Suggestion: Don't use CEF! :: Suggestions / Ideas

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Melody Jul 25, 2017 @ 3:21am

Suggestion: Don't use CEF!

Many people experienced Steam hanging the recent days, and this is certainly due to the Chromium Engine. People needed to clear web browser cache and cookies in order to restore regular functions of Steam, while the problem used to happen again after restart.

I personally hate Chromium, as a developer. It never works as expected on everything it does, it uses to hang and give performance issues.

Chromium cannot use the GPU properly. On a latest generation GPU, it still can't decode H.264 and VP9 videos, this is a shame. The funny thing is that the engine reports hardware decoding as supported, but it can't take advantage of it, on both Linux and Windows.

I'm using a GTX 1080 here, and when I try to view a 3D model of a workshop package using Steam's viewer it lags (2 fps), on a damn i7-3770 and 16 GB of RAM. Also, video decoding DOESN'T work at all, and it doesn't on any system you try.

Here are detected hardware flags by the Chromium Engine on a GTX 750 Ti:

Canvas: Hardware accelerated Flash: Hardware accelerated Flash Stage3D: Hardware accelerated Flash Stage3D Baseline profile: Hardware accelerated Compositing: Hardware accelerated Multiple Raster Threads: Enabled Native GpuMemoryBuffers: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled Rasterization: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled Video Decode: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable Video Encode: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable WebGL: Hardware accelerated WebGL2: Hardware accelerated ATC Software only ATCIA Software only DXT1 Software only DXT5 Software only ETC1 Software only R_8 Software only RG_88 Software only BGR_565 Software only RGBA_4444 Software only RGBX_8888 Software only RGBA_8888 Software only BGRX_8888 Software only BGRA_8888 Software only RGBA_F16 Software only YVU_420 Software only YUV_420_BIPLANAR Software only UYVY_422 Software only

Please note that most "Hardware accelerated" features don't work when you try to use them.

There are some alternatives that will work very well:
Windows:

Built-in Windows's browser supports H.264, HEVC and VP9 hardware decoding, natively and runs everything on DirectX, so it runs flawlessly.
Firefox web browser supports hardware decoding, multithreading and hardware acceleration properly. It also doesn't crash and doesn't make trouble.

Linux:

Use a Qt based engine. Qt supports full Hardware Acceleration and full Hardware Decoding.
Or use Firefox, as suggested above.

I and my team (12 people) are developers and we mainly help making mods for games. We stumbled across Chromium several times and it always sucked. The best thing we could do was replacing Chromium engine with another one (example: Awesomium). Awesomium is turning into something else, so it can't be used/downloaded at the moment as far as I'm concerned.

So this is all. If you want to turn this Steam into something great, don't use Chromium.

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Showing 1-14 of 14 comments

hexaae Feb 25, 2018 @ 2:30am

Other issues with CEF and gfx HW acceleration:
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/1037275/geforce-drivers/cef-chromium-embedded-framework-incompatibility-after-388-xx/

(not affecting Steam client GUI ATM anyway. AFAIK Steam has gfx acceleration for the browser component disabled)

Last edited by hexaae; Feb 25, 2018 @ 2:33am

Melody Feb 25, 2018 @ 2:34am

Originally posted by hexaae:
Other issues with CEF and gfx HW acceleration:
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/1037275/geforce-drivers/cef-chromium-embedded-framework-incompatibility-after-388-xx/

That problem also used to happen on Edge and Microsoft Office and it got eventually fixed in 388.13 drivers. Rollback to 388.13.

Crystal Sharrd Feb 25, 2018 @ 2:41am

The only thing I've ever used Edge for was to download the Google Chrome installer. Why wait ninety seconds for something that takes twelve in Chrome?

Melody Feb 25, 2018 @ 2:43am

Originally posted by sonic65101:
Why wait ninety seconds for something that takes twelve in Chrome?

Less talk and more proof.

hexaae Feb 25, 2018 @ 2:45am

Originally posted by Melody~:
Originally posted by hexaae:
Other issues with CEF and gfx HW acceleration:
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/1037275/geforce-drivers/cef-chromium-embedded-framework-incompatibility-after-388-xx/
That problem also used to happen on Edge and Microsoft Office and it got eventually fixed in 388.13 drivers. Rollback to 388.13.

