7.1. Chromium Browser - User Guide
7.1.1. Overview
On TI devices with IMG Rogue class GPUs, the Chromium browser (available from https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/) is accelerated using OpenGLES.
The version of Chromium that is built can be obtained with the following command:
root@am62xx-evm:~# chromium -version
Chromium 130.0.6723.116 built on Debian GNU/Linux trixie/sid
The above version of Chromium has been verified to support GPU acceleration.
7.1.2. Launching Chromium Browser
Danger
For security reasons it is suggested never to run Chromium as the root user. So it’s safe to create and switch to another user and then run chromium.
Note
--no-sandbox option is required only when running as root user.
The following is assuming that you are logged in as the root user. The syntax of the command is as follows:
$ /usr/bin/chromium [url] --use-gl=angle --ozone-platform=wayland --no-sandbox [options]
For example, the following command opens www.ti.com in a windowed browser on the Weston desktop.
$ chromium https://www.ti.com --use-gl=angle --ozone-platform=wayland --no-sandbox
The following command opens the aquarium 3D benchmark in a fullscreen window on the Weston desktop, provided you have network connectivity to the internet from the TI platform. This benchmark uses WebGL/Javascript, and renders an animation of fish swimming in a fish bowl, using the 3D GPU.
$ chromium https://webglsamples.org/aquarium/aquarium.html --use-gl=angle --ozone-platform=wayland --no-sandbox --start-fullscreen
The --start-fullscreen switch makes the Chromium browser consume the entire screen, including the Weston menu bar.
7.1.3. Graphics Feature Status
To see the GPU features in use, enter chrome://gpu into the Chromium URL/Navigation bar. The example below shows
what is enabled/disabled when GPU acceleration is working correctly:
* Canvas: Hardware accelerated
* Canvas out-of-process rasterization: Enabled
* Direct Rendering Display Compositor: Disabled
* Compositing: Hardware accelerated
* Multiple Raster Threads: Enabled
* OpenGL: Enabled
* Rasterization: Hardware accelerated on all pages
* Raw Draw: Disabled
* Skia Graphite: Disabled
* Video Decode: Hardware accelerated
* Video Encode: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled
* Vulkan: Disabled
* WebGL: Hardware accelerated
* WebGL2: Hardware accelerated
* WebGPU: Disabled
* WebNN: Disabled
If, for some reason, you suspect that the GPU is rendering something incorrectly, you can run Chromium with the GPU disabled
using the --disable-gpu flag:
$ chromium https://webglsamples.org/aquarium/aquarium.html --start-fullscreen --disable-gpu
To get raw performance numbers from the GPU, you may want to disable frame sync locking in Chromium. This will tell Chromium to never wait for VSYNC and render as fast as the GPU can.
$ chromium https://webglsamples.org/aquarium/aquarium.html --start-fullscreen --disable-gpu-vsync --disable-frame-rate-limit
7.1.4. Limitations
Audio/video within the browser is not supported.
Hardware acceleration of video decode and/or encode is not supported.
Minimize and Maximize buttons for the Chromium window are not supported.
7.1.5. Performance
7.1.5.1. Performance of WebGL Aquarium
Standard WebGL benchmarks are available at https://webglsamples.org/aquarium/aquarium.html
Run as the root user
Platform |
Performance FPS |
GPU Utilisation |
AM62x |
11 @ 1080p60 |
100% |
Note
GPU Utilisation is captured using,
root@<machine>:~# cat /sys/kernel/debug/pvr/status
7.1.5.2. Performance of MotionMark
Standard Javascript benchmarks are available at https://browserbench.org/MotionMark/
Run as the root user
Platform |
MotionMark v1.3 |
AM62x |
1.29 @ 1080p60 |