Category: Windows 10

WebXPRT update is now available

on July 10, 2015

This update resolves an issue we found with the Local Notes test running in the Microsoft Edge browser. We described the issue in the blog post Mystery Solved. Both versions of WebXPRT now run correctly in the Microsoft Edge browser. The change did not affect the benchmark scores. Results from the new versions are comparable to existing results.

This issue affected both WebXPRT 2015 and WebXPRT 2013. The updated versions of WebXPRT 2015 and WebXPRT 2013 are now live on WebXPRT.com.

If you want more information, please contact BenchmarkXPRTSupport@principledtechnologies.com.

Posted in Microsoft Edge, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 2013, WebXPRT 2015, Windows 10 |

One now, one later

By Eric Hale

on July 9, 2015

Windows 10 has been on our mind this week.

Last week, we explained why the Notes test in WebXPRT would not complete when running in Edge on Windows 10. We’ve implemented the fix we discussed and have finished testing the updated versions of WebXPRT 2013 and WebXPRT 2015. We’ll release them by the end of the week. Results from the new versions are comparable with results from the existing versions.

In the current Windows 10 Mobile Beta, WebXPRT 2015 does not scroll correctly in portrait mode. It does scroll correctly in landscape mode, so, as a workaround, one can run it that way on the Windows 10 Mobile Beta.

Speaking of Windows 10 Mobile, we’ve talked before about TouchXPRT 2016 and how its purpose is to compare Windows 10 across different device types. However, Microsoft has said that Windows 10 Mobile won’t be available until after the release of Windows 10 on PCs. More importantly, the APIs and development tools won’t be final until July 29. Once Microsoft releases those tools, we’ll do our builds and tests and release a community preview.

That being said, TouchXPRT 2014 is the tool to use for comparing Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. By the time mobile devices running Windows 10 are available, TouchXPRT 2016 will be available.

Eric

Posted in TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT 2014, TouchXPRT 2016, TouchXPRT development process, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 2015, Windows 10, Windows 8.1 |

Mystery solved

By Eric Hale

on July 2, 2015

As we mentioned a few weeks ago, the WebXPRT Local Notes test would not complete on recent builds of Windows 10 when using the Edge browser. Other browsers complete WebXPRT in recent Windows 10 builds without any problems.

We now know what is causing this behavior. The Local Notes test stores encrypted content in LocalStorage as UTF-16 character encoded Unicode strings. The encrypted content included values that are not considered valid characters in certain use cases. The current Edge implementation treats these characters as undefined and cannot store them. Other browsers may not have had an issue with the characters because of differences in the way they implement LocalStorage.

We’ve been able to work around this by using escape sequences for unsupported Unicode code points. Testing so far has not shown any perceptible change in results, so we believe that we will able to make this change to WebXPRT without compromising the comparability of the results.

Because this issue affects both WebXPRT 2013 and WebXPRT 2015, we’re planning to update both versions. We’ll let you know as soon as they are available.

If you’d like more details about this issue and the fix, please let us know.

Eric

Posted in Performance benchmarking, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 2015, What makes a good benchmark?, Windows 10 |

Something old, something new

By Eric Hale

on June 25, 2015

Last week, we talked about porting TouchXPRT 2014 to be a Windows 10 universal app. This will let it run on devices running Windows 10 and those running Windows 10 mobile.

We won’t be retiring TouchXPRT 2014 when we release the Windows 10 universal app version. Windows 8 doesn’t support Windows 10 universal apps, but Windows 10 will be able to run Windows 8 applications. This means you’ll also be continue to be able to use TouchXPRT 2014 to test Windows 8 based systems, as well as to compare Windows 8 and Windows 10 performance.

The results from TouchXPRT 2014 and the universal app version of the benchmark won’t be compatible. Even though the test scenarios will be the same, the porting process means that we have to change the APIs the benchmark is using and rebuild the benchmark with different tools.

We’re currently debating changing the way we version the benchmarks. As the number of versions of each benchmark increases, it may make sense to move away from year-based versioning. This will obviously affect what we call the new Windows 10 version of TouchXPRT. If you have any thoughts on this, please let us know!

Eric

Posted in BenchmarkXPRT development community, Collaborative benchmark development, Future of performance evaluation, TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT 2014, TouchXPRT release cycle, Windows 10, Windows 8 |

Hoping for a perfect 10

By Eric Hale

on June 18, 2015

As many of you know by now, the release date for Windows 10 is July 29. As we’ve said before, we are hard at work getting TouchXPRT ready for Windows 10. We’ve succeeded in building TouchXPRT as a universal app, and it’s now running on Windows 10. We haven’t successfully run it on Windows 10 Phone yet, but we’re working on that.

Unfortunately, I can’t share any performance data. The EULA for the current build of Windows 10 (build 10143 as I’m writing this) forbids publishing benchmark results without prior written approval from Microsoft.

We’ll continue testing and refining the porting of TouchXPRT to Windows 10. Our goal is to release it as a universal app to the community in July.

What are your experiences testing Windows 10? We’d love to hear about them!

Eric

Posted in Performance benchmarking, TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT development process, TouchXPRT release cycle, Windows 10 |

Rolling with the changes

By Eric Hale

on June 4, 2015

While WebXPRT 2015 has been running fine on earlier beta versions of Windows 10, we have found a problem on some recent versions. Starting with build 10122, the Local Notes test hangs when using the Microsoft Edge browser. (Note: This browser still identifies itself as Spartan in the builds we have seen.) Chrome and Firefox on Windows 10 have successfully run WebXPRT 2015, so the problem appears to be restricted to Edge/Spartan.

Because WebXPRT ran successfully on earlier builds of Windows 10, we are hoping that upcoming builds will resolve the problem. However, we have been investigating the issue in case there is something we can address. The problem is that the encrypted strings that the test is trying to write to LocalStorage are not being written correctly. Non-encrypted strings are being written correctly.

As soon as the problem gets resolved, we’ll let you know.

In other news, we’ve been looking at Android M. There are a lot of interesting changes coming, such as the difference in the way that Android M manages app permissions. We’ve decided to delay releasing the design document for the next version of MobileXPRT so that we can make sure that the design deals with these changes appropriately.

Eric

Posted in Android, Benchmarking, Chrome OS, Collaborative benchmark development, MobileXPRT, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 2015, Windows 10 |

Category: Windows 10

WebXPRT update is now available

One now, one later

Mystery solved

Something old, something new

Hoping for a perfect 10

Rolling with the changes

Check out the other XPRTs: