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As someone whos knows almost nothing about 3d graphics and its APIs, how does Vulkan play into all of this? Why should this new API be used instead of adding Vu

by wnevets 10y ago

As someone whos knows almost nothing about 3d graphics and its APIs, how does Vulkan play into all of this? Why should this new API be used instead of adding Vulkan's API to the browser?

corysama 10y ago
This is intended to be WebVulkan|WebDX12|WebMetal with room for other possible underlying implementations. In general, Vulkan was not designed with the web in mind. For example: Vulkan's design intentionally has a whole lot of undefined behavior. Instead of strictly specifying what happens in all possible accidental cases, they strictly specify what is defined and provide debug layers that help you identify during development when you are unknowingly stepping into bizarro land. Also, I expect Vulkan was designed with the expectation of process-level isolation being the end-all of security concerns. That's not sufficient for single-process, multi-tab browsers.
- JoshTriplett 10y ago
  > Also, I expect Vulkan was designed with the expectation of process-level isolation being the end-all of security concerns. That's not sufficient for single-process, multi-tab browsers. Chrome has process isolation, and Firefox is developing process isolation right now. I don't think it makes sense for a new technology stack to go out of its way to support single-process multi-tab browsers.
  - pygy_ 10y ago
    But even in chrome, several tabs can share the same process, which means that information can be leaked, cross-tab.
    - saurik 10y ago
      You say "can", but unless you have a very small number of tabs, the correct phrase is "many tabs share the same process". I am currently averaging 10 tabs per process.
    - nkkollaw 10y ago
      Really? I thought each tab had its own process.
jra101 10y ago
It is higher level than Vulkan as you don't need to allocate or manage GPU memory, the implementation handles that for you. You also don't need to worry about transitioning render surfaces between different states (D3D12 and Vulkan). It does allow you to create pipeline state objects ahead of time like Vulkan and D3D12 but they only include a subset of state (shader + antialiasing state + color/depth attachment state). The rest of the state is set when recording the command buffer.

by wnevets 10y ago

As someone whos knows almost nothing about 3d graphics and its APIs, how does Vulkan play into all of this? Why should this new API be used instead of adding Vulkan's API to the browser?

corysama 10y ago

This is intended to be WebVulkan|WebDX12|WebMetal with room for other possible underlying implementations. In general, Vulkan was not designed with the web in mind. For example: Vulkan's design intentionally has a whole lot of undefined behavior. Instead of strictly specifying what happens in all possible accidental cases, they strictly specify what is defined and provide debug layers that help you identify during development when you are unknowingly stepping into bizarro land. Also, I expect Vulkan was designed with the expectation of process-level isolation being the end-all of security concerns. That's not sufficient for single-process, multi-tab browsers.

JoshTriplett 10y ago
> Also, I expect Vulkan was designed with the expectation of process-level isolation being the end-all of security concerns. That's not sufficient for single-process, multi-tab browsers. Chrome has process isolation, and Firefox is developing process isolation right now. I don't think it makes sense for a new technology stack to go out of its way to support single-process multi-tab browsers.
- pygy_ 10y ago
  But even in chrome, several tabs can share the same process, which means that information can be leaked, cross-tab.
  - saurik 10y ago
    You say "can", but unless you have a very small number of tabs, the correct phrase is "many tabs share the same process". I am currently averaging 10 tabs per process.
  - nkkollaw 10y ago
    Really? I thought each tab had its own process.

jra101 10y ago

It is higher level than Vulkan as you don't need to allocate or manage GPU memory, the implementation handles that for you. You also don't need to worry about transitioning render surfaces between different states (D3D12 and Vulkan). It does allow you to create pipeline state objects ahead of time like Vulkan and D3D12 but they only include a subset of state (shader + antialiasing state + color/depth attachment state). The rest of the state is set when recording the command buffer.