Web browsers having Hardware Acceleration troubles

**ceremonial** · 15-05-2011

I have an annoying problem with the hardware acceleration feature in browsers such as IE9, Firefox 4 and Chrome 11 beta. Basically, the source is not duly authorized to provide HA, but the effects are different in all browsers so I'll try to explain: 11.0.696.44 Chrome beta (my browser) has normal text and looks good, but some things appears to be damaged. In IE9, these items are fine, but the normal text looks like shit. In Firefox 4, the titles are fine, but the text is identical to IE9 normal.
I can fix all these problems by disabling hardware acceleration, but I like enough to move forward. Furthermore, the deactivation IE9 changes nothing, still looks the same, but I'm not too worried as I never touch IE, simply install it because I knew I had wanted to compare HA and Firefox and Chrome 11.3.
I inserted all latest drivers for my HD5670 1GB (OC). I've also installed Microsoft updates mentioned in a FAQ Firefox here. KB2505438 and KB2454826 are the two updates. I have ClearType turned on in Windows 7. I can not reproduce this on a clean Windows 7 VM, so I guess its some sort of driver issue, but I have old Catalyst drivers before I upgraded to 11.3. I have no SP1.

**pddaugusto** · 15-05-2011

I can confirm this on 4 GPUs, including Intel. I have made off. You can try upgrading Firefox 3 to 4.My father has S3 graphics card, if activated, the IE and Firefox displays a blank page without content. Then again that the card cannot even make Aero. Turning it off solves the problem.
ClearType Firefox has a plug, but the last thing is, it’s like the ClearType option in Windows. In other words, you have to play as 20 values, and probably spend a good hour to get it right. I gave up. So far, here isn’t any intensive web sites to care about hardware acceleration. So it goes, until a solution is found.

**Howitzer** · 15-05-2011

There can be a hardware problem. The reason for the "faulty" hardware depiction which can be quite simple. Direct2D actually depicts fonts more correctly, unlike GDI, which is the old way of representation.
Precisely what goes wrong is too difficult to describe, but among other stuffs, involves the position of the characters with respect to the pixels on the screen. Specifically DirectWrite can try to emulate a pixel with two adjacent su***xels, while GDI always aligns the pixels in the full representation.
Another reason for the difference in the provision of GDI is that, unlike DirectWrite is not compatible with kerning and hinting instructions in the correct fonts. The net result is that the fonts rendered with GDI look "wider" and more "solid." The reason Chrome looks good is because at the moment Chrome does not use page rendering is hardware accelerated. And as you've discovered, turn the page rendering hardware-accelerated can not do anything in IE9. There is a solution for Firefox 4, however. Check out the anti-aliasing tuner. To get a picture as possible GDI representation must be configured the way ClearType anti-aliasing and rendering mode to GDI Classic. Hope this helps.

**samar69** · 15-05-2011

I also had the same problem as you have buddy. I was using firefox and I fixed it by changing some of the things in about:config. You can fix this just by following some steps as shown. In config go to gfx.font_rendering. directwrite.enabled and enable it to true. Also set gfx.font_rendering.cleartype content to true. Then finally set mozilla.widget.render-mode to 6. This will help.

**Mindstorm** · 16-05-2011

There are some situations where mozilla.widget.render-mode is not there. Then for this create a new numeric value and make it. Set this value to 6 if present. This setting makes a good difference. You can also try changing the opentype font o Calibri since it has good scale and create any problems. You can try this and also reply if helps. I hope it helps.