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:

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.