1864271 - High refresh rate monitor (>120Hz) slows performance

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core :: Graphics, defect)

Description

[Genesis]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

1. Clean reset of Firefox.
2. Verify display is running at 160+Hz.
3. Install uBlock Origin
4. Open a YouTube video and seek around randomly

Actual results:

Seek time is slower compared to a lower refresh rate monitor

Expected results:

Seek time should be the same no matter the refresh rate of the monitor

Comment 1

[Genesis]

This issue is very similar to this one : https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1560090
It is less noticeable when trying to load simple web pages but it is very noticeable when seeking around on YouTube videos. The more impactful extensions you have installed (uBlock, Adguard), the worse it gets.

Here is another way to reproduce the issue :

1. Connect 2 monitors to the computer
2. Setup one monitor with a high refresh rate (> 160Hz) and the other with a lower refresh rate (< 120 Hz)
3. Clean reset of Firefox
4. Install uBlock Origin
5. Move the Firefox window onto the high refresh rate monitor
6. Open a YouTube video and seek around randomly, notice that it can sometimes take multiple seconds to seek in the video
7. Move the Firefox window onto the lower refresh rate monitor (without reloading the page or anything)
8. Seek around randomly just like before, notice the seeking is now nearly instantaneous

Comment 2

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

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Core::Audio/Video: Playback' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 3

[Genesis]

Machine information

Application Basics
------------------

Name: Firefox
Version: 119.0
Build ID: 20231029065054
Distribution ID: nixos
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/119.0
OS: Linux 6.6.0 #1-NixOS SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Mon Oct 30 02:31:08 UTC 2023
OS Theme: Arc-Dark / Arc
Multiprocess Windows: 1/1
Fission Windows: 1/1 Enabled by default
Remote Processes: 7
Enterprise Policies: Active
Google Location Service Key: Missing
Google Safebrowsing Key: Missing
Mozilla Location Service Key: Missing
Safe Mode: false
Memory Size (RAM): 30.9 GB
Disk Space Available: 861 GB

Graphics
--------

Features
Window Device Pixel Ratios: 1
Compositing: WebRender
...
Window Protocol: wayland
Desktop Environment: sway
Target Frame Rate: 60
WebGPU Default Adapter: { "navigator.gpu": null }
WebGPU Fallback Adapter: { "navigator.gpu": null }
GPU #1
Active: Yes
Description: Mesa Intel(R) Graphics (RPL-P)
Vendor ID: 0x8086
Device ID: 0xa7a0
Driver Vendor: mesa/iris
Driver Version: 23.1.9.0
RAM: 0

Please let me know if there is anything else you want me to try

Comment 4

[Alastor Wu [:alwu]]

This sounds more like a gfx issue to me, move this bug to another component for triage.

Comment 5

[Kelsey Gilbert [:jgilbert]]

This sounds like high-refresh allowing for set-playback-location events to queue up faster than they can reasonably be satisfied.
This will cause it to feel like Firefox is a slower browser, especially for power-users or gamers.

Let's talk about it in gfx-triage.

Comment 6

[Jeff Muizelaar [:jrmuizel]]

Genesis, can you get a profile of this happening with https://profiler.firefox.com/ and the "Media" preset?

Comment 7

[Genesis]

Sure, here is one profile with a clean Firefox profile and only uBlock installed (with default configuration). I clicked on the video, waited for it to load and seeked around a couple of times.
https://share.firefox.dev/47AoWEQ

Here is another profile with the same Firefox profile, only uBlock installed (with default configuration). I clicked on the video, waited for it to load, seeked around twice, then moved the window to the lower refresh rate monitor and seeked twice again.
https://share.firefox.dev/3T7573v

Comment 8

[Jeff Muizelaar [:jrmuizel]]

Genesis, can you confirm that the problem doesn't happen when you don't have uBlock installed?

Comment 9

[Jeff Muizelaar [:jrmuizel]]

I tried reproducing this on a 360Hz screen and didn't notice a difference in seek times on YouTube.

Comment 10

[Alastor Wu [:alwu]]

Hello, Geneis,

Would you mind follow this instruction to capture the profiled result again? That can help us to enable debug log.

Also, I wonder if this issue would only happen when uBlock is installed? If you disable uBlock, would this issue still exist?

Thank you.

Comment 11

[Genesis]

Hello Alastor, I did two more profiles with the instructions you provided.

Here is one where I seeked around randomly 4 times on the video, on the high refresh rate monitor.
https://share.firefox.dev/3TjhCt0

Here is another one where I seeked around 2 times on the video on the high refresh rate monitor, then moved the window to the low refresh rate monitor and seeked around 2 times again.
https://share.firefox.dev/47O1K6l

The seek time delay only exists when uBlock is enabled. If I disable the extension, the seek time is nearly instantaneous again without even having to refresh the page.

Comment 12

[Genesis]

I noticed something else that may or may not help, maybe it's affecting more than just media playback, and maybe the delay in seek times is just a side effect.

If I load a YouTube video page on the high refresh monitor, it takes a considerable amount of time to load/render all the layout elements and the comments, and if I load that same page on the low refresh rate monitor, the elements load/render way faster, and it seems to happen even without uBlock enabled, I would say it's even more noticeable without uBlock enabled.

Would it help if I did another profile with another preset where I just load the page ? If yes, which preset should I choose ?

Comment 13

[Genesis]

I just updated to Firefox 120.0.1 (a bit late to the party) and I cannot reproduce any of the aforementioned issues anymore so it looks like something somewhere changed and everything seems to work just fine now (seek times and page elements loading/rendering, with and without uBlock enabled) 🤔

Comment 14

[Jim Mathies [:jimm]]

(In reply to Genesis from comment #13)

I just updated to Firefox 120.0.1 (a bit late to the party) and I cannot reproduce any of the aforementioned issues anymore so it looks like something somewhere changed and everything seems to work just fine now (seek times and page elements loading/rendering, with and without uBlock enabled) 🤔

Thanks for letting us know. Feel free to reopen if this comes back.