Glossary/GPU/Hardware acceleration
Hardware acceleration
Hardware acceleration is a browser using the graphics chip for drawing, compositing and video instead of doing that work on the processor.
Also known as browser hardware acceleration, GPU acceleration, graphics acceleration
Checked by a SystemCheck tool
The hardware acceleration test checks this in your browser, on your own device. The paragraphs below say what it reads and what a browser cannot see.
With acceleration on, a browser hands page compositing, canvas and 3D drawing, and usually video decoding to the graphics chip. With it off, or with a graphics driver the browser does not trust, the processor does all of that work: video stutters, 3D pages crawl, scrolling feels heavy and the fans spin. Chrome, Edge and Firefox each have a setting for it; Safari has none and always draws with the graphics chip.
The hardware acceleration test reads three signs. The first is the WebGL renderer string, which names the drawing device and names a software renderer when the processor is drawing. The second is a WebGL context requested with failIfMajorPerformanceCaveat, which a browser refuses when it would draw in software even if the renderer string does not say so. The third is whether the browser's WebGPU adapter, where it has one, reports itself as a fallback adapter.
When the setting is on and the check still fails, the browser has blocked the driver. Install the driver from the chip or laptop maker, then open chrome://gpu, edge://gpu or Firefox's about:support, which list each graphics feature as accelerated, software only or disabled, with the reason. Every graphics stage of the SystemCheck stress test draws with WebGL 2, so a result taken in software describes the processor, and the report says so.
Covered in full
This page defines the term. The pages below explain it, diagnose it and measure it.
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