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NeroAngelo
NeroAngelo

Reputation: 25

How were graphics rendered on websites before the introduction of WebGL?

WebGL is an API which allows websites to tap into the power of the GPU, right? So how were high graphic websites rendered before the introduction of WebGL?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 223

Answers (1)

user128511
user128511

Reputation:

Before WebGL there was and still is the Canvas 2D api and SVG. Otherwise there was Flash and server side rendering.

The Canvas 2D api and SVG are both still in heavy use and have lots of advantages over WebGL for certain use cases. In particular they are arguably both easier to use for what they accel at and have also been used to implement simple software rendered 3D graphics.

Flash had GPU accelerated graphics called Stage3D toward the end of its life but not all PCs at the time had reasonable GPU acceleration. In 2020 it's common to have a machine with a GPU that can run WebGL. In 2011 when WebGL shipped it was still common for many users to not have WebGL capable machines. Silverlight also had some GPU acceleration. In 2009 Google tried shipping a browser GPU plugin called O3D.

In general though GPU accelerated graphics were not common on the web before WebGL.

Upvotes: 1

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