In the case at hand, the hardware resources that our computer has will influence directly. That is why we are going to see how to make Google Chrome work better than it does at the moment. Specifically, we are referring to the functionality of hardware acceleration that we find today in a multitude of applications of all kinds.
What is hardware acceleration
The hardware acceleration is a technology through which, instead of using the CPU to perform certain tasks (for example, rendering a website or decoding certain content), the browser delegate these tasks to the graphics card. GPU chips are much faster and more efficient at processing this type of information. Therefore, delegating these tasks to it allows us to free up the load on the CPU, which translates into a notable improvement in the general performance of the PC.
In addition, in these times, many of the teams we have at home have some graphics processors extremely powerful. We must bear in mind that these are not only going to solve the ballot when we are going to play or carry out some type of advanced design. With this, what we want to tell you is that we can take advantage of the computer’s GPU with other more conventional programs but that take advantage of this component to work more smoothly.
Hence precisely the hardware acceleration that we increasingly find available in a greater number of applications for conventional use. This is the case at hand along these same lines with the popular Google browser.
Problems that hardware acceleration can give
Unfortunately, this feature doesn’t work well with some graphics cards so it doesn’t always work as it should. And, if we have it activated, it can happen that our browser is slower, that it consumes too much RAM and CPU memory and that it even crashes or closes often. Also, if our processor is really powerful and the rest of the components are weaker, it can cause throttling to be ineffective compared to letting the CPU do everything. Therefore, if we experience these problems, it is necessary to disable this function.
This is one of the reasons, as it is easy to imagine, why this functionality of acceleration The one we are talking about is not usually activated by default. And it is that, if the program begins to give problems for this reason from the beginning, its reliability can drop significantly. However, if we activate this commented hardware acceleration and start to appear issues of operation, it is much easier to know the reason for these.
Therefore, in the event that we activate this function that we are discussing now in order to improve the use of the computer’s hardware resources, but we see that the browser begins to become unstable, we do not have to think about it anymore. In this case, we will already know first-hand where the problems come from and what is the function responsible for these closings and blocking of Google Chrome.
Error caused by this function on YouTube
One of the most visited web pages on the entire Internet is the video portal owned by Google, YouTube. Users from all over the world access this streaming website on a daily basis to see all kinds of content related to videos. But this useful feature, at least in some cases, which we find in the Chrome browser, can cause certain problems when playing videos here. Specifically, we can find the problem that when trying to launch content with these characteristics from the Google browser, it starts to fail.
This is something that we will detect if when watching videos of YouTube on Chrome, by changing the size of the window that we have open, the content itself is distorted and the screen becomes completely black. At this point, the best thing we can do is deactivate the function that we are talking about in these lines.
Disable the feature in Google Chrome
The hardware acceleration feature is found within the advanced settings of Chrome. To do this, we must enter the browser’s Settings options, from the menu or by typing “chrome://settings/” in the address bar. In this new screen we scroll to the bottom of the browser, and we will expand the advanced configuration options.
We continue down to the “System” section, and here we will find the option “Use hardware acceleration when available“, which is what interests us.
We simply have to uncheck the box that appears next to this option to disable this hardware acceleration. Chrome will ask us to restart the browser for the changes to take effect. We restart manually, or from the button that will appear next to the option after deactivating it, and that’s it.
From now on, Chrome will work without the hardware acceleration option. With the advantages, and disadvantages, that this entails.
If we do not want to modify the Chrome settings, there is also another way to temporarily disable this feature. To do this, what we have to do is locate the shortcut of our Chrome, right-click on it and open the window “Properties”.
In the destination section, we simply have to add the following parameter: –disable-gpu.
In this way, when we run the browser from this shortcut, it will open directly with this function disabled. In case we want to activate it again, we can easily do so by removing said shortcut from the browser parameters.
We can even have two shortcuts, one with GPU acceleration and one without.
Enable hardware acceleration
In the event that the browser continues to function poorly, or the performance of our computer has worsened, we can reactivate hardware acceleration by following the same steps that we have seen in the previous point. That is, we have to open the browser options, go to the “system” section, within the advanced configuration, and re-enable the box hardware acceleration of the computer. After restarting the browser, it will open again with this feature enabled.
It must be taken into account that this is a function that we should also activate if, for example, we stop seeing Google Chrome well in a virtual machine. The virtualization of operating systems has become something very common among many users. That is precisely why in programs like VirtualBox we use the Google Chrome browser in a virtualized system.
But on certain occasions we can find that the program interface is not displayed well in the virtual machine as such. Therefore, one of the possible solutions that we can use to solve this error is to deactivate the hardware acceleration that we are talking about in these lines.
Other tips to get the GPU working in Chrome
As we have explained, the hardware acceleration it applies a series of advantages to the browser that we are interested in taking advantage of whenever possible. If we are having problems, it may not be a problem with the function itself, but simply something wrong with Windows or Chrome.
Some tricks that we can use to try to make this feature work without problems are the following.
Update GPU drivers
Hardware acceleration is directly related to the graphics card. Therefore, the drivers they can easily be the first to blame for this not working as it should. If we are experiencing any type of problem, we can try to make this feature work by updating the drivers in Windows.
If we use Intel graphics cards, the drivers usually arrive automatically through Windows Update almost always, so we will not have to worry. However, if we are users of AMD or NVIDIA graphics, then we will have to download the drivers by hand from their main web pages to be able to start them.
update windows
If our computer is out of date, this may be the reason why this feature is not working properly. And we are not only referring to the monthly patches, but to the new versions of the operating system. Therefore, if we want to get the most out of our PC, it is necessary to start by updating our Windows.
We must download the latest versions of the operating system from windows update and install them to get the PC ready. After updating Windows we will verify that everything works properly again.
In addition, this step that we are talking about here is extensible to many other problems and bugs that we can find in the operating system of those of redmond and its applications. Despite the failures that are sometimes reported related to these updates, in most cases it is highly recommended to have Windows 10 updated to its latest version. What’s more, this is a statement that we could take to most of the programs that we use daily on the computer. Not only because of the functionality aspect of the interface, but because these updates solve the latest vulnerabilities discovered and protect everything we deal with on the PC.
reinstall chrome
If we have updated drivers, and Windows in the latest version, then the problem may be directly related to Chrome. Do we have it updated? Is it whole? Do we use a beta? Any modified flag?
The best thing we can do is take the opportunity to completely uninstall the browser from our PC and reinstall it again. Can download Chrome from main so we will also make sure to install the latest version available.
Once installed, hardware acceleration will be enabled by default. Now we can test if this feature works well. If we’re going to sync our data from Chrome, we need to make sure to avoid syncing browser settings, to prevent misconfiguration from causing hardware acceleration to malfunction again.
virus crashes
At this point we do not need to tell you that the Internet browsers that we use daily are the main means of communication between our computer and the network. That is precisely why its developers take special care in everything related to security and privacy in their projects. This is something that of course extends to the most used browser such as Google Chrome.
Hence precisely all the functions related to security that are implemented, and those that are to come. But we must bear in mind that these applications are not infallible or 100% secure, so they can sometimes be affected by viruses and other types of malicious code. In addition to endangering our data stored here and on our computer in general, these malware can negatively affect the operation of the program as such.
Therefore, in the…