Firefox 94 To Start Using EGL On Linux - Better Performance, Lower Power Use

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Firefox 94 To Start Using EGL On Linux - Better Performance, Lower Power Use

Mozilla Firefox 94 will begin using its EGL back-end on the Linux desktop in conjunction with supported graphics drivers in order to provide better performance, lower power usage, and other benefits...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Firefox-94-EGL-Linux-Usage

[Danny3]

Cool, but I wonder if this can bring any improvement for someone who already enabled WebRender and video hardware acceleration and it's already running well on Wayland.
One thing that I hate is that Mozilla continues to ignore the other major desktop environment (KDE Plasma) and don't want to fix very annoying bugs like:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1516290

[perpetually high]

That's really good news. I can only speak for GNOME and not the KDE issues above, but I have both firefox (Stable, 93.0) and firefox-trunk (Nightly, 95.0-alpha) installed, and I've been using Nightly exclusively for the reasons Michael mentioned.

Firefox is so much faster now in 95.0. It loads faster than Chrome for me

95.0 adds the following features in about:support

WEBGPU
disabled by default: Disabled by default
available by user: Enabled via dom.webgpu.enabled

X11_EGL
available by default

DMABUF
available by default

I also do the following:

WEBRENDER_SHADER_CACHE
disabled by default: Disabled by default
available by user: Enabled via gfx.webrender.program-binary-disk


layout.frame_rate = 144 (since I have 144hz monitors)

---

Here's what Firefox 93.0 looks like in about:support right now for me:

WEBBGPU
disabled by default: Disabled by default
available by user: Enabled via dom.webgpu.enabled
blocked by runtime: WebGPU can only be enabled in nightly
X11_EGL
available by default
blocklisted by env: Blocklisted by gfxInfo
DMABUF
available by default
unavailable by runtime: Requires EGL

[perpetually high]

Here's a gif comparing the startups of Firefox 93 vs Firefox 95 vs Chrome 95.0. Chrome is still king, but Firefox is creeping up on that title quick.

[skeevy420]

layout.frame_rate = 144 (since I have 144hz monitors)

That explains the forums as of late.

If I suddenly stop making posts y'all need to check perpetually high's basement since I'll likely be kicking it with 144hz.

That really tempts me to go Nightly on Linux for the time being.

[perpetually high]

That explains the forums as of late.

If I suddenly stop making posts y'all need to check perpetually high's basement since I'll likely be kicking it with 144hz.

That really tempts me to go Nightly on Linux for the time being.

Haha. And on that note - I noticed a few minutes ago when I was mirroring my screens that it defaulted to 120Hz when using the GUI in Display Settings.

Previously on my old installation I was using an alias to mirror and join the two screens:

alias mirror='xrandr --output DisplayPort-1 --mode 1920x1080 --rate 144.00 --output DisplayPort-0 --mode 1920x1080 --rate 144.00 --same-as DisplayPort-1'
alias joined='xrandr --output DisplayPort-1 --mode 1920x1080 --rate 144.00 --pos 1920x0 --output DisplayPort-0 --mode 1920x1080 --rate 144.00 --pos 0x0'

Now I'm back at 144hz and everything is way more crisp. This is why I do everything on the command line. Nothing beats it.

[M@GOid]

This is one step forward towards hardware video acceleration being enabled by default. Right now you need both launching FF with MOZ_X11_EGL=1 and activate VA-API on the about:config tab. With 94 only the VA-API step will be necessary.

[mirmirmir]

One thing that I hate is that Mozilla continues to ignore the other major desktop environment (KDE Plasma) and don't want to fix very annoying bugs like:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1516290

Maybe someone from other major DE should step up and start fixing those bugs, because that's how gnome bugs get fix

[bcellin]

maybe then I'll be able to run firefox with dedicated graphics without problems on wayland. I still can't using a laptop with nvidia, ubuntu , x and gnome.
when I right click firefox and run with dedicated graphics, it shows many gpu errors on about:support and does not have hardware acceleration enabled. I'm think I saw a bug on bugzilla about this but it was still opened. and when I run firefox with intel graphics it's got hardware acceleration and webrender is active.

[cl333r]

Here's a gif comparing the startups of Firefox 93 vs Firefox 95 vs Chrome 95.0. Chrome is still king, but Firefox is creeping up on that title quick.

They don't look like cold starts. You should also note if you're using an hdd/ssd/nvme as that (the disk I/O) is the most important thing for cold starts.