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OfflineAudioContext Incremental Rendering#2675

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WebAudio:mainfrom
gabrielsanbrito:offlineaudiocontext-progressive-rendering
Open

OfflineAudioContext Incremental Rendering#2675
gabrielsanbrito wants to merge 3 commits into
WebAudio:mainfrom
gabrielsanbrito:offlineaudiocontext-progressive-rendering

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@gabrielsanbrito

@gabrielsanbrito gabrielsanbrito commented Jun 5, 2026

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This PR proposes changes to the Web Audio spec to enable rendering audio from OfflineAudioContexts in chunks.

Github issue: #2445
Feature explainer: https://github.com/MicrosoftEdge/MSEdgeExplainers/blob/main/OfflineAudioContext/explainer.md


💥 Error: 422 Unprocessable Entity 💥

PR Preview failed to build. (Last tried on Jun 11, 2026, 10:20 PM UTC).

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PR Preview relies on a number of web services to run. There seems to be an issue with the following one:

🚨 Spec Generator - Spec Generator is the web service used to build bikeshed/ReSpec specs

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Error output:

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@gabrielsanbrito gabrielsanbrito marked this pull request as ready for review June 5, 2026 23:42
@gabrielsanbrito

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@hoch @padenot @mjwilson-google, this is the first draft for OfflineAudioContext incremental rendering. PTAL when you have some time.

While writing this, we had some open questions that might be better to discuss here:

  • In this draft I am proposing using Infinity to denote the undefined-length render scenario. However, OfflineAudioContextOptions.length is currently an unsigned long, which cannot be Infinity. What would be preferrable?
    • Swap all Infinity usage for null; or
    • Convert OfflineAudioContextOptions.length to an union type like (long | float) that only accept the Infinity value for float.
  • When OfflineAudioContextOptions.length is Infinity and chunksSize is not provided to startRendering(), chunkSize defaults to the render quantum size. But the render quantum size is very small. Maybe, should we consider a more optimal default?
  • Should OfflineAudioContextOptions.length be a multiple of chunkSize? I am assuming it doesn't need to.

(unfortunately, there is no preview available, but I think there might be something actually broken in the repo's CI pipeline)

@gabrielsanbrito

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Audio WG meeting (06/11/2026) discussion:

  1. Using null is less controversial given that the length property is a long
  2. The render quantum size can be configured when the OfflineAudioContext is being constructed via the renderSizeHint parameter.
  3. It's not trivial to enforce since chunkSize can change with every call. At the end of the rendering, if the chunkSize is larger than the number of remaining samples, the OfflineAudioContext just returns a smaller AudioBuffer.

@mjwilson-google mjwilson-google left a comment

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I added some comments. Also, I think I fixed the Git workflow issue if you rebase the change on the latest commit.

Comment thread index.bs
<em>No parameters.</em>
</div>
<pre class=argumentdef for="OfflineAudioContext/startRendering()">
chunkSize: The size of the desired {{AudioBuffer}}.

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I think we should say something like the number of sample-frames to render during this call.

Comment thread index.bs
constructor(OfflineAudioContextOptions contextOptions);
constructor(unsigned long numberOfChannels, unsigned long length, float sampleRate);
Promise<AudioBuffer> startRendering();
Promise<AudioBuffer> startRendering(unsigned long chunkSize);

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I think this should be optional unsigned long chunkSize

Comment thread index.bs
@@ -2500,9 +2480,10 @@ returned promise with the rendered result as an
interface OfflineAudioContext : BaseAudioContext {
constructor(OfflineAudioContextOptions contextOptions);
constructor(unsigned long numberOfChannels, unsigned long length, float sampleRate);

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If we make length nullable I think it would become length?

Comment thread index.bs
<ol>
<li> If {{OfflineAudioContext/startRendering(chunkSize)/chunkSize}} is provided:
<ol>
<li> Let <var>renderedFrames</var> be the number of sample-frames already rendered by the {{OfflineAudioContext}}.

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We may want renderedFrames to be an internal slot; then we can also specify when and how it is updated.

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It looks like the git checks are now passing but the PR preview still isn't working; sorry. I'm not sure why.

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