Credit: This solution was shared by user u/MilitarilyDepressed on the r/Roll20 subreddit.
These steps should help with anyone who has a device with both an integrated graphics card (iGPU) and a dedicated graphics card (dGPU). These tend to be laptop devices which can include gaming laptops or higher end systems, but it is not necessarily restricted only to those. An iGPU is essentially a GPU that is within the CPU and while it is efficient it is not very powerful. The dGPU is the larger more typical graphics card used in gaming.
Windows will automatically attempt to determine which GPU should be used at any given time. In this case, Chrome or Firefox are not being considered as intense enough to warrant usage of the dGPU which negatively impacts performance while using Roll20 due to the graphical demands.
We echo u/MilitarilyDepressed's statement that you should not use this as a permanent solution due to potential negative impacts to the battery life of your device. Your success may vary.
Check your device
To check if your device has both an iGPU and dGPU, you can open the task manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and navigate to the "Performance" tab. If you see a "GPU 0" and "GPU 1" in the list, this will likely be applicable to your device.
Change performance settings
- Using the Windows search bar, search for the name of your browser (Chrome, Firefox).
- Right click on it and select "Open File Location"
- Click the address bar of the file explorer window and copy the address. It should look similar to the image below.
- Open your Windows Settings (Using the windows search type settings and choose the top option)
- Search for "Graphics Settings" in the top left search bar and click it to open the section
- Scroll down until and click the "Graphics" section
- Once here, click "Browse" then paste in the address that was copied earlier into the address bar at the top of the pop-up window. NOTE: Do not paste the address into the search in the top right or the file name in the bottom center.
- Hit enter to open the file directory and select Chrome/Firefox then hit enter again. This will add the browser to the file apps list down below.
- Once you locate your browser, click it and click "Options" to select the Graphics Preference
- Select the "High Performance" option and hit save.
- Close your browser to restart it and re-open. You may need to restart your device completely as well.