Direct2D/DirectWrite Accelerated Rendering For Firefox

Discussion about official Mozilla Firefox builds
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Cru_N_cher
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Re: Direct2D/DirectWrite Accelerated Rendering For Firefox

Post by Cru_N_cher »

LordStriker wrote: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.


Odd thing is that their is 0 GPU load with Firefox layers and the P-State switch happens though on XP disabling layers seems to be more efficient especially saves more Power then in this current state with the WHQL driver :(
Maybe it would be better to also fill a bug report in concerns with the new WHQL Driver and Firefoxs Layer behavior (though i guess Mozilla is already @ it).
That you still see GPU load is easy explainable as you still have DirectWrite and Direct2D enabled layers is only 1 part of the whole package under XP you would see immediately the difference as their is no Direct2D and DirectWrite support for it ;)

This is absolute funny

http://gpuz.techpowerup.com/11/08/14/4sq.png

No GPU load but excessive P-State switching @ scrolling with Firefox Layers

Layers on a new GPU is anyways questionable if it saves anything @ all on XP and my Sandy Bridge i hardly realize what should be better Performance or even Energy wise with layers (might be more important for Laptops, Notebooks and less efficient CPUs)
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LordStriker
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Re: Direct2D/DirectWrite Accelerated Rendering For Firefox

Post by LordStriker »

Hey! Hi from here too... NiColaoS @ Guru3D :p

By the way, I'm not so tech-savvy. Just always trying to identify the general point ( reasons/terms ). But your last phrase, makes me wondering too.
Fx 16.02 -//- Fx 19α x64 -//- Win 8 Pro x64 -//- CPU: i5 2500 -//- GPU: 7950 -//- RAM: 8GB
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Virtual_ManPL
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Re: Direct2D/DirectWrite Accelerated Rendering For Firefox

Post by Virtual_ManPL »

Quatrix wrote: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?


Set gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.rendering_mode to 2 in about:config
It should revert to old good font rendering, like other browsers use.
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Quatrix
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Re: Direct2D/DirectWrite Accelerated Rendering For Firefox

Post by Quatrix »

Virtual_ManPL wrote:Set gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.rendering_mode to 2 in about:config
It should revert to old good font rendering, like other browsers use.


I tried that earlier. It causes all text to completely disappear, as described here:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=658763

Note that I have ClearType completely disabled in Windows, so I'm not sure these ClearType settings are supposed to do anything anyway.
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LordStriker
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Re: Direct2D/DirectWrite Accelerated Rendering For Firefox

Post by LordStriker »

Download the NVidia beta Drivers 285.27. They fixed the problems with Firefox ( overheating, overusing the graphics card ).

The newer will work better while testing the nightlies, I guess. Already I see smooth GPU usage.

In the release notes, you can see the particular bug related to Fx: http://uk.download.nvidia.com/Windows/2 ... -Notes.pdf

Also, better support on Flash 11 RC 1.
Fx 16.02 -//- Fx 19α x64 -//- Win 8 Pro x64 -//- CPU: i5 2500 -//- GPU: 7950 -//- RAM: 8GB
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Zlip792
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Re: Direct2D/DirectWrite Accelerated Rendering For Firefox

Post by Zlip792 »

New drivers are more finer than I thought...Thanks for sharing here..Lord Striker...
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LordStriker
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Re: Direct2D/DirectWrite Accelerated Rendering For Firefox

Post by LordStriker »

Zlip, indeed... This set is truly great, in many aspects, not just in relation to Fx' HWA. Extreme FPS gain on many games and nice bug fixes.
Fx 16.02 -//- Fx 19α x64 -//- Win 8 Pro x64 -//- CPU: i5 2500 -//- GPU: 7950 -//- RAM: 8GB
pr1xsel
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Re: Direct2D/DirectWrite Accelerated Rendering For Firefox

Post by pr1xsel »

I installed Win8 devbuild and Nightly doesn't recognize my Ati driver.
About:support says > Blocked for your graphics driver version. Try updating your graphics driver to version 10.6 or newer. < Would be good to get this fixed somehow.

GPU DX11 ati 5450 , Driver Version 8.88.5.3 , GPU Accelerated Windows 0/1 < can't it be forced to be enabled somehow?
fxtech
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Re: Direct2D/DirectWrite Accelerated Rendering For Firefox

Post by fxtech »

set to true

gfx.direct2d.force-enabled

and

layers.acceleration.force-enabled

and

webgl.force-enabled
spirits247
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Re: Direct2D/DirectWrite Accelerated Rendering For Firefox

Post by spirits247 »

I'm running Catalyst 11.9, MSI HAWK 6870, Windows 7 64bit. I have the same issue nVidia driver is meant to fix above. A quick search on Google shows there are many people with similar issues.

Direct2D and/or hardware acceleration in Firefox is causing the clocks and voltages to jump to max when simply scrolling a webpage (no flash content). This results in my cards temp rising from 37C to 45C when all I'm doing is using my mouse wheel and scrolling a page. No such jump happens when using Windows Aero.

