Re: Unacceptable firefox behavior with nouveau graphics card

[Chavdar Ivanov <ci4ic4%gmail.com@localhost>]

FWIW, I have an old

radeon0 at pci1 dev 0 function 0: ATI Technologies FirePro W5000 (rev. 0x00)

which works close enough to perfect for me under -current (why stick
to 10.99.4, BTW ?). Firefox is GL-accelerated, cad.onshape.com/check
returns rather decent numbers, comparable to what I remember I ran on
the same card years ago under W10 or Linux (but it has been running
NetBSD for at least 7 years now, always following -current from within
a week distance). I've had no key issues with Firefox, apart from the
brief period when the current version did not have accelerated GL at
all and I had to revert to the LTS version, which had it. So, I can
attest this card works well under NetBSD. I have had occasional issues
- when I forget the screen running xfce4 and the screensaver kicks
out, some of the 3D savers are perhaps buggy or something similar and
I've seen the system left pingable but unable to connect to.

Last time I checked my other laptop with Intel 530 graphics {and 3D
controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM107M [GeForce GTX 950M] (rev a2),
which I could never get to work with nouveau}  also had firefox 3D
accelerated and no particular issues. My current laptop also perhaps
*should work* - a P16s with on-chip Radeon 680 - but I haven't
bothered to test it, as the WiFi chip is not recognized (Qualcomm
WCN685x), last time I checked.

On Tue, 5 Mar 2024 at 12:08, Riccardo Mottola
<riccardo.mottola%libero.it@localhost> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Paul Goyette wrote:
> >
> > 1) Does this sound familiar to anyone else?  Or am I just a set-of-1 ?
>
> I use firefox on Linux with nouveau and it works quite well, performance
> is not to the same level of a Mac or Windows "equivalent", but quite
> nice. Just to mean that Firefox+Nouveau "can" work.
> I wonder if it is a specific issue for you video card, an issue with
> NetBSD or else.
>
> >
> > 2) Are there any alternatives to firefox?
>
> Hot topic. I think you have
> 1) Chromium and all its other derivates. They have their own shares of
> issues. You might not like the interface, how it works
> 2) Firefox.. and derivates. There you might have some luck
>
> I have NetBSD on a laptop with an old nvidia card. Do you have a
> specific way to reproduce the lag?. e.g. startup? opening a specific
> site? new tab?
> Does it have to do with video? WebGL?
>
> >
> > 3) Any recommendations on potential replacement of the video card?
>
> If you are on a cheap side, you could get another nvidia card, used, try
> your luck and even "compare".
>
> You might want to tweak things in firefox. Disable Acceleration. Check
> crashes.
> Go into about:config and look for:
>
> webgl.*
>
> gfx.blacklist.*
>
> Try to tweak gfx.webrender.software.opengl
>
> bold items are changed values!
>
> Riccardo



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