WebGL software fallback not being used

[dan-man]

Hi all,

I was under the impression that WebGL should work on Chrome on pretty much any desktop device, but that it may fall back to software rendering in some cases (assuming you don't pass failIfMajorPerformanceCaveat=true when getting the context).  However in practice this seems not to be true for a substantial number of users on both Macs and Windows (especially, but not limited to, those within some kind of managed corporate IT system).

As far as I can tell, on all hardware/setups where WebGL is disabled in Chrome, it is possible to run it using a different browser (FF, and even IE11).  I believe that IE11 only uses software and FF may be less strict with its blacklisting of GPUs, but that doesn't explain why Chrome can't switch to software when hardware is unavailable.  Indeed, in some cases, overriding the GPU blacklist in Chrome does seem to work (but presumably is not a good idea).

So firstly, could I check that my assessment of the situation is correct?  And secondly, could anyone suggest how to force software rendering (i.e. flags etc.) and/or point me at an issue discussing this?

Any advice would be very much appreciated - even if the process is rather involved it is still worth knowing about as it may be workable for our clients.

Thanks!

D  

[Kai]

I believe WebGL in Chrome only falls back to software on Windows at the moment. Even so, SwiftShader (the software rendering module) has to be downloaded first, so it won't work until that download completes.

My understanding is that eventually SwiftShader is expected to come to Mac/etc and be bundled by default, but I don't know the details or the timeline.

Firefox is generally a little less strict on blacklisting of GPUs. I don't know anything about IE11.

[Kai]

Oh, I just noticed that you already got a reply in your cross-post to the SwiftShader mailing list. Linking here for posterity:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/swiftshader/LBdWKXixcVw

-Kai

[Nicolas Capens]

Answered at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/swiftshader/LBdWKXixcVw/GIKHxafbBwAJ