What’s New in WebGPU (Chrome 114)

# Optimizing JavaScript

Chromium contributors sped up WebGPU performance for GPUComputePassEncoder, GPURenderPassEncoder, and GPUCommandEncoder methods by reducing the overhead of making calls from generated code in V8 JavaScript engine to C++ handlers in Blink rendering engine. See issue chromium:1417558.

The following microbenchmark shows CPU time of calls from JavaScript decreasing from around 0.5 ms per 10K draws to around 0.3 ms per 10K draws, which is a 40% improvement.

# getCurrentTexture() on unconfigured canvas throws InvalidStateError

Calling GPUCanvasContext getCurrentTexture() method on an unconfigured canvas now throws InvalidStateError instead of OperationError according to the WebGPU spec. See issue chromium:1424461.

const context = document.querySelector("canvas").getContext("webgpu");
context.getCurrentTexture(); // Throws InvalidStateError

# WGSL updates

Zero-filled vectors of AbstractInt can now be written as vec2(), vec3(), and vec4(). See issue tint:1892. For example:

• vec2() is vec2(0,0)
• vec3() is vec3(0,0,0)
• vec4() is vec4(0,0,0,0)

# Dawn updates

# Improving error messages

Descriptor labels for invalid objects are not being dropped anymore so that you can see them in error messages. See issue dawn:1771.

# Add missing APIs for Node.js

The GPUAdapter::requestAdapterInfo() and GPUBuffer::getMapState() methods are now implemented for Node.js. See issue dawn:1761.