Gpuweb: First WebGPU Stable Release / Prognosis ?

[enkicoma]

Hi there

I have a couple of questions, we are close to 2021 and back in 2018 we heard that WebGL is dead (will be soon). Well since 2015-2020 now WebGL is massively supported across mixed platforms: https://caniuse.com/webgl

Where WebGPU, isn't: https://caniuse.com/webgpu

My question will be when approximately WebGPU has in plan to go LIVE/the first release / supported by default on all major Browser Engines?

Any visibility will be much appreciated!

[kvark]

The next milestone is MVP, which is not a final API but one users can try out and give us feedback before we can settle on Version 1. Practically speaking, an API that's supported on all major browser engines by default may come around 2022.

[kainino0x]

back in 2018 we heard that WebGL is dead (will be soon)

Importantly: WebGL is not dead. It only won't be receiving major new features such as compute shaders. Browsers will continue supporting it and making sure the quality and performance is reliable.

[jdashg]

WebGL is here to stay. We expect to support it forever, just as we still support Canvas2d.

An important caveat is that while WebGL 1 support is universal, and WebGL 2 support will be universal soon, WebGPU will not be universal for many years yet, even after release. It will continue to be a trade-off between functionality and availability, just like WebGL has (eventually) worked through.

[grorg]

Discussed at the 2020-12-07 meeting.

[pjmlp]

Regarding WebGL's "death", it doesn't help that Khronos slides mention it is in maintenance mode and people should have a go at WebGPU.

https://www.khronos.org/assets/uploads/developers/library/2020-virtual-webgl-meetup/01%20WebGL%20WG%20Updates.pdf

There are similar slides regarding OpenGL vs Vulkan by the way.

[kainino0x]

"Maintenance mode" is exactly what we said above: WebGL 1 and 2 will continue to be supported for the foreseeable future, and will definitely continue to have significantly higher availability (especially WebGL 1) than WebGPU (which requires newer hardware and newer drivers). Maintenance mode (which we haven't even reached yet) does not constitute death or impending death. This is the web platform - removing existing technologies is difficult and very rarely done, and there's no reason to remove WebGL (unlike Flash).