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Game running slow? Turn on hardware acceleration

If a browser game runs under 30 fps on a computer that should handle it, the browser is usually drawing on the CPU instead of the graphics card. Check it below, then fix it in about two minutes.

Your browser right now

Checking…

Checking whether this browser draws with the graphics card.

Browser
–
Renderer
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Turn on hardware acceleration

Browsers won't open their own settings pages from a link on a website. Press Copy, then paste the address into the address bar and press Enter.

Google Chrome
  1. chrome://settings/system

  2. Turn on Use graphics acceleration when available.

  3. Press Relaunch. Chrome reopens your tabs.

Microsoft Edge
  1. edge://settings/system

  2. Turn on Use graphics acceleration when available.

  3. Press Restart.

Mozilla Firefox
  1. about:preferences

  2. Scroll to Performance and untick Use recommended performance settings.

  3. Tick Use hardware acceleration when available, then quit and reopen Firefox.

Brave, Opera, Vivaldi and other Chromium browsers

  1. Open the browser's Settings and search for acceleration.

  2. Turn on Use graphics acceleration when available (Opera: Use hardware acceleration when available).

  3. Restart the browser.

Safari on Mac

Safari always uses the graphics card and has no switch for it. If the game is slow in Safari, go to Still slow.

Confirm it worked

Press Check again at the top of this page. For the browser's own report:

Chrome, Edge

chrome://gpu

Under Graphics Feature Status, WebGL and WebGL2 should say Hardware accelerated. “Software only” means it's still off.

Firefox

about:support

Under Graphics, Compositing should say WebRender. “WebRender (Software)” means it's still off.

Still slow

Work down this list. Each step takes a minute or two.

  1. Laptop with two graphics chips (Windows). Open Settings → System → Display → Graphics, pick your browser, choose High performance, and restart the browser.
  2. Battery saving. Plug the laptop in. Chrome's Energy Saver can lower the frame rate on battery; turn it off at chrome://settings/performance
  3. Old graphics driver. Update it from Windows Update, or from NVIDIA, AMD or Intel directly. Browsers turn the GPU off for drivers they know are broken.
  4. Close other heavy tabs, especially video and other games.
  5. See what the game sees. In the game press H. The overlay shows the frame rate. Send us a screenshot of it if nothing above helps.

Last resort, Chrome only. If chrome://gpu still says “Software only” with an up-to-date driver, Chrome may have your graphics card on its block list. You can override it at chrome://flags/#ignore-gpu-blocklist (set Override software rendering list to Enabled, then Relaunch). Chrome blocks some cards because they crash, so turn it back off if Chrome becomes unstable.

Questions

Why can't I click a chrome:// link?

Browsers block web pages from opening their internal pages such as chrome://gpu, so a link to one does nothing. Copy the address and paste it into the address bar.

How do I know if Chrome is using software rendering?

Open chrome://gpu. If WebGL says “Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable”, Chrome is drawing on the CPU. The check at the top of this page tells you the same thing.

Is it safe to turn on hardware acceleration?

Yes. It is on by default in every major browser. If the browser crashes or shows graphics glitches after you turn it on, update the graphics driver or turn it back off.