Fallback to WebGL

[filonik]

Is there any particular reason why the playground cannot fall back to WebGL when WebGPU is not supported? Just curious, because GLSL compilation already works, so it seems like the hard part would already be done.

[Devon7925]

Reasons:

• Currently all shaders in the playground are run via compute shaders, which WebGL does not support
• WebGL does not support storage buffers/textures
• WebGL uses an older version of glsl, that could potentially cause issues
• It would add extra maintenance burden

Is there a reason you're interested in WebGL support?

[filonik]

My personal reason was mostly out of curiosity, because I have some existing WebGL code, but I really like what I have seen of Slang so far, so I have been thinking about switching to it. I guess I was trying to get a sense for what obstacles there might be. For instance, it's good to know that Slang targets a more recent version of GLSL than WebGL uses.

More broadly, the reason for wanting WebGL is compatibility of course. While I am glad to see WebGPU becoming more and more widely available, there are still some browsers/platforms where it is disabled by default. I understand that WebGL does not have all the features of WebGPU, but it would be nice if you could still run Shadertoy-like examples in playground with WebGL. It would be a good demonstration for the ability of Slang to target different graphics APIs.