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  • Post #1

Hi, all!

I've been trying to tune my Solus install for battery life and have been following tips given here like using powertop and systemd set to autotune at startup, etc. I've noticed in powertop that Firefox, naturally, uses a good bit of power. I checked and the hardware acceleration is apparently off by default for linux. I've read up on the state of it (and in chrome) and while chrome is apparently slightly better with acceleration I'll take my chances with FF.

My question is this: does anyone use the layers.acceleration.force-enabled flag to force hardware acceleration?

I've already done so and noticed a drop in power use but I assume there is a good reason it isn't enabled by default (stability?). Also apparently addons can cause FF to disable multiprocess. I've already turned mine back on with browser.tabs.remote.force-enable and noticed a bit of extra responsiveness but if there's a reason to revert I'd appreciate your thoughts.

Good ideas? Bad?

TIA for the input!

    [deleted] My question is this: does anyone use the layers.acceleration.force-enabled flag to force hardware acceleration?

    I've already done so and noticed a drop in power use but I assume there is a good reason it isn't enabled by default (stability?).

    Indeed issues with it affecting system suspend for some users and at one point an inability to manually resize FF windows. It's been re-enabled before but had to be disabled again, still has issues for some users.

    It's been awhile since I investigated this but from memory layers.acceleration.force-enabled is the old way and gfx.webrender.all is the new hotness which I have enabled.

        • [deleted]

        • Post #3

        Harvey

        Thanks for the reply!

        Makes sense. Fortunately I haven't seen any issues with my super thorough testing (all of and hour lol).

        Maybe I should swap the flags to webrender... I'll investigate the difference before I do, though. For now the battery savings is my biggest interest since my laptop only has a 45ish Wh battery. 😅 Thanks, Lenovo!

            Harvey Actually I completely removed it since firefox 72.0.1 so now we don't force it to false anymore by default.

              4 days later

              @Harvey is right: enable WebRender with gfx.webrender.all: true and check if in about:support you get a "GPU" among the remote processes.

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                • Post #7
                • Edited

                N1X3L Thanks for directing me to that! I try to search for similar posts before I write a new one but that one didn't come up, good info in there.

                livingsilver94 Thanks! I do see the GPU listed, now.

                I didn't have any issues with my original flag but I've swapped togfx.webrender.all: true to test since it's more appropriate.

                Edit: I'm an idiot. Thanks, guys!