The spikes look like this in FIREFOX, minimal GPU load, yet spikes appear when scrolling and rendering a forum webpage:

Image

IE8 had a similar problem, but it seems to be better, almost cured, in IE9:

Image

It initially surfaced with IE8 (seems fixed in IE9), and now with Firefox since they started using Direct2D and hardware acceleration (version 4 onwards?).

I know flash will jump to UVD clocks and rendered 3D content will probably use 3D clocks, but scrolling a page should be using lower clocks the same as Windows Aero especially when there is negligible GPU load.
Last edited by spirits247 on October 25th, 2011, 2:01 am, edited 2 times in total.
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squall_leonhart
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Re: Direct2D/DirectWrite Accelerated Rendering For Firefox

Post by squall_leonhart »

Thats expected DRIVER behavior
spirits247
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Re: Direct2D/DirectWrite Accelerated Rendering For Firefox

Post by spirits247 »

squall_leonhart wrote:Thats expected DRIVER behavior


If it is driver related, ATI have had this issue for about a year, first with IE8 (seems fixed in IE9) then with Firefox 4+.

nVidia have released a fix as mentioned above, so we need ATI to follow suit.

As for being "expected", I doubt it is expected for Firefox to heat up my GPU by 10C running max clocks for scrolling whilst IE9 keeps it at 36C using the exact same webpages. Both browsers have the same low GPU load but for some reason Firefox maxes out my clocks and temps, causing the GPU fan to speed up and slow down - very annoying! That can't be very efficient and intended behaviour for basic web surfing.

The one thing that confuses me is IE9 works fine, which makes me think what is Firefox doing different? Is Direct2D rendering at max FPS, rather than limited FPS? See here:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=647945
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=575342

I've tried disabling hardware acceleration and Direct2D, but it still does it so it does seem like a driver issue. If are we forced to wait for ATI to issue a fix like nVidia I could be waiting a very long time - I reported this to the driver team about a year back.

EDIT: Actually, it appears like disabling hardware acceleration in Firefox 7 isn't possible:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=682857

I might have to go back to IE9 for a while. :( I love Firefox and its addons.
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_Alexander
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Re: Direct2D/DirectWrite Accelerated Rendering For Firefox

Post by _Alexander »

Long shot, but this may be Firefox's GUI.
Firefox's GUI is incredibly heavy-weight for me (it takes a very long time paint itself - on a verge of a 1/4 second).
No one ever thinks of that as being the problem for some reason. Windows interface benefits heavily from proper drivers.
XP without drivers performs 100-200x slower than XP with graphic drivers for example. Can't tell if Windows 7 does.

IE9 is meant to be the poster-child for hardware acceleration.
It outperforms Firefox and doesn't do stupid things like trying to scroll at 200FPS (which SHOULD raise your clock speeds).


Effectively, IE9's hardware acceleration is more lightweight and faster.
Firefox uses Direct2D and DX10 layers which is more than just D2D.
Direct2D is a GPU rendering technology. DX10 layers is something more seen in games.
Games need 3D clock speeds so you get 3D clock speeds.

Additionally Firefox doesn't do this efficiently - when I mentioned this in a bug,
Bas Schouten said that Azure might alleviate some of these problems (might != will; alleviate != fix).

my 0.02
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Omega X
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Re: Direct2D/DirectWrite Accelerated Rendering For Firefox

Post by Omega X »

ATi has always been slower at fixing certain things about its drivers.
Mark342
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Re: Direct2D/DirectWrite Accelerated Rendering For Firefox

Post by Mark342 »

Hera wrote:Effectively, IE9's hardware acceleration is more lightweight and faster.
Firefox uses Direct2D and DX10 layers which is more than just D2D.
Direct2D is a GPU rendering technology. DX10 layers is something more seen in games.
Games need 3D clock speeds so you get 3D clock speeds.
my 0.02

IE9 uses Dx10 too.
Otherwise they couldn't boast "full hardware acceleration"
Without it, they wouldn't have compositing acceleration.

Also keep in mind that Direct2D is a hardware accelerated 2D graphics backed written by Microsoft with D3D10.
Much like the new Opera uses OpenGL to accelerate 2D graphics, Direct2D uses D3D10 as the underlying technology.

IE9 is meant to be the poster-child for hardware acceleration.
It outperforms Firefox and doesn't do stupid things like trying to scroll at 200FPS (which SHOULD raise your clock speeds).

IE9 is just doing vsync. (limit FPS at monitor refresh rate)
That isn't anymore lightweight than Firefox.
It will only help with some "screen tearing" issues.

The reason why Firefox raises the clocks of the graphics card is due to the driver.
Obviously, Microsoft wants IE9 to work well so it had some "pull" to get the driver manufacturer to add a special configuration for IE9 quickly. (basically, lower clock speeds)
Mozilla does not have this "pull" so it takes a lot longer.
Some driver provider programs allow you to manually configure the driver for an individual application.
This manual configuration is required because the driver cant tell the difference between Direct2D and Direct3D (they are the same underlying function calls)
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