Provide way to check chrome://gpu

[seawalk24]

Launching VS Code with --disable-gpu works but adding disable-hardware-acceleration to argv.json has no effect.

• VSCode Version: 1.43.0
• OS Version: MacOS 10.15.3

Does this issue occur when all extensions are disabled?: Yes

[floer32]

i've been having the same issue, and vscode has been crashing frequently (which seems to be related). Same versions for both things. See next comment

[deepak1556]

@seawalk24 can you please expand on what basis you think the argv.json flag is not working. Thanks!

@hangtwenty the issue you are facing is different, its #92420. Please follow that issue for updates.

[seawalk24]

@deepak1556 I am running VS Code in a virtual machine that has major graphical issues if I don’t run it with the —disable-gpu option. I’d like to not have to specify the —disable-gpu option every time and instead use disable-hardware-acceleration in argv.json but when I do this the graphical issues are present.

[github-actions]

Hey @deepak1556, this issue might need further attention.

@seawalk24, you can help us out by closing this issue if the problem no longer exists, or adding more information.

[deepak1556]

Sorry for the delay, thanks for adding more context. Can you provide some steps to repro this issue, what vm and OS to use etc

[seawalk24]

@deepak1556

The graphical glitching is occurring on MacOS 10.15.5 using Parallels 15. The purpose of this bug report is not to fix the graphic glitching because similar glitching occurs elsewhere such as opening a Finder window with 2 tabs.

The purpose of this bug report is to make it so that disable-hardware-acceleration is utilized when specified in argv.json so that it won't be necessary to specify --disable-gpu every time as a command line parameter. I suspect that disable-hardware-acceleration may not be working even outside of a VM.

[deepak1556]

Unable to repro with latest stable.

[eyalroth]

I am experiencing this with the latest version of VSCode.

Adding "disable-hardware-acceleration": true to the argv.json file doesn't seem to work, while running VSCode from the CLI with --disable-gpu does.

I believe I am experiencing the same graphical glitches that the OP was experiencing. In any case, I'm trying to disable hardware acceleration in order to workaround these glitches. Like the OP said, I do believe that the glitches are not a problem with VSCode but rather with MacOS.

See this thread for more information of the problem which occurs in other applications as well (perhaps all of them are Chrome-based?): https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/strange-chrome-browser-graphical-glitches.2229803/

VS Code version: Code 1.51.1 (e5a624b, 2020-11-11T01:11:34.018Z)
OS version: Darwin x64 19.6.0

System Info

Item	Value
CPUs	Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-9880H CPU @ 2.30GHz (16 x 2300)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: enabled flash_3d: enabled flash_stage3d: enabled flash_stage3d_baseline: enabled gpu_compositing: enabled metal: disabled_off multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on oop_rasterization: enabled opengl: enabled_on protected_video_decode: unavailable_off rasterization: enabled skia_renderer: disabled_off_ok video_decode: enabled webgl: enabled webgl2: enabled
Load (avg)	2, 2, 2
Memory (System)	16.00GB (0.41GB free)
Process Argv
Screen Reader	no
VM	0%

Extensions (10)

Extension	Author (truncated)	Version
gitlens	eam	11.0.0
vscode-great-icons	emm	2.1.60
prettier-vscode	esb	5.7.2
vscode-docker	ms-	1.7.0
vscode-typescript-tslint-plugin	ms-	1.2.3
wordcount	ms-	0.1.0
vscode-yaml	red	0.12.0
code-spell-checker	str	1.9.4
vscode-todo-highlight	way	1.0.4
local-history	xyz	1.8.1

[eyalroth]

@deepak1556 Could you reopen the issue please?

[eyalroth]

@deepak1556 This is still an issue, please reopen.

[ChadMcCaffery]

I'm unsure if it's completely relevant to this issue, but I noticed VS Code (or is it Electron?) attempts to use GPU even when "disable-hardware-acceleration": true in argv.json:

vscode-still-using-gpu.mp4

[seawalk24]

I'm unsure if it's completely relevant to this issue, but I noticed VS Code (or is it Electron?) attempts to use GPU even when "disable-hardware-acceleration": true in argv.json:

vscode-still-using-gpu.mp4

Thank you for sharing the video. What you are describing is exactly what the issue is here.

CC: @deepak1556

[deepak1556]

@ChadMcCaffery the gpu process will be launched even when hardware acceleration is disabled, the name is bit misleading but this process is also responsible for software rasterization. The right way to check if hardware acceleration is used should be via loading chrome://gpu in the application. I will make that page available so that the issue can be clarified further.

Side note: @ChadMcCaffery the gpu process failing to launch in your case is a side effect of trying to open the application as an administrator. Due to the nature of sandbox profiles applied to the different processes in the application, you should launch the application as non-elevated to have a stable experience.

[ChadMcCaffery]

Thank you for the explanation. I learned something today! 😄