6 ms·

> macOS users on dual-graphics-card machines (like MacBook Pro) will switch back to the low-power GPU more aggressively, saving battery life. macOS user base c

> macOS users on dual-graphics-card machines (like MacBook Pro) will switch back to the low-power GPU more aggressively, saving battery life. macOS user base can now consider FF as a viable browser alternative.

hutattedonmyarm 7y ago
My MBP doesn’t have a dedicated card and yet firefox manages to eat my battery as a snack
- seppel 7y ago
  For me (MBP from early 2015 w/o dedicated card) the upcoming FF 70 made a huge difference. I installed the beta today and I finally can go to youtube, facebook and reddit (the new design!) without the fan spinning up.
  - hutattedonmyarm 7y ago
    Sounds like I'll give FF another try on the Mac. I do love it on Windows
mbesto 7y ago
Please be the case - this is reason #1 why I haven't switched.
- m-p-3 7y ago
  You could try Firefox Nightly to see it for yourself ;)
  - daveFNbuck 7y ago
    You don't need nightly. This is released already.
    - Vinnl 7y ago
      Nightly is supposed to be even better, and with further improvements in the pipeline: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20857892 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20857892
    - bmurphy1976 7y ago
      A significant number of changes are still pending the release of version 70.
- bmurphy1976 7y ago
  I've been using nightly and developer edition. It's greatly improved. I still don't think it's as good as Safari, but it's at least as good as Chrome. I've gotten nearly 3 hours of battery life back from these improvements.
lorenzhs 7y ago
There are more macOS battery life improvements coming in Firefox 70 in around six weeks: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20864255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20864255
- sciurus 7y ago
  For some measurements: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1429522#c45 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1429522#c45
- jillesvangurp 7y ago
  I just got 70b3 via the beta channel and the difference is notable when using gmail and google drive. They load faster and there's a bit less latency when you click something in the UI. I can't tell you if this completely closes the gap as I don't really use other browsers. But it definitely improved a bit. Two big changes related to performance: - the baseline javascript interpreter is now enabled (this is probably responsible for improving things for Google related stuff). - they optimized a few things with the compositor for mac to further reduce battery usage. I'm guessing this might include some of the work that has been done to port parts of the browser to rust. Upcoming versions should at some point include the webrender changes that are currently available to some windows users already. If you are wondering, the beta channel is generally rock solid for me. You end up restarting the browser a bit more often to get the latest beta and obviously they are still finding and fixing bugs. But I can't remember the last time Firefox crashed on me. I've been on the beta channel for close to two years. By the time features land to the beta channel, they've been on nightly for some time already. So, that generally means all the obvious stuff has been resolved already.
ludwigvan 7y ago
For me, not viable on macOS until they implement pinch to zoom. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990 Edit: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/multi-touch-zoom/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/multi-touch-z... seems to help, though still not perfect.
la_barba 7y ago
Does anyone know the technical reason that the OS can't handle that itself?
- MBCook 7y ago
  It tries based on the libraries you’re using. Sounds like they’ve improved what they’re using so the built in heuristics don’t force the dedicated GPU on.
- Const-me 7y ago
  Not using OSX, but I have some ideas. An app tells an OS it gonna use OpenGL to 3D render stuff. Generally, the OS doesn’t know whether it’s a competitive 3D shooter where each FPS really matters, or a web browser which only uses OpenGL to render a few textured quads. If the OS will default to slower integrated GPU, users will be unhappy, they want 3D performance. So the OSes typically power up the faster GPU in such cases. On dual-GPU Windows laptop, nVidia partially solves this in their drivers, they have very long list of process names saying which ones are games or other 3D intense apps. It usually works but very far from being 100% reliable. It requires GPU drivers to be updated regularly. For cases when it fails even with latest drivers, they have multiple methods for user to select the GPU. They implemented context menu on .exe files “Run with graphic processor” with 2 further options, for nVidia and Intel GPUs. They implemented GUI for users to customize that apps list. They also implemented a proprietary API for programmers to customize that list in code, I’m using this method in the installer of a CAD/CAM app I’ve developed. These things cause quite a lot of complexity, both software bloat, and UI clutter. Traditionally, Apple wants the GUI to be clean. AFAIK they don’t push driver updates, and they avoid UI clutter even if it means some power users won’t get some advanced settings they might like.
  - garaetjjte 7y ago
    >they have very long list of process names saying which ones are games or other 3D intense apps. Is it possible to submit application names for this? This issue frequently comes up with our free simulator/game.
kilroy123 7y ago
This was the single thing I was hoping to see here. Upgrading now.
- GeekyBear 7y ago
  Firefox 70 will be the first version where enough of the changes that they have been working towards will land to yield really substantial power savings, with more changes yet to land beyond that. The next version will drop OpenGL and use Core Animation instead. I know a lot of people have become impatient, but they have been doing a huge amount of work behind the scenes.
  - jdashg 7y ago
    Technically it'll still be using OpenGL, it'll just have system compositor integration via CoreAnimation for scrolling, and possibly some elements in the page like video.
wDcBKgt66V8WDs 7y ago
On my 2018 Air, firefox runs a lot better if I put it into low res mode (macOS setting, not ffx setting). Downside is text looks pretty bad but somehow images/videos are fine and content is the same right so whatever.
hispanic 7y ago
I wonder if this will help address the system freezes I've been getting for the past month on my early 2011 MacBook Pro. The fix I was going to pursue makes an attempt to disable usage of the "bad" GPU: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2011-%E2%80%A2-15-17-inch-mbp-gfx-work-a-round.2129680/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2011-%E2%80%A2-15-17-in... Most of my lock-ups seem to happen when I try to access specific sites using Firefox, especially financial sites.