Never had this HW acceleration issue but with CEF based programs.
I'm using Win10 and Edge from the beginning. This is not the usual "blurry fonts" issue, it's something much worse forcing you to disable Chrome browser HW acceleration. The problem is that many CEF based tools have no ON/OFF switch for gfx acceleration.
Lucky enough Steam has gfx hw acceleration disabled for the browser part (excluding video playback).

Nvidia or CEF developers should really find a fix...

Last edited by hexaae; Feb 25, 2018 @ 2:50am

Melody Feb 25, 2018 @ 2:51am

Originally posted by hexaae:
Originally posted by Melody~:
That problem also used to happen on Edge and Microsoft Office and it got eventually fixed in 388.13 drivers. Rollback to 388.13.
Never had this HW acceleration issue but with CEF based programs.
I'm using Win10 and Edge from the beginning. This is not the usual "blurry fonts" issue, it's something much worse forcing you to disable Chrome browser HW acceleration. The problem is that many CEF based tools have no ON/OFF switch for gfx acceleration.

Yeah because they're controlled by the application. I've just verified that HW acceleration works in GeForce Experience, this is impressing. I think that GeForce Experience is the only program in which proper HW acceleration with CEF works, but I don't think that video decoding would work as well (would probably fall-back to software-mode). Now I think there's a problem with CEF's WebGL renderer. You can try to open up your NVIDIA Control Panel and force Antialiasing and Anisotropic to Disabled for NVIDIA Web Helper.exe, should be located in C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\NvNode. I don't have further ideas at the moment, CEF is just a mess.

Crystal Sharrd Feb 25, 2018 @ 2:52am

Originally posted by Melody~:
Originally posted by sonic65101:
Why wait ninety seconds for something that takes twelve in Chrome?
Less talk and more proof.

Maybe it's changed, I don't really know. I haven't touched Edge since before the Anniversary Update. And Chrome has much better features. Like personalization.

Last edited by Crystal Sharrd; Feb 25, 2018 @ 2:52am

Melody Feb 25, 2018 @ 2:54am

Originally posted by sonic65101:
Originally posted by Melody~:
Less talk and more proof.
Maybe it's changed, I don't really know. I haven't touched Edge since before the Anniversary Update. And Chrome has much better features.

In Anniversary Update, Edge had countless issues on AMD video cards, but this was mostly due to crappy drivers not properly supporting all features (this was common from AMD until RX 400 series). Early problems included freezing when opening a video and general stuttering of the browser. The problems were most evident on AMD Dual Graphics solutions, with drivers eventually causing BSoDs.

Last edited by Melody; Feb 25, 2018 @ 2:57am

hexaae Feb 25, 2018 @ 3:16am

@Melody
Indeed forcing Anisotropic Filter to DISABLED in the Nvidia panel for "galaxyclient helper.exe" solves the corrupt GUI with GOG Galaxy client (that recently introduced CEF based gfx HW acceleration)!
Good advice, thank you!

Last edited by hexaae; Feb 25, 2018 @ 4:52am

Melody Feb 25, 2018 @ 3:55am

Originally posted by Cathulhu:
http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/10/

Not really interested in this, but I've already reported this as power abuse (the fact that they moved my discussion to "Off-topic" for no apparent reason). I'll see what happens.

-Unsubscribing.

Last edited by Melody; Feb 25, 2018 @ 4:08am

#10

Zefar Feb 25, 2018 @ 4:52am

Originally posted by Melody~:
Originally posted by Cathulhu:
http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/10/
Not really interested in this, but I've already reported this as power abuse (the fact that they moved my discussion to "Off-topic" for no apparent reason). I'll see what happens.

-Unsubscribing.

This topic is not a suggestion for Steam and it's more of a warning to the average user. It wouldn't fit into the Suggestion and ideas section.

It also isn't a Help topic because you're not seeking for help.

#11

hexaae Feb 25, 2018 @ 4:54am

Originally posted by Zefar:
Originally posted by Melody~:
Not really interested in this, but I've already reported this as power abuse (the fact that they moved my discussion to "Off-topic" for no apparent reason). I'll see what happens.

-Unsubscribing.

This topic is not a suggestion for Steam and it's more of a warning to the average user. It wouldn't fit into the Suggestion and ideas section.

It also isn't a Help topic because you're not seeking for help.

CEF is part of Steam client distribution and its browser part capabilities are based on CEF framework, so it actually IS a suggestionf for Steam, not an option for users....
We can't choose to opt-out CEF, only Steam devs can.

FYI: CEF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_Embedded_Framework

Last edited by hexaae; Feb 25, 2018 @ 4:56am

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