[59nadir]

For what it's worth my experience with Metal was that it was the closest any of the more modern APIs got to OpenGL. It's just stuck on an irrelevant OS. If they made sure you could use it on Windows & Linux I think it'd fill a pretty cool niche.

[dontlaugh]

WebGPU is in many ways closer to Metal than to Vulkan. You can use the API outside of the browser too, especially in Rust.

[flohofwoe]

> WebGPU is in many ways closer to Metal than to Vulkan.

If only that were true for the resource binding model ;) WebGPU BindGroups are a 1:1 mapping to the Vulkan 1.0 binding model, and it's also WebGPU's biggest design wart. Even Vulkan is moving away from that overly rigid model, so we'll probably be stuck with a WebGPU that's more restrictive than required by any of its backend APIs :/

[59nadir]

I'll check out WebGPU at some point, I guess. I've written our rendering layer in all of the major APIs (OpenGL, DX12, Vulkan and Metal) and found it very instructive to have all of them to compare at the same time because it really underscored the differences; especially maintaining all of them at the same time. We eventually decided to focus only on DX12, but I think I'll revive this "everything all at once" thing for some side projects.

[reactordev]

As someone who has done this since DX7, what you’re looking for is WebGPU either Dawn (Google) or wgpu-native (Firefox). WebGPU works. It’s 99% there across platforms for use.

There’s another wrapper abstraction we all love and use called BGFX that is nice to work with. Slightly higher level than Vulkan or Metal but lower than OpenGL. Works on everything, consoles, fridges, phones, cars, desktops, digital signage.

My own engines have jumped back and forth between WebGPU and BGFX for the last few years.

[59nadir]

Personally I'm not interested in the web as a platform. The APIs themselves I'm interested in, but as a target I think the web needs to die for everything that isn't a document.

[reactordev]

I never mentioned the web as a target, rather devices. You don’t need a browser, you need a window or a surface to draw on and use C/C++/Rust/C# to write your code.

WebGPU is a standard, not necessarily for the web alone.

At no point does a browser ever enter the picture.

https://eliemichel.github.io/LearnWebGPU/index.html

[mycall]

It sounds like the standard did itself a disfavor by its name, more interesting in how you describe it.

[59nadir]

You mentioned "Google" and Firefox, one of which is a browser. I clarified that I'm not interested in the web as a target, not to dismiss your entire suggestion but rather to clarify that that particular part doesn't interest me.