Internet Explorer 9 (IE9), DirectX 11 and NVIDIA ION

The marriage between Internet Explorer 9, Windows 7’s DirectX 11 and NVIDIA ION is essentially a match made in GPU heaven. Even at the level of Windows Internet Explorer Platform Preview, IE9 has no match in rival browsers when it comes down to hardware acceleration of HTML5 and SVG. Just check out the video embedded at the bottom of this article in order to see what the future of browsing on netbooks will look like.

“Microsoft just released their Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview “that was built from the ground up to take advantage of the GPU.” Take a look at this video with our own Chris Pedersen who shows what the IE9 experience will look like with GPU-accelerated HTML5, JavaScript, and Direct 2D technology on a next-generation ION netbook -- the brand-new Asus EeePC 1201PN -- compared to a standard netbook with an Atom CPU alone,” revealed David Ragones, director of Product Marketing, ION/GeForce.

Of course, users can also just grab Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview and run the tests made available by Microsoft on their own computers. IE9 installs right alongside IE8 on both Windows 7 and Windows Vista SP2, in order to streamline testing. Unveiled at MIX10 in mid-March, the Platform Preview comes with support for HTML5, CSS3, DOM and SVG, a new, more performance enhanced JavaScript engine codenamed Chakra, and hardware acceleration.

In this regard, hardware acceleration is precisely the reason why IE9 won’t play nice with any operating system older than Windows Vista SP2, including Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3. IE9 won’t even run on the plain vanilla Vista SP2 in fact, without the addition of the Platform Update for Windows Vista. Essentially, IE9 needs DirectX 11, especially, the DirectX 2D (D2D) and DirectWrite application programming interfaces (APIs) in order to deliver the kind of “magic” demoed in the video below.

“Chris shows Microsoft demo applications including: map zooming - accelerated graphics make zooming in while navigating maps fluid and fast. Flying 3D images: PC gaming-like animation. SVG-oids: a classic arcade showdown, and yes, ION graphics take the trophy. Look for the Internet Explorer 9 release later this year. And look for the Asus EeePC 1201PN next-generation ION netbook in April,” Ragones added.

Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) Platform Preview is available for download here.