
Updated WebGL Benchmark Results - Aissen
http://blogs.unity3d.com/2015/12/15/updated-webgl-benchmark-results/
======
throwaway13337
Unfortunately, the packed WebGL file size for a scene with nothing in it comes
at ~80mbs which is still way too big to be a reasonable alternative to
three.js-based libs.

I hope they'll be able to trim it down in the future because I'd really like
to use unity to deploy to WebGL. It just doesn't seem to be something that
they can do, for whatever reason.

Edit: The benchmark seems to have a minimalist packed size of just under
10mbs. Cool that they achieved that. I haven't been able to with my project.

~~~
golergka
Right now making a mature Unity3d project that was developed for mobile
platforms run on WebGL takes 2-4 weeks of developer time to reach feature-
complete, semi-stable state. And still, it runs abysmally slow, and hogging at
least 1Gb of memory.

After Unity browser plugin was retired a year ago with the whole Netscape
plugin architecture, teams that use Unity just better accept the fact that
they can't realistically deploy their projects in the browser anymore.

~~~
throwaway13337
I just spent the last 20 minutes compiling my unity project with 5.3 webgl.

It's a voxel game so it's quite small, asset-wise and fits into under 20mbs!
This is a huge leap.

The upstart performance feels a bit like a java applet (freezes for a
second... not great) but once it gets started, it's performant for my use
case.

In my brief test, I only notice one weird thing (the input sometimes got
screwy). This is a huge improvement.

Give it another try?

~~~
golergka
Uhm, is your game a commercial project, with a lot of art, complicated
requirements involving SDKs from social networks as well as marketing,
analytical and bug report tools, commits and random code from incompetent
developers who were fired a year ago, urgent gufixes that were put in as
"temporary" and stayed forever?

Because of course it would work nicely with a small hobby project ran by a
single programmer of adequate level.

~~~
throwaway13337
Of course this project doesn't have those nasty hooks and a very small art
asset collection.

I'd worked on a similar project to yours years ago and we ended up building a
separate application for mobile after the web project. They are different form
factors even if everything behind the scenes 'just worked'. I think we agree
:)

I was just amazed at the progress unity's webgl target has made. You see with
my original post that I was pretty dismissive of it until I gave it another
try.

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brudgers
My understanding is that Unity3d integrates well with asm.js and Mozilla sort
of has a head start in that.

~~~
clouddrover
On the other hand, Edge's asm.js implementation is younger than Chrome's but
Edge is second fastest in Unity's benchmark while Chrome is third. Chrome's
head start hasn't helped it beat Edge in this benchmark.

~~~
FeepingCreature
Chrome does not specifically optimize for asm.js.

~~~
clouddrover
Sure it does. Chrome has been specifically optimizing for asm.js for over two
years (see [1]). Google's own Octane browser benchmark has included an asm.js
benchmark for over two years (see [2][3][4]). Game developers have been
commenting on Chrome's asm.js performance for over two years (see [5]).

Chrome is just slower. Microsoft has done a good job with Edge's JavaScript
engine.

[1] [http://blog.chromium.org/2013/05/chrome-28-beta-more-
immersi...](http://blog.chromium.org/2013/05/chrome-28-beta-more-immersive-
web.html) [2] [http://blog.chromium.org/2013/11/announcing-
octane-20.html](http://blog.chromium.org/2013/11/announcing-octane-20.html)
[3] [http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/06/google-updates-its-
octane-j...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/06/google-updates-its-octane-
javascript-benchmark-adds-asm-js-and-typescript-tests/) [4]
[https://developers.google.com/octane/](https://developers.google.com/octane/)
[5] [https://www.scirra.com/blog/132/more-about-asmjs-powered-
phy...](https://www.scirra.com/blog/132/more-about-asmjs-powered-physics)

~~~
FeepingCreature
Let me clarify: Chrome does not to my knowledge contain any special
optimizations that are only active in asm.js mode. Firefox does, to the extent
of having an entire separate codepath for asm.js AOT compilation.

~~~
clouddrover
Chrome contains special optimizations that are only active in asm.js mode:
[http://blog.chromium.org/2015/07/revving-up-javascript-
perfo...](http://blog.chromium.org/2015/07/revving-up-javascript-performance-
with.html)

I don't know what you're arguing here. It doesn't matter what approach is
taken to optimizing performance, all that matters is the performance achieved.
Chrome is simply slower. Microsoft is to open source Edge's JavaScript engine
([https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2015/12/05/open-
source-c...](https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2015/12/05/open-source-
chakra-core/)), so perhaps the Chrome developers can study that for ideas on
speeding up Chrome.

~~~
FeepingCreature
Huh. Fair enough, cool I guess.

It was my impression that for a long time, Chrome's stance was basically "We
aren't gonna bother optimizing specifically for asm.js; instead, we're just
gonna make JS faster in general." Which would seem to explain why

> Chrome's head start hasn't helped it beat Edge in this benchmark.

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tgb
Unitless scores with no "higher is better" label meant I spent far too long
trying to guess what the graphs meant.

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vegabook
Amazing to see Firefox Nightly more than double the speed of Safari on my late
2013 i7 mac mini.

