Chakra (JScript engine) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Chakra is a JScript

JScript

JScript is a scripting language based on the ECMAScript standard that is used in Microsoft's Internet Explorer.JScript is implemented as a Windows Script engine. This means that it can be "plugged in" to any application that supports Windows Script, such as Internet Explorer, Active Server Pages,...

engine developed by Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

for its Internet Explorer 9

Internet Explorer 9

Windows Internet Explorer 9 is the current version of the Internet Explorer web browser from Microsoft. It was released to the public on March 14, 2011 at 21:00 PDT. Internet Explorer 9 supports several CSS 3 properties, embedded ICC v2 or v4 color profiles support via Windows Color System, and...

(IE9) web browser

Web browser

A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...

. A distinctive feature of the 32-bit version of the engine is that it JIT compiles

Just-in-time compilation

In computing, just-in-time compilation , also known as dynamic translation, is a method to improve the runtime performance of computer programs. Historically, computer programs had two modes of runtime operation, either interpreted or static compilation...

scripts on a separate CPU

Central processing unit

The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...

core, parallel to the web browser. The engine is also able to access the computer's graphics processing unit

Graphics processing unit

A graphics processing unit or GPU is a specialized circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory in such a way so as to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display...

(GPU), in particular for 3D graphics and video.

Though Microsoft has in the past pointed out that other elements, such as rendering

Rendering (computer graphics)

Rendering is the process of generating an image from a model , by means of computer programs. A scene file contains objects in a strictly defined language or data structure; it would contain geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information as a description of the virtual scene...

and marshalling

Marshalling (computer science)

In computer science, marshalling is the process of transforming the memory representation of an object to a data format suitable for storage or transmission...

, are just as important for a browser's overall performance, their improvements to the engine was in response to evolving competing browsers, compared to which IE8 was lagging behind in terms of JavaScript

JavaScript

JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....

processing speed. SunSpider tests performed on November 18, 2009 showed the PDC

Professional Developers Conference

Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference is a conference for software developers, normally Windows developers.It covers new and upcoming technology from Microsoft, and so only occurs in the years when there is something new to talk about...

version of IE9 executing scripts much faster than IE8, but slower than Firefox 3.6

Mozilla Firefox 3.6

Mozilla Firefox 3.6 is a version of the Firefox web browser released in January 2010. The release's main improvement over Firefox 3.5 is improved performance . It uses the Gecko 1.9.2 engine , which improves compliance with web standards...

, Chrome

Google Chrome

Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008, and the public stable release was on December 11, 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or...

4, and WebKit

WebKit

WebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari and by October 2011 held over 33% of the browser market share between them. It is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook...

Nightly. The same test performed on March 15, 2010 showed the first IE9 Platform Preview (using the then-current version of Chakra) to be faster than Firefox (with SpiderMonkey), but slower than Safari

Safari (web browser)

Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. and included with the Mac OS X and iOS operating systems. First released as a public beta on January 7, 2003 on the company's Mac OS X operating system, it became Apple's default browser beginning with Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther". Safari is also the...

(with SquirrelFish Extreme), Chrome (with V8

V8 (JavaScript engine)

The Google V8 JavaScript Engine is an open source JavaScript engine developed by Google and ships with the Google Chrome web browser. Lars Bak is the head programmer....

), and Opera

Opera (web browser)

Opera is a web browser and Internet suite developed by Opera Software with over 200 million users worldwide. The browser handles common Internet-related tasks such as displaying web sites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, chatting on IRC, downloading files via BitTorrent,...

(with Carakan

Presto (layout engine)

Presto is the layout engine for later versions of the Opera web browser . After several public betas and technical previews, it was released on January 28, 2003 in Opera 7 for Windows, and as of Opera 11 it is still in use. Presto is dynamic: the page or parts of it can be re-rendered in response...

).

On March 8, 2011, Microsoft published results showing the 32-bit Internet Explorer 9 Final Release (using the current version of Chakra) to be faster than Safari, Firefox (with TraceMonkey), Chrome, and Opera.

March 2011 performance tests for ZDNet

ZDNet

ZDNet is a business technology news website published by CBS Interactive, along with TechRepublic and SmartPlanet. The brand was founded on April 1, 1991 as a general interest technology portal from Ziff Davis and evolved into an enterprise IT-focused online publication owned by CNET...

concluded that Internet Explorer 9 (32-bit), Chrome

Google Chrome

10, and Firefox 4 release candidate were "pretty evenly matched."

See also