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On Windows, the graphics story is more or less OK. The OS includes Direct2D and DirectWrite user-facing APIs. It’s now possible to implement an equivalent on a

On Windows, the graphics story is more or less OK. The OS includes Direct2D and DirectWrite user-facing APIs. It’s now possible to implement an equivalent on all modern platforms which have a 3D GPU. An open-source example in C# https://github.com/Const-me/Vrmac#vector-graphics-engine https://github.com/Const-me/Vrmac#vector-graphics-engine That particular one requires GLES 3.1, but I’m sure (did it before) it’s also possible to implement comparable stuff on top of GLES2. Waiting for target devices to have TFlops of FP32 performance, and good support for compute shaders, is less than ideal. Many currently sold phones, tablets, laptops, and even some desktop PCs, have limited GPGPU capabilities and/or performance. These currently sold devices gonna stay in use for at least couple years in the future. Rendering things on CPU is less than ideal, because many devices have high-rez displays yet relatively slow CPU and especially RAM. Am I missing something? What’s the reason there’re no cross-platform GPU-first 2D graphics libraries, despite GLES2 (or better equivalents) is now universally available, and have been for years?

stefan_ 4y ago
Huh? That library exists, it is called Skia, it is the most premier 2D GPU (among other targets) rendering library in the world and it powers the Android UI, Chrome, Firefox and a ton of other things. See also: https://skia.org/ https://skia.org/
- Const-me 4y ago
  Skia is not GPU first. It was initially designed for CPU-only rendering, 3D GPU support was an afterthought. For that reason, the quality of that support ain’t great. AFAIK it only uses 3D GPU to compose layers.
  - ReactiveJelly 4y ago
    No, I'm pretty sure it rasterizes using OpenGL ES, too. I don't know the code well enough to find good proof, but there's a lot of GLES and I think some DX calls in there. More than if it was just composing. https://github.com/google/skia/tree/main/src/gpu/ganesh/gl https://github.com/google/skia/tree/main/src/gpu/ganesh/gl
mwcampbell 4y ago
> Waiting for target devices to have TFlops of FP32 performance, and good support for compute shaders, is less than ideal. Many currently sold phones, tablets, laptops, and even some desktop PCs, have limited GPGPU capabilities and/or performance. These currently sold devices gonna stay in use for at least couple years in the future. I'm reminded of how Windows Presentation Foundation relied on a level of GPU-based 3D acceleration that wasn't yet universally available on non-gamer PCs when Vista came out. This affected my brother when he was in seminary and tried to run the WPF-based Logos 4 Bible software on a budget laptop bought around 2007 (edit: actually 2008 IIRC). By 2011 it got bad enough that I just bought him a new laptop. And he wasn't the only one affected by this; there were others talking about it on the forum for that application [1]. This anecdote has stuck with me as a cautionary tale about us developers failing to put our users first in our technology choices (though I admit it hasn't actually stopped me from using Electron when the pressure to ship is on). [1]: https://community.logos.com/forums/t/6200.aspx https://community.logos.com/forums/t/6200.aspx
pbsurf 4y ago
Getting sufficient antialiasing quality for 2D graphics is difficult on GPUs. https://github.com/memononen/nanovg https://github.com/memononen/nanovg accomplishes this with GL2/GLES2 level hardware for most of the stuff one would want to render as part of a GUI. My project https://github.com/styluslabs/nanovgXC https://github.com/styluslabs/nanovgXC supports rendering arbitrary paths with exact coverage antialiasing, but requires GLES3.1 or GL4 level hardware for reasonable performance.
- Const-me 4y ago
  Here's how I did that https://github.com/Const-me/Vrmac/blob/master/Vrmac/Draw/VAA.md https://github.com/Const-me/Vrmac/blob/master/Vrmac/Draw/VAA... Inexact but IMO pretty good still. With some modifications, the approach can be used in GLES2.

stefan_ 4y ago

Huh? That library exists, it is called Skia, it is the most premier 2D GPU (among other targets) rendering library in the world and it powers the Android UI, Chrome, Firefox and a ton of other things. See also: https://skia.org/ https://skia.org/

Const-me 4y ago
Skia is not GPU first. It was initially designed for CPU-only rendering, 3D GPU support was an afterthought. For that reason, the quality of that support ain’t great. AFAIK it only uses 3D GPU to compose layers.
- ReactiveJelly 4y ago
  No, I'm pretty sure it rasterizes using OpenGL ES, too. I don't know the code well enough to find good proof, but there's a lot of GLES and I think some DX calls in there. More than if it was just composing. https://github.com/google/skia/tree/main/src/gpu/ganesh/gl https://github.com/google/skia/tree/main/src/gpu/ganesh/gl

mwcampbell 4y ago

> Waiting for target devices to have TFlops of FP32 performance, and good support for compute shaders, is less than ideal. Many currently sold phones, tablets, laptops, and even some desktop PCs, have limited GPGPU capabilities and/or performance. These currently sold devices gonna stay in use for at least couple years in the future. I'm reminded of how Windows Presentation Foundation relied on a level of GPU-based 3D acceleration that wasn't yet universally available on non-gamer PCs when Vista came out. This affected my brother when he was in seminary and tried to run the WPF-based Logos 4 Bible software on a budget laptop bought around 2007 (edit: actually 2008 IIRC). By 2011 it got bad enough that I just bought him a new laptop. And he wasn't the only one affected by this; there were others talking about it on the forum for that application [1]. This anecdote has stuck with me as a cautionary tale about us developers failing to put our users first in our technology choices (though I admit it hasn't actually stopped me from using Electron when the pressure to ship is on). [1]: https://community.logos.com/forums/t/6200.aspx https://community.logos.com/forums/t/6200.aspx

pbsurf 4y ago

Getting sufficient antialiasing quality for 2D graphics is difficult on GPUs. https://github.com/memononen/nanovg https://github.com/memononen/nanovg accomplishes this with GL2/GLES2 level hardware for most of the stuff one would want to render as part of a GUI. My project https://github.com/styluslabs/nanovgXC https://github.com/styluslabs/nanovgXC supports rendering arbitrary paths with exact coverage antialiasing, but requires GLES3.1 or GL4 level hardware for reasonable performance.

Const-me 4y ago
Here's how I did that https://github.com/Const-me/Vrmac/blob/master/Vrmac/Draw/VAA.md https://github.com/Const-me/Vrmac/blob/master/Vrmac/Draw/VAA... Inexact but IMO pretty good still. With some modifications, the approach can be used in GLES2.