I want to know what are the minimum system requirements to run a webGL application smoothly? I know this is a broad question,so what would be the minimum requirements to run the following experiments? 1.) / 2.) .html

I would have done this myself,but i don't have a machine with low specs,and yes i did try google.

I want to know what are the minimum system requirements to run a webGL application smoothly? I know this is a broad question,so what would be the minimum requirements to run the following experiments? 1.) http://www.ro.me/ 2.) http://alteredqualia./three/examples/webgl_loader_ctm_materials.html

I would have done this myself,but i don't have a machine with low specs,and yes i did try google.

• javascript
• html
• web
• webgl

1 Answer 1

There are no minimum requirements in terms of system specs. I guess if you wanted to be really pedantic you could claim that a system needs a GPU capable of processing shaders (roughly DX9 level) but that basically describes every device with a GPU these days. (Except the Wii. Go figure...)

On a more practical level, you must have a device who's drivers have not been blacklisted due to instability issues. You can typically find the blacklist for a given browser by following the "visit support site" link on http://get.webgl/

Beyond that, however, it's all a matter of what the WebGL app is trying to render and what the device's bottlenecks are. For example: I've tried several WebGL demos on a Galaxy Tab with Opera and Firefox, and the framerate is limited to 10-12 FPS no matter what I'm rendering. A full, plex scene renders at the same speed as a single cube. This suggests that the device is probably getting stuck on the positing phase (where it places the WebGL canvas in the page itself) and as such while the device may be capable of some very plex rendering the limitations of the browsers are holding it back. In parison, I've seen highly detailed scenes running on iOS devices (with a hacked browser) of similar power at a solid 60FPS. So the exact hardware you have is only one part of the overall equation.

But really the best answer you can possibly get at this point is to pick up a device and try it!