Home Epic puts up WebGL-powered Epic Citadel demo
News

Epic puts up WebGL-powered Epic Citadel demo

Cyril Kowaliski
Disclosure
Disclosure
In our content, we occasionally include affiliate links. Should you click on these links, we may earn a commission, though this incurs no additional cost to you. Your use of this website signifies your acceptance of our terms and conditions as well as our privacy policy.

Last year, Epic released a Flash version of its Epic Citadel tech demo. Now, thanks to WebGL, there’s a new flavor of Epic Citadel that can run inside your web browser without plug-ins—and it’s ready for public consumption.

Here’s what’s going on behind the scenes, as explained in the official FAQ:

Mozilla is working on a new way to bring content to the Web and have it run at near native speeds. Using Emscripten to cross-compile C and C++ applications into JavaScript, Mozilla can bring large, high-performance applications to HTML5. This technology is already cross-browser as it outputs standard compliant JavaScript. The output from Emscripten also follows a stricter form of JavaScript called asm.js. It’s possible to optimize for this subset, as has been done in Firefox, to run within 2x of native speeds. Existing web standards such as WebGL and other Web APIs provide the hardware access needed to deliver incredible gaming experiences as shown by the Unreal Engine 3-powered Epic Citadel demo.

Now, one of the downsides of standards-based web apps is that they rely heavily on browser support. That’s the case with this demo. For best results, Epic says you’ll want to grab the latest Firefox nightly. The stable release of Firefox works, but it’s slower. As for other browsers, well, the demo crashes in Chrome (Epic says Google is working on a fix), doesn’t work in Internet Explorer (that browser lacks WebGL support), and is "currently not compatible" with Opera.

Which leaves just Firefox, pretty much.

It’s still early days, of course. Epic says it expects that "most or all browsers" will "eventually" support this demo. Also, as we reported last month, Epic has big plans for standards-based browser gaming based on Unreal Engine 4. Considering Epic’s size and influence, I think browser developers may not drag their feet too much.

Latest News

Apple Might Join Hands with Google or OpenAI for Their AI Tech
News

Apple Is Reportedly Planning to Join Hands with Google or OpenAI to License Their AI Tools

YouTube Launches New Tool To Help Label AI-generated Content
News

YouTube Launches a New Tool to Help Creators Label AI-Generated Content

YouTube released a tool that will make creators clearly label the parts of their content that are generated by AI. The initiative was first launched in November in an attempt...

Ripple Dumps 240 Million XRP Tokens Amid 17% Price Decline
Crypto News

Ripple Dumps 240 Million XRP Tokens Amid 17% Price Decline

Popular crypto payment platform Ripple has released 240 million XRP tokens in its latest escrow unlock for March. This comes at a time when XRP’s price has declined significantly. Data from...

Crypto Expert Draws A Links Between Shiba Inu And Ethereum
Crypto News

Crypto Expert Draws Link Between Shiba Inu And Ethereum

The Lucrative FTX Bankruptcy Trade and Ongoing Legal Battle
Crypto News

The Lucrative FTX Bankruptcy Trade and Ongoing Legal Battle

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Set to Enter “Danger Zone” – Time to Back-Off or Bag More Coins?
Crypto News

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Set to Enter “Danger Zone” – Time to Back-Off or Bag More Coins?

SNB to Kick Off Rate Cut Cycle Sooner Than Expected
News

SNB to Kick-Start Rate Cut Cycle Sooner Than Expected