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Firefox can't handle animation like Google Search page's Valentine's game 2018. The browsers on both my win 10 machines froze on the page. No other did. :(

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  • Last reply by tsoilihoi

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Firefox was the only browser unable to handle the demands placed on the browser by Google's Valentine Game and its animation. All other did fine. Firefox stalled on both my machines... windows 10, I-5 and I-7 Dells with 8 gigs ram and 12 gigs respectively. Hope the sites do not produce "entertainment" like this often. Hope developers can look into why this happened.

Firefox was the only browser unable to handle the demands placed on the browser by Google's Valentine Game and its animation. All other did fine. Firefox stalled on both my machines... windows 10, I-5 and I-7 Dells with 8 gigs ram and 12 gigs respectively. Hope the sites do not produce "entertainment" like this often. Hope developers can look into why this happened.

Chosen solution

tsoilihoi said

I turned off hardware acceleration in firefox and the problem vanished.... Which has led to my question of what I will sacrifice if I leave it off. Perhaps other browser do not use hardware acceleration. I do know that there are article reporting hardware acceleration compatibility issue. with firefox in the past.

You are correct that with some graphics hardware or driver software, Firefox works better without trying to use acceleration. Hardware acceleration is used for font smoothing and certain graphics operations; having it turned off might limit some features, such as high frame rate or higher resolution video. I'm not sure you'll notice because most websites don't push the limits.

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How can anyone figure this out if they have no link to the site to verify what your asking about?

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Hi WestEnd, there was another thread that had more context, but this is the "doodle" that appeared on the Google home page and caused high CPU/GPU usage (with some systems, extremely high):

https://www.google.com/doodles/doodle-snow-games-day-6-valentines-day

This one has also been mentioned:

https://www.google.com/doodles/doodle-snow-games-day-8-lunar-new-year

See: https://webcompat.com/issues/15483

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Westend and jscher2000... The google search page... www.google.com causes Firefox to freeze up and it takes an end task (ctrl-alt-del) to close firefox. Finally with jscher2000s help and my own test we came to the conclusion (about the same time) that the search page was the culprit. This problem occurred on Valentine's Day with the Valentine Game, cleared up the next day when it was removed and then later that day, the problem returned with the substitution of another animation. No other browser, save firefox used so much gsu resource. Mine clocked at 98 percent.

So my concern is this. Since my computers are intermediate resource and function well in general with their onboard video, is Google placing bad apps on their site or will this kind of animation become usual in the near future.... or does firefox have compatibility issue and its time for a switch.

Soon after, I turned off hardware acceleration in firefox and the problem vanished.... Which has led to my question of what I will sacrifice if I leave it off. Perhaps other browser do not use hardware acceleration. I do know that there are article reporting hardware acceleration compatibility issue. with firefox in the past.

Anyway. the problem is identified and I'm not the only one reporting this. So I'm back to the question of whether running without hardware acceleration (with an I-5 processor and 8 gigs ram, a fast internet connection and windows 1709) will be problematic as I continue to use firefox in future.

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Chosen Solution

tsoilihoi said

I turned off hardware acceleration in firefox and the problem vanished.... Which has led to my question of what I will sacrifice if I leave it off. Perhaps other browser do not use hardware acceleration. I do know that there are article reporting hardware acceleration compatibility issue. with firefox in the past.

You are correct that with some graphics hardware or driver software, Firefox works better without trying to use acceleration. Hardware acceleration is used for font smoothing and certain graphics operations; having it turned off might limit some features, such as high frame rate or higher resolution video. I'm not sure you'll notice because most websites don't push the limits.

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Thanks very much!