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Full GPU Acceleration in Firefox

x3sphere

Administrator
Staff member
Enforcer Team
Game Info Editor
Someone is working on implementing Direct2D support in Firefox to enable full GPU acceleration, meaning tasks like rendering and scrolling on pages is entirely handled by the GPU. This is a feature already confirmed for inclusion in IE9 and it looks like it may show up in a future release of Firefox as well.

You can download a build of Firefox with support for this method of rendering here: http://www.bassified.nl/firefox-3.7a1pre.en-US.win32.d2d.2009.12.13.zip

It's still undergoing testing, so there's bound to be bugs, but so far I haven't noticed any yet. My browser is running much smoother, everything feels completely VSynced even on content heavy pages with lots of text and images. You can really notice the difference on this page when resizing images: vladimir/demos/photos.svg - people.mozilla.com

The only requirement is that you need to be running Vista or Windows 7. Also recommended is a GPU supporting Direct3D 10. More information is available here: Direct2D: Hardware Rendering a Browser Give it a try :)
 

Roe

Well-Known Member
Ah shit, all was good until it got to the vista or windows 7 requirement.
 

NoEffex

Seth's On A Boat.
Guess who's about to reinstall Windows 7? I am, that's who.

Looks cool. I wish they'd use OpenGL though..

EDIT: It looks to be using Cairo, which is cross-platform.
 
Niiiice. Scrolling is heaps smooth as well. It looks like the whole browser chrome may also be GPU rendered, because I have FRAPS showing up everywhere, even on menus.

Text seems to be much better, sort of like OS X's anti-aliasing methods.

It's good to see the GPU being put to more and more use these days, extending it's use beyond just games and video.
 

KezraPlanes

Just some dood
Scrolling is much better... Font looks... thinner?
 

Hardrive

Contributor
The Windows 7 taskbar integration is weird though. I have it pinned to the taskbar, but when I open it, it opens up a separate icon. When I hover my mouse over it, multiple windows show up, which each window being a separate tab. Obviously, this quirk needs to be ironed out. However, it performs much better than standard Firefox (even on my quad-core system). Also, the post titles on Slashdot seem a little over-bolded, almost fuzzy.

Thanks for the tip x3!
 

ChurchedAtheist

Your resident psycho hobo
anyone know if a NVIDIA 8200m supports direct3D10?
 
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