Very old GPUs that do not support WebGL 2

[Mike Turitzin]

I work on a large WebGL app, and we are trying to move fully to WebGL 2. This should be possible given the browser versions we support, but as it turns out, a not-insignificant fraction of users are using GPUs that appear not to support WebGL 2 (i.e., attempts to create a 'webgl2' context fail), despite their browsers being new enough.

A big offender here is the Intel HD Graphics 3000 from 2011. It looks like the ANGLE D3D9 backend is being used for this GPU, and searching around a bit suggests that it doesn't support D3D11, which appears to be required for WebGL 2 support.

Do we have any options here, or are there potential workarounds for these users?

Thanks,

Mike

[Ken Russell]

Hi Mike,

That's correct - WebGL 2 requires a minimum feature set from the GPU, and those fairly old GPUs do not support it. D3D9 is not capable of supporting all WebGL 2 functionality, but D3D11 is.

I'd suggest either maintaining your WebGL 1 code paths with best-effort support, or announce to these users that support will be dropped in a certain timeframe.

Best,

-Ken

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[Mike Turitzin]

Thanks, Ken. We were hoping to be able to rely fully on the WebGL 2 feature set, partly to make supporting WebGPU as well easier, but it sounds like that will need to wait for the time being.

Mike

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