1731364 - GPU acting strange while watching youtube/twitch videos in Firefox

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Core :: Graphics: WebRender, defect)

Description

[hsaggan]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:92.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/92.0

Steps to reproduce:

Watching this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxmtlgYR-uI (live stream videos)
or this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phchNbXJJzE . GPU load/voltage ect always a rollercoaster. But in Chrome its all fine.

Actual results:

Gpu behaviour in Firefox https://i.imgur.com/W93o0By.png
Gpu behaviour in Chrome (same stream) https://i.imgur.com/MAelJTO.png/

Expected results:

Not every live stream in Youtube or Twitch act like mentioned in screenshot. Usually GPU load/voltage/clocks/mem clocks are a straight line, but in streams above its a mess aka every few seconds clocks raise and then goes down.

Firefox-Profiler:
https://share.firefox.dev/3tRmhDW

Comment 1

[Jeff Muizelaar [:jrmuizel]]

What are you using to get the GPU graphs?

Comment 2

[Jeff Muizelaar [:jrmuizel]]

Also, can you attach the graphics section of about:support?

Comment 3

[hsaggan]

Attachment: Graphics.txt

Comment 4

[hsaggan]

I'm using Msi Afterburner to get GPU graphs.

Comment 5

[Jeff Muizelaar [:jrmuizel]]

Can right click on the YouTube video and select "Stats for nerds" check that the codec and resolution are the same in Firefox and Chrome? Can you also share screenshots of the GPU usage tab of "Task Manager" from both Firefox and Chrome?

Comment 6

[hsaggan]

(In reply to Jeff Muizelaar [:jrmuizel] from comment #5)

Can right click on the YouTube video and select "Stats for nerds" check that the codec and resolution are the same in Firefox and Chrome? Can you also share screenshots of the GPU usage tab of "Task Manager" from both Firefox and Chrome?

Hello. I just checked both Firefox and Chrome codec and resolution, it was same.

Firefox === https://i.imgur.com/4QDXWug.png
Chrome === https://i.imgur.com/nO6xneV.png

Sorry, using RU version of windows. Anyway, the behavior i mentioned earlier is can be seen in task manager as well. GPU load in chrome is ~7-8% (only browser is open) and in Firefox its ~24-26% and dropping to 1% every 10seconds +- and then back up to ~25%. This results to GPU drop in voltage/core clocks/mem clocks every so often.

Comment 7

[github.kj]

There has definitely been an issue as of late, something updated and broke proper video playback on youtube...

Very recent thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/pfbwqd/youtube_videos_freeze_from_time_to_time/
Older but same deal: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1250762

It is weird how it freezes in the exact same spot every time I go back a few seconds in the video, but if I go forward, then go back that usually stops it. One thing I notice it looks like it has something to do with the auto resolution setting, the resolution seems to jump around right at the freeze, if I manually select 1080p the problem stops.

I've tried disabling add-ons but nothing conclusive as the freezing is unpredictable.

System utilization does tend to be higher in Firefox compared to Chromiums, so maybe it is a hardware acceleration issue.

Using on add-on should not be needed when other browsers using the same codec work perfectly. It wasn't an issue in Firefox 2 major updates ago, it believe it started happening in 91.

Comment 8

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Core::Graphics: WebRender' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please revert this change in case you think the bot is wrong.