Chrome 113 To Ship WebGPU By Default
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With next month's Chrome 113 stable release, the plan is to have WebGPU available out-of-the-box for this new web graphics API. Though in that version Google is limiting it to ChromeOS, macOS, and Windows... Yes, Google says other platforms like Linux will see their roll-out later in the year.
The WebGPU API is more akin to Direct3D 12, Vulkan, and Metal compared with the existing WebGL being derived from OpenGL (ES).
"WebGPU is a new API for the web, which exposes modern hardware capabilities and allows rendering and computation operations on a GPU, similar to Direct3D 12, Metal, and Vulkan. Unlike the WebGL family of APIs, WebGPU offers access to more advanced GPU features and provides first-class support for general computations on the GPU. The API is designed with the web platform in mind, featuring an idiomatic JavaScript API, integration with promises, support for importing videos, and a polished developer experience with great error messages.
This initial release of WebGPU serves as a building block for future updates and enhancements. The API will offer more advanced graphics features, and developers are encouraged to send requests for additional features. The Chrome team also plans to provide deeper access to shader cores for even more machine learning optimizations and additional ergonomics in WGSL, the WebGPU Shading Language."
Meanwhile Firefox and other browsers continue working on supporting the W3C WebGPU API.
More details on the Chrome 113 plans around WebGPU via the Chrome developer blog. The WebGPU working draft can be found on W3.org.
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