[masspro]

You seem knowledgeable, and I’m possibly going back into a GPGPU project after many years out of the game, so: overall do you see a good future for filling these compute-related gaps in the WebGPU API? Really I’m wondering whether wgpu is an okay choice versus raw Vulkan for native GPGPU outside the browser.

[jsheard]

The answer to that for any given feature is "can untrusted code be trusted with that?". Wave intrinsics are probably doable. Bindless maybe, but expect a bunch of bounds checking overhead. Pointers/BDA, absolutely not.

Native libraries like wgpu can do whatever they want in extensions, safety be damned, but you're stepping outside of the WebGPU spec in that case.

[littlestymaar]

What's BDA in that context, please? I can only confidently assume it's not “battle damage assessment”.

[jsheard]

Buffer Device Address, the Vulkan name for raw pointers in shaders.

[littlestymaar]

Thx

[tormeh]

Don't know about GPGPU, but can give you a probably correct answer: Compared to "native" APIs you trade features for compatibility. It's always going to lag behind Vulkan/DX/Metal. Are you ok with excluding platforms? Vulkan/Metal/DX. If not, then I'd give wgpu a chance. Wgpu is also higher-level than Vulkan, which is borh a pro and a con.

[pjmlp]

Middleware, the portability, latest features of native APIs, and nice GPGPU tooling.