Pepper 3D on Chrome provides a secure implementation of OpenGL ES 2.0. Here are some tips for getting maximum performance.For security all indices must be validated. If you change them we have to validate them again. Therefore structure your code so indices are not updated often.
In OpenGL ES 2.0 you can use client side data with glVertexAttribPointer and glDrawElements. It’s REALLY SLOW! Don’t use them. Instead, whenever possible use VBOs (Vertex Buffer Objects). Side-note: Client side buffers have been removed from OpenGL 4.0.
Actually this is off by default. In real OpenGL ES 2.0 you can create a single buffer and bind it to both GL_ARRAY_BUFFER and GL_ELEMENT_ARRAY_BUFFER. In Pepper 3D, by default, you can only bind buffers to 1 bind point. There is the option to enable binding buffers to both points. Doing so requires expensive work so don’t do it.
For dynamic textures (ie, video) or dynamic vertex data (skinning / particles) consider using CHROMIUM_map_subhttp://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/gpu/GLES2/extensions/CHROMIUM/CHROMIUM_map_sub.txt
Calling either of those stalls our multi-process pipeline. This is normal advice for OpenGL programs but is particularly important for 3D on Chrome. This includes glGetError – avoid calling it in release builds.
In OpenGL you MUST enable Attrib 0. In OpenGL ES 2.0 you don’t have to enable Attrib 0. What that means is that in order to emulate OpenGL ES 2.0 on top of OpenGL we have to do some expensive work.
In practice most programs don’t have an issue here but just in case, the most obvious way this might bite you is if you bind your own locations and don’t start with 0. Example: Imagine you have a vertex shader with 2 attributes “positions” and “normals”
Those 2 functions would make make your shader NOT use attrib 0 in which case we’d have to do some expensive work internally
It is generally good practice to minimize explicit calls to glFlush and avoid using glFinish. Particularly so on Native Client where they incur additional overhead.
In other words, don't call glReadPixels. This is slow.
When benchmarking, avoid comparing results where one system is limited by vsync and another is not.It’s not supported in OpenGL and so emulation for OpenGL ES 2.0 is slow. By default GL_FIXED support is turned off Pepper 3D. There is the option to turn it on. Don’t do it.
The size your plugin renders and the size it displays in the page are set separately. CSS controls the size your plugin displays where as the width and height attribute of your <embed> element control the size your plugin renders.
If you’re used to making native games you’re probably used to rendering everything yourself. The browser though can already render text and UI very well and it will composite that HTML with your plugin using all the standard HTML5 and CSS methods available.
Avoid updating a small portion of a large buffer
This is especially an issue in Windows where we emulate OpenGL ES 2.0 on top of DirectX. In the current implementation, updating a portion of a buffer requires re-processing the entire buffer. In other words if you make a buffer (glBufferData) of 10000 bytes and then later call glSubBufferData to update just 3 of those bytes, all 10000 bytes will have to be re-converted. (Yea, I know, lame)
3 buffers of [position,position,position], [normal,normal,normal], [texcoord,texcoord,texcoord] is slower than 1 buffer of [position,normal,texcoord,position,normal,texcoord,position,normal,texcoord].
Assume you have positions, normals and texcoords. Further assume you update positions every frame. It would be best to put positions in 1 buffer and normals + texcoords in a separate buffer. That way, you can call glBufferData or glBufferSubData on a smaller range of data.
Consider putting multiple meshes in a single buffer and using offsets (as long as the buffers are static, see above)
Not every GPU supports every extension nor has the same amount of textures units, vertex attributes, etc. Make sure you check for the features you need.
For example, if you are using non power of 2 texture with mips make sure GL_OES_texture_npot exists. If you are using floating point textures make sure GL_OES_texture_float exists. If you are using DXT1, DXT3 or DXT5 texture make sure GL_ETC_texture_compression_dxt1, GL_CHROMIUM_texture_compