Firefox
Install Firefox via these packages (adjust for your desired locale):
pacman -S firefox firefox-i18n-de
Wayland
To enable native Wayland rendering in Firefox set the following:
echo "MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1" >> /etc/environment
echo "MOZ_WEBRENDER=1" >> /etc/environment
Hardware Decoding
Utilizing GPU hardware accelerated decoding of video content results in smoother playback of HD/4K content, while reducing CPU load and power draw. Set the following in about:config to enable hardware accelerated video playback in Firefox:
| Setting key | Value | Description |
|---|---|---|
media.ffmpeg.vaapi.enabled |
true |
Enable VA-API usage |
media.ffvpx.enabled |
false |
Disable internal VP8/9 software decoders |
media.rdd-vpx.enabled |
false |
Disable codec sandbox for VP8/9 |
media.navigator.mediadatadecoder_vpx_enabled |
true |
Enable hardware encoding for WebRTC |
To test if Firefox is actually using VA-API to decode video you can launch it with the following command:
MOZ_LOG="PlatformDecoderModule:5" firefox 2>&1 | grep 'VA-API'
If your log output reads something like the following video decoding via VA-API is working.
[Child 55975: MediaPDecoder #3]: D/PlatformDecoderModule VA-API Got one frame output with pts=135468000dts=135468000 duration=17000 opaque=-9223372036854775808
[Child 55975: MediaPDecoder #3]: D/PlatformDecoderModule Reusing VA-API DMABufSurface UID = 10