Firefox 4 beta 4 adds hardware acceleration

It was originally going to be enabled by default in b4 but caused too many issues. At this rate b5's going to have an explosion of stuff - Jagermonkey (method tracing for JS), D2D/DW by default as well as anything else that's going to make it for the release.

To enable D2D/DW:
1. Type: "about:config" in the 'AwesomeBar' and hit Enter.
- Search for "gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled".
- Select "gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled" and double click to set the Pref to "True"

2. In about:config still, Search for "mozilla.widget.render-mode".
- If its not there then add it. (Right Click anywhere and select "NEW" then "Integer". Add in the pref without quotes.)
- In the next Dialog type in a value of "6" without quotes.

3. Restart The Browser.
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about:support should then show (at the bottom) Direct2D Enabled: true. Some extensions (IIRC Stylish and Adblock Plus) can monkey around with it working properly.
 
It depends a lot on your hardware and drivers and there's still a pile of bugs to deal with (e.g. it'll sometimes gobble memory then stop rendering properly after a while).
 
It works fine with the same profile, I installed it alongside my 3.6 install and it shared all extensions just fine and settings/data.

Only problem is many extensions still don't work on v4 (I have submitted compatibility reports) and will await the final release.
 
tolien said:
The important part is making sure it uses a different profile. Some stuff about using the profile manager here and here.



So you were using a nightly (version number ending a*pre) and didn't upgrade...why? :confused:
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i didnt wanna reconfigure my settings until someone would shout another version in these very forums.

infact i think all apps should be portable and installed on a ramdisk.
 
Erm, so why install a nightly build that's by definition going to break frequently? If you don't want to "reconfigure your settings", unstable versions aren't for you.

Khaaan! said:
It works fine with the same profile, I installed it alongside my 3.6 install and it shared all extensions just fine and settings/data.
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It should, but switching between them is asking for trouble. At the very least you should backup beforehand.
 
tolien said:
Erm, so why install a nightly build that's by definition going to break frequently? If you don't want to "reconfigure your settings", unstable versions aren't for you.



It should, but switching between them is asking for trouble. At the very least you should backup beforehand.
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Backing up is my habit and routine but I have never had any trouble switching between beta/nightly and release.
 
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