Firefox 4 beta 4 to enable hardware acceleration for Windows users

By on Aug 19, 2010 at 7:10 PM
General August 19, 2010

If you’ve enjoyed mucking around with the beta builds of Firefox 4, you might want to pay close attention to the next release. Slated to drop on Monday, Firefox 4 beta 4 will enable hardware-accelerated graphics for some Windows users. As CNET explains, “Hardware acceleration [...] is designed to shift some tasks from a computer’s main processor to its graphics processor. One way Firefox is tackling the technology is by using Windows’ Direct2D interface, which can speed up the display of text and graphics on newer versions of Windows.” The feature will be off by default, but you can enable it by:

  1. Entering about:config in the Firefox Awesome Bar
  2. Accept warning asking you to “be careful.”
  3. Search for mozilla.widget.render-mode and set its value to 6
  4. Search for gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled and set its value to true.

The ability to group tabs into “tab sets” is also scheduled to be available in beta 4. Anyone out there using Firefox 4 beta as their primary browser?

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  • iBaz

    What if you have integrated graphics?

  • Nelson

    Dumped this bloated, slow, memory leaking turd of a browser for Chrome and never looked back.

  • Chris

    May actually give me a reason to for the install Firefox on my computer…
    I don’t know how long It’ll take me to switch back to opera though.

  • oldtaku

    I’m using 4.0b3 – it’s great so far. I especially like the app tabs, and the extra speed certainly doesn’t hurt.

    I’m ‘stuck’ in Firefox till Chrome or Opera or anyone else gets their act together on extensions. But with that said, I haven’t had any real problems with FF since the early 3.x days.

  • bringit

    Chrome.

  • T-Will

    Believe it or not, I’m using Firefox 4 Beta 2 as my main browser at work. So far I haven’t noticed any weirdness or crashes and I’m even running add-ons that aren’t officially supported in Firefox 4.

  • http://www.webhostinglogic.com Hippy Hop

    I use Chrome as my primary browser as it is faster than anybody browser. But of course it is because it has no extensions, unlike my Firefox wherein I had added a lot of needed extensions for my job.

    • Plan B

      Actually its not. Opera is. Benchmark tests recently confirmed it. Look it up.

  • Modern Man

    Netscape

  • rob smith

    I have been using Minefield for a while now, and it is to me much better then Chrome..

  • Eric

    I’ve been using Firefox 4 Beta since it came out. It took some getting used to with the new UI. It is also a little slower on load up since its still in beta but other than that I love it and I am really looking forward to this!

  • http://www.darkrockstudios.com Wavesonics

    I’ve been using FF4 since beta 2 (b1 was a little under cooked even for me) and its been fantastic!

    Can’t wait for the next beta!

  • thedogscar

    I had been using it up until a couple days ago, but deleted it from my computer. It had a lot of issues with my Security Software flagging things. If I did not give access to things, it would repeatedly flag me to do it … and I figured if I have no idea what I am giving access to … why bother having a security software if I am overriding it constantly … just made me feel very unsafe. I went back to IE.

    • soggybacon

      Well, if you’re using Windows Live OneCare that may be the problem…

  • http://TurboFool.com TurboFool

    Yes, I’m on FF4 on both computers now, and actually on the RC that includes Tab Sets. Once I saw them in action I couldn’t live without. I’m about to enable these functions mentioned. We’ll see what happens.

  • http://c3dude.wordpress.com c3dude

    i use FF4 and i like it but i have one major problem with it. If it’s not fixed by the release i’ll switch back to chrome. My problem is that mozilla continues to make firefox take over the screen. I have to eithee browse windowed or alt tab out to get to anything else. It’s annoying

    also, hardware accelleration is nice but..why? Why don’t they just finally implement multi threading. There you go. Problem solved.

    • soggybacon

      Well first, you have never used the convenient “restore” button located in the upper-right hand corner ( you know, the direction toward hand opposite the one that looks like an L, then up towards the blue globe of air above you, the sky.)

      Next, multithreading is one of the reasons why Chrome often uses gigas of memory (for me and for benchmarks)

  • offdayJB

    in the past i would’ve been using this already. Google Chrome stole my heart! beta 4 sounds good tho

  • phone_booger

    dammit i hate when i have to wait for RoboForm to update

  • http://idabtouchhelp.tk dan

    man I can’t wait to use firefox 4 beta 4,been loving firefox 4 so far

    Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone).

  • http://c3dude.wordpress.com c3dude

    first, multithreading has very little to do with actual memory usage as a multithreaded program using 1mb of ram still takes 1mb of ram when combined into one thread (though this isn’t always true.)

    second, those benchmarks were for sometimes 30 tabs open simultaneously. You open 30 tabs in any browser at the same time and you’re going to eat memory. The difference is chrome saves a copy of EVERYTHING. Firefox saves the bare minimum needed to display the page and dynamic elements aren’t refreshed until reopening the tab.

    third, sure, chrome eats memory. It’s also the fastest javascript engine around and opens, browses faster than firefox because it’s not top heavy.

    in closing, firefox is top heavy and eats less ram but needs more cpu cycles. Chrome is not top heavy, eats more ram but needs less cpu cycles.

  • http://c3dude.wordpress.com c3dude

    as a quick addendum, it seems as of beta 4 the onTop issue has been resolved. I’m not sure if this is part of beta 4 or the fact that i enabled hardware accel. Either way, now my only problem is that firefox works best for someone who constantly has a webbrowser open and that’s just not me 80% of the time. Still, it’s better than chrome for the other 20. Althoug chrome is still better for web devel/design.

  • Yaro Kasear

    Only for Windows users? They’ll shaft Linux users who make a sizable chunk of their install base?

    • Astron

      It’s a Windows-only API, Linux doesn’t have anything comparable.
      For 3D, I think they’re already experimenting with OpenGL on Linux and Mac.

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