"Janky" Performance - Microsoft already suggesting changes to Chromium

[rcmaehl]

Source:
OnMSFT

Chromium

 

Summary:
With Microsoft creating a Chromium based browser to replace edge, they are already submitting changes to Chromium. The most recent of which is "smooth scrolling"

Quotes/Excerpts:

Quote

Microsoft is currently hard at work on a new version of its Edge browser based on...Chromium. The company announced plans to become a “significant contributor to the Chromium project.” Contributions could benefit all Chromium-based browsers, but one area where Microsoft would like to make an impact is mouse scrolling performance. Microsoft explained that the way EdgeHTML handles mouse scrolling is better than the “janky” performance that Chromium sometimes provides. "Scrollbar scrolling using the mouse happens on the main thread in Chromium. If the main thread is busy (due to reasons like long running JS, etc), scrolling by clicking on the scrollbar will appear to be janky as the events keep getting queued up on the MainThreadEventQueue, waiting for the main thread to free up. We observe on average scrollbar drags have ~2-4x higher latency in Chromium as compared to EdgeHTML today, worse on particularly busy sites.  We attribute this gap primarily to EdgeHTML’s feature for off-thread scrollbar drags.  By avoiding the main thread in Chromium as well, we believe we can bring the performance of scrollbar drags more in line with what we observe in EdgeHTML." Microsoft recently filed an issue with an attached HTML file to prove its point. A Chromium developer has since answered that the team was looking into it, to which Microsoft answered that it has already started prototyping and will “send out an intent-to-implement shortly.” It may take some time before the Chromium team eventually accepts this feature request from Microsoft. But if this does happen, all Chromium-based browsers on all platforms could soon provide the same smooth scrolling performance that Microsoft Edge users currently enjoy.

 

My Thoughts:

While it's definitely a good thing to have another large team suggesting features, improvements, and bug fixes to your project, I am unsure how well all of this will go. I do think Microsoft did take a bit of a jab at Chromium by suggesting it's performance was "Janky". I will be interested in seeing how all the teams cope between Google's Chrome team, Chromium, and Microsoft. Only time will tell.

[Tsuki]

now lets see if they can fix chromiums memory issues..

[BobVonBob]

It's a valid criticism of Chromium though, janky is a pretty good way to describe scroll performance on super busy webpages. Try scrolling a high quality twitch stream on a lower end machine. Just because the dev is from Microsoft doesn't mean they don't have just as much right to criticize design decisions and attempt to improve upon them as the next dev. It's not even as though they're blasting a competing product anymore, since they are soon going to be switching to it for Edge.

[GoodBytes]

Excellent. I am actually surprised that Chrome doesn't do this already. Multi-threading GUI from core is the basics.

Hopefully, it gets approved, and the changes will help bring Chromium/Chrome to get smooth scrolling.

If they can get GPU rendered interface to be able to deliver true 60fps on 60Hz screen and 120fps scrolling on a 120Hz screen like Edge, that would be truly amazing. Maybe they'll keep that for their own Edge-chromium based web browser.

[LAwLz]

3 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

If they can get GPU rendered interface to be able to deliver true 60fps on 60Hz screen and 120fps scrolling on a 120Hz screen like Edge, that would be truly amazing. Maybe they'll keep that for their own Edge-chromium based web browser.

Pretty sure that's already done, but even then the UI in Chrome is very static and does not really need to be updated except in rare cases. The rendering of webpages is GPU accelerated for the things where it make sense.

 

And I doubt that Microsoft will make large changes to their Chromium based browser. The reason they are scrapping their current Edge browser is probably to cut down on development cost. Doing major changes to Chromium would put them right back at square one. I would be very surprised if Chromium based Edge does any significant changes at all to the engines. It will most likely be little more than a slightly changed UI, and stripping out Google related stuff (like history syncing to your Google account) for Microsoft flavored versions (like history syncing to your Microsoft account).

