libretro / libretro/RetroArch

WebGPU video driver and support in Libretro API

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#11,718 4 comments 5 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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feature request prs welcome
Dominant language
C
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Description

WebGPU is an experimental modern graphics/GPU API suitable for the Web. It is simpler than Vulkan, while allowing for better performance than (Web)GL.

RetroArch could have a webgpu video driver, that's available for the Emscripten/WebAssembly target. It can even work on native targets via wgpu-native or Google's Dawn.
RETRO_HW_CONTEXT_WEBGPU would be added to the libretro API, allowing libretro cores to have a WebGPU backend.

My upcoming libretro + Rust/Zig bindings could demonstrate usage of this.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Review the libretro API surface around RETRO_HW_CONTEXT_WEBGPU and the video-driver architecture; the issue names no files or tests. Compare the Emscripten/WebAssembly target with the native wgpu-native or Dawn paths, and consider the work complete when a webgpu video driver and the API context are available for cores.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust, wasm, zig
Domain
api, computer-graphics, web-dev
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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