Big ask: can we instance in a browser?

[gilescope]

Thought I would push my luck and try it on the browsers of a mac:

app-8d2b3f51c8c35afe.js:1734 panicked at 'wgpu error: Validation Error

Caused by:
    In Device::create_bind_group_layout
      note: label = `cuboid_instances_layout`
    binding 0 entry is invalid
    Downlevel flags VERTEX_STORAGE are required but not supported on the device.
This is not an invalid use of WebGPU: the underlying API or device does not support enough features to be a fully compliant implementation. A subset of the features can still be used. If you are running this program on native and not in a browser and wish to work around this issue, call Adapter::downlevel_properties or Device::downlevel_properties to get a listing of the features the current platform supports.

', /Users/bit/.cargo/registry/src/github.com-1ecc6299db9ec823/wgpu-0.13.1/src/backend/direct.rs:2391:5

Do we have to wait for WebGPU to land in 2023 or are there maybe some tweaks we could try to get it running somehow in the browser?

[gilescope]

Looks like it's this line it really takes exception to:
https://github.com/ForesightMiningSoftwareCorporation/bevy-aabb-instancing/blob/bd1e6bb109265d8656e6a5a34b960fb9f03bd70b/src/vertex_pulling/pipeline.rs#L103

[bonsairobo]

Sorry this fell of my radar. If the browser doesn't support storage buffers then the only way to work around it is to figure out how to store the instances in a different kind of uniform buffer, maybe a texture. It's not an easy "tweak" AFAICT.

[gilescope]

No worries. In the end have ditched bevy and hit the graphics card directly.

…

On Tue, 25 Oct 2022 at 22:12, Duncan ***@***.***> wrote: Sorry this fell of my radar. If the browser doesn't support storage buffers then the only way to work around it is to figure out how to store the instances in a different kind of uniform buffer, maybe a texture. It's not an easy "tweak" AFAICT. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#7 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAGEJCG7S7B6KFR7SJYDGTLWFBEMDANCNFSM6AAAAAAQ36JC4A> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: <ForesightMiningSoftwareCorporation/bevy-aabb-instancing/issues/7/1291149729 @github.com>

[EmiOnGit]

Since I just saw this issue and did play with this I can give some input:

It is totally possible to use textures to store the instance data and is rather straight forward to implement.
Also it doesn't seem to come with any performance issues AFAICT.

The biggest problem is that wgpu only supports images up to a hard coded size limitation (8192 pixels per dimension),
the capacity can be increased by using a 2d or even 3d texture if needed
and in the worst case, you could even change the encoding of the instances to be more dense than 1 instance per pixel
but I don't thing this is a good idea.

As for the limit I'm currently using a 2d texture and it just seems to work fine for 100m entities (which is the limit my crate can handle)
For reference, I used this in my warbler_grass crate.

[gilescope]

Texture limits are actually half of that if you’re targeting ios and android. One of them only has a 4k height. 100m entities? Nice. In the end I used wgpu directly rather than through bevy.

…

On Sun, 12 Mar 2023 at 12:56, Emi ***@***.***> wrote: Since I just saw this issue and did play with this I can give some input: It is totally possible to use textures to store the instance data and is rather straight forward to implement. Also it doesn't seem to come with any performance issues AFAICT. The biggest problem is that wgpu only supports images up to a hard coded size limitation (8192 pixels per dimension), the capacity can be increased by using a 2d or even 3d texture if needed and in the worst case, you could even change the encoding of the instances to be more dense than 1 instance per pixel but I don't thing this is a good idea. As for the limit I'm currently using a 2d texture and it just seems to work fine for 100m entities (which is the limit my crate can handle) For reference, I used this in my warbler_grass <https://github.com/EmiOnGit/warbler_grass> crate. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#7 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAGEJCEJGODG77F327XAC73W3XBZRANCNFSM6AAAAAAQ36JC4A> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: <ForesightMiningSoftwareCorporation/bevy-aabb-instancing/issues/7/1465191244 @github.com>