In our forward-looking approach, prioritizing support for WebGL2, WebGPU, and emerging technologies built upon them, it’s time to phase out support for WebGL1.
The plan to phase out WebGL1 support from the PlayCanvas engine is following:
Removal from Engine: We’ll eliminate WebGL1 support from the engine. Existing engine-only users can choose to use any engine version that still supports WebGL1.
Editor Compatibility: We’ll ensure that the Editor remains compatible in the long term with the final engine version supporting WebGL1. Users who rely on WebGL1 will need to remain on this version. While no new features will be released for this engine version, critical bug fixes can still be backported.
Our target platform is TVs, which in large numbers (LG, Samsung) only have WebGL 1 (and other old things), which is due to the web engine not updating to them, will there be any fallback to continue development in the editor with support for WebGL 1?
Will you have to host yourself in this case, or will Playcanvas hosting also be available?
@robert.ua - please see the initial message regarding the Editor compatibility - that’s a way to use Editor, engine and WebGL1 together. There are no changes to hosting, it will just use 1.70.x engine.
This is actually terrible news for us. We chose the platform solely because of the support and performance of WebGL 1 and WebGL 2. We cannot refuse webGL 1, working with old-generation TVs supports Web GL 1, as do new Sansung TV models (22-23 release) and WebGL 1 .
Is there a chance that support will be resumed?
@makkras3d - you can still continue using the engine / Editor with WebGL1 - as explained, we’re not removing the support, but you will need to tick the option ‘use engine 1.70’ or whatever we’ll end up calling it when this is released. What concerns do you have?
