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The web at maximum FPS: How WebRender gets rid of jank

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Re: The web at maximum FPS: How WebRender gets rid of jank

#41

Post by djhworld »

pcwalton wrote: post #12
kevindqc wrote: post #10

>For a typical desktop PC, you want to have 100 draw calls or fewer per frame Don't PC games use thousands of draw calls per frame?

They do, but we're targeting Intel HD quality graphics, not gaming-oriented NVIDIA and AMD GPUs. That said, even Intel GPUs can often deal with large numbers of draw calls just fine. It's mobile where they become a real issue. Aggressive batching is still important to take maximum advantage of parallelism. If you're switching shaders for every rect you draw, then you frequently lose to the CPU.

Will there be a baseline GPU requirement for Firefox to enable this feature?

For video games you often see minimum/recommended hardware specifications to run a game.

Re: The web at maximum FPS: How WebRender gets rid of jank

#42

Post by steveklabnik »

lwansbrough wrote: post #30
pohl wrote: post #13

Now that this is closer to shipping, I'm curious what impact this would have on battery life. On the one hand, this is lighting up more silicon; on the other hand: a faster race to sleep, perhaps? Have there been any measurements on what the end result is on a typical modern laptop?

I know it’s not officially released, so I’m hoping it gets fixed, but FF57 rips through my Mac’s battery life and runs insanely hot on simple JS apps. I still use it daily because it generally works, but there are a few apps I just have to go to Chrome for.

Firefox 57 doesn’t have WebRender on unless you explicitly turn it on; did you? It would be reasonale not to, as it’s still kinda buggy.

Re: The web at maximum FPS: How WebRender gets rid of jank

#43

Post by s_ngularity »

RussianCow wrote: post #38
nonsince wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your browser is doing ~60fps rendering on the GPU already, it's just doing it much less efficiently. This does less work on the CPU _and_ less work on the GPU, for the same result.

I don't think this is actually true. If you're looking at a static page that doesn't change in any way, isn't the browser completely idle? Edit: To clarify, I realize that the screen gets refreshed ~60 times per second (depending on refresh rate), but I don't think any rendering actually happens if it doesn't need to.

The GPU is drawing 60 times a second regardless of whether the page is static. Not sure how they do their streaming to the GPU, but there will be state changes every time you scroll, or click a button, etc., even on a static page.

Re: The web at maximum FPS: How WebRender gets rid of jank

#44

Post by steveklabnik »

djhworld wrote: post #41
pcwalton wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do, but we're targeting Intel HD quality graphics, not gaming-oriented NVIDIA and AMD GPUs. That said, even Intel GPUs can often deal with large numbers of draw calls just fine. It's mobile where they become a real issue. Aggressive batching is still important to take maximum advantage of parallelism. If you're switching shaders for every rect you draw, then you frequently lose to the CPU.

Will there be a baseline GPU requirement for Firefox to enable this feature? For video games you often see minimum/recommended hardware specifications to run a game.

I have a Thinkpad T40s with intel integrated graphics, it struggles playing games. I’ve had WebRender turned on for about a month; it generally works well modulo bugs, which all bleeding edge software has, of course.

Re: The web at maximum FPS: How WebRender gets rid of jank

#45

Post by ricardobeat »

RussianCow wrote: post #38
nonsince wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your browser is doing ~60fps rendering on the GPU already, it's just doing it much less efficiently. This does less work on the CPU _and_ less work on the GPU, for the same result.

I don't think this is actually true. If you're looking at a static page that doesn't change in any way, isn't the browser completely idle? Edit: To clarify, I realize that the screen gets refreshed ~60 times per second (depending on refresh rate), but I don't think any rendering actually happens if it doesn't need to.

The GPU is still painting the screen at a set refresh rate (your monitor’s). Some monitors have variable refresh rates, but don’t go any lower than 30hz, and depending on settings like vsync the gpu might still be churning through hundreds of wasted frames. The latest iPads can go down to 24hz to save energy due to their custom 120hz display, but that’s a rarity.

Re: The web at maximum FPS: How WebRender gets rid of jank

#46

Post by lwansbrough »

steveklabnik wrote: post #42
lwansbrough wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it’s not officially released, so I’m hoping it gets fixed, but FF57 rips through my Mac’s battery life and runs insanely hot on simple JS apps. I still use it daily because it generally works, but there are a few apps I just have to go to Chrome for.

Firefox 57 doesn’t have WebRender on unless you explicitly turn it on; did you? It would be reasonale not to, as it’s still kinda buggy.

Didn’t know that! I’ll be honest I was wondering what the hype was about because it didn’t seem that fast to me...

Re: The web at maximum FPS: How WebRender gets rid of jank

#47

Post by TickleSteve »

s_ngularity wrote: post #43
RussianCow wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is actually true. If you're looking at a static page that doesn't change in any way, isn't the browser completely idle? Edit: To clarify, I realize that the screen gets refreshed ~60 times per second (depending on refresh rate), but I don't think any rendering actually happens if it doesn't need to.

The GPU is drawing 60 times a second regardless of whether the page is static. Not sure how they do their streaming to the GPU, but there will be state changes every time you scroll, or click a button, etc., even on a static page.

no, the GPU is refreshing the video output at 60Hz, the graphics are not being redrawn at 60Hz in your typical GUI application. Games are a special case of course.

Re: The web at maximum FPS: How WebRender gets rid of jank

#49

Post by pohl »

s_ngularity wrote: post #43
RussianCow wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is actually true. If you're looking at a static page that doesn't change in any way, isn't the browser completely idle? Edit: To clarify, I realize that the screen gets refreshed ~60 times per second (depending on refresh rate), but I don't think any rendering actually happens if it doesn't need to.

The GPU is drawing 60 times a second regardless of whether the page is static. Not sure how they do their streaming to the GPU, but there will be state changes every time you scroll, or click a button, etc., even on a static page.

The specs for my mobile GPU say that it has 1024 cores. Wouldn't it be surprising if they were all fully active regardless of workload? (It seems like low-hanging fruit for making a laptop GPU energy efficient.)
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