Chrome 33 + WebGL performance

Well holy smokes, this could be the most harmful thing Google have done to HTML5 gaming. I'm going to pester them about it.

While there's not much that can be done for the players themselves, you can probably fix your local copy of Chrome for development purposes: go to chrome://flags and enable 'Override software rendering list'. This should give you GPU-powered WebGL regardless of the blacklist, but don't expect any players to be doing that.

We can force this for node-webkit as well. However we already used to do that, and it broke games on a lot of systems: they'd crash, show nothing but a black screen, or have such severe glitches as to render the game unplayable. The blacklist actually works. It identifies broken systems and gives them a slow-but-works version of the game, instead of fast-but-totally-broken.

So we will still break a bunch of systems that used to work if we skip the blacklist. This is a difficult choice. The best solution is for Chrome to keep a selective blacklist and try to support systems that can still use GPU acceleration on XP and Vista. There's not much we can do other than try to petition Google to bring that back. Or use Firefox!

Could we provide at least a version of node webkit with this blacklist disabled as well as the normal one?

with an help file descripting why It is unstable for some computer, but could be faster?

Aphrodite - ideally, end users shouldn't have to make a choice like that. Generally if you ask a non-technical user a technical question, they will give up, try to cancel it, or pick a random choice because they don't understand the consequences.

I'm no coder, but my thoughts:

How about a packaged version of a Chromium right within the *.exe file of the game that would open in a separate window no matter what version of Chrome the user may have? They wouldn't need to make any choice or even know how the game is running, as long as it does run ok? end of my super bright genious idea of a non-coder that could be used if it was that simple... lol

That's what node-webkit already is.

So is the conclusion that this latest node-webkit isn't worth using?

> Performance seems to have taken a small hit, in both Chrome and Node-Webkit, but the biggest issue is I don't think WebGL is working anymore. When I run my project in Chrome or Node-Webkit my effects do not work anymore. I have some brightness settings on some background objects, and they don't work now.

>

> I just updated my nVidia drivers to latest, and my chrome is latest too (v33).

>

> Has anyone else been seeing anything like this?

>

Nardonicus, Which nVidia card are you using?

I just got a gtx660 2gb card. I thought maybe it was related to my new card at first, but it sounds like its the new Chrome issues, as I am also still on Vista.

Ugh, this sucks. I will try some of the fixes Ashley recommended for now. Probably should upgrade to windows 7 at some point anyways, but I don't understand why Google would do that with Chrome...weird.

Wow, this is...terrible. I mean, there are a LOT of people still on xp/vista. I know they are old OS's, but to call them 'exotic'...I mean, it's just BS. And chrome is overall the best browser, performance-wise(at least in my tests it has been, firefox might be faster for a physics based game).

Wish microsoft would just cave and say to all current XP owners: hey, if you have a legit license, we'll upgrade you to windows 7/8 for $25-$50...just, please, ditch xp already.

Wonder where/how we can pester google about this?

Take a look at this. Basically, if you are targeting desktop, one third of your players can expect everything to run like sh!t now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_shar ... ng_systems

It might actually not be that bad - from wikipedia's page on the company that produced that statistic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Applications

[quote:18id7dn2]Criticism

While the statistics released by the company routinely place Operating Systems sold by Microsoft (Windows) and Apple (Mac OS X) with a high market share in the desktop computer category (through 2013), Vincent Vizzaccaro (EVP - Marketing and Strategic Alliances, Net Applications, 2002-) has stated that Microsoft and Apple are among the company's clients.[2] The company has also admitted that their statistics are skewed.[3] These admissions and the fact the company doesn't make their data sources or processing methods public, has led many to criticize the company (e.g.[4]); questioning their impartiality and the reliability of their statistics.

Checking other sources, steam claims about 10.55% of their users are on those systems, and another source for web browsing stats claims about 16.8%.

That's still a large percentage though...

Hey Arima You've been dealing with Node-Webkit for some time now, have a quick question for you. If You start preview or export and on opened game window first thing you do is hold your middle mouse button and move around, does it let you "scroll" window inside? I mean it looks like "game within Node-Webkit window" is moving around so you can see black borders.

To avoid that I have to press left or right mouse button inside window to make it focus. Is it doing that for you? Thought I ask before posting a bug.

StatCounter has about 22% on XP or Vista, but both are trending down more quickly now. Remember Firefox is not affected so far as we're aware, so there is an alternative for players to use.

This does suck, but those systems should disappear with time eventually, so it won't last forever.

Firefox runs smooth for me, but my gamepad won't work when I run the game in firefox.

I haven't looked into it recently though, but I remember in the past it was known that only chrome would support gamepad with construct 2. Is that correct? And is there a way to get the gamepad working now in Firefox?

I don't suppose there's something like node webkit out there that uses Firefox instead? I've looked but haven't found anything yet...

shinkan - Yes, I just tested it out and it does that for me as well. It doesn't do it in fullscreen mode or if you resize the window so you're entire layout is visible. If you have an action assigned to the middle mouse button, the first time you perform the action, it will bring up the scroll icon (and execute the action). After that, it doesn't seem to happen again. I'll let you know if I find another solution... it's not exactly top priority at the moment, but eventually it might be something I need to address in my game.

shinkan - OK, nevermind what I said about assigning an action to the middle mouse button. Seems like no matter what, it does it off the start and then no longer does it. Weird.