I want to know when i enable "use hardware acceleration when available" feature in google chrome, it consume more battery? what is the advantage of this feature? is it better to enable or disable this feature?
asked Jan 21, 2015 at 5:30
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6The answer is "it depends". Hardware acceleration should for example use the GPU for some rendering tasks thereby using the CPU less and so being more efficient. That should be more energy efficient than just using a CPU as well. In some cases, this might cause the GPU to "go faster" and use more energy than it did, negating the benefit.– PaulCommented Jan 21, 2015 at 5:38
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3 Answers
The GPU is designed specifically to put graphics on the screen, taking images from specific locations, converting them to a relevant format, rendering them onto a plane along with a bunch of text and so on.
It is specifically designed to do the tasks associated with displaying pictures and text and videos and can do most of these jobs more effectively and efficiently than your CPU can. Video decoding in particular is a lot more power efficient when done using the hardware built into your graphics card as opposed to being decoded by the CPU.
In general enabling hardware accelerated graphics will result in faster page rendering and use of hardware video decoding amongst other enhancements.
That's not to say that there aren't times when it is more power efficient to have only one device (the CPU) running rather than both the CPU and GPU. In applications without heavy use of graphics disabling the GPU could effectively reduce power consumption.
answered Jan 21, 2015 at 20:34
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I had an issue with an onboard APU (Ryzen 3 2200G - Radeon Vega 8 Graphics) causing a screen blackout or a window blackout at certain times when watching youtube videos (in particular). I switched off hardware acceleration in Chrome and Opera and now I don't have the blackouts. Performance seems just the same. Maybe the hardware acceleration tries to use a dedicated graphics card - which is not present since I use the APU? I don't understand these things properly - not my field. Commented May 28, 2019 at 13:34
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I have seen other suggestions:
1)reduce clock frequency for the APU,2)try a different power supply,3)increase APU voltage,4)change Windows power plan (I think this turns off hardware acceleration and hence works),5)clean contacts and check cable,6)try different RAM brand and timing,7)various BIOS/UEFI tweaks (APU/CPU modes). Anyway, wasn't planning to add so many details, just wanted to mention that problem with hardware acceleration - can cause weird problems. Commented May 28, 2019 at 13:43
WebGL only works on chrome if this checkbox is enabled - once activated the browser is suddenly transformed into rendering staggering 3D animations which does drain battery more than staring at a static page
Easy way to determine real-time battery usage is to watch a CPU/GPU temperature widget ... if temp goes up battery is getting drained faster
I don't have experience with Windows, but MacOS can not disable the dedicated GPU when the hardware acceleration is enabled in Chrome and Chrome is running (even if there is no browser tab opened, or when Chrome is only running in a different users account hence totally inactive). It results in extreme difference in battery time, like down to about 2 hours from about 8 hours when hardware acceleration is disabled.
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1and b) I think you're saying "in order to turn off GPU acceleration, no instances of Chrome must currently be running under any user account on the machine"– smciCommented Nov 17, 2020 at 21:10
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I don't understand, can you edit to clarify? a) the GPU-disabled battery life on your MBP is ~8h vs 2h with GPU-enabled? or v.v.? (which variant of MacBook/Pro e.g. mid-2018 15inch? integrated or discrete GPU? which version of Chrome?) 8h down to 2h sounds like an extreme case, not typical.– smciCommented Nov 17, 2020 at 21:16
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2019 year model with touchbar (i9, 16GB RAM, Radeon 550X), but I don't think it really counts. There is always an integrated GPU in the models that have dedicated GPU, and it usually turns off the dedicated one to save power, but yep, the thing is that e.g. if Chrome is running in the background for one user, and a different user is using the machine, then it can't turn off the dedicated GPU. Another rare case is when you are using an external monitor. You can't even watch a 2 hour long video from battery on an external monitor as it will drain the battery to zero in less than two hours.– styuCommented Nov 18, 2020 at 1:52
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Then that's "MacBookPro15,1" or 15,2 or 15,3. This matters a lot because I'm very skeptical about your "8hrs to 2hrs" claim, I believe it's very unusual and I can't reproduce it or find anyone else claiming this. Please clarify: was that 8h with the GPU enabled or disabled? on AC power adapter? As to "if Chrome is running in the background for another user" that's a very rare case for 99+% of laptop users.– smciCommented Nov 18, 2020 at 2:19
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If multiple users are using the laptop then it can easily happen. Btw FYI no such issue with Safari. Not on AC power adapter but on battery. And I think it got better with the software updates since last year. A1990 (EMC 3359).– styuCommented Nov 18, 2020 at 13:43