Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 - seriously bloated


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I wonder why people really care if a program uses 500mb ram, as long as it free's it up when closing, and, as long as it does not use 100% cpu while running. people seem to think that the less memory footprint, the better it is (goes only for torrent clients, as ?torrent is king <- my opinion).

Most people have 2gb or more nowadays, and "even in vista" you will not notice a program using 500mb on the preformance of your computer.

Why? Because that ram can be better used elsewhere. Sure unused ram is wasted ram but so is ram which is being needlessly used. Rather than having a browser use 400MB more than it reasonably should need I'd rather the OS was allocating that ram so that other programs can boot faster and the like.

And people WILL notice the performance if by using 500MB the browser is taking too much ram on a system that is running other ram intensive applications.

Rams there to be used, but only if it's used wisely and as needed otherwise it's still denying memory to other applications that could better use it.

Wow, sounds like another article from another ranting idiot.

Exactly.

S/he is probably a fully-paid-up member of the Norton hate club also.

I have tried this.

It's fast low on resources and far from bloat.

It's their best yet.

Hopefully it fits web standards and all that this time.

10 years ago beta 5 was released so they have had time to fall in line.

I have however, removed it, due to my bank won't allow it via on-line banking.

350-400MB memory footprint

hmm... does it mean RAM usage or does it mean RAM + virtual memory usage?

I'm opening 8 tabs in Chrome, and about:memory says it's using 60MB RAM and 280MB virtual memory, so if the 350MB memory footprint means RAM + Virtual Memory usage, then it's not really that bad.

Also it'd be a bit stupid to say it uses more memory than Windows XP if that's the case, since Windows XP uses a LOT of virtual memory.

if u dnt like it then dnt use it. no1 is forcin u

Wow! What school of higher learning did you attend? :laugh:

I will definitely give IE 8 a spin, but surely not while in beta!! As good as MS is at screwing thing up, I'm not about to try this until finished!

Wow! What school of higher learning did you attend? :laugh:

I will definitely give IE 8 a spin, but surely not while in beta!! As good as MS is at screwing thing up, I'm not about to try this until finished!

Seriously, it's best to wait for beta 2 as all the beta 1 problems should have been sorted.

Just make an image, install it, try it for a hour or so, then restore your image back.

It's like stepping out from driving a ford escort into a subaru pretsa, that extra bite.

350-400MB memory footprint

hmm... does it mean RAM usage or does it mean RAM + virtual memory usage?

I'm opening 8 tabs in Chrome, and about:memory says it's using 60MB RAM and 280MB virtual memory, so if the 350MB memory footprint means RAM + Virtual Memory usage, then it's not really that bad.

Also it'd be a bit stupid to say it uses more memory than Windows XP if that's the case, since Windows XP uses a LOT of virtual memory.

you sure it doesn't just use that much because it is free and being unused, so it can be fast as possible. most users of ie8 won't even know what ram is, they just want it to be fast. does ie8 give up some of the ram if other programs need it?

also im sure it isn't at the opitmizing stage of the development yet

Maybe because some people like to multi task or run vm ware?

The fact RAM is cheap isn't an excuse for an application to run inefficiently and hog it all. If there are alternatives that can do the same thing faster and using less resources which one are you going to choose? Oh yeah you are sticking up for IE....

I don't know what OS you're using, but any good OS can page out memory to disk.

Even Windows 95 could free up physical ram if an app needed it.

I don't know what OS you're using, but any good OS can page out memory to disk.

Even Windows 95 could free up physical ram if an app needed it.

And the point of having RAM is so you don't need to do that, so that you have fast access to data as needed. The ability to offload memory to the hard disk should never be seen as an excuse or justification for the inefficient use of RAM.

1. If its THAT much of a problem, just close it when you want to multi-task/play a game

2. If you are multi-tasking and some sort of compulsion makes you want to free up ur ram...use a different browser.

3. If you have a computer good enough to run Vista well (i.e. multi-core, 2gig ram e.t.c.) you can probably afford to ignore IE until you start dealing with bigger apps.

4. "Fan bois" is a spelling mistake.

5. As everyone says, it is beta software and IMHO has come a long way since the last beta.

what the heck does 'Scirwode' mean?!

It's the guys name. He does that, along with a few others, when it would be much better just to use the signature field. Like most people would. :rolleyes: , if they bothered. It's not like the name isn't to the left of the post anyway.

It's the guys name. He does that, along with a few others, when it would be much better just to use the signature field. Like most people would. :rolleyes: , if they bothered. It's not like the name isn't to the left of the post anyway.

