Screen redraw issues

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JSladen
Posts: 4
Joined: October 13th, 2008, 4:02 pm

Screen redraw issues

Post by JSladen »

I've just updated to FF3.0.3 (from 2.0.0.17). Running win2k SP4, 2.5GB RAM, dual screen.

When I open firefox, nothing on the screen gets redrawn. If I drag another window or my mouse over it, then that redraws that part of the screen.
Swapping to a new tab doesn't trigger a redraw either, unless there is a flash advert or something on that page, in which case only that advert is shown.

I updated as soon as firefox 3 came out, and had the same problem, but figured it was a bug that'd get fixed soon, so downgraded and waited a bit.

edit: just noticed that if I shrink my FF window to about 800x600 or less it works properly, it's just not big enough to see anything.

Does anyone have any ideas?
I've done a few searches and can't find anything similar.
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dickvl
Posts: 54145
Joined: July 18th, 2005, 3:25 am

Re: Screen redraw issues

Post by dickvl »

That could be a problem with the video display driver on your computer.
You can check if there is a newer version available.
JSladen
Posts: 4
Joined: October 13th, 2008, 4:02 pm

Re: Screen redraw issues

Post by JSladen »

I've tried different driver versions, with no effect.
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ulillillia
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Joined: March 22nd, 2005, 3:47 pm
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Re: Screen redraw issues

Post by ulillillia »

What video card do you have and what are your resolution and color depth settings? Seeing the 2.5 GB RAM, I would suspect that you have a fairly advanced computer, such as a GeForce 7xxx or Radeon X1xxx or better, in which these cards can easily support 2048x1536 at 32-bit color. You may be maxing out your video card's memory, though if this was the case, all programs would be affected, not just Firefox, but Windows Task Manager, your antivirus/antispyware program, games like Freecell (that come with Windows), etc..
High elevation is the best elevation. The higher, the better the view!
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JSladen
Posts: 4
Joined: October 13th, 2008, 4:02 pm

Re: Screen redraw issues

Post by JSladen »

I have a Radeon X1950 Pro, with 512MB Video RAM.
primary monitor is at 1680x1050 @ 32bit
secondary is at 1280x1024 @ 32bit

No other programs exhibit any issues at all.
JSladen
Posts: 4
Joined: October 13th, 2008, 4:02 pm

Re: Screen redraw issues

Post by JSladen »

Any ideas anyone?

This is really irritating to say the least...
Guest
Guest

Re: Screen redraw issues

Post by Guest »

JSladen wrote:Any ideas anyone?

This is really irritating to say the least...
I have the same issue since I also updated to 3.0.3 under Windows. If I drop my Color Quality setting down from 'Highest (32 bit) down to 'Medium (16 bit)', the problem goes away. I'm running 3.0.4 now and still the same issue at the higher color quality setting. I'm running NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT and had no issues before 3.0.3.
smodilo
Guest

Re: Screen redraw issues

Post by smodilo »

I have the same problem here since my last upgrade!!! If this continues I have to get rid of Firefox :-(
I can't work in other programs while it is running.

I have a GForce 8500GT
rfeced
Guest

Re: Screen redraw issues

Post by rfeced »

Often, scrolling speed is improved by reducing the graphics acceleration slider down one notch. This is especially true with integrated ATI cards on Windows XP, see here: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=807075
The Vista drivers for ATI do not have this problem.

If you have Nvidia, the same solution may apply but the problem is not as common. You may want to try other fixes like using usercontent to prevent background images from being set to fixed, which leads to much more extensive redrawing of the screen when scrolling. Turning on color management can make rendering and therefore scrolling slow, but in current Firefox 3 it is off by default. Firefox 3.1 will turn it on by default, but hopefully other changes will make the performance problem less.

Also, extensions and other profile problems can make everything including scrolling slow, for that try the standard diagnostic.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_(Firefox)
schlosna
Guest

Re: Screen redraw issues

Post by schlosna »

I don't know if this is the case for everyone, but I recently added the "/3GB" flag in c:\boot.ini while testing some other applications, and that is when I began seeing screen redraw and ghosting issues with Firefox 3.0.4. Once I removed the "/3GB" flag, the redraw issues have disappeared. What seems odd though, is that Firefox doesn't appear to have the LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag on firefox.exe (`DUMPBIN /HEADERS firefox.exe` doesn't show "Application can handle large (>2GB) addresses" under the FILE HEADER VALUES, so the /3GB address space changes shouldn't have affected Firefox.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/pl ... aemem.mspx

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.4) Gecko/2008102920 Firefox/3.0.4
OS Name: Microsoft Windows XP Professional
OS Version: 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
Processor(s): 4 Processor(s) Installed.
[01]: x86 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 7 GenuineIntel ~2393 Mhz
[02]: x86 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 7 GenuineIntel ~2394 Mhz
[03]: x86 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 7 GenuineIntel ~2394 Mhz
[04]: x86 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 7 GenuineIntel ~2394 Mhz
Total Physical Memory: 3,326 MB
Available Physical Memory: 1,788 MB
DanaFriedman64
Guest

Re: Screen redraw issues

Post by DanaFriedman64 »

I don't know about the rest of you, but my other browsers work fine. I can't see making adjustments to accommodate Firefox when it had never been necessary before. What do y'all need to know at Mozilla to make this behavior stop? For now I've gone back to Chrome and IE as my primary browsers, as they don't exhibit this really distracting behavior. The display doesn't do anything else untoward that I can recognize. As such, I'm not inclined to blame the drive. What's up and when can it be fixed?

Thanks,
Dana
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LoudNoise
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Joined: October 18th, 2007, 1:45 pm
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Re: Screen redraw issues

Post by LoudNoise »

Try this:
In the address bar, type about:config
Filter for gfx.color_management.mode
Change that to 0 (zero)

Since this is over 6 months old I am locking it. If you need more help please start a new thread.
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DanRaisch
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Joined: September 23rd, 2004, 8:57 pm
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Re: Screen redraw issues

Post by DanRaisch »

DanaFriedman64, you've posted to a thread that died out almost 10 months ago. It's unlikely that any of the original participants is still monitoring this. If you have an issue, please create a new topic and provide details of the problem you're having.

Locking this due to the age of the original posts.
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