How to Check if Chrome is Using Hardware Accelerated Graphics

Hardware accelerated graphics is something that is becoming increasingly important in web browsers, as WebApps continue to push the limits of what you can have on a web page. After a long time brewing in the development versions, Google finally brings Hardware accelerated drawing on Canvas and WebGL to the masses with its latest Chrome 18.

However, you'll need to have a supported graphic card, or else you'll be relying on your CPU to do all the heavy processing (the WebGL software rendered is also one of the new features of Chrome, as it will allow everyone to see WebGL content even if they don't have a suitable GPU - albeit at reduced performance.)

But, how can you now if your Chrome is actually using your graphics card GPU to speed things up?

It's actually quite easy... You need only to navigate to chrome://gpu on your Chrome, and you'll get a report of what your graphics system is capable of (and even a performance estimate.)