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Running Firefox without hardware acceleration results in very weird text corruption, video stuttering

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  • Last reply by kwresrch

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In troubleshooting another issue, I discovered that running Firefox without hardware acceleration occasionally results in very weird text corruption and video stuttering. I was able to capture some screenshots of the issue, which I have attached. The text is still selectable and copy/pasting it to a document will show the proper text. Closing PIP windows helps the stuttering a bit. Issue persisted when a single tab of Firefox was the only non-background program running.

I have turned hardware accel. back on and haven't experienced the issue since. Just thought I ought to post in case someone else had this issue too.

In troubleshooting another issue, I discovered that running Firefox without hardware acceleration occasionally results in very weird text corruption and video stuttering. I was able to capture some screenshots of the issue, which I have attached. The text is still selectable and copy/pasting it to a document will show the proper text. Closing PIP windows helps the stuttering a bit. Issue persisted when a single tab of Firefox was the only non-background program running. I have turned hardware accel. back on and haven't experienced the issue since. Just thought I ought to post in case someone else had this issue too.
Attached screenshots

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It seems that disabling hardware acceleration in Firefox resulted in text corruption and video stuttering. Enabling hardware acceleration again resolved the issue for you.

Hardware acceleration utilizes your computer's graphics processing unit (GPU) to enhance the performance of certain tasks, such as rendering videos and graphics-intensive web content. Disabling hardware acceleration can sometimes lead to unexpected behavior, particularly if your system relies heavily on the GPU for these tasks.

Based on your description, it's possible that disabling hardware acceleration caused Firefox to rely solely on software rendering, which may have resulted in the text corruption and video stuttering. By enabling hardware acceleration, Firefox can offload some of the rendering tasks to the GPU, improving performance and reducing the likelihood of such issues occurring.

If you encounter similar issues in the future, I recommend keeping hardware acceleration enabled in Firefox. However, if you continue to experience problems even with hardware acceleration enabled, there may be other underlying factors causing the issue. In such cases, it may be helpful to update your graphics drivers or consider other troubleshooting steps, such as clearing Firefox's cache or resetting the browser settings.