710359 - Implement benchmark to measure jank caused by background tabs

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Core :: General, defect)

Description

[Benoit Jacob [:bjacob] (mostly away)]

This is not a specific complaint about GMail or any other site :-) I'm filing this bug to have something to link to in https://wiki.mozilla.org/Platform/AreWeFunYet .

The problem I'm discussing here is that playing a game or generally an animation is a lot less smooth if there is another JS-intensive page open in another tab. This really sucks and undermines in particular our gaming story. This should have been solved by electrolysis, except it's currently on hold.

Steps to reproduce:
1) Open http://webglsamples.googlecode.com/hg/aquarium/aquarium.html
2) wait a bit until it's fully loaded. Note the FPS count and how stable it is (e.g. here I get 30 FPS, quite stable)
3) Open GMail in a new tab, go back to the aquarium tab
4) wait a bit until GMail is fully loaded. Note the FPS count and how (un)stable it is now (here it's oscillating, sometimes 30 FPS, sometimes more like 20 FPS).

We want Firefox to become a serious platform for games. But, gamers will also want to keep their GMail pinned tabs on the side. So, big deal.

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

What happens if you try one of the incremental GC builds from the larch project branch?

Comment 2

[Marco Castelluccio [:marco]]

Also bug 715592, that depends on bug 712478 too, could be really useful for games.

Comment 3

[Benoit Jacob [:bjacob] (mostly away)]

I've tried the Larch builds and indeed the animations do feel smoother there. Maybe what we need to most at this point is a benchmark.

Comment 4

[(dormant account)]

(In reply to Benoit Jacob [:bjacob] from comment #3)
> I've tried the Larch builds and indeed the animations do feel smoother
> there. Maybe what we need to most at this point is a benchmark.

I agree.

Comment 5

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

The severity field for this bug is relatively low, S3. However, the bug has 10 votes.
:jstutte, could you consider increasing the bug severity?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 6

[Jens Stutte [:jstutte]]

This bug talks about a state before e10s (and fission) shipped (see comment 0). Feel free to open a new bug if you still think there is something to do here.