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Hardware acceleration for video not working since 109

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  • Last reply by faded1

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On my machine (windows 7 x86 - AMD HD 6670) hardware acceleration for video seems to be disfunctional since Firefox 109. Im using Firefox Portable Version. with Firefox 108.0.2 GPU acceleration for Video was still working. after upgrading to 109 - with the same profile data, addons, settings, drivers etc. - it is not working anymore.

Example Video: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x770v7x

With Firefox 108.0.2 and ESR 102.8 playback of the above video is accelerated by GPU on my machine. Since Firefox 109 and following versions it is not...

Because i did not changed any configuration before updating to 109 it is obvious that 109 and the following versions do not support video acceleration in my environment anymore. but why..?

On my machine (windows 7 x86 - AMD HD 6670) hardware acceleration for video seems to be disfunctional since Firefox 109. Im using Firefox Portable Version. with Firefox 108.0.2 GPU acceleration for Video was still working. after upgrading to 109 - with the same profile data, addons, settings, drivers etc. - it is not working anymore. Example Video: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x770v7x With Firefox 108.0.2 and ESR 102.8 playback of the above video is accelerated by GPU on my machine. Since Firefox 109 and following versions it is not... Because i did not changed any configuration before updating to 109 it is obvious that 109 and the following versions do not support video acceleration in my environment anymore. but why..?

All Replies (12)

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Firefox Portable is a 3rd-party build. Support is available here: http://portableapps.com/forums/support/firefox_portable

Modified by jonzn4SUSE

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Thanks for your hint. But I don't think that the problem is related to the fact that I'am using the portable version from portableapps com. If that is what you wandet to suggest..? As I described: GPU accelerated video is working fine with the portable version up to firefox 108.0.2

The problem is that the functionallity of hardware acceleration in firefox has somehow changed since v109. But there is nothing to find in the release notes that could be an imaginable reason for this..

That is why I posted my question here and not in the portableapps forum.

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You are mentioning portable versions. This is Desktop. Reminds me of that scene from 300!  ;-))

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There is no big difference between the portable version and the installed version of firefox. The core application is absolutly the same. the only difference ist the starting procedure, because portable version stores the profile in the application path. After starting there is no difference between the functionallity of portable version and installed version..

So the reason for the changed behaviour of video acceleration via GPU must be located in the core application.. in my humble opinion.

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May the Schwartz be with you. Open a bug and see what Devs say. See ya.

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What Schwartz..? I will see. :)

for the moment ist seems there are no other users experiencing this problem. at least i have not found anything closely related to my problem in the web. Thats why I asked for support here. A Bug you say.. maybe.

Could it be one of my addons breaking hardware acceleration..? because the only major change I see in the 109 release notes is the shift to Manifest Version 3. Or Mozilla has silently discontinued some features when using firefox on windows 7.. or removed support for older hardware like my HD6670.. ???

But hopefully someone can contribute anything helpful to find out why GPU Video acceleration ist not working for me since firefox 109.

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You can check the Graphics section on the "Help -> More Troubleshooting Information" (about:support) page.

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I attached a screenshot from Firefox 109 about:support graphics section. Hope you don´t mind that it is partially in german. cause i am using the German version of firefox. The format is a bit weird but i could not get a better picture.. As far as I understand it HW acceleration is active and should work but when I play video in the browser it is not using the GPU at all.

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In the meantime I checked a "clean" firefox 109 without any addons, but that does not make a diffrence. So the problem can not be related to any of the addons I am using..

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I have checked media.hardware-video. entries in about:config - everything there like it should be. updated OpenH264 and Widevine Plugins - that didn't change anything either.

Hardware Video Acceleration is not working since Firefox 109 on my system.

If I open the above example video, or any other video on Dailymotion, Youtube or others, with Firefox 108.0.2 or ESR 102.8 at 1080p it is approximately 5% CPU load and 25% DXVA Engine of HD 6670

But if I open the same Videos with FF 109 or 110 the videos get only decoded via CPU. At 1080p I have approximately 25% CPU load and DXVA Engine of HD 6670 is 0%

I checked the CPU and GPU Values with Sysinternals Process Explorer..

..what the heck has Mozilla changed in the video decoding features since Firefox 109? this really is an annoying Problem.

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Can you test it with mozregression to narrow it down? Thanks.

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Thank you for your reply and your willingness to help. but no, I think I will not test it with mozregression in the moment. It seems far too much effort. The explanation video on the mozregression website is not very helpfull but makes clear that the whole process would be a big hassle anyway.. from watching the video I only understood rudimentary how it may works but it is not clear to me if mozregression would work with the portable version at all and I don´t like installing Software bugtracking tools just to spend another 2 Days or more in finding out if and how it works or not..

I already spend several hours in the last 3 days "narrowing down" the problem after I realized that GPU acceleration was not working anymore since I updated to 109 and then 110. Luckily I had backups of the previous Versions of Firefox so I was able to restore older versions - one of the advantages of the portable version - and found out relatively quick that the problem started with Firefox 109 and is not related to addons or config tweaks because it persists when I start firefox with a clean new profile..

To be honest I am really annoyed about the whole thing. Mozilla obviously messed something up in the video acceleration process in Firefox. I can only hope they fix it soon.. but they are probably not even aware of the problem and maybe as well not interested in maintaining support for Windows 7 and/or older Hardware. And it is not clear to me if the problem exist only with the specific combination of OS and Hardware in my machine or if it is a more general issue. For the same reasons I will not start a Bug report process because the formal requirements make it a lot of effort as well and the answer will probably be that they do not support portable versions..

I will use ESR as long as it is on the 102 Basis where DXVA it is still working. The last Release of ESR 102 will probably be 102.15 at 2023-08-29. If DXVA acceleration is not working for me in future releases after 2023-08-29 I will decide if I change to another Browser or go on using the 102.15 version of Firefox ESR. I don´t like this one-new-version-every-month thing at all anyway. It is only for security reasons that I usually update my Firefox on a regular basis.. but all the new "features" and changes Mozilla is constantly implementing had already bothered me in the past sometimes.

In the current situation I ask myself again if it´s a bug or a feature that causes the problem.. Maybe I will find a "easy" solution to the problem in the meantime before ESR changes to 115 or if someone has got any other ideas - about what may cause or fix my problem with Video acceleration via DXVA since 109 - I would be delighted.