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Firefox and old Direct3D question

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First post, by 386SX

Posted on 
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l33t

Hello,

I'd like to ask if there're some ways to make Firefox config using specifically the D3D9 path rendering instead of the D3D11 MS basic display driver the ANGLE wrapper seems to find and prefer basically not using any acceleration at all considering it's a compatibility driver in Win 8.1. I'm using an old GMA netbook gpu which has Directx9.3 PS3.0 support. I've tried any "force" options but no way it still goes for the WebRenderer (software) mode. I've tried forcing OpenGL mode but it seems to not use it cause old drivers and anyway I'd like to use D3D9 to also use eventually DXVA acceleration when needed.

In the heavier chromium based browser there's the ANGLE choice to use D3D9<>OpenGL ES translation but in Firefox it seems like only going for the D3D11 that of course find only the MS basic adapter driver which would have no sense using being a sw driver itself (beside not a bad software renderer but still slower than the D3D accelerator of this old PowerVR gpu).
Any suggestions?

EDIT: some log after trying all force options I've read..

(#0) GP+[GFX1]: Potential driver version mismatch ignored due to missing DLLs igd10umd32 v= and igd10iumd32 v=
(#1) GP+[GFX1-]: RcANGLE(no compositor device for EGLDisplay)

The gpu is a GMA3600. I'm not suprised OpenGL might not work but D3D9 should at least start like in Chromium browsers where is not perfect and probably slower than the software rendering but still can accelerate WebGL rendering while the sw renderer can't.

Thanks

Reply 1 of 1, by King Wajih

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Well I don't think its any use replying to such an old post, but I kinda had the same issue when trying to squeeze out every bit of performance out of a DELL D520(GMA 950 graphics) that I recently got for almost free for playing retro games. I dualbooted it with WinXp Sp3 & Win 7X64 and updated them via Legacy Update.

On Windows XP I used MyPal68 (v78.0.2) and Chell 1.7b Drivers and Chell v1.9a on Windows 7. Now myPal68 is based on Firefox seems to have Dx9 Rendering as seen in about:config . For that I just enabled
layers.acceleration.force-enabled;true
layers.prefer-d3d9;true
and most importantly
layers.low-precision-buffer;true (this prevents the text from turning into a smeary mess, an intel exclusive bug).

Now on Windows 7+ you need to set an extra option else browser will crash and return to basic compositing that is:
layers.gpu-process.enabled;false
layers.gpu-process.force-enabled;false
Now you should see Compositing=DirectX 9.0 in about:support

Also either drivers are too old to support webgl or maybe cuz the GMA950 can't do OpenGL2.0 which WebGL 1.0 requires so you could disable it to stop it from even bothering by setting :
webgl.disabled;true

Now coming to ANGLE based browsers i.e modern Firefox, Chrome, Opera etc. For some reason I also get "no compositor device for EGLDisplay" after forcing everything in firefox and a similar message in Opera 95(Chromium 102) and Opera 67. Even after setting ignoreblocklist & Angle Backend to DX9 from chrome:flags it wouldn't work and the whole thing fall back to software as seen from chrome:gpu . Now this error doesn't occur on a newer HP 4520s that has Intel HD Graphics (First generation). On it doing the same perfectly enables AVC hardware accelerated decoding & Rendering/Compositing.
On modern firefox i tested v115esr, 102esr, 91esr & 78esr. All use the modern UI layout, don't offer Dx9 compositing, don't feature the Dx9 config flags and give the same "no compositor device for EGLDisplay" error if your force it on the GMA (didn't test the HDgfx).

Now maybe ANGLE requires OpenGL 2.0 support like WebGL or maybe drivers are too old. But my guess is as good as yours.

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