Yea, thats always puzzled the hell out of me. Seems pointless, especially when all they post is a " :D " etc.

if u dnt like it then dnt use it. no1 is forcin u

Hmm, let me fix this for you:

If you don't like it, then don't use it. No one is forcing you.

That is true, but no matter what Microsoft throws out, people will love it, people will hate it, and what not. Someone just wants to be the first to bash the new product, and find flaws. No one seems to give constructive criticism anymore, and only post blog entries about why it will fail, and why it sucks. You can't please everyone, so just do what you think is "best" and see who else adapts to it. People wonder why Microsoft releases so many versions of its operating systems, so people have choice, which a lot of people feel is bloating and crowding.

If the BETA takes up too much space and ram, then don't install it? Alot of that extra will be stripped once the debugging kit is removed

Well after hearing about Chrome on the news I downloaded it and... big dissapointment. Then I heard about how great IE8 is and how it's better than Chrome... downloaded that beta and... another huge letdown.

After using firefox with it's great extensions everything else is unworkable.

Chrome feels more like an alpha than an open beta.

I can't even begin to describe how many things are wrong with I.E.8 beta but suffice it to say that if you're an IE fanboy stick to version 7.

True. According to your logic, unused processor power is wasted (shouldn't windows use 100% of your cpu power 24 hours per day so it's not considered wasted?)and I pretty much believe that it's not using your harddrive as well. (why isn't your hdd spinning at 7200 rpm 24 hours per day?, even better why isn't windows filling your entire hdd space, it unused resource, isn't it?).

i seriously doubt whether half of you even understand the word 'beta' -> its not bloody complete, features are being tested/built and improvements are ongoing, so stop complaining about something that hasn't even hit RC yet, and bloody give them a chance to improve the browser before you start the nagging. :hmmm:

FYI, number of threads is a meaningless number for any application.

Virtual memory usage may appear higher than it actually is for any application that spawns multiple processes which shared resources (memory-mapped files, etc).

I wonder why people really care if a program uses 500mb ram, as long as it free's it up when closing, and, as long as it does not use 100% cpu while running. people seem to think that the less memory footprint, the better it is (goes only for torrent clients, as ?torrent is king <- my opinion).

Why does it go for torrents only? What makes it a unique case? Is it because the author of uTorrent proves to everyone that youcan> write programs that are efficient and light that you believe so?

Yes, free RAM is wasted RAM but when a program uses 200mb of RAM when it can perform just as well with 150mb of RAM, it ain't efficient. Sure some of us have loads of RAM, but as a programmer you can't assume that everyone will have the ideal specs. Think of games here because games must be (normally) efficient. When the RAM usage of a browser reaches the amount that of a game like Quake 3 or anything of those days, that's ****ed up.

Most people have 2gb or more nowadays, and "even in vista" you will not notice a program using 500mb on the preformance of your computer.

Most people have 2gb or more. Oh really? What, most people on Neowin, or in America? Or in the World? Or most computers sold today have 2GB? Back those numbers up but it's safer to assume that most people nowadays have an amount closer to 1GB of RAM. Not every person upgrades and buys new computers... Some people have a 4-5 year old computer to browse the web and use Office and such. Soon they'll have to upgrade to browse the web? I'll repeat, that's ****ed up.

People keep ranting away on memory usage.

btw; i think photoshop is bloated, it uses 1400mb memory while i edit high resolution photographs.

Horrible comparison that I won't even dispute.

Way a go at encouraging programmers for being lazier.

and his website has been added to my router's block list...

The same uneducated rant as Vista is bloated, used too much RAM, blah blah... Go get a life, it is only a browser, use what you see fit.

Unused RAM is wasted RAM, period.

don't you have the constraint to stop yourself from going to it?

Bottom price PC now come with 2/3 Gb of RAM and better one now with 4Gb, check that out at your local store.

And if you're a advanced user (Joe user don't need VmWare), well, upgrade! It's time to move to 8Gb of Ram.

As a power user, I never check the amount of memory taken by the apps that I use. And If I need more, I'm going to buy more, it's cheap anyway.

No Truck, nothing sells in 2/3GB units. You get 512 in the very cheapest units. And most people won't go near a RAM upgrade without the PC World Tech guys, which is a ****ing ripoff, and they're the one's most likely to use IE8, the non-ICT minded ones.

Bottom price PC now come with 2/3 Gb of RAM and better one now with 4Gb, check that out at your local store.

And if you're a advanced user (Joe user don't need VmWare), well, upgrade! It's time to move to 8Gb of Ram.

As a power user, I never check the amount of memory taken by the apps that I use. And If I need more, I'm going to buy more, it's cheap anyway.

Right, you're right as far as what's on sale in stores. How about you now think of what's in the homes today? Not as easy right?

