Google has announced its Chrome Beta 94 with mentions of implementing new technologies to make browser-based gaming experiences better. WebCodecs that is said to be released soon makes cloud gaming easier and faster. The company is also experimenting with WebGPU to help game developers to make browser-based games come into the computer’s power.
WebCodecs is a specialized API designed to help developers with access to video encoding and decoding codecs that are already on the browser. It figures out what to be done with video streams. At present, there are other methods to play videos in Chrome. But they are not specialized for cloud gaming. Cloud gaming is the best when low latency is attained. WebCodecs help to fastly deliver the incoming video stream to the screen. It is done by hardware decoding. This will make the performance better than it is currently available on slower machines.
The experimental WebGPU helps web developers to collect computer’s graphics horsepower by allowing them access to its native graphics API. By this, it means that these developers will be able to easily communicate with the graphics card in a language it understands. It will cut down the need to go through other layers that are more time-consuming. Considered to be a next-generation version of WebGL, it allows developers to access the OpenGL framework. Soon this technology will help developers to develop graphically intense games that can run in the browser, making use of the maximum power of current-generation GPUs.
These technologies are useful not only in the field of gaming. Google had earlier mentioned that Zoom might use WebCodecs for videoconferencing. WebGPU can be used to deliver 3D models in the browser or to boost machine learning models. Chrome can make use of it to the full as Google has services in all these fields from cloud gaming to video conferencing apps. Both WebCodecs and WebGPUs are open standards and are developed by the W3C. More web browsers have started testing these technologies. These technologies are yet to be released. There are reports that WebCodecs is nearing its release. But developers have to do a little more work to employ it in their apps. Google expects to conclude the testing of WebGPU in 2022. Even though they are not completely pathbreaking technologies, it makes the existing modes more exciting. It will make it a lot easier for developers.
