In recent years, there have been more and more web-based cloud game services, so the optimization of cloud games by different browsers is also one of the factors that will affect the game experience of players. And recently in the Chrome Beta 94 test version, Google added some new specifications for Chrome or can make the cloud gaming experience on the web better, including WebCodecs to be released, as well as the experimental WebGPU.
WebCodecs is an API interface, which allows developers to more easily access the video encoder and decoder in the browser. Although there are currently different methods for playing videos on Chrome, these methods may not be designed with the video needs of cloud games in mind. And WebCodecs can make the input video displayed on the user’s screen more quickly, which may use the function of hardware decoding. For those target groups of cloud games, that is, those players whose PC configuration is not high, this should improve their experience.
As for the experimental WebGPU, it is a native graphics API interface that allows the browser to connect to the user’s computer, such as DX 12, Vulkan, etc., so that developers can better utilize the performance of the player’s computer. There is a next-generation version of WebGL. In the future, WebGPU can also make it easier for developers to make games that require more GPUs, but at the same time can run on web pages.
However, these two new features need to be good, but users also need to wait for a while before they can really use it, because WebCodecs will be launched, but developers need to adapt their applications, and WebGPU is even more important. The test will not end until early 2022. So for these features that can be used in cloud games, it’s better to take a look at them for now.
