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HN was similarly excited about Vulkan, but this is newer.


This fixes the main problem with Vulkan, which is that there were no big tech companies pushing them. WebGPU has Apple, Google and Microsoft all committing to support it in their browser/OS.


Not quite. The main problem with Vulkan is, as the blog post goes into, one of usability. Vulkan isn't designed for end developers to use, it's designed for middleware vendors to use. Vulkan is already being pushed by many major big tech companies include Google, Nvidia, AMD, etc... It's really only Apple that's a problem here.

WebGPU is basically a middleware for those that just want to use graphics, not all of unity, unreal, etc...


There is no Vulkan on game consoles, those little devices HN keeps forgeting about.

Yes, the Switch supports Vulkan alongside OpenGL 4.6, but if one wants the full power of the games console, the name of the game is NVN.

As for Apple, all relevant middleware has support for Metal.


The Vulkan situation on Apple is incredibly funny, especially once you look at the landscape of gaming. There's games out there (I believe Final Fantasy XIV is like this) where the official Mac client runs in wine, using a DirectX -> Vulkan translation layer, on top of a Vulkan -> Metal translation layer.


One can go that way, or use one of the middleware engines that has support for Metal for several years now.


I'm not clear this is accurate. More, I'm not sure these are the right companies to push?

Many companies have tried to unseat Nvidia. Many of them big companies. There is no magic in the ones you named. Worse, I'm not clear that Google will bring stability to the project. Such that I see little reason to be overly excited.

Happy to be proven wrong.




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