Arch Linux

toni

Member

Registered: 2011-10-15

Posts: 437

Enable nvidia hardware acceleration in firefox 8.0

Hi all,

I have recently installed nvidia 285.05.09-3 and I have set hardware acceleration support in /etc/X11/xorg.conf by adding the "RenderAccel" option under section device as:

Option "RenderAccel" "1"

Also in firefox preferences, in Advanced and General tab, option "Use hardware acceleration when available" is checked.

However from firefox address bar, when typing about:support it is saying hardware acceleration support is not enabled under Graphics section:

GPU Accelerated Windows: 0/1

My xorg.conf file is as follows:

# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig:  version 285.05.09  (buildmeister@swio-display-x86-rhel47-02.nvidia.com)  Fri Sep 23 19:18:19 PDT 2011

# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings:  version 285.05.09  (buildmeister@swio-display-x86-rhel47-02.nvidia.com)  Fri Sep 23 19:18:04 PDT 2011

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    Option         "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

How can I tell firefox to support hardware acceleration?

Finally I have force firefox to use hardware acceleration by setting layers.acceleration.force-enable to true in about:config
Now about:support is showing the following under Graphics section:

GPU Accelerated Windows: 1/1 OpenGL

... but I don't know if it is correct to force firefox to use hardware acceleration instead of leaving firefox to detect and use it automatically.

How can I know if Arch Linux is using hardware acceleration as well?

Thx.

Last edited by toni (2011-11-18 22:24:52)

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,605

Re: Enable nvidia hardware acceleration in firefox 8.0

Firefox already does acceleration via xrender. By setting that force-enable to true you're forcing opengl acceleration, however there's a reason it's off by default. It's not ready yet. Chances are high you'll get visual glitches or worse performance than with xrender.

bernarcher

Forum Fellow

From: Germany

Registered: 2009-02-17

Posts: 2,281

Re: Enable nvidia hardware acceleration in firefox 8.0

Nvidia hardware acceleration is still to be used with caution. I experienced two system stalls  in firefox the last three days where I had to hard reset the machine. So I switched this feature off again.

---

To know or not to know ...
... the questions remain forever.

toni

Member

Registered: 2011-10-15

Posts: 437

Re: Enable nvidia hardware acceleration in firefox 8.0

Firefox already does acceleration via xrender. By setting that force-enable to true you're forcing opengl acceleration, however there's a reason it's off by default. It's not ready yet. Chances are high you'll get visual glitches or worse performance than with xrender.

Hi Gusar,

I set that force-enable to true because I had glitches problems when using firefox, that is, when doing scroll down/up, page's content overlaps. Once I have forced it to true, I have no problems, all seems to go ok, no more glitches in firefox 8. I have installed xrender, extra/libxrender 0.9.6-1, is this package what do you refer? If so, before setting force-enable to true I already have problems with glitches in firefox. If not, what package have I to install? Will I continue having glitches problem once xrender installed?

Finally, before installing nvidia drivers I had installed nouveau drivers, and firefox 8 went ok without glitches problems, but someone told me that nouveau does not support suspend (because I had problems when resuming after suspending, so I decided to install nvidia drivers.... despite once installed, I continue having problems with resuming after suspending... see my post Resuming after suspending problems for more details on it)

Thx.

Last edited by toni (2011-11-19 10:12:48)

toni

Member

Registered: 2011-10-15

Posts: 437

Re: Enable nvidia hardware acceleration in firefox 8.0

Nvidia hardware acceleration is still to be used with caution. I experienced two system stalls  in firefox the last three days where I had to hard reset the machine. So I switched this feature off again.

Hi Bernarcher,

Thanks very much with you contributiont, I will take it into account but for now I continue without having problems.... However what do you recommend me to do to solve glitches problems in firefox 8? I mean, when I do scroll down/up page's content overlaps if I don't force hardware acceleration in firefox 8.

Thx.

Last edited by toni (2011-11-19 10:14:16)

toni

Member

Registered: 2011-10-15

Posts: 437

Re: Enable nvidia hardware acceleration in firefox 8.0

Hi All,

Anyone knows how to deal with scroll down problem (text gets jumbled) in firefox 8 using nvidia?

Thx.

toni

Member

Registered: 2011-10-15

Posts: 437

Re: Enable nvidia hardware acceleration in firefox 8.0

Hi All,

This problem only hapens in firefox because using chromium all seems to go ok.

Any idea on how to deal with Firefox?

Thx.

toni

Member

Registered: 2011-10-15

Posts: 437

Re: Enable nvidia hardware acceleration in firefox 8.0

Hi All,

Anyone knows how to deal with scroll down problem (text gets jumbled) in firefox 10.0.1 using nvidia propietary drivers? It continue failling..... no workaround exists for this issue yet?

Thx.