A number of blogs have expressed the performance gain in 'tricking' the GPU to think that an element is 3D by using transform: translateZ(0) to speed up animations and transitions. I was wondering if there are implications to using this transform in the following manner:
* {
-webkit-transform: translateZ(0);
-moz-transform: translateZ(0);
-ms-transform: translateZ(0);
-o-transform: translateZ(0);
transform: translateZ(0);
}
This question is related to
performance
css
translate-animation
On mobile devices sending everything to the GPU will cause a memory overload and crash the application. I encountered this on an iPad app in Cordova. Best to only send the required items to the GPU, the divs that you're specifically moving around.
Better yet, use the 3d transitions transforms to do the animations like translateX(50px) as opposed to left:50px;
If you want implications, in some scenarios Google Chrome performance is horrible with hardware acceleration enabled. Oddly enough, changing the "trick" to -webkit-transform: rotateZ(360deg); worked just fine.
I don't believe we ever figured out why.
It forces the browser to use hardware acceleration to access the device’s graphical processing unit (GPU) to make pixels fly. Web applications, on the other hand, run in the context of the browser, which lets the software do most (if not all) of the rendering, resulting in less horsepower for transitions. But the Web has been catching up, and most browser vendors now provide graphical hardware acceleration by means of particular CSS rules.
Using -webkit-transform: translate3d(0,0,0); will kick the GPU into action for the CSS transitions, making them smoother (higher FPS).
Note: translate3d(0,0,0) does nothing in terms of what you see. It moves the object by 0px in x,y and z axis. It's only a technique to force the hardware acceleration.
Good read here: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/06/21/play-with-hardware-accelerated-css/
I can attest to the fact that -webkit-transform: translate3d(0, 0, 0); will mess with the new position: -webkit-sticky; property. With a left drawer navigation pattern that I was working on, the hardware acceleration I wanted with the transform property was messing with the fixed positioning of my top nav bar. I turned off the transform and the positioning worked fine.
Luckily, I seem to have had hardware acceleration on already, because I had -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased on the html element. I was testing this behavior in iOS7 and Android.
Source: Stackoverflow.com