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wgpu

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wgpu is a cross-platform, safe, pure-rust graphics API. It runs natively on Vulkan, Metal, D3D12, and OpenGL; and on top of WebGL2 and WebGPU on wasm.

The API is based on the WebGPU standard. It serves as the core of the WebGPU integration in Firefox and Deno.

Repo Overview

The repository hosts the following libraries:

The following binaries:

For an overview of all the components in the gfx-rs ecosystem, see the big picture.

Getting Started

Rust

Rust examples can be found at wgpu/examples. You can run the examples on native with cargo run --bin wgpu-examples <example>. See the list of examples.

To run the examples in a browser, run cargo xtask run-wasm. Then open http://localhost:8000 in your browser, and you can choose an example to run. Naturally, in order to display any of the WebGPU based examples, you need to make sure your browser supports it.

If you are looking for a wgpu tutorial, look at the following:

C/C++

To use wgpu in C/C++, you need wgpu-native.

If you are looking for a wgpu C++ tutorial, look at the following:

Others

If you want to use wgpu in other languages, there are many bindings to wgpu-native from languages such as Python, D, Julia, Kotlin, and more. See the list.

Community

We have the Matrix space Matrix Space with a few different rooms that form the wgpu community:

Wiki

We have a wiki that serves as a knowledge base.

Supported Platforms

APIWindowsLinux/AndroidmacOS/iOSWeb (wasm)
Vulkan🌋
Metal
DX12
OpenGL🆗 (GL 3.3+)🆗 (GL ES 3.0+)📐🆗 (WebGL2)
WebGPU

✅ = First Class Support
🆗 = Downlevel/Best Effort Support
📐 = Requires the ANGLE translation layer (GL ES 3.0 only)
🌋 = Requires the MoltenVK translation layer
🛠️ = Unsupported, though open to contributions

Shader Support

wgpu supports shaders in WGSL, SPIR-V, and GLSL. Both HLSL and GLSL have compilers to target SPIR-V. All of these shader languages can be used with any backend as we handle all of the conversions. Additionally, support for these shader inputs is not going away.

While WebGPU does not support any shading language other than WGSL, we will automatically convert your non-WGSL shaders if you're running on WebGPU.

WGSL is always supported by default, but GLSL and SPIR-V need features enabled to compile in support.

Note that the WGSL specification is still under development, so the draft specification does not exactly describe what wgpu supports. See below for details.

To enable SPIR-V shaders, enable the spirv feature of wgpu. To enable GLSL shaders, enable the glsl feature of wgpu.

Angle

Angle is a translation layer from GLES to other backends developed by Google. We support running our GLES3 backend over it in order to reach platforms DX11 support, which aren't accessible otherwise. In order to run with Angle, the "angle" feature has to be enabled, and Angle libraries placed in a location visible to the application. These binaries can be downloaded from gfbuild-angle artifacts, manual compilation may be required on Macs with Apple silicon.

On Windows, you generally need to copy them into the working directory, in the same directory as the executable, or somewhere in your path. On Linux, you can point to them using LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment.

MSRV policy

Due to complex dependants, we have two MSRV policies:

It is enforced on CI (in "/.github/workflows/ci.yml") with the CORE_MSRV and REPO_MSRV variables. This version can only be upgraded in breaking releases, though we release a breaking version every three months.

The naga, wgpu-core, wgpu-hal, and wgpu-types crates should never require an MSRV ahead of Firefox's MSRV for nightly builds, as determined by the value of MINIMUM_RUST_VERSION in python/mozboot/mozboot/util.py.

Environment Variables

All testing and example infrastructure share the same set of environment variables that determine which Backend/GPU it will run on.

When running the CTS, use the variables DENO_WEBGPU_ADAPTER_NAME, DENO_WEBGPU_BACKEND, DENO_WEBGPU_POWER_PREFERENCE.

Testing

We have multiple methods of testing, each of which tests different qualities about wgpu. We automatically run our tests on CI. The current state of CI testing:

Platform/BackendTestsNotes
Windows/DX12:heavy_check_mark:using WARP
Windows/OpenGL:heavy_check_mark:using llvmpipe
MacOS/Metal:heavy_check_mark:using hardware runner
Linux/Vulkan:heavy_check_mark:using lavapipe
Linux/OpenGL ES:heavy_check_mark:using llvmpipe
Chrome/WebGL:heavy_check_mark:using swiftshader
Chrome/WebGPU:x:not set up

Core Test Infrastructure

We use a tool called cargo nextest to run our tests. To install it, run cargo install cargo-nextest.

To run the test suite:

cargo xtask test

To run the test suite on WebGL (currently incomplete):

cd wgpu
wasm-pack test --headless --chrome --no-default-features --features webgl --workspace

This will automatically run the tests using a packaged browser. Remove --headless to run the tests with whatever browser you wish at http://localhost:8000.

If you are a user and want a way to help contribute to wgpu, we always need more help writing test cases.

WebGPU Conformance Test Suite

WebGPU includes a Conformance Test Suite to validate that implementations are working correctly. We can run this CTS against wgpu.

To run the CTS, first, you need to check it out:

git clone https://github.com/gpuweb/cts.git
cd cts
# works in bash and powershell
git checkout $(cat ../cts_runner/revision.txt)

To run a given set of tests:

# Must be inside the `cts` folder we just checked out, else this will fail
cargo run --manifest-path ../Cargo.toml -p cts_runner --bin cts_runner -- ./tools/run_deno --verbose "<test string>"

To find the full list of tests, go to the online cts viewer.

The list of currently enabled CTS tests can be found here.

Tracking the WebGPU and WGSL draft specifications

The wgpu crate is meant to be an idiomatic Rust translation of the WebGPU API. That specification, along with its shading language, WGSL, are both still in the "Working Draft" phase, and while the general outlines are stable, details change frequently. Until the specification is stabilized, the wgpu crate and the version of WGSL it implements will likely differ from what is specified, as the implementation catches up.

Exactly which WGSL features wgpu supports depends on how you are using it:

Coordinate Systems

wgpu uses the coordinate systems of D3D and Metal:

RenderTexture
render_coordinatestexture_coordinates