693852 - High GPU usage with constant status bar animation and direct2d, even when minimized or hidden

Status: REOPENED

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[John Wellesz]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:7.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/7.0.1
Build ID: 20110928134238

Steps to reproduce:

I use Thunderbird 7.0.1 normally, with default options.
Doesn't happen in safe mode. Does happen in normal mode with extensions disabled.

Windows 7 64bit (fully updated)
Gforce GTX 285
Driver version: 280.26

This is related to this thread: http://getsatisfaction.com/mozilla_messaging/topics/high_gpu_video_card_usage_temp_on_password_box



Actual results:

If any part of the interface is in an animation state such as:
- The green progress bar at the bottom right corner (whether it's moving or static like when your inbox quota is nearly reached)
- The busy mac styled symbol in windows top left corner

My graphic card GPU goes up and stays in a high state until the animation stops (between 10% and 20% depending on the animated element). This increases my computer consumption by 20 watts and my graphic card fan gets noisy.


Expected results:

My GPU usage shouldn't go up like this for a simple 2D interface.
Those animations can last a very long time depending on what's happening and can be even permanent in some case such as when the "quota bar" is displayed.

The refresh rate of those animations should be limited, no need to refresh those kind of animations at 120fps (yes the GPU consumption is lower (about half) if I set my screen's refresh rate to 60Hz instead of 120Hz)

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to John Wellesz from comment #0)
> If any part of the interface is in an animation state such as:
> - The green progress bar at the bottom right corner (whether it's moving or
> static like when your inbox quota is nearly reached)
> - The busy mac styled symbol in windows top left corner
> 
> My graphic card GPU goes up and stays in a high state until the animation
> stops (between 10% and 20% depending on the animated element). This
> increases my computer consumption by 20 watts and my graphic card fan gets
> noisy.

Indeed. There was one bit in the gfsn topic that I didn't get to, which is what to try if safe mode helps.  Please do the following
- tools | options | advanced | general | config editor
- paste gfx.direct2d.disabled into filter and change it to "true"
- restart TB 
- if that doesn't help set layers.acceleration.disabled preference to "true" (create the boolean if necessary with right click)
- restart Thunderbird 

If it is improved, then this is nominally bug 668552

Comment 2

[John Wellesz]

Setting gfx.direct2d.disabled to true improves things, GPU usage drops to 6%
if I also set layers.acceleration.disabled to true GPU usage drops to only 2%

Comment 3

[:aceman]

How do you measure GPU usage?
It would be strange if Direct2D makes things slower on this card (I mean it should be powerful enough).

Comment 4

[John Wellesz]

I use NVIDIA System Monitor.

It doesn't make things slower, it justs uses resources and therefore increases my computer's consumption and noise.
I wouldn't have noticed this issue if my GTX 285's fan wasn't spinning faster.

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

so, two-headed issue:

a) Direct2D + video drivers

b) status bar activity. need to find which bugs are impacting status bar - (example query) https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?short_desc=progress%20bar%20activity%20status&bug_severity=blocker&bug_severity=critical&bug_severity=major&bug_severity=normal&resolution=---&resolution=WONTFIX&resolution=DUPLICATE&query_format=advanced&longdesc=progress%20bar&short_desc_type=anywordssubstr&type0-0-0=nowords&value0-0-0=count%20counts&product=MailNews%20Core&product=Thunderbird&longdesc_type=allwordssubstr&list_id=1510038

Comment 6

[Nicholas]

Am also experiencing this issue. Measuring GPU usage by Sysinternals Process Explorer program. Annoying because if I forget to minimize Thunderbird, my laptop's fan starts to spin up very fast.

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Somewhat better query https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?list_id=1670802&short_desc=progress%20activity%20status%20pole%20spin&field0-0-0=short_desc&bug_severity=major&bug_severity=normal&bug_severity=minor&columnlist=bug_id%2Cchangeddate%2Ccomponent%2Cstatus_whiteboard%2Cbug_severity%2Cbug_status%2Cresolution%2Cshort_desc&resolution=---&query_format=advanced&short_desc_type=anywordssubstr&type0-0-0=anywords&value0-0-0=Bar%20barber&product=MailNews%20Core&product=Thunderbird

Comment 8

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Hardware acceleration has now been disabled by default for TB 9 by bug 689742.

Comment 9

[John Wellesz]

High GPU usage when Thunderbirds is opened has reappeared. Without Thunderbirds my GPU oscillates between 1% and 8%, with Thunderbirds is running in the background it oscillates between 15% and 20%...
As before, the pulsating quota bar is causing this high GPU usage. When I switch to an account that is far from the quota limit, this bar becomes blank and GPU returns to normal...


(I'm using version 31.1.1)

Comment 10

[:aceman]

Try to disable hardware acceleration in Advanced settings. I have a feeling GPU accel was reenabled by default.

Comment 11

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to :aceman from comment #10)
> Try to disable hardware acceleration in Advanced settings. I have a feeling
> GPU accel was reenabled by default.

What are your results please?

Comment 12

[John Wellesz]

Indeed gfx.direct2d.disabled and layers.acceleration.disabled had returned to their defaults (false). Setting those to true again prevents TB from using the GPU.

Comment 13

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to John Wellesz from comment #9)
> High GPU usage when Thunderbirds is opened has reappeared. Without
> Thunderbirds my GPU oscillates between 1% and 8%, with Thunderbirds is
> running in the background it oscillates between 15% and 20%...
> As before, the pulsating quota bar is causing this high GPU usage. When I
> switch to an account that is far from the quota limit, this bar becomes
> blank and GPU returns to normal...
> 
> 
> (I'm using version 31.1.1)

John, is this improved in version 38?
note, you'll want to check your settings because the defaults have changed to enable hardware acceleration in version 38.

And, what GPU model, driver version and date are you using?

Comment 14

[John Wellesz]

I've disabled (set to false) `gfx.direct2d.disabled` and `layers.acceleration.disabled` again and indeed I can no longer reproduce the very high GPU usage. Now when TB is running it uses "only"  1.40% of my GPU when minimized and around 2.8% when not minimized (focused or behind another window).

So it's indeed much better but not perfect (it shouldn't use GPU at all when minimized or completely hidden by another window)

Graphic card: GeForce GTX 680
nVidia driver version: 352.86

I'm using Comodo KillSwitch to monitor processes' GPU usage.

TB's version is: 38.1.0 and I currently have the quota bar animation displayed permanently.

Comment 15

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Nicolas is apparently gone