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Firefox 4 forces MacBook Pro to use high-power graphics card

khedron
khedron
Posted

The current and previous-gen MacBook Pros have two graphics cards: one low-power integrated chip, and one high-power discrete one. Switching between the two is dynamic, based on program need.

Firefox 3.x would run with the low-power chip, extending battery life greatly. Firefox 4 currently forces the high-power card to run -- both the Firefox binary itself, and the plugin container make this so. You can see this using the gfxCardStatus application.

The current and previous-gen MacBook Pros have two graphics cards: one low-power integrated chip, and one high-power discrete one. Switching between the two is dynamic, based on program need. Firefox 3.x would run with the low-power chip, extending battery life greatly. Firefox 4 currently forces the high-power card to run -- both the Firefox binary itself, and the plugin container make this so. You can see this using the gfxCardStatus application.
  • Question details
    Product Firefox
    System Details
    • Mac OS X 10.6
    • Firefox 4.0

Additional System Details

This happened

Every time Firefox opened

This started when...

updated to Firefox 4

Installed Plug-ins

  • npmnqmp 07076003
  • Picasa plugin.
  • RealPlayer Plugin
  • iPhoto6
  • Java Plug-In 2 for NPAPI Browsers
  • DivX Web Player version 1.4.0.233
  • The Flip4Mac WMV Plugin allows you to view Windows Media content using QuickTime.
  • O3D Plugin version:0.1.42.3
  • Office Live Update v1.0
  • 4.0.51204.0
  • The QuickTime Plugin allows you to view a wide variety of multimedia content in web pages. For more information, visit the QuickTime Web site.
  • Shockwave Flash 10.2 r153

Application

  • User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; rv:2.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/4.0

More Information

Use 2010+ MacBook Pro, install gfxCardStatus, watch which graphics card is in use.

Close
benchernif
benchernif 0 solutions 1 answers
Posted

Helpful Reply

Partial resolution here. When hardware acceleration is disabled in F4, it won't switch to the high-power GPU at start up; however, there are still times that the browser will still switch to the discrete GPU when using certain websites:

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2011/03/26/how-to-disable-gpu-hardware-acceleration-in-firefox-4/

Partial resolution here. When hardware acceleration is disabled in F4, it won't switch to the high-power GPU at start up; however, there are still times that the browser will still switch to the discrete GPU when using certain websites: http://www.mydigitallife.info/2011/03/26/how-to-disable-gpu-hardware-acceleration-in-firefox-4/
Tripper
Tripper 0 solutions 1 answers
Posted

Helpful Reply

I have given up using firefox because of this issue. Can't afford the battery drain.

I have given up using firefox because of this issue. Can't afford the battery drain.
khedron
khedron
Posted

Question owner

@Tripper: Note that a browser like Chrome has the exact same behavior.

I referred to gfxCardStatus in my initial post. This free program also lets you mandate which graphics card the laptop uses, so you can switch back and forth manually, instead of dynamically. I use this all the time to extend my battery life when programs would otherwise needlessly use the high-power card. These programs include the Microsoft AutoUpdate program and a surprising number of other regular tools. So, when I care, I use gfxCardStatus to switch back and forth.

Just remember that some programs, like Aperture, really do need the high-power card, and so will not behave correctly if you start the up while using the integrated card.

@Tripper: Note that a browser like Chrome has the exact same behavior. I referred to [http://codykrieger.com/gfxCardStatus gfxCardStatus] in my initial post. This free program also lets you mandate which graphics card the laptop uses, so you can switch back and forth manually, instead of dynamically. I use this all the time to extend my battery life when programs would otherwise needlessly use the high-power card. These programs include the Microsoft AutoUpdate program and a surprising number of other regular tools. So, when I care, I use gfxCardStatus to switch back and forth. Just remember that some programs, like Aperture, really do need the high-power card, and so will not behave correctly if you start the up while using the integrated card.