Originally posted by cl333r
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Firefox 6 Should Sort Out Linux GPU Acceleration
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Originally posted by elanthis View PostThe Linux vs Windows 2D (not 3D) acceleration story is still pretty sad. Firefox/Chrome/IE on Windows can use Direct2D, which is conceptually similar to OpenVG, and they can also use DirectWrite, which has absolutely no similar offering in the Linux wrold.
Rendering with OpenGL is neat and all, but it takes a lot more work for a lot less pay-off than using an API designed specifically for 2D that can interface more directly with the hardware. There simply is no 2D-over-OpenGL library that performs as well as Direct2D, yet. Cairo will probably get pretty close... eventually.
Somebody still needs to figure out DirectWrite parallels. I'd say there's a big hole in Khronos' offerings, but since nothing besides their GL series of libraries are actually used anywhere by anyone yet, I guess actually having an OpenText kind of API really wouldn't mean anything.
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Originally posted by bwat47 View PostIn the firefox 6 nightlies I still can't get the gpu acceleration working at ALL, using catalyst 11.4. Force enabling it in about config doesn't work, about support still says 0/1 for gpu acceleration.
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Originally posted by ChrisXY View PostI still sthink the real problem isn't the linux drivers.
When I start it with my i5 480m and hd 6550 with catalyst 11.4 it is stable. I am currently writing this post in a GPU accelerated firefox. It only has rendering issues with scrolling. Initial rendering of a webpage (and rerendering by minimize/unminimize) is perfectly fine. Surely they could sort this out when working together with AMD.
But: Performance is extremely slow. Normal web browsing is fine but sometimes a little bit laggy. The thing where it really is slow is the things it is supposed to accelerate:
15 FPS at http://demos.hacks.mozilla.org/openweb/HWACCEL/
2 FPS at IE fishtank with 1000 fish and it slows down the whole broser extremely.
Yet "aticonfig --odgc" shows 0% gpu usage.
Windows 7 with Firefox hardware acceleration has of course 60 FPS in both tests.
I'm using 5.0a2(x64) and got 34fps @ the moz demo and 10fps@ IE fish (fullscreen 1600x900). The later test was only using around 19.5% cpu.
All this on arrandale m620.
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Originally posted by elanthis View PostThe Linux vs Windows 2D (not 3D) acceleration story is still pretty sad. Firefox/Chrome/IE on Windows can use Direct2D, which is conceptually similar to OpenVG, and they can also use DirectWrite, which has absolutely no similar offering in the Linux wrold.
Originally posted by elanthis View PostRendering with OpenGL is neat and all, but it takes a lot more work for a lot less pay-off than using an API designed specifically for 2D that can interface more directly with the hardware. There simply is no 2D-over-OpenGL library that performs as well as Direct2D, yet. Cairo will probably get pretty close... eventually.
2. Sure Direct2D has nice helper functions and house keeping stuff, but remember, as with 3D on GL vs D3D that doesn't really matter cause if you're doing a serious 2D/3D project you're going to create your own helper stuff/engine/whatnot anyway. Besides Direct2D had to be written with backwards compatibility with GDI in mind so the whole Direct2D/3D/Write/whatever is a pretty big stack, unlike the core GL 3+ APIs. From this point of view GL is actually a lot slimmer but DX provides lots of housekeeping stuff which you may or may not like or use, not to mention there's also bugs in it, wikipedia says there's been a lot of bugs fixed with SP1 on Win7 in the Direct2D layer, so Direct2D certainly isn't such an awesome fast-slim-bug-free marvel as some may imply.
Originally posted by elanthis View PostSomebody still needs to figure out DirectWrite parallels. I'd say there's a big hole in Khronos' offerings, but since nothing besides their GL series of libraries are actually used anywhere by anyone yet, I guess actually having an OpenText kind of API really wouldn't mean anything.
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It will be amazing if they can pull this off while supporting a good amount of graphics cards and have it running stable.
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In the firefox 6 nightlies I still can't get the gpu acceleration working at ALL, using catalyst 11.4. Force enabling it in about config doesn't work, about support still says 0/1 for gpu acceleration.
Leave a comment:
-
The Linux vs Windows 2D (not 3D) acceleration story is still pretty sad. Firefox/Chrome/IE on Windows can use Direct2D, which is conceptually similar to OpenVG, and they can also use DirectWrite, which has absolutely no similar offering in the Linux wrold.
Rendering with OpenGL is neat and all, but it takes a lot more work for a lot less pay-off than using an API designed specifically for 2D that can interface more directly with the hardware. There simply is no 2D-over-OpenGL library that performs as well as Direct2D, yet. Cairo will probably get pretty close... eventually.
Somebody still needs to figure out DirectWrite parallels. I'd say there's a big hole in Khronos' offerings, but since nothing besides their GL series of libraries are actually used anywhere by anyone yet, I guess actually having an OpenText kind of API really wouldn't mean anything.
Leave a comment:
-
I still sthink the real problem isn't the linux drivers.
When I start it with my i5 480m and hd 6550 with catalyst 11.4 it is stable. I am currently writing this post in a GPU accelerated firefox. It only has rendering issues with scrolling. Initial rendering of a webpage (and rerendering by minimize/unminimize) is perfectly fine. Surely they could sort this out when working together with AMD.
But: Performance is extremely slow. Normal web browsing is fine but sometimes a little bit laggy. The thing where it really is slow is the things it is supposed to accelerate:
15 FPS at http://demos.hacks.mozilla.org/openweb/HWACCEL/
2 FPS at IE fishtank with 1000 fish and it slows down the whole broser extremely.
Yet "aticonfig --odgc" shows 0% gpu usage.
Windows 7 with Firefox hardware acceleration has of course 60 FPS in both tests.
Leave a comment:
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