Mozilla plans to enable WebRender in Firefox 92

[silversurfer]

Mozilla plans to enable WebRender in Firefox 92 for all supported operating systems and device types. WebRender is already enabled on Mac OS X (since Firefox 84) and on most Linux distributions (since Firefox 91). Starting with the release of Firefox 92, WebRender will also be enabled in Firefox for Windows and for Android.

The main idea behind WebRender is to improve the rendering of web pages by making the experience faster and smoother. Developed in Rust, WebRender has been in development and testing for a long time.

WebRender can't be disabled anymore in Firefox 93

From Firefox 93 onward, Firefox users can't disable WebRender anymore as options to do so are no longer included in that version of the web browser. The only option that Firefox users have when they encounter rendering issues is to switch WebRender to software.

Some configurations may never get hardware WebRender, e.g. if the hardware is too old or if drivers have bugs or issues.

1. Load about:config in the Firefox address bar.
2. Confirm that you will be careful if the warning page is displayed.
3. Search for gfx.webrender.software.
   1. Set this value to TRUE to enable software WebRender.
   2. Set this value to FALSE to disable software WebRender. Note that you can't force the use of hardware WebRender if the hardware/driver is not compatible.
4. Restart the Firefox web browser.

Mozilla plans to enable WebRender in Firefox 92 - gHacks Tech News

Firefox 92 will be the first version of Firefox which has WebRender enabled on all supported platforms.

www.ghacks.net

 

[brambedkar59]

Disabling WebRender is the only way I can watch 4K@60 YT videos otherwise I get frame drops (15-20 % sometimes even more), with it disabled zero frame drops. Sad they are removing the option to disable it.

 

[SpiderWeb]

WebRender slows things down for me horribly just like @brambedkar59 said. I hope they made some massive improvements in performance if their plan is to enable it in the next version. WebRender seems like a good idea on Windows and macOS. But on Linux it's only great when the distro has great GPU drivers.

 

[Vasudev]

Disabling WebRender is the only way I can watch 4K@60 YT videos otherwise I get frame drops (15-20 % sometimes even more), with it disabled zero frame drops. Sad they are removing the option to disable it.

Could be nvidia driver issue, I reverted mine to several years older drivers to get rid off stutters on YT.

WebRender slows things down for me horribly just like @brambedkar59 said. I hope they made some massive improvements in performance if their plan is to enable it in the next version. WebRender seems like a good idea on Windows and macOS. But on Linux it's only great when the distro has great GPU drivers.

Try installing mesa-utils or mesa-egs packages.

 

[brambedkar59]

Could be nvidia driver issue, I reverted mine to several years older drivers to get rid off stutters on YT.

Try installing mesa-utils or mesa-egs packages.

I am not using Nvidia GPU to run browser, just the Intel iGPU.

 

[SeriousHoax]

I am not using Nvidia GPU to run browser, just the Intel iGPU.

I had trouble with WebRender on my Intel-based laptop but it's been running smoothly on the AMD-based PC since last October where it was enabled automatically. YouTube actually runs much better on Firefox for me than any Chromium-based browsers including Chrome.

But yeah they should not remove the disabling function till they find a solution for Intel iGPU's. Have you tried creating a bug on Bugzilla regarding your performance issue?

 

[oldschool]

YouTube actually runs much better on Firefox for me than any Chromium-based browsers including Chrome.

This is true for me, except I'm on Intel.

 

[SeriousHoax]

This is true for me, except I'm on Intel/

Nice! Is webrender enabled on your system?

 

[oldschool]

Nice! Is webrender enabled on your system?

Yes. My Firefox is pretty much stock configuration.

 

[brambedkar59]

Have you tried creating a bug on Bugzilla regarding your performance issue?

First I posted at r/Firefox and tried some troubleshooting steps but didn't work out. Mods are wonderful there, especially nextbern and yoasif.

Reddit thread

Then finally yoasif created the bug report for me and I posted more details as requested.

Bug report

Still have some issues figuring out the exact patch that caused the issue but I know for sure it was first seen on Firefox release v81, used mozregression tool to test out different builds for that.

% Frame drops v72 to v91 Firefox release

 

[Nightwater]

Mozilla getting worse every day, they lost their way already, now it is clear why the sites specialized in numbers say that every day they lose more users, in a while only the brand's fanboys will use it in the system.

 

[SeriousHoax]

First I posted at r/Firefox and tried some troubleshooting steps but didn't work out. Mods are wonderful there, especially nextbern and yoasif.

Reddit thread

Then finally yoasif created the bug report for me and I posted more details as requested.

Bug report

Still have some issues figuring out the exact patch that caused the issue but I know for sure it was first seen on Firefox release v81, used mozregression tool to test out different builds for that.

% Frame drops v72 to v91 Firefox release

I see. Good to see that they are trying to find the root of the problem and you are also actively giving them feedbacks. Sometimes solutions to problems like these are hard to find as it's happening for very few users.

 

[Vasudev]

I am not using Nvidia GPU to run browser, just the Intel iGPU.

Even I thought the same and nvidia GPU utilisation tray icon was not showing any usage and had to check task manager GPU usage and nvidia was basically powering on/off on youtube on any resolution. Had to downgrade to MSFT drivers to make nvidia driver stay put or at 0% usage on web browsing using Edge/FF.
Even VSCode rendering was laggy and triggering micro stutters on desktop UI as well.

 

[brambedkar59]

Even I thought the same and nvidia GPU utilisation tray icon was not showing any usage and had to check task manager GPU usage and nvidia was basically powering on/off on youtube on any resolution. Had to downgrade to MSFT drivers to make nvidia driver stay put or at 0% usage on web browsing using Edge/FF.
Even VSCode rendering was laggy and triggering micro stutters on desktop UI as well.

I am currently on 27.21.14.6627 (940mx, it has no video decoding support so I don't want it to be used by FF/Edge) with no such issues, no usage of Nvidia GPU.

 

[Moonhorse]

Ran another month with firefox, but had to change it to google chrome ( actually less bloated than edge nowadays) to run youtube & twitch better

Twitch 60 fps 1080 on firefox made whole setup unusable

Firefox smartblock is better than edge/chromium managing cookies etc

I just dont bother to change useragent to chrome on firefox ( or adguard tbh) ...but i bet im messing with firefox anytime soon