So is this supposed to be like a WebVulkan?
No it's WebGPU like it shows in the code. Vulkan is a competing standard and technology.
You misunderstand. I wasn't asking what it's called. I was asking if the idea here is a Vulkan like API for the web.
Apple proposes new web 3D graphics API
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Re: Apple proposes new web 3D graphics API
#12This is a great move by Apple. Webkit team is thinking ahead about power of GPU's and opening it up for more than just 3D graphics. GPU are already being utilized for AI and ML. Web developers need better access to low level computation and simple api's.
Re: Apple proposes new web 3D graphics API
#13Hey Apple, how about developing your browsers to support modern web technologies first?
The latest Safari release is actually ahead of the game in a lot of areas. I don't run it as my primary browser still, but it does look like at least someone within Apple cares.
Re: Apple proposes new web 3D graphics API
#14The API looks like a direct port of Metal to JavaScript.
Re: Apple proposes new web 3D graphics API
#15As someone whos knows almost nothing about 3d graphics and its APIs, how does Vulkan play into all of this? Why should this new API be used instead of adding Vulkan's API to the browser?
This is intended to be WebVulkan|WebDX12|WebMetal with room for other possible underlying implementations.
In general, Vulkan was not designed with the web in mind. For example: Vulkan's design intentionally has a whole lot of undefined behavior. Instead of strictly specifying what happens in all possible accidental cases, they strictly specify what is defined and provide debug layers that help you identify during development when you are unknowingly stepping into bizarro land.
Also, I expect Vulkan was designed with the expectation of process-level isolation being the end-all of security concerns. That's not sufficient for single-process, multi-tab browsers.
Re: Apple proposes new web 3D graphics API
#16Re: Apple proposes new web 3D graphics API
#17Biggest questions I have are:
1. What is the (proposed) backward compatibility across devices?
2.Given that it is structured for Metal shaders, what are the plans for other, non-apple devices? I see the hat tip to D3D and Vulkan, but I assume they need to get on board first - any early takers? After all common standard means cross-platform hardware support, something Apple has never really embraced.
Re: Apple proposes new web 3D graphics API
#18Re: Apple proposes new web 3D graphics API
#19As someone whos knows almost nothing about 3d graphics and its APIs, how does Vulkan play into all of this? Why should this new API be used instead of adding Vulkan's API to the browser?
It is higher level than Vulkan as you don't need to allocate or manage GPU memory, the implementation handles that for you. You also don't need to worry about transitioning render surfaces between different states (D3D12 and Vulkan).
It does allow you to create pipeline state objects ahead of time like Vulkan and D3D12 but they only include a subset of state (shader + antialiasing state + color/depth attachment state). The rest of the state is set when recording the command buffer.
Re: Apple proposes new web 3D graphics API
#20Anything that's not based on the Vulkan spec is just a land-grab by Apple to push their own technologies. As someone who spends a lot of time in that space I don't really see what this is solving, WebGL is good enough and anyone serious about performance/compute are going to drop down to native anyway.
Yeah,what is wrong with WebGL anyway? It seems to work pretty well.