Firefox arm64 graphical problems on Surface Pro X

[YMica_OSE]

I have an SQ1 model of the Surface Pro X (which is an arm-based processor) and running the native arm64 version of Firefox was the best choice to get the most performance out of the tablet. However...

I'm experiencing weird glitches throughout the entire browser (most likely areas where 2D rendering is involved). Most rounded corner assets appears as square corners and their colors seems to either be incorrectly rendered or have weird square seizures. The image below shows the issue.

This issue has happened ever since I got the device which was around the time 118.0 was out. It happens on both the original Windows 11 and the 22H2/23H2 update and no amount of driver updates made the problem go away (the driver is the latest one listed on Microsoft's site, 27.20.2020.0). Disabling hardware acceleration does solve the problem but that leaves the performance being trash.

I'm not entirely sure if this is a Qualcomm/Windows problem or a Firefox problem. I've had a phone running Windows 11 on arm with the same native arm64 Firefox and the issue did not occur, so I guess it's just this tablet model.

I do have a Reddit post with a video demonstrating the issue here. If any of you reading this are developers please look into this issue as I don't want to switch to the x64 version because emulation performance on this is horrible.

[bacon · Accepted solution]

If somebody comes across this post, head here for a fix: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1442223

[INTRANET]

I agree with this. This issue never been fixed or reviewed by Firefox developers team. Why on Mac with ARM architecture firefox works perfect, but on Windows is different.

[bacon]

I am experiencing the same issue since quite some time. I do have the same hardware (Surface Pro X arm64).

[bacon · Accepted solution]

If somebody comes across this post, head here for a fix: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1442223

[YMica_OSE]

I didn't check back here for a long time but this did solve the problem when I saw the link on my linked Reddit post.
A side note is as of 129.0.1, the latest at the time of this reply, this issue is still present without the option enabled.

Thank you guys in advance!

[bundyo · Accepted solution]

Seems the ANGLE renderer is causing these graphical glitches. After disabling gfx.webrender.force-angle and restarting Firefox, they seem gone.

P.S. On second check - this option also enables the software rendering.

P.S. After some more testing - software rendering with OpenGL works more fluid (scrolling doesn't stutter) than the D3D11 one.

[YMica_OSE]

I use Chrome more often than Firefox (because of the Google services integration) and I noticed scrolling MSN News in Firefox seems to be more sluggish than in Chrome. Feels like this might have to do with the fact that it's software rendering (I used gfx.webrender.software but like you said the two option has the same effects)

As of 129.0.1 this has still not been fixed, so I hope it does soon.

[MrBoxCup]

I also had the same issue just now, but this fix helped immediately.

[wingdings-]

Sorry this isn't a FIX**. I want hardware rendering in Firefox not to disable it outright. I don't care if it runs faster on your machine it doesn't on mine with software rendering and I have the same hardware and honestly it stopped me from running Firefox outright because of how many graphical issues there are with hardware rendering. This has been a thing since 2022 since and honestly I'm still really angry that there is still no fix to this at all apart from basically slowing down your web browser and destroying its performance on websites that aren't designed 8 years ago. Like I get it. Its hard to notice as much of the old internet is dead or not being updated. But for websites on web rings and places like neocities that use html5 or webgl it is paramount to actually have hardware acceleration working. Where in I'm not a normal web browser user who opens their browser to watch youtube all day or to visit the same core five websites over and over again. I want an actual solution not some half witted attempt that isn't a real fix at all. It is a shame this is the state of firefox to accept a 3 year old bug that has been plaguing adreno gpu driver users for this long on windows and for mozilla to sweep it under the rug. I should not have to run some hacked up version of chromium just to have proper gpu support for a web browser.