News Firefox 4 Beta 4 includes Direct2D

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2010/08/23/firefox-4-beta-4-includes-direct2d/1

 

Quote: "Thankfully, enabling the acceleration is pretty straightforward for the more advanced users willing to give the bleeding edge a try: "To turn on Direct2D: Go in to about:config and set mozilla.widget.render-mode to 6, and gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled to true."

That is hardly straightforward, it might not be difficult, but try explaining that to an older generation compared to going to something like Tools - Options - Tick box for 2D acceleration.

TBH, it's about time Mozilla and others made these advanced features more readily available for the more common things that day to day users might benefit from.

 

But then again why would the "older generation" be using beta software? It's obvious that these options will be in the "appearance" preferences in the menu, probably, in future, stable releases.

 

@tad2008 - that's a bit unfair - it's a beta feature that by the developers' own admission isn't yet ready for a full rollout. Most day to day users don't need to be messing about with features that aren't fully developed yet - they're better off with a more stable, if fractionally slower, browsing experience.

I'd expect that in the final release of Firefox 4 this will be enabled by default, and nobody will ever really need to turn it off.

 

TBH, you absolutely do not get this at all. You need to actually download the Minefield nightlies in order to even get this option, which are very unlikely for the older generation to EVEN know about it, much less download and install.


Fail.

 

Not bothering with the FF beta until my addons are all updated to work with it

 

Almost every add-on is working fine with the Beta. Just install "Add-on Compatibility Reporter" add-on.

 

I've never really liked Firefox tbh, always been afraid it will eat my babies.

Let me know when Chrome or Opera adds this feature.

 

Firefox 4 beta 4 is not released yet. bit-tech needs to stop snooping on the Mozilla FTP server. just because something is put up there does not mean it is officially released.

this is as said a minefield nightly and I've been testing Direct2D enabled Firefox for quite some time now.
Direct2D "code" is already in Beta 3

 

I'll wait for the official release, I just need stuff to work i'll leave beta testing to others.

 

Never could figure out why Firefox was so popular, I tried it a few times but couldn’t grow to like it, then Chrome came out and I’ve never looked back its just fast and easy. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

 

Actually, as far as I remember Direct2D was already in as far back as when it was called 3.7. Way to make a story out of non-news, guys!

 

Also it probably won't be popular with the mainstream (unless Mozilla somehow changes it between now and release) as it also requires Vista/7, WDDM drivers and its not recommended to use Intel graphics chips, which will be what many people have. Can't say I've really noticed any difference in memory, its still using nearly 400MB (albeit with several tabs open)

 

Where can I download beta 4? Have looked everywhere, but most recent I can find is version 3.

 

I dunno what's going on here, but this method of enabling D2D has been part of the minefield builds for nearly two months - ever since it was renamed from 3.6pre (though code-wise more advanced than 3.6), to 4.0.

This feature is enabled by default in the firefox 4 prebeta 5 builds (available here, so beta 5 should have this enabled by default too. Be patient if you don't like fiddling around with about:config.

 

@Sexton - It's not been officially released yet. The release schedule says sometime later today but, who knows, it may be delayed longer?:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Releases/Firefox_4.0b4

 

Ah OK, thanks

 

Well I use Minefield as my default browser, and I like it. But some times it is bit annoying that beta dev team enable some features which clearly aren't working.

I'm not sure is the problem with Direct2D Firefox beta based error, or aren't web pages just simply coded whit D2D in mind, since at least youtube has some issues playing vids properly when D2D is enabled (might have something to do with Flash...)

 

firefox and Chrome seem to be bit heavy on ram use, i must have about 60-70 tabs open in opera and its using like 1gb of ram (i got more tabs open then norm as ram use is norm 400-600MB with 40tabs) 4 tabs are open in chrome right now and they are using 300-400 each Flash seems have have an negative impact on firefox and chrome seems to have an mem leak thats not been fixed yet