GPU acceleration in Chrome and Firefox

[sam142000]

After reading

http://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/gpu-accelerated-compositing-in-chrome and

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/firefox-gpu-driver-web-gl-acceleration,17380.html

I am wondering if there are actually any noticeable changes in Chrome and Firefox performances when using GPU acceleration.

And, how does it effect a laptop user, i.e. if it effects battery backup or heating of laptop.

[GoodBytes]

Depends on your GPU. If it's a sucky one or an old one, it will have trouble, so it will go at full speed to provide you a smooth experience, this will reduce battery life and increase heat.

If your GPU is powerful or recent, where doing the task at hand without the need to 'lift a finger" for your GPU, then it will stay at minimum performance, and you get to enjoy the same battery life (as the GPU stays at the same minimum power usage), and get a smoother and faster web experience.

[sam142000]

My laptop has AMD 7730M 2GB DDR3. What would you say about it regarding this topic?

If enabled is the difference noticeable?

[GoodBytes]

Looks fine to me. The rest depends on the power saving feature of your GPU.

Try and see.

Like in my case, on my 4 year old laptop, when it was the GPU drivers made the power management too aggressive where it was kicking in whilke I was playing games, and now, it's super loose, when opening a folder or simply draging one, makes the GPU jump at full speed for teh next 5-10min as it think I just started a game (as the GPU doesn't know what you are doing). Hence why it played a part in developing my software which rectified the problem.