3 ms·
People don’t give web browser engines enough credit sometimes. WebGL performs wonderfully. 2D Canvas performs very well. Even hardware accelerated transforms on
by untog 7y ago
People don’t give web browser engines enough credit sometimes. WebGL performs wonderfully. 2D Canvas performs very well. Even hardware accelerated transforms on DOM elements perform damn near flawlessly even on slow devices.
Unfortunately almost every web site out there does a poor job of showcasing those abilities.
- mrec 7y agoAgreed. I was noodling about with a basic boardgame project a few years back, on an ancient laptop with crappy Intel IGP, and was a bit startled to see an unoptimized full-board canvas render taking microseconds rather than milliseconds.
- corysama 7y agoA world of software built on layers upon layers of abstractions had lead most people to forget just how fast computers can be if you let them. Mobile phones could do this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqz5ehun-o0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqz5ehun-o0 ten years ago! Whenever I hear about laptops struggling to move simple 2D elements around it makes me a cranky old man.
- pjmlp 7y agoMainly because browsers have come up with the great idea of black list GPUs, so WebGL only performs wonderfully if the user happens to have the right combination of hardware, if it starts at all. Then they wonder why they don't have any issues playing native 3D games and move on to another Website.
- meheleventyone 7y agoIs that really true? I’ve noticed a lot of people with integrated graphics as well as a decent card often have the browser set running on the bad GPU. Also a surprisingly large number of people have turned hardware acceleration off! Usually fixing this sorts out any performance issues they have with WebGL.
- pjmlp 7y agoYes, it is true, specially for the regular consumers that don't have any idea of what we are talking about here. WebGL game engines could already been the new Flash for casual games market, but it is just better, from business sense and support, just to ship native mobile games instead.
- TuringTest 7y agoIsn't there any application to check for compatibility and enable WebGL hardware acceleration on popular devices? Just like people knew how to install the Flash plugin, they could install this app to set up their browser, and use it as a hub to discover supported games.
- pjmlp 7y agoNot at all, you need to dive into browser flags.
- TuringTest 7y agoA browser extension should be able to change those. Or an application could hold a list of easy-to-use step-by-step tutorials.
- pjmlp 7y ago> A browser extension should be able to change those. They are not allowed to, thanks security. > Or an application could hold a list of easy-to-use step-by-step tutorials. Still too complicated versus installing a native game from an app store, given "from business sense and support".
- onion2k 7y agoIs that really true? Yep. The list is here - https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/gpu/+/master/config/software_rendering_list.json https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/gpu/+/master/... It includes things like Intel HD 3000, which is the GPU in all 2011 models of the Macbook Air. It's quite annoying but maybe better than having browsers crash horribly when the graphics driver throws.