4 ms·

Can someone more in the know explain if this uses webrender or not? I thought that it did... I have to admit that I'm not super impressed with the results here

by Touche 9y ago

Can someone more in the know explain if this uses webrender or not? I thought that it did... I have to admit that I'm not super impressed with the results here. Based on the talk that pcwalton did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erfnCaeLxSI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erfnCaeLxSI I was expected it not to just be a little faster than Chrome, but to, like, double the speed, or more. Is it that these are just not good candidates for showing how much faster than webrender can be? Or has Firefox slowed it down vs. in Servo maybe?

Vinnl 9y ago
It doesn't yet, see the final paragraph here: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/09/firefox-quantum-developer-edition-fastest-firefox-ever/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/09/firefox-quantum-developer-...
steveklabnik 9y ago
WebRender, last I heard, is targeting 58. It's certainly not in this release. I use it in nightly via the config flag; it is pretty great but there are still some glitches from time to time.
- jweathersby 9y ago
  This is correct.
- Touche 9y ago
  Actually Nightly is what I'm using. Is there a page where I can see the types of speed advantages that pcwalton showed off in his talk?
  - Touche 9y ago
    Oh sorry, you said config flag, I haven't tried this yet.
    - steveklabnik 9y ago
      There are multiple; I forget which one is "real" WebRender and I'm on my phone so I can't check. Last I was looking at this, the big WebRender flag wasn't expected to be faster due to the specific way it was integrated, you need the more aggressive setting to get pure WebRender.
    - vhbit 9y ago
      Yep, here are all the change you have to do in `about:config`: https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2017/09/25/webrender-newsletter-5/ https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2017/09/25/webrender-newsle...
nicoburns 9y ago
I believe integrating webrender is still a work in progress. The big piece included here is 'stylo' the CSS parser from servo.
pcwalton 9y ago
No, Firefox 57 does not use WebRender. WR's architecture has changed significantly from that talk, for the better. In particular aggressive use of early Z has made our fragment shading performance go way up since then. In Nightly you can turn WR on via about:config. But be warned that there are quite a few problems, including performance problems, that still remain. The foundation is solid, but the CSS rendering model is complex, and there's a good amount of engineering work that just has to happen to make every corner case fast. (For instance, parts of Ars Technica were recently found to be slow because the particular interaction between the CSS features it was using was causing Gecko to generate a ton of clipping operations for WR... there's no substitute for engineering polishing work that has to happen in cases like that.)

by Touche 9y ago

Vinnl 9y ago

It doesn't yet, see the final paragraph here: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/09/firefox-quantum-developer-edition-fastest-firefox-ever/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/09/firefox-quantum-developer-...

steveklabnik 9y ago

WebRender, last I heard, is targeting 58. It's certainly not in this release. I use it in nightly via the config flag; it is pretty great but there are still some glitches from time to time.

jweathersby 9y ago
This is correct.
Touche 9y ago
Actually Nightly is what I'm using. Is there a page where I can see the types of speed advantages that pcwalton showed off in his talk?
- Touche 9y ago
  Oh sorry, you said config flag, I haven't tried this yet.
  - steveklabnik 9y ago
    There are multiple; I forget which one is "real" WebRender and I'm on my phone so I can't check. Last I was looking at this, the big WebRender flag wasn't expected to be faster due to the specific way it was integrated, you need the more aggressive setting to get pure WebRender.
  - vhbit 9y ago
    Yep, here are all the change you have to do in `about:config`: https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2017/09/25/webrender-newsletter-5/ https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2017/09/25/webrender-newsle...

nicoburns 9y ago

I believe integrating webrender is still a work in progress. The big piece included here is 'stylo' the CSS parser from servo.

pcwalton 9y ago

No, Firefox 57 does not use WebRender. WR's architecture has changed significantly from that talk, for the better. In particular aggressive use of early Z has made our fragment shading performance go way up since then. In Nightly you can turn WR on via about:config. But be warned that there are quite a few problems, including performance problems, that still remain. The foundation is solid, but the CSS rendering model is complex, and there's a good amount of engineering work that just has to happen to make every corner case fast. (For instance, parts of Ars Technica were recently found to be slow because the particular interaction between the CSS features it was using was causing Gecko to generate a ton of clipping operations for WR... there's no substitute for engineering polishing work that has to happen in cases like that.)