If you blindly assume that most people out there have 2GB of ram in their homes, clearly your view on reality is skewed and it shows that either you live in the internet, or your social interraction is very limited. When only about 38% of gamers have 2GB of RAM, you can safely assume that a smaller percentage of average PC's out there used for Office and Web navigation/email have 2GB of RAM. When you consider the number of Steam subscribers out there, it does a pretty good job at representing the population.

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    • Creative Sound Blaster AE-X PCIe review: your headphones will love it by Steven Parker If you have been reading Neowin for any length of time, you may remember that I reviewed the Sound Blaster Audigy FX Pro back in April. I found it to be an excellent budget sound card, even though it lacked support for formats such as DTS over the included SPDIF port. Anyway, Creative reached out to me again asking if I was interested in reviewing the Sound Blaster AE-X. It is a card mainly targeted at headphone wearers, which I'll get into a bit later. Before we get underway, here is a disclaimer: Creative Labs provided a free sample without any review pre-approval. Here are the full specs of it: Creative Sound Blaster AE-X Dimensions: 179 x 126 x 18 mm Weight: 263g / 9.28 oz Platform: PCI-e DAC: ESS ES9039Q2M Connectivity Options Side: Rear: 1 x HD Audio Front Panel Connector, 1 x ⅛“ Headphone port, 1 x RCA Line-out (Left) port, 1 x RCA Line-out (Right) port, 1 x Coaxial SPDIF-out port, 1 x ⅛“ Mic in/Line-in port, 1 x TOSLINK SPDIF-in port Surround: No DNR / SNR: THD+N: 0.0001% Dynamic Range 130 dB Recording Resolution: PCM up to 32-bit / 192kHz (Stereo) Direct Mode: Line Out (Stereo): PCM up to 32-bit  384 kHz Coaxial SPDIF Out: PCM up to 24-bit 192.0 kHz Headphone Amp: PCM up to 32-bit / 384kHz (Stereo) Native DSD: DSD64, DSD128, DSD256 Output Impedance: 1Ω, Supported Headphone Impedance: 8–600Ω, IEM: 0.5Vrms, Low: 1.5Vrms, Mid: 3Vrms, High: 6Vrms, Maximum output power: 350mW @ 32Ω (High), Maximum output voltage: 6Vrms (High) Front Panel Headphone Amp: PCM up to 32-bit / 192kHz (Stereo) Native DSD: DSD64, DSD128 Output Impedance: 10Ω, Supported Headphone Impedance: 32–300Ω, Maximum output power: 40mW @ 32Ω, Maximum output voltage: 1.9Vrms ASIO: ASIO 2.3 Total Harmonic Distortion: THD+N: 0.0006% Dynamic Range: 114 dB Scout Mode: Yes EMI shielding: No (but it passed all the FCC emission tests) Operating temperature: 0–45°C Input Power: 12V⎓0.5A Warranty: 1 Year (MSRP) Price: $179.99 / £169.99 The Sound Blaster AE-X was announced at the end of May, and it becomes clear that it is mainly for headphone wearers. I should also note that the card does not support DDL/DTS encoding technology, but it is said to support decoding through the coaxial SPDIF port. I was able to test this working with the classic Windows Sound properties, but I could not get a DTS (decode) signal through my Logitech Z906, it defaulted to 3D sound whenever I played DTS content through Plex or Emby. In addition, this card only supports two channels (stereo) over the speakers. The surround support is limited to the Headphone Amp, so before I get underway, what we have here is a card mostly intended for headphone use, especially with its SPDIF In (Toslink) port where you could connect another device like a console. So what about the highlights of this card? The AE-X is powered by the ESS SABRE DAC (ES9039Q2M), which is capable of a 130 dB dynamic range. In addition, it supports 32-bit/384 kHz playback for deeper detail and clarity. The headphone amplifier delivers up to 350 mW @ 32Ω, which admittedly far surpasses standard onboard audio, offering support for studio-grade headphones. DSD256 and ASIO 2.3 are also supported. What doesn't it have? No support for What-U-Hear, Super X-Fi, or the SmartComms Kit No EMI shielding, but it passed all the FCC emission tests (from the FAQ) I also want to make it clear that I am no audiophile. For me, it's purely subjective and it should just "work" out of the box. First impressions As I said in the introduction, I was a bit sad to see that the AE-X only supports stereo output, meaning it would not be on par with my ALC1220 over my speakers, as I mentioned it seems like this card is marketed toward headphone users. Since I am not an avid gamer that would rule me out as a potential customer, but I can still test its capabilities! The card arrived in a nice-looking box, as shown above. It's quite a bit larger than the Audify FX Pro that I reviewed back in April, and at first I thought the covering meant that it was EMI shielded, but it isn't as mentioned above in the highlights section. What's in the box: 1 x Sound Blaster AE-X PCIe card 1 x 3.5 mm CTIA TRRS to Dual TRS Headset Splitter Cable 1 x Quick Start Guide Aside from the Quick Start Guide, which someone at my age (I guess) needs a magnifying glass to read thanks to the tiny