Direct2D/DirectWrite Accelerated Rendering For Firefox

[greenknight]

Its only limited to newer systems because of driver/hardware issues. They are exploring reducing the Texture Size Limit for some older GPUs. But that's still only for those that don't have poor drivers.

P.S. New AMD-ATi Drivers were also released yesterday. Both WHQL and new Beta drivers.

I tried installing the latest drivers, but I got crashes. Old drivers, no problem.

Of course, if I had any money, I'm sure there are better AGP 4x cards than this one.

[Omega X]

Yeah, those were newer ATI drivers for the HD series. Old Radeon 7x series was discontinued a long time ago.

[greenknight]

Yeah, it's old, but it was a big upgrade - the original card was an 8MB SIS.

This one cost 15 bucks at WeirdStuff. Got the CPU at the same time, for 11 bucks (replaced a Duron 700 MHz). Pulls = cheap upgrades. No sense buying new components for a unit this old, even if I could afford it.

[Astrophizz]

There's probably a Radeon 9xxx gen card that would work in your system and maybe even later. I remember seeing a card that I thought was only made for PCI-E available for AGP boards... though it might have been AGP 8x only. Sorry for the OT.

[Elbart]

http://www.ghacks.net/2011/07/30/microsoft-updates-core-system-fonts-to-fix-blurred-fonts-issues-in-windows/

New System fonts blur fix by Microsoft...

You followed those links?
"Date Published: 6/27/2011"

[LordStriker]

Guys, be aware... Nvidia released new WHQL Drivers ( 280.26 )

These drivers inlcude a bug which causes all Adaptive Apps ( Fx, Steam, Media Center, and generally Windows ) which using Hardware Acceleration to utilize the Graphics Card more than they should. The results: 6-7C hotter and clocks running in full 3d mode much more than they should too. You can notice it especially on Scrolling ( jerky -even while you scroll down a folder in Windows ) or Tab Switching and generally very sluggish UI some times, after an unspecified usage and eventually a restart needed. The fan works on 60% of its power instead of 40% or at least 50%. Quite waste.

They have acknowledged the bug and said early September they will release new driver which will fix this terrible bug. And I was mistakenly blaming Mozilla. Don't make the same mistake if you notice it.

Disabling HWA It's a stopgap, but no panacea. Fx still uses HWA while scrolling.

[pal-moz]

Guys, be aware... Nvidia released new WHQL Drivers ( 280.26 )

These drivers inlcude a bug which causes all Adaptive Apps ( Fx, Steam, Media Center, and generally Windows ) which using Hardware Acceleration to utilize the Graphics Card more than they should. The results: 6-7C hotter and clocks running in full 3d mode much more than they should too. You can notice it especially on Scrolling ( jerky -even while you scroll down a folder in Windows ). The fan works on 60% of its power instead of 40% or at least 50%. Quite waste.

They have acknowledged the bug and said early September they will release new driver which will fix this terrible bug. And I was mistakenly blaming Mozilla. Don't make the same mistake if you notice it.

Disabling HWA It's a stopgap, but no panacea. Fx still uses HWA while scrolling.

where is a source of information ?

[LordStriker]

This is a quote from ManuelG, a Nvidia's developer:

"BTW, I don't need any more information on the P-State changes at this point as I've already passed along the following complaints from end users and they have already taken action on this:

1) Fan spinning up and down as a result of the constant P-State changes
2) Basic tasks causing spikes in GPU clock and voltages such as simple scrolling of the page
3) Graphics card running slightly higher temperature as a result of clocking up and down more frequently"

If you want further informations, go to Nvidia Forums and check new drivers release topic. Forgot to say, previous drivers ( 275.33 ) have it too but slighter, not in that scale. Seemingly the next driver is going to be an interesting one, with many major fixes, about this and popular games. Just noting.

[NVD]

GeForce 280.26 WHQL drivers out from Nvidia, please update and test with the latest Nightly builds if you can.

Desktop
http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7-winvi ... river.html

http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7-winvi ... river.html

Notebook
http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook-w ... river.html

http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook-w ... river.html

[rasengan]

Wow, I think I will hold off on the 280.26 drivers...

[LordStriker]

A quick update from ManuelG again ( Nvidia's Developer ):

A quick note. It is possible we may release a driver soon that will change the sensitivity of the driver to react to GPU utilization as a beta driver. This driver will only contain this fix and nothing else. Other fixes such as Battlefield: Bad Company 2 performance improvement is still targeted for the September driver.

Guys, the problem is really terrible and unacceptable. I don't suggest to skip these drivers. I just personally did. Although these drivers have better support to new flash 11.

Also, Flash Beta 2 is out by the way: http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer11.html

[mikedl]

Also, Flash Beta 2 is out by the way: http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer11.html

Thanks for that!

[avada]

http://www.ghacks.net/2011/07/30/microsoft-updates-core-system-fonts-to-fix-blurred-fonts-issues-in-windows/

New System fonts blur fix by Microsoft...

Is it plainly new versions of fonts or is it more.

[Zlip792]

http://www.ghacks.net/2011/07/30/microsoft-updates-core-system-fonts-to-fix-blurred-fonts-issues-in-windows/

New System fonts blur fix by Microsoft...

Is it plainly new versions of fonts or is it more.

just enhancement for few fonts. Read this: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2545698/en-us

Code: Select all

In this situation, text that is displayed in the following core fonts in Internet Explorer 9 appears blurred compared with the same text and fonts in Windows Internet Explorer 8:  

    Arial (font style: Regular; font size: 8-point, 9-point, and 10-point) 
    Verdana (font style: Regular; font size: 8-point, 9-point, and 10-point) 
    Tahoma (font style: Regular; font size: 8-point, 9-point, and 10-point)

[Quatrix]

I apologize for not reading all 86 pages here or related threads. I have ClearType turned off completely in Windows 7. After upgrading from Firefox 5 to 6, ClearType seems to be forced on some text but not all. All of my gfx.* settings are the defaults, and both Direct2D and DirectWrite are enabled. The problem goes away if I turn off Direct2D. Is anyone else having problems with ClearType disabled?