[GoodBytes]

1 minute ago, LAwLz said:

And I doubt that Microsoft will make large changes to their Chromium based browser. The reason they are scrapping their current Edge browser is probably to cut down on development cost. Doing major changes to Chromium would put them right back at square one. I would be very surprised if Chromium based Edge does any significant changes at all to the engines. It will most likely be little more than a slightly changed UI, and stripping out Google related stuff (like history syncing to your Google account) for Microsoft flavored versions (like history syncing to your Microsoft account).

True. I don't expect them to do anything much on version 1.0. I think it will look very close to Chromium.. maybe some Fluent design look-alike but not really matching work applied to it, but that is it. If it picks up, then probably, maybe, now they'll can get justification for getting high resources and maybe start doing some polishing. OR, version 1.0 will just be the current Edge look and feel, with same limitation and the same everything else, but runs Chromium engine on the back instead of EdgeHTML.

[warmmilk]

just opened edge to compare scrolling... I'm not seeing a difference

[schwellmo92]

28 minutes ago, warmmilk said:

just opened edge to compare scrolling... I'm not seeing a difference

Use the test page in the bug ticket https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=938619#c_ts1551895330

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

7 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

I am actually surprised that Chrome doesn't do this already. Multi-threading GUI

if i start scrolling around like mad all 4 of my core's get more usage. i can notice it in the usage because my cpu is old, so stuff like that does register in a cpu monitor... 

 

but maybe the Windows version of chrome doesn't do that. i only have my Mac to test so.. 

[RejZoR]

I'd rather see them contributing to Mozilla than another mega corporation like Google...

[Aetheria]

Smooth scrolling is generally something which should be killed with fire.

[duncannah]

Smooth scrolling is the devil

[porina]

Smooth scrolling is a feature I disable as far as possible in all software. At best it is unnecessary eye candy that takes away performance and wastes time.

[Doobeedoo]

They're right though, I've experienced such janky performance scrolling. Edge while lacking features and all is quite fast, scrolling is great and it's HW accel is awesome. 

[kuhnertdm]

Lol it's literally just "do it on a different thread"

 

MS with the fire

[Ryujin2003]

The first time I created a GUI, all I was told to do above all else, is to never lock the UI thread. If the user experience pauses and studders, they will most definitely not like the experience.

 

[Master Disaster]

10 hours ago, VegetableStu said:

Embrace: 100% complete

Extend: initialising

Extinguish: pending

Sorry dude but no, even if that was the intent (and at this point nobody knows) there's honestly zero chance of them extinguishing Chromium. It's NEVER going to happen, Chromium and Google are far to big for that strategy.

 

Google is one of only a few companies large enough to go toe to toe with MS.

[Gullerback]

Maybe they can fix Silverlight and refresh rate issues while they're at it. 

[GoodBytes]

41 minutes ago, Gullerback said:

Maybe they can fix Silverlight and refresh rate issues while they're at it. 

Silverlight is discontinued. Microsoft does provide security updates, but the company is encouraging everyone to switch to web standards that now we have and enjoy.

 

[orbitalbuzzsaw]

Now to fix the RAM use.

 

this post made by firefox gang

[TetraSky]

Hopefully Microsoft will bring the rest of their expertise and fix all the other issues Chromium browsers have in general. Like what OrbitalBuzzsaw above said, RAM usage.

[Gullerback]

2 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

Silverlight is discontinued. Microsoft does provide security updates, but the company is encouraging everyone to switch to web standards that now we have and enjoy.

 

Had high hopes and crushed hopes in the same day.

[Hellion]

It's quite the double standard for microshaft to be calling anything "janky" when they run the worst operating system known to man.

 

Also, netflix only being fully compatible with edge was due to a backdoor deal as a last desperate effort try and force adoption of the browser which clearly failed miserably. Not far removed from how google tried to purposely nerf firefox performance on youtube not that long ago.