Google adds WebGL support in latest Chrome for Android beta | Hacker News Reader

Google adds WebGL support in latest Chrome for Android beta

thenextweb.com

57 pointsljf27 comments

It's got noticeably better performance than Firefox for Android (on a N7, using [0] as a "benchmark"); but Chrome doesn't seem to have audio support.

EDIT: hm, Chrome doesn't seem to want to grab the audio at all; on both the pages I've tried, the audio downloads just hang as "Pending" in the inspector [1] [2]

[0] http://apps.playcanvas.com/will/doom3/gangnamstyle

[1] http://monosnap.com/image/5F201GaEW7UUfEZKOSfPjTLQW

[2] http://monosnap.com/image/G9U7tpuoCVlvMFli8NgOBB9tD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6js5K08m3g

Didnt realize that WebGL already is on such a good performance level on mobile devices, impressive and exciting!

Firefox for Android already supports WebGL - seems to work fine on my Galaxy Nexus.

I never got it working more than a few seconds without it crashing the whole browser.

It's about time, I remember seeing Sony doing webgl on their experia android phones a while back

http://developer.sonymobile.com/2012/01/25/webgl-implementat...

Also, the Nokia N900's browser supported WebGL in 2009.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/03/nokia-n900-impressively-d...

Well I wouldn't to see in Nokia's devices anymore anytime. Also these have all been just experiments. Even Apple has implemented part of WebGl in the iOS browser I think. But if Chrome beta has it, then the next stable version should have it, too.

The HN title is misleading. It is still not enabled by default, it just got easier to manually switch on, so it wasn't "added". Still, this is good progress.

Just been playing with the Quake 3 demo on my Nexus 4 and it looks stunning - really excited to see where this takes mobile casual games.

A really cool set of WebGL shader demos that also work.

http://www.iquilezles.org/apps/shadertoy/

I hope this pressures Apple to support WebGL in iOS Safari.

I believe that they are waiting for arb_robustness.

http://www.opengl.org/registry/specs/ARB/robustness.txt

Fascinating. Thanks for sharing the link to that extension. What makes you say Apple are waiting on this extension? I hadn't heard that before myself.

How can Apple be waiting for a spec that was approved in 2010 when Apple writes and maintains their own GL implementations on all their platforms?

When is Chrome officially replacing the Android browser ?

Hopefully after they've fixed the woeful performance which is plaguing it.

It already has with Android 4.1. But manufacturers might keep customizing the previous open source browser instead, for the time being at least.

Are you sure? When I use the Google search widget to find something, the browser it gives me doesn't seem to be Chrome.

As soon as you click a link it goes into Chrome on mine.

If you hold press a link, do you get an option to open in a new tab?

No. The actual results screen does appear to be a custom odd thing, and you cant see tabs until you click.

I find this annoying - it's on search result pages that I am very likely to want to open lots of tabs. Ugh.

But clicking any link opens in a new chrome tabs. The list is not itself a chrome tab...

Are you using a Nexus device? I don't think they replaced the browser on Nexus devices older than Nexus 7. Only new devices that have been launched after June last year with Android 4.1 on board should have it by default, and as I said most manufacturers have probably left the other browser in there even on new devices. But the new Nexus/Motorola devices should have it.

Yes Nexus 4

Settings > Manage Apps > Browser > Clear Defaults

Next time you click a link, it will ask you which browser you like. Choose Chrome.

chrome://flags

enable webgl

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