This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Disabling GPU process fixes stuttering on external display on dual-GPU Optimus laptop

more options

My configuration is the following: Windows 11, internal display connected to iGPU and external UHD display to nvidia-HDMI port, multiple firefox windows are opened (1 one the internal screen, 2 on the external).

Then in Windows->Settings->GPU I can select firefox to run on either iGPU (powersaving) or on Nvidia GPU (max perf), the problem is the following: Whenever I set firefox running on iGPU, there would be a massive stuttering/framedrop on an external display (connected to NVIDIA), while a perfectly smooth browsing on internal display, and vice versa.

My first attempt was to disable webrenderer compositor or switching it to a software rendering, which fixes the heavy stuttering, but the scrolling becomes overall less fluid/responsive.

However, setting "layers.gpu-process.enabled" to "false" seemingly solves this problem completely. Now I have a perfectly smooth scrolling on both displays, regardless of which GPU is used in Windows->Settings->GPU (nvidia's is arguably a little but more responsive).

Hope this helps someone, or maybe dev team could look deeper into this.

Thank you for the great browser!

My configuration is the following: Windows 11, internal display connected to iGPU and external UHD display to nvidia-HDMI port, multiple firefox windows are opened (1 one the internal screen, 2 on the external). Then in Windows->Settings->GPU I can select firefox to run on either iGPU (powersaving) or on Nvidia GPU (max perf), the problem is the following: Whenever I set firefox running on iGPU, there would be a massive stuttering/framedrop on an external display (connected to NVIDIA), while a perfectly smooth browsing on internal display, and vice versa. My first attempt was to disable webrenderer compositor or switching it to a software rendering, which fixes the heavy stuttering, but the scrolling becomes overall less fluid/responsive. However, setting "layers.gpu-process.enabled" to "false" seemingly solves this problem completely. Now I have a perfectly smooth scrolling on both displays, regardless of which GPU is used in Windows->Settings->GPU (nvidia's is arguably a little but more responsive). Hope this helps someone, or maybe dev team could look deeper into this. Thank you for the great browser!

All Replies (1)

more options

It looks like after all gfx.webrender.software=True is the best solution, otherwise there is no hardware-accelerated decoding

Helpful?

Ask a question

You must log in to your account to reply to posts. Please start a new question, if you do not have an account yet.