How to Enable Direct2D & DirectWrite Hardware Acceleration in Mozilla Firefox?

Did you know you can enable Direct2D and DirectWrite hardware acceleration in Mozilla Firefox to increase performance? Direct2D and DirectWrite are replacement for the good old GDI in Windows. These 2 new technologies use GPU acceleration to boost overall performance.

But you'll need either Windows 7 or Windows Vista SP2 (with Platform Update installed) to be able to enjoy this method.

Follow these simple steps to enable Direct2D and DirectWrite H/W Acceleration in Mozilla Firefox:

1. Open Firefox and type about:config in the addressbar and press Enter. It’ll confirm, click on I’ll be careful, I promise! button.

2. Now type render in the Filter box and look for following 2 keys:

gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled
mozilla.widget.render-mode

3. The entry "gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled" would be set to false. Double-click on it or right-click on it and select "Toggle". It'll change its value to true.

4. The entry "mozilla.widget.render-mode" would be set to -1. Double-click on it and set its value to 6.

PS: If you can't find "mozilla.widget.render-mode" entry, you'll need to manually create it. Right-click on empty space and select "New -> Integer" and set its name to mozilla.widget.render-mode.

5. That's it. Restart your browser and enjoy better looking fonts and performance.

NOTE: If you want to disable the hardware acceleration, set "gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled" to false and "mozilla.widget.render-mode" to 0.

Other similar articles that may interest you:

• Anti-Aliasing Tuner: Mozilla Firefox Add-on to Fix Font Problem
• How to Disable Hardware Acceleration (GPU Rendering) in Mozilla Firefox to Fix Font Problem?
• How to Enable IE Like “Quick Tabs” Feature (All Tabs Previews) in Mozilla Firefox
• How to Enable New Ctrl+Tab Preview Thumbnails List in Mozilla Firefox?
• List of All Kinds of Restrictions for Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, Server 2003 and 2008
• How to Enable Brand New “New Tab” Page in Mozilla Firefox Nightly Build?

This article was posted by VG in following section: Mozilla Firefox.

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