Firefox "Smooth Scrolling" Extremely CPU Demanding (On Core 2 Duo...)

Comments

• Reply 1 of 4

  bikertwin Posts: 566member

  August 2, 2007 12:55PM

  Sorry about that.
  
  
  
  But I find smooth scrolling really annoying, actually. I always turn it off.
• Reply 2 of 4

  backtomac Posts: 4,579member

  August 2, 2007 1:14PM

  Quote:
  

  Originally Posted by appleweek
  
  
  Hi All,
  
  I am a longtime Firefox on PC user and recently got a new Mac with a pretty spiffy Core 2 Duo processor. I am totally impressed with the speed of the machine, except Firefox scrolling performance when Smooth Scrolling feature is activated. (Preferences > Advanced > "Use smooth scrolling")
  
  
  
  Firefox (w/ option enabled) and IE7 both have visually appealing smooth scrolling on even very basic XP PC's with almost no CPU spike. Safari on Tiger comes along with a reasonable 10-20% CPU reported by 'top' utility and minimal Activity Monitor.app CPU Usage palette animation (Both cores level out at about quarter).
  
  
  
  Firefox on OS X? When I enable the option in Firefox 2.X I notice it pulls sustained 50-60+% CPU easily simply by scrolling via mouse scroll wheel actively on a long page. Activity Monitor CPU Usage palette easily shows both CPU cores easily reaching 50%+ sustained for the duration of the smooth scrolling action. I've also noticed about 25-30% CPU by scrolling using scroll bar (apparently mouse wheel vs. scroll bar makes a difference). Both cases seems excessive.
  
  
  
  I know Firefox isn't exactly a 'lite' its toes (Carbon vs Cocoa, XUL, etc), but assumed it shouldn't be taxing a Core 2 Duo CPU in the 55%+ CPU range just for something as basic as smooth scrolling. I love Mac, yet prefer Firefox (compatibility & extensions), and my eyes have just grown very accustom to smooth scrolling all the years from PC Firefox & IE.
  
  
  
  1) Is this the standard behavior for Firefox with smooth scrolling activated on a Mac ??
  
  2) Any solution (short of disabling smooth scrolling/ditching Firefox) ??
  
  
  
  
  
  PS. Same results on several pages tested. No plugins active on page (Quicktime, Flip4Mac, etc). Flash blocked using Flashblock. Advert images blocked (No animated GIFS). Stock Firefox profile. Javascript enabled. Fresh launch.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Thanks!
  

  
  

  
  
  Have you tried camino?. It has the same rendering engine but is more Mac like in it's interface and supposedly runs faster than FF. It doesn't have the same plug ins however.
• Reply 3 of 4

  appleweek Posts: 4member

  August 2, 2007 2:42PM

  Yes, familar with Camino since the Chimera days.... Decent browser, but like the cross-platformness of Firefox (Exact same config&extentsion on Win/Mac, etc)
  
  
  
  Will investigate a way to slow down the CPU usage via an extentsion perhaps... ?
• Reply 4 of 4

  big mac Posts: 480member

  September 24, 2008 7:30AM

  Sorry if bumping this thread is inappropriate, but I too am very disappointed by smooth scroll wheel scrolling in Firefox (3.0.2). I have even found that having it enabled is potentially dangerous, since it seems to be able to completely block other processes and can effectively bring down a Mac entirely. Try this: enable Firefox smooth scrolling then scroll vigorously with the scroll wheel, and then try to interact with another application like the Dock. You'll likely notice that the GUI (except for the pointer) will lock up until Firefox is done performing the scroll; sometimes doing this is enough to cause a permanent GUI freeze.