Haha, so, one of my computers is a Dell Latitude D830 with the optional 1920x1200 screen and nVidia Quadro NVS 140M.
This GPU is so pathetically slow when used for a modern Linux desktop that Firefox is actually running faster and smoother with software rendering instead.
On a Core 2 Duo. Which moments ago had a core pegged to 100% as it failed to read and write the GPU fast enough.
... I'm actually impressed.
Edit: oh my fucking God I turned off hardware video decoding in Telegram Desktop and that's fixed too now, HOW IS THE GPU SO BAD
I was running BIOS version A02 on this laptop. The final version for the hardware is A17. My BIOS was six years out of date. I don't know how I missed updating it first thing when I got the machine.
It's running dramatically better now. It's not totally fixed, but holy balls did it ever make a difference. I can play 1080p30 video with itty bitty audio pops or 720p60 without a hitch, and I can run Firefox with hardware acceleration! (Playing video inside Telegram with the hardware decoder is still hopeless.)
Also, where the hell are my floppies? I had to run the BIOS update from a FreeDOS USB. I have half a dozen floppy drives and not a single floppy disk. HOW.
