Chrome 18 Beta offers speedier browsing, graphics boost for Windows XP

Might actually have to try the beta. 

Chrome 18 Beta now has GPU-accelerated rendering of 2D Canvas content, which means that canvas-based games and animations run faster and feel smoother compared to previous versions of Chrome. Chrome 18 Beta allows you to see what features are being accelerated by visiting "chrome://gpu" in the browser's address bar. "This is a tricky area to optimize, due to the wide variety of hardware and operating system configurations found in the wild. We've made a series of small improvements to the way this acceleration works in the latest release, and we're seeking feedback on it from our Beta users," Google adds.

Chrome 18 Beta also offers a boost in graphics for those still running Windows XP. Since older operating systems and older graphics cards limit what can be rendered, Chrome 18 Beta works around those limits by displaying 3D content via a software rasterizer called SwiftShader. 

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