Firefox vs Surface Book, Surface Pro 4 at all

[Maxim Ovchynnikov]

Hi!
I am dealing with following issue.

I prefer to use Firefox browser in daily web-surfing. Unfortunately, I've realized that, because of some reasoning, it runs not perfectly on my devices - Surface Book and Surface Pro 4. Precisely, once it starts to use more than 2 Gbytes of RAM (almost independently on number of
tabs), freezing occurs during scrolling of web-pages, being significant even for light pages. I don't know what is the reason of this. I've tried to install Intel Beta drivers for integrated GPU, and to use dedicated GPU on Surface Book. However, this issue still happens, making web-surfing by using Firefox uncomfortable.

Does someone know what is the reason of this problem? It seems that the problem isn't in performance of Surface devices. Maybe it is somehow connected to Surface drivers?

 

[Chintan Gohel]

try to reinstall the browser and disable one add on at a time until the issue goes away - usually an extension or add on brings that problem

 

[orlbuckeye]

I use Firefox at times and don't have that trouble on the Surface Book.

 

[Maxim Ovchynnikov]

I have only one plugin - AdBlock.

I use Firefox at times and don't have that trouble on the Surface Book.

And You just install Firefox on pure Surface Book, without installing some "special drivers"?

 

[zerospace-net]

I use firefox exclusively as my browser on both my desktop PC and Surface Book, and I have not had any issues like this. Have you considered that one of your Firefox add-ons might be the issue?

 

[Maxim Ovchynnikov]

Yes, of course.

I've just checked how 4k video from YouTube runs. In Edge, it runs perfect, but in Firefox and Chrome, it runs terrible, with even mouse cursor freezing. I've tried both integrated and dedicated graphics.

 

[rdockrey]

You might try disabling hardware acceleration and see if that makes a difference. I run Firefox with it off.

[Tip] Disable Hardware Acceleration in Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird to Fix Font and Crashing Problems - AskVG

 

[Maxim Ovchynnikov]

I just realized that the problem is in absence of GPU acceleration. Precisely, when playing 4k, Firefox and Chrome use up to 100 percents of CPU, while Edge uses only up to ~10 percents.

 

[Maxim Ovchynnikov]

You might try disabling hardware acceleration and see if that makes a difference. I run Firefox with it off.

[Tip] Disable Hardware Acceleration in Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird to Fix Font and Crashing Problems - AskVG

Do I understand correctly, that hadrware acceleration is equivalent to GPU usage?

 

[zerospace-net]

I believe this is true, yes, although it appears to use the Intel GPU by default in the Surface Book with both Intel & nvidia. I have not tried switching Firefox to using the nvidia GPU only. I had been using Firefox with hardware acceleration disabled due to some really strange page rendering issues (artifacting, strange lines through everything, etc) but a couple of firmware updates ago, I re-enabled it and have not had any significant issues since then.

 

[Chintan Gohel]

I have only one plugin - AdBlock.



And You just install Firefox on pure Surface Book, without installing some "special drivers"?

you don't need special or any drivers for firefox to work, it's a software, not hardware

 

[Maksym Ovchynnikov]

The problem was resolved. By the strange reason by default I downloaded 32-bit version of Firefox. After realizing that I've downloaded 64-bit version. And all problem have disappeared.