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What's the implication of using WebGPU? Better terminals in the browser? Better electron terminals? A quirk for better native portability?
by stickyricky 3y ago
What's the implication of using WebGPU? Better terminals in the browser? Better electron terminals? A quirk for better native portability?
- baudaux 3y agoMaybe building better virtual environments inside the browser
- vlakreeh 3y agoProbably portability, it's a pretty good low (but not too low) abstraction layer over the systems preferred graphics API. I'm not a graphics programmer but my understanding is it's closer to vulkan or metal in terms of control over the hardware compared to OpenGL, which has rocky support on Mac now anyways.
- Narishma 3y agoIt's not a clear win though. You gain some portability and lose some to platforms not supported by WebGPU.
- baudaux 3y agoI suppose it is just a question of time
- littlestymaar 3y agoWhat platform do you have in mind (given that WebGPU has at least 2 OpenGL backend, including one that supports WebGL)
- brundolf 3y agoVSCode's terminal is rendered with WebGL (a cousin of WebGPU), since VSCode is an Electron app
- fyrn_ 3y agoWebGL is not really related to WebGPU in any way. WebGL is almost a strict subset of Gles3, WebGPU is a completely different API, sharing on a few concepts. They're about as related as Java and JavaScript
- brundolf 3y agoThey're different APIs, but they have similar goals and benefits: expose native-adjacent performance for GPU tasks in a highly cross-platform API supported by browsers and other host software. The original poster was asking "why [vs native graphics APIs]?", and I think the "why" is the same for both. Also- VSCode is literally an example of a use-case where you might do this in WebGPU, they just didn't