Google introduce the Octane JavaScript browser benchmark

Google are the latest company to contribute a browser benchmark to the market. Probably optimised for Google Chrome this browser benchmark uses a JavaScript benchmark suite to put browsers through their paces.

Octane is a browser benchmark that measures performance when running the “complex and demanding web applications that users interact with daily”.

Most of the existing JavaScript benchmarks run artificial tests that were created on an ad-hoc basis to stress a specific JavaScript feature. Octane breaks with this tradition and extends the former V8 Benchmark Suite with 5 new benchmarks created from full, unaltered, well-known web applications and libraries. A high score in the new benchmarks directly translates to better and smoother performance in similar web applications.

• Box2DWeb runs a JavaScript port of a popular 2D physics engine that is behind many well-known simulations and web games.
• Mandreel puts a JavaScript port of the 3D Bullet Engine to the test with a twist: The original C++ source code for the engine is translated to JavaScript by Onan Games’ Mandreel compiler, which is also used in countless web-based games.
• Pdf.js is based on Mozilla’s PDF reader and shows how Javascript applications can replace complex native browser plug-ins. It measures how fast the browser decodes a sample PDF document.
• GB Emulator is derived from an open source emulator of a famous game console running a 3D demo
• CodeLoad measures how quickly a JavaScript engine can bootstrap commonly used JavaScript libraries and start executing code in them. The source for this test is derived from open source libraries (Closure, jQuery).

You can try out Octane yourself, browse the source code, or read more about each benchmark at the Octane site. Still have some questions? Have a look at the FAQ page.

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