fonts, Creative Labs also has the manual online, which first requires you to prove that you're human in order to access it (so I can't direct link it). Anyway, the box is mostly made up of cardboard, and the only plastic in it is the anti-static bag for the card itself. Design Top Bottom The card itself looks pretty cool and actually wouldn't look out of place in an all-white build. There's only one connector, and for some reason it is awkwardly placed on the side (front-facing) that is for the front panel audio connector, which will let you use the headphones through the front PC audio jack. Since the front panel Headphone Amp has fewer capabilities than the rear headphone port, I decided not to use it. Rear of card PCI-e interface The rear of the card is completely open and is normally where you would find the front panel connector. The PCIe interface side is completely covered, which initially made me think it was EMI shielded. I/O panel Side (front-facing) with Front panel connector On the outer rear bracket side we have the TOSLINK SPDIF in, Coaxial SPDIF out, RCA line out (Right), RCA line out (Left), Headphone out, and Mic/Line in ports. On the front facing portion of the card itself is the F-panel connector. Usage Test System Our test system consists of the following: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Gigabyte X870E AORUS MASTER (BIOS F12) Corsair RM1000x (2024) Thermal Grizzly Kyronaut (33x33x0,2mm) 2x 32GB Kingston Fury Beast RGB DDR5 6000MT/s CL36-38-38-80 T-Force Z540 2TB (PCIe Gen5) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition (NVIDIA) Creative Sound Blaster AE-X Windows 11 25H2 Pro I installed the card into the Gigabyte X870E AORUS MASTER which includes the RealTek ALC1220 onboard audio. For our subjective listening tests, I used the Coaxial SPDIF port to my Logitech Z906 speakers. For headphone tests I used the OneOdio Studio Max 2 Wireless DJ Headphones that I reviewed last month. After installing the audio driver, I installed Creative Nexus, which is a relatively new app designed for the latest Sound Blaster cards. Then I discovered the AE-X needed both a driver update from 1.00.15.0001 to 1.01.09.000 and a firmware update from 1.00.06.0000 to 1.00.06.0002, then I was set to go. It should be noted that the card did not work without the driver (not Plug and Play). As you can see above, you can manage the firmware, driver, and inputs via Advanced Settings on the Device tab. By default Nexus enabled "Direct Mode". Upon clicking on Acoustic Engine, the Equalizer can be enabled and set to four different presets, which are: Gaming Music Movies Footsteps Enhancer There's also a dedicated Scout Mode for gamers. I mainly used Tidal and Spotify in the past week to listen to some of my Liked Songs (which now total over 700) in Shuffle mode; there were no pops or interference that I could hear. I also found a 5.1 Surround Music playlist on Tidal that sounded really great over Studio Max 2 headphones. When I reviewed the Audigy FX Pro, I went out and purchased a Logitech Z906 set second-hand for €100 specifically to use with the card, but in this instance all I could get on the AE-X was the 3D output of surround sound through Coaxial SPDIF and although it still sounded great, it isn't quite as good as DTS Interactive via my onboard Realtek ALC1220. Conclusion So what have I learned? The AE-X lacks multi-channel support for 5.1/7.1 setups and drops support for modern surround technologies like Dolby or DTS, functioning strictly as a stereo output device. So to really benefit, you will need Studio-grade headphones to "hear" the benefits of this card. With that being said, I can imagine it will appeal to gamers who are switching between console and PC. By utilizing the SPDIF in port, you could just plug your headphones into the AE-X (front or rear port) and then switch between PC and Console without having to move the headphones to a different port. As I said in the Sound Blaster Audigy review, the EQ in the Creative Nexus app offers safe presets, which allows a user to further tweak the lows, mids, and highs for a personal listening experience. Of course it all depends on the headphones you hook up to it. Speaking of headphones, I kind of wish I had higher-quality Studio-grade headphones to really test this card with; I'm not usually wearing headphones in my day to day duties. The only time I will wear them is if I want to listen to music very late at night and I don't want to disturb my neighbors, so my rating (verdict) is based on this fact. Someone with a PC/Console setup and wears headphone religiously to game, and consume media will benefit much more than I from the high-quality Headphone Amps that are included in the AE-X. Once again, I do feel like Creative could have gone the extra mile to support the S/PDIF port a bit more. Why include it if you're not supporting the main popular digital formats? 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