Google Chrome Speed Tests

These speed tests were filmed at actual web page rendering times. If you're interested in the technical details, read on!

Equipment used:

- Computer: MacBook Pro laptop with Windows installed
- Monitor - 24" Asus: We had to replace the standard fluorescent backlight with very large tungsten fixtures to funnel in more light to capture the screen. In addition, we flipped the monitor 180 degrees to eliminate a shadow from the driver board and set the system preferences on the computer to rotate 180 degrees. No special software was used in this process.
- Camera: Phantom v640 High Speed Camera at 1920 x 1080, films up to 2700 fps


"Why does allrecipes.com in the potato gun sequence appear at once, and not the text first and images second? And why does it appear to render from bottom of the screen to the top?"

Chrome sends the rendered page to the video card buffer all at once, which is why allrecipes.com appears at once, and not with the text first and images second. Chrome actually paints the page from top to bottom, but to eliminate a shadow from the driver board, we had to flip the monitor upside down and set the system preferences in Windows to rotate everything 180 degrees, resulting in the page appearing to render from bottom to top.

"Why does the top one third of the page appear first on the weather.com page load?"

Sometimes only half the buffer gets filled before the video card sends its buffer over to the LCD panel. This is because Chrome on Windows uses GDI to draw, which does not do v-sync.

"The screen wipes are so smooth - how was that achieved?"

The screen wipes up in a gradated wipe because LCD pixels take around 10ms to flip and gradually change color.

More filming details below:

Chrome Browser vs. Potato:
We used a version of the web page allrecipes.com that is accessible when logged in. About four hours into the Potato Gun shoot we decided to use a locally loaded version of the web page to enable more precise synchronization with the potato gun. We finally got the shot we were hoping for after 51 takes.

Chrome Browser vs. Sound:
We loaded an artist page from Pandora.com, a streaming internet radio service directly off the web on a 15Mbps internet connection.

Chrome Browser vs. Lightning:
We used a locally loaded version of weather.com that was legally approved for use in this video (and all the standard website permissions procedures that goes into making videos!)

While we had a super fast 15Mbps internet connection in the studio, any live internet connection introduces quite a bit of variability. To run speed tests on page rendering times, saving locally and loading from the local disk can help reduce this variability.


For behind-the-scenes footage of how this video was made:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oarMXGq3gI

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• chrome
• googlechrome
• browser
• speed
• speedtests
• fast
• potatogun
• pirateship
• lightning
• sound
• sonic

[BBbloodbrotherCCCX]

Thumbs up if you are watching this on Google Chrome.

[KyranL123]

0:49 - Look at the address bar 'file:///C:/Kevin/Desktop etc.'

[legomass1000]

What a load of lies your probably using the latest super computor with plug in boost!

Were not stupid

[goggles998]

So this is what happens at google....

[powersimo12]

!!!!

[evilturtle999]

@HEN000y Well that makes sense. It's too bad about this thing. I haven't been able to enjoy a PC or Mac enough to decide they're any better, though. They're only slightly faster and much more expensive and, to me, clumsy.

Thanks for the reasoning, though. What you say makes sense.

[HEN000y]

@evilturtle999 Chrome would be no faster than IE 6 on dial up as both would have plenty of time to render the page as they receive data,

HTML is rendered from the top down, you don't need the whole page to start rendering it.

So a dial up connection would be the bottleneck, same as a [very] slow broadband connection.

Of course if you have slow hardware that will make a diference too, pages load notably faster on my Macbook Pro (using Chromium) then on my brothers Chromebook.

[evilturtle999]

@HEN000y Why wouldn't Chrome be faster than IE on dial-up? Or are you suggesting by the question that Chrome WILL be faster than IE?

I'm a frustrated Chromebook user with a 25 Mbps broadband connection and I find stuff DOESN'T load at the speed I receive it.

Of course, if Google Chromebooks ran as fast as Apple MacBook Pro's, perhaps sites like Gmail, Google News, G+, Google Maps, and Google Docs wouldn't take so long I have time to remind myself why suicide is a bad thing.

Google Chrome OS!

[HEN000y]

@evilturtle999 So if I have dial up Chrome will still be faster then IE? On most peoples internet connections Chrome will load stuff at the speed it receives it.

[evilturtle999]

@HEN000y That may be true, which is exactly why it's so misleading. Google, an Internet company, is promoting their product on the Internet, on their own video website, but that product, which is meant for the Internet, is advertised in such a way as to have the Internet itself removed from the picture.

What we're seeing then doesn't represent the real-life usability of Chrome but Chrome run in the context of everthing run off the desktop. Way to go Google! I'll just download everything first!

[evilturtle999]

I dare anyone to make a version of this using a Google Chromebook and post it. I can peel a fucking potato BY HAND faster than Google Docs loads.

I can get a light bulb glowing by using an exercise bike as a generator faster than Google News can load, but that's WAY before I can actually scroll down the page with my Samsung Series 5 Google Chromebook.

And I think those responsible at Google should smear this paint on themselves for being so misleading about the performance of their products.

[NerdyLlamaFarmer]

@guitarbodhi oh :D