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linduxed

Member

Registered: 2008-10-12

Posts: 72

Website

[SOLVED] Terrible performance in Firefox, makes the system slow

First of all, this only happens on one laptop; I've got several laptops (one of them being from the same line, just half a year older) and a stationary computer: the following only happens on one of them.

For some reason my Firefox is performing terribly, using the exact same configuration (profile directory) as I use on every other Arch machine I've got.

• Youtube videos have something like 10 FPS or less.

• Any moderately complex site like reddit.com makes Firefox noticeably less responsive.

• Sites like maps.google.com are a complete stutter-fest, making the site unusable.

• GIFs perform terribly

More importantly, for some reason if Firefox hits some site which it performs poorly on (let's take the Google Maps example), then the entire system becomes sluggish.

None of this happens in Chromium: I can use any site normally without any issues. This includes sites with Flash.

For a while I thought this could be caused by the bumblebee/Optimus graphics card setup, but regardless of whether it's install, on or off, bumblebee enabled or disabled, everything above still applies.

This is all happening on a setup with shared dotfiles and (to my knowledge) a configuration that should be very close if not identical to the other computers I have.

Do you guys have any idea what this could be caused by?

Last edited by linduxed (2015-07-29 10:56:04)

genEric

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2013-09-26

Posts: 38

Re: [SOLVED] Terrible performance in Firefox, makes the system slow

I agree. It's been a bit slower lately. You could try this one I saw the other day: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo … et-reader/ It removes some features. Each function that's been disabled can be activated again separately. It's not related to what you describe but should speed up FF in general.

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[genEric@…] ~$

linduxed

Member

Registered: 2008-10-12

Posts: 72

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Terrible performance in Firefox, makes the system slow

As mentioned: this only happens on one computer. It's not a question of Firefox lately getting slower in general, it works fine for me on my other machines.

linduxed

Member

Registered: 2008-10-12

Posts: 72

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Terrible performance in Firefox, makes the system slow

It turned out to be an Xorg configuration issue.

Some time ago, I had troubles getting X to start, the same problem as the guy in this thread had.

Just as the comments in that thread suggested, i went with writing this Xorg configuration:

Section "Device"
  Identifier "Intel Graphics"
  Driver "Intel"
  # Option "AccelMethod" "sna"
  Option "AccelMethod" "uxa"
EndSection

It turns out that when using "uxa", the Xorg process would get massive CPU spikes when Firefox was rendering something complex (we're talking 95%+ CPU usage acording to htop).

I don't know why it works, but I just commented out the AccelMethod line (leaving me with no uncommented AccelMethod line) and now everything works as it should. Previously I was quite sure I needed to pick an AccelMethod ("uxa" or "sna"), otherwise X would just freak out, but apparently that's not the case.

dice

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2014-02-10

Posts: 413

Re: [SOLVED] Terrible performance in Firefox, makes the system slow

JFTR: Currently the default method is "sna" (according to https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/In … SNA_issues). Therefore you are using "sna" now.

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I put at button on it. Yes. I wish to press it, but I'm not sure what will happen if I do.  (Gune | Titan A.E.)

linduxed

Member

Registered: 2008-10-12

Posts: 72

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Terrible performance in Firefox, makes the system slow

Interesting, back when I added the option, I tried using both "uxa" and "sna", and only the former allowed me to start X.

I must have installed some update since then that makes it possible for me to use "sna".

nomorewindows

Member

Registered: 2010-04-03

Posts: 3,511

Re: [SOLVED] Terrible performance in Firefox, makes the system slow

I'm not even using an xorg.conf, not sure from Xorg.0.log that it is even being used sna or uxa acceleration.  But of course, it's not intel, it's nvidia.  But still having the lag with FF.

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I may have to CONSOLE you about your usage of ridiculously easy graphical interfaces...
Look ma, no mouse.