Hardware acceleration not working on Windows 7

[AlfCraft07]

Describe the bug
A couple of days ago, I went to Amazon Luna to play some Fortnite, but it lagged so much. Luna told me there was no hardware acceleration, and I could confirm this when I opened chrome://gpu/, as every hardware accelerated feature was reported as disabled or software-rendered. The GPU is an ATI Radeon 2100.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Enable hardware acceleration in settings
2. Go to chrome://gpu/
3. See that all features are disabled or set to software-rendered

Expected behavior
Hardware acceleration should work.

Screenshots
If applicable, add screenshots to help explain your problem.

Desktop (please complete the following information):

• OS: Windows 7 SP1 x64
• Supermium 126 R4 x64

Additional context
The problem doesn't occur on Windows 11 build 27744 on an i3-5005U PC with an Intel HD Graphics 5500 iGPU.

[ZepopaOwleMukasa]

You could try to launch Supermium with the --ignore-gpu-blocklist and --disable-gpu-driver-bug-workarounds flags. Your graphics card is really old though, it doesn't even fully support DX9, so it's entirely possible that it is just not capable of hardware acceleration in Chromium in the first place.

[AlfCraft07]

By using just the --ignore-gpu-blocklist flag, I didn't get the no HW acceleration warning on Luna but on chrome://gpu everything still shows up as disabled or software-rendered.

[ZepopaOwleMukasa]

And --ignore-gpu-blocklist combined with the --disable-gpu-driver-bug-workarounds flag?

[Half-Modern]

And what happens if you also add --in-process-gpu command line ?
You might also need to change chrome://flags/#use-angle flag's "Default" setting as "D3D9" since it will be D3D11 by default.

[AlfCraft07]

So, after trying these suggestions, I came to the conclusion that most probably my GPU is incompatible with Chromium. Adding the --in-process-gpu command line just doesn't allow the browser to start.

[Half-Modern]

What about changing ANGLE backend to D3D9 in chrome://flags?
Without --in-process-gpu, of course.

[AlfCraft07]

Yeah, I already tried that with no difference

[Half-Modern]

According to TechPowerUp specs page, this GPU supports DirectX 9.0b maximum, which I think is not sufficent for GPU acceleration via D3D9 since it probably requires DX9.0c.

If your PC has a PCI Express port, you can get GeForce 9/Radeon HD2xxx series (Or anything that supports DirectX 9.0c) in order to get GPU acceleration (Warning: GPU accelerated video decoding doesn't work due to video decoder being removed from Chromium released after last Win7 compatible version).

I've got another idea though, what about trying Firefox 115 ESR? AFAIK it can enable GPU rendering on much older GPUs (might require workarounds though).

[AlfCraft07]

I got 2 PCIe ports so the only thing stopping me from adding a GPU is the fact I have to spend money on it (I would need permission and whatnot). 115 ESR lost support very recently, so no point installing it. I will just use Superfox when it releases.

[ZepopaOwleMukasa]

115 ESR lost support very recently, so no point installing it.

Wrong. They've extended it until March 2025, after which they will re-evaluate whether or not to extend it again.

I got 2 PCIe ports so the only thing stopping me from adding a GPU is the fact I have to spend money on it

You definitely should. Basically anything would be better than the graphics card you currently use.

[AlfCraft07]

115 ESR lost support very recently, so no point installing it.

Wrong. They've extended it until March 2025, after which they will re-evaluate whether or not to extend it again.

I got 2 PCIe ports so the only thing stopping me from adding a GPU is the fact I have to spend money on it

You definitely should. Basically anything would be better than the graphics card you currently use.

1. I didn't know that
2. I'm a minor so I would need permission from my parents.