading and stop, it crashes. Does anyone else have the same problem? 

For me, the Google Drive website works in my Thorium installation but @UCyborg reported crashes with this website. Maybe, using some Chrome flags might help you.  As we both already stated, trial and error is the game. And you can report this problem in Thorium's issues on GitHub to inform the developer.

Edited May 29, 2024 by AstroSkipper