[nkassis]

He might mean that this computer doesn't have a card/driver combo capable of running WebGL. This is actually fairly common from test Mozilla has carried out. Successfull WebGL context creation on Windows were bellow 70% (can't find the actual page with the real numbers right now).

But Chrome now supports software rendering through swiftshaders which should help those people.

I for one agree with you, even with the issue of webgl capable hardware is much better than having to deal with huge plugins. (I'm biased, I use WebGL for my current work).

[bermanoid]

This is actually fairly common from test Mozilla has carried out. Successfull WebGL context creation on Windows were bellow 70% (can't find the actual page with the real numbers right now).

[Disclaimer: I know absolutely nothing about the internals of WebGL, and I don't mean this to come off as a criticism.]

Does anyone know why it's so hard to get WebGL working on a lot of systems?

I'm just sort of surprised; I remember doing a lot of OpenGL projects many years ago (back when I still used Windows), and I never seemed to have any problems getting them running pretty much anywhere, regardless of graphics card or whatever. Even crappy systems with integrated graphics always seemed to do just fine.

Is there something about WebGL that makes it more difficult to support a lot of systems, or is it just that it's relatively new and nobody's gotten to adding support yet?

[drivebyacct2]

I simply didn't understand. His post doesn't say anything about WebGL not being supported by his GPU specifically, though obviously that's a problem. I guess I don't know what he wants? Yes, if your browser and system isn't supported... what do you want? Do we expect Google to have to support every user, for every nonessential, nonrevenue-producing feature?

Maybe I'm just missing something, but it seems I was punished for asking.

[tzs]

You basically equated the hassle of getting WebGL working if someone is on a browser without it to the hassle of getting Wolfram Alpha Pro.

What you are missing is that if you don't have Wolfram Alpha Pro, the regular plain old Wolfram Alpha still plots it for you. It gives you a 3D view and a contour map, and throws in a couple series expansion and the derivative. You don't get the fancy interactivity without Pro, but you get to see what the thing is.

At Google, on the other hand, you either get the full 3D interactive experience, or you get "3D charts require a web browser and system that support WebGL".

[zokier]

You were making unfounded assumptions (that enabling WebGL would be as trivial as installing Chrome) and at the same time ignored the fact that you get highly useful results from WA without any plugins or bleeding-edge tech. Having good fallbacks is important.

[drivebyacct2]

Yikes. A lot of 'you' accusations there.

>You were making unfounded assumptions (that enabling WebGL would be as trivial as installing Chrome)

No, I made the point that installing Chrome is trivial and the message explicitly states that your system simply might not be capable. If that's the case, what is Google supposed to do? Just render an empty grid and make a "whah-wha" noise?

>at the same time ignored the fact that you get highly useful results from WA without any plugins or bleeding-edge tech

No I didn't. At all. I am not saying this is an "answer" or a competitor to WolframAlpha. This is a trivial feature that was thrown in. It's non-essential and I bet you'll never ever see Google pushing a browser plugin on any of their sites save for some existing exceptions (Talk). As you've noted, there are tons of places to go besides Google for a 3d graph.

>Having good fallbacks is important.

When it doesn't require confusing your user, or compromising standards to ask them to install a gargantuan plugin.

edit: If the whole point of this was merely to clean up the error message or simply suppress it on unsupported browsers, then sure, but like I said, I genuinely just didn't understand the sarcasm, my apologies.

[Steko]

"No I didn't. At all. "

Yes you did:

"it seems easier still to download Chrome to do a 3d render then it is to buy WA pro "

That's why you were corrected. Stop trying to defend this forever and move on.

[drivebyacct2]

>That's why you were corrected. Stop trying to defend this forever and move on.

Oh for god's sake, give it a rest. I thought (and have clarified this twice now) that it was simply a remark about (in)capable browsers. I clarified (also twice) that if it's about the error message on incapable computers, that it could be better written and I apologized for my confusion.

For many people getting that error, simply installing Chrome is a viable solution.

>If the whole point of this was merely to clean up the error message or simply suppress it on unsupported browsers, then sure, but like I said, I genuinely just didn't understand the sarcasm, my apologies.

That's why I clarified and apologized (hint, that's the post you just replied to). Stop trying to attack me forever (for what I even acknowledged at the time was probably a misunderstanding) and move on.

[smackfu]

Well, if I was Google, I probably wouldn't make an error message the top search result.

I am running Chrome on a Thinkpad, so it's not like I can actually do anything to fix the error.

[mindslight]

If your 3D stack is working (ie not stuck with an abandoned ATI/AMD card), try upgrading to Firefox. Chromium fails for me too.