Runtime Hardware Testing for Firefox Desktop

[Jet Villegas]

Bug 1156135 <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1156135> will
enable Runtime Hardware Testing for Firefox Desktop. Once enabled, we'll
test the rendering capabilities of the current user's hardware prior to
enabling features that depend on that hardware.

A more detailed overview is posted here:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance/Runtime_Hardware_Testing

This is just one step toward the goal to reduce the need for chemspills due
to untested GPU/driver combinations that are incompatible with hardware-enabled
rendering features. Multiple teams at Mozilla are collaborating on this
program, and we need your help for this to succeed.

As this feature rides the trains on Nightly, we'll monitor the telemetry
reporting the hardware/driver combinations that fail to render. We'll use
this information to improve our error correction, and optimize the user
experience. Once we land, you may see a very brief Rendering Test after a
Firefox update. We compare the results of that test with a known good
rendering to determine if your system is capable of using GPU-enabled
features. We're now testing with known-bad configurations, but we need to
ensure that we avoid false positives with the Nightly population.

We'll post detailed instructions on how to report problems before we enable
this feature. Please report any problems you encounter or other feedback to
runtime-hard...@mozilla.com

Thanks,

--Jet