hutattedonmyarm 7y ago

My MBP doesn’t have a dedicated card and yet firefox manages to eat my battery as a snack

seppel 7y ago
For me (MBP from early 2015 w/o dedicated card) the upcoming FF 70 made a huge difference. I installed the beta today and I finally can go to youtube, facebook and reddit (the new design!) without the fan spinning up.
- hutattedonmyarm 7y ago
  Sounds like I'll give FF another try on the Mac. I do love it on Windows

mbesto 7y ago

Please be the case - this is reason #1 why I haven't switched.

m-p-3 7y ago
You could try Firefox Nightly to see it for yourself ;)
- daveFNbuck 7y ago
  You don't need nightly. This is released already.
  - Vinnl 7y ago
    Nightly is supposed to be even better, and with further improvements in the pipeline: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20857892 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20857892
  - bmurphy1976 7y ago
    A significant number of changes are still pending the release of version 70.
bmurphy1976 7y ago
I've been using nightly and developer edition. It's greatly improved. I still don't think it's as good as Safari, but it's at least as good as Chrome. I've gotten nearly 3 hours of battery life back from these improvements.

lorenzhs 7y ago

There are more macOS battery life improvements coming in Firefox 70 in around six weeks: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20864255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20864255

sciurus 7y ago
For some measurements: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1429522#c45 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1429522#c45
jillesvangurp 7y ago
I just got 70b3 via the beta channel and the difference is notable when using gmail and google drive. They load faster and there's a bit less latency when you click something in the UI. I can't tell you if this completely closes the gap as I don't really use other browsers. But it definitely improved a bit. Two big changes related to performance: - the baseline javascript interpreter is now enabled (this is probably responsible for improving things for Google related stuff). - they optimized a few things with the compositor for mac to further reduce battery usage. I'm guessing this might include some of the work that has been done to port parts of the browser to rust. Upcoming versions should at some point include the webrender changes that are currently available to some windows users already. If you are wondering, the beta channel is generally rock solid for me. You end up restarting the browser a bit more often to get the latest beta and obviously they are still finding and fixing bugs. But I can't remember the last time Firefox crashed on me. I've been on the beta channel for close to two years. By the time features land to the beta channel, they've been on nightly for some time already. So, that generally means all the obvious stuff has been resolved already.

ludwigvan 7y ago

For me, not viable on macOS until they implement pinch to zoom. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990 Edit: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/multi-touch-zoom/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/multi-touch-z... seems to help, though still not perfect.

la_barba 7y ago

Does anyone know the technical reason that the OS can't handle that itself?

MBCook 7y ago
It tries based on the libraries you’re using. Sounds like they’ve improved what they’re using so the built in heuristics don’t force the dedicated GPU on.
Const-me 7y ago
Not using OSX, but I have some ideas. An app tells an OS it gonna use OpenGL to 3D render stuff. Generally, the OS doesn’t know whether it’s a competitive 3D shooter where each FPS really matters, or a web browser which only uses OpenGL to render a few textured quads. If the OS will default to slower integrated GPU, users will be unhappy, they want 3D performance. So the OSes typically power up the faster GPU in such cases. On dual-GPU Windows laptop, nVidia partially solves this in their drivers, they have very long list of process names saying which ones are games or other 3D intense apps. It usually works but very far from being 100% reliable. It requires GPU drivers to be updated regularly. For cases when it fails even with latest drivers, they have multiple methods for user to select the GPU. They implemented context menu on .exe files “Run with graphic processor” with 2 further options, for nVidia and Intel GPUs. They implemented GUI for users to customize that apps list. They also implemented a proprietary API for programmers to customize that list in code, I’m using this method in the installer of a CAD/CAM app I’ve developed. These things cause quite a lot of complexity, both software bloat, and UI clutter. Traditionally, Apple wants the GUI to be clean. AFAIK they don’t push driver updates, and they avoid UI clutter even if it means some power users won’t get some advanced settings they might like.
- garaetjjte 7y ago
  >they have very long list of process names saying which ones are games or other 3D intense apps. Is it possible to submit application names for this? This issue frequently comes up with our free simulator/game.

kilroy123 7y ago

This was the single thing I was hoping to see here. Upgrading now.

GeekyBear 7y ago
Firefox 70 will be the first version where enough of the changes that they have been working towards will land to yield really substantial power savings, with more changes yet to land beyond that. The next version will drop OpenGL and use Core Animation instead. I know a lot of people have become impatient, but they have been doing a huge amount of work behind the scenes.
- jdashg 7y ago
  Technically it'll still be using OpenGL, it'll just have system compositor integration via CoreAnimation for scrolling, and possibly some elements in the page like video.

wDcBKgt66V8WDs 7y ago

On my 2018 Air, firefox runs a lot better if I put it into low res mode (macOS setting, not ffx setting). Downside is text looks pretty bad but somehow images/videos are fine and content is the same right so whatever.

hispanic 7y ago

I wonder if this will help address the system freezes I've been getting for the past month on my early 2011 MacBook Pro. The fix I was going to pursue makes an attempt to disable usage of the "bad" GPU: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2011-%E2%80%A2-15-17-inch-mbp-gfx-work-a-round.2129680/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2011-%E2%80%A2-15-17-in... Most of my lock-ups seem to happen when I try to access specific sites using Firefox, especially financial sites.