Does Intel HD graphics 2500 support hardware acceleration?

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Our HP workstation has an i5-3470 CPU with integrated Intel HD graphics 2500, running Windows 10 Pro x64.

We use that workstation almost entirely for accessing the Internet and 2D applications.

Is there an easy way to determine if that integrated GPU supports “hardware acceleration”?

I just noticed that there is an option in the latest Firefox version 111.0 (64-bit) to “Use hardware acceleration when available.”

Thanks!

 

 

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That setting has been there forever (figuratively speaking) and is on by default. If it is on and you have not had problems with it, the answer is “yes.” But (in my experience) it will depend on your graphics card, display, and the resolution the resolution used whether it works on or you have to turn it off.

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SupremeLaW

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From the following link to one of MS’s pages comes the subsequent snippet:

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/hardware-accelerated-gpu-scheduling/

…We are adding UI to the Advanced Graphics Settings page to control enabling the new GPU scheduler. The settings page can be reached through Settings > System > Display > Graphics Settings. If both your GPU and driver support the new GPU scheduler, the UI below will appear.

I added the bolding above for added emphasis. When you get to the system display settings window/page, the listing that says “Graphics Settings” will appear as a blue colored hyperlink at the end of the listings/settings on that page, just below the settings for “Multiple displays” (not too intuitive a place to put it IMHO) . Click that, and the new window that’s shown will have title that says “Graphics Settings at the top of the page. Just under that will be a “slider” or “on/off switch” to turn on or turn off hardware acceleration for the entirety of the Windows ecosystem on your computer.

If you see that slider, and it’s off, feel free to turn it on. As MS states in the above quote, it won’t appear if your video chip and video driver don’t support video hardware acceleration. Before changing that setting, make a backup or system restore point in case things go sideways on you. Once you enable that setting, you can then place a check in the box within Firefox’s settings that you’ve noticed.

Also, please feel free to carefully read through the page at the link above. Clicking it should take you directly to the area of the page labeled “Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling”, as this is where they get into the nuts and bolts of how to enable hardware acceleration and they also have a screenshot of the exact window where it’s enabled.

If you get to the hardware acceleration page and the slider’s either not there or completely greyed out and unclickable, sad to say that your GPU doesn’t support hardware acceleration, at least in Windows’ opinion.

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SupremeLaW

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Re: “GPU doesn’t support hardware acceleration”

I followed your EZ instructions and concluded the above.

This is not a big deal, not even a “small deal”:

when we purchased this HP workstation, it was a “refurb”, and the integrated graphics have worked very well with the native resolution of our Sanyo 32″ monitor:  1360 x 768

Many THANKS for everyone’s very prompt assistance.

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Open a Firefox tab, go to ‘about:support’. If Webrender is on, hardware acceleration is active in Firefox.

In Chrome or Edge, go to chrome://gpu or edge://gpu . Look for the ‘Graphics Feature Status’ section at the top.

For hardware-accelerated video decoding, especially for Youtube, HD2500 will decode h.264/AVC codec, but not the VP9 or AV-1 codecs that Youtube normally uses.
To force Youtube to serve h.264/AVC, use the h264ify or enhanced-h264ify extensions for your browser.
Without that extension, Youtube will send VP9 or AV-1, forcing your CPU to software decode it. On a laptop, that makes your machine run hot and drains the battery.

Disadvantage: on Youtube, the highest resolution of h.264/AVC is 1080p. Also, Youtube has been reducing that to 720p on some videos that were formerly 1080p. Youtube really wants users on the VP9 and AV-1 codecs that generate smaller file sizes and have no licensing fees, saving Google a good deal of money. But because no Apple product supports VP9 and only the newest Apple products support AV-1, Youtube has to keep h.264 around.

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SupremeLaW

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On my primary HP workstation:

“about:support”

says

webrender     default     available

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