[kefka_p]

I must be having a hard time waking up today, or something, because I can’t wrap my brain around why a chat app would need 3D acceleration.

The first chat sites on the web e.g. Bianca’s, Poolside, and Talker were built using more primitive versions of the same interface tools used by electron and while they didn’t have the functionality of video and audio chats, they also didn’t break your GPU driver.

I miss the Unix philosophy at times.

[seanhunter]

> I can’t wrap my brain around why a chat app would need 3D acceleration.

A big part of discord's target community is gaming/gamers. One of the features it provides is the ability to livestream the game you are playing and view streams of games others are playing.

Definitely not my area, but I wouldn't be surprised if streaming some game with an overlay would require 3d acceleration to not suck.

[kefka_p]

Streaming functionality isn’t chat, though. AMD gives you the option to not install streaming functionality when you install their drivers and I’m pretty sure they target gamers too.

It reminds me of the age of Windows bloatware.

Trying to pile all the ingredients on a single piece of bread does not a good sandwich make. On the contrary, it leaves me with an impression that they have to rely on the brand recognition and snowball effect of previous products.

I would probably hold their software in higher regard if it wasn’t just one monolithic multi-tool. They don’t even have to push multiple apps, but could use a modular architecture at the app level with plug-ins to support non-core functionality.

[genderwhy]

Discord is not a "chat app". That's a pretty narrow view on how it is both used and vended. It's a communications app, at a minimum, and people use it for audio, video, chat, events, and a bunch of other stuff that may require hardware acceleration.

[seanhunter]

You’re the person who has decided that discord is a “chat app”. Discord themselves say:

   Discord was started to solve a big problem: how to communicate with friends around the world while playing games online.[1]

It’s not too much of a stretch to see that they would see streaming as a logical part of their core functionality as a result.

That said, maybe it’s not the app for you. I totally get why someone would want a single-purpose tool - that’s generally the way I go and I’m not crazy about discord personally having used it a lot, written bots for etc. It’s not reasonable to criticise them for making different decisions from the ones you would make when they are going for a goal that you don’t share.

[1] https://discord.com/company

[Dylan16807]

Sure, you could have two programs for "chat app" and "audio/video calling".

But it's hard to split it much more finely, and two in one isn't going very hard into bloatware. And I like the integration between the two.

I would change a lot of things about discord but not so much that part.

[unethical_ban]

Video and game streaming is one of its core features.

It is not a good user or server owner experience to have to manage multiple applications depending on feature. You can turn off 3d acceleration, if I understand correctly.

[kefka_p]

The microkernel would like a word with you, good sir. As would the Unix toolchain, the Google suite, iWork, and Microsoft Office. If it was modular, you wouldn’t need separate apps per se.

On the other side of the multiple app token, Microsoft doesn’t build out PowerPoint, Word, and Excel as a single monolithic Office app.

And I’m pretty sure that’s among the most commercially successful consumer software in the history of computing.

[justnotworthit]

It uses the GPU for the UI as well. Says so right in the settings. Sometimes I see using the GPU in task manager, sometimes not.