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by thaumasiotes 721 days ago
Javascript console shows many failures related to WebGL. I assume my laptop's integrated Intel graphics chip doesn't implement any of the features WebGL wants. The laptop also has an (also-integrated) NVidia graphics card, but while Firefox recognizes its presence, it won't use it.

As suggested in the bug report comments, toggling webgl.disable-angle to true in about:config lets the page load correctly. I'm not thrilled with this, mostly because I failed to find any documentation of the behavior, or existence, of that setting.
2 comments
lukan 721 days ago
"The laptop also has an (also-integrated) NVidia graphics card, but while Firefox recognizes its presence, it won't use it."

It is possible to request the high performance GPU in javascript, but it is up to the OS to grant it, or not. In windows one has to explicitely choose for each app, which GPU to use. Which is stupid right now, as I would like the big GPU on my laptop only for some things like web games and the automatic dedection does not work, so I can either switch it on - or off.

But it does NOT change GPUs based on required performance. At least not for me.

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thaumasiotes 721 days ago
> It is possible to request the high performance GPU in javascript, but it is up to the OS to grant it, or not. In windows one has to explicitely choose for each app, which GPU to use.

This seems somewhat at odds with the fact that changing a Firefox setting addresses the issue, though I don't know how it addresses the issue.

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lukan 721 days ago
Well, the one thing I did not found while investigating this, was clear information.

It seems most of this is work in progress and not really a high priority as people with a discrete GPU in a laptop are a minority.

I assume the browser could request the GPU, because my normal games also can. But the only way to get chrome and firefox use the real GPU, was an explicit setting somewhat hidden in the windows UI.

And as a standard this might sense, as my GPU really draws battery and gets loud, which I do not want for random websites. But for some websites/apps I would grant that permission. But consensus seems to be that users cannot be burdened with even more permission dialogs, so here we are.

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onemandevteam 721 days ago
Thank you. I'll add a todo item to add a webgl detector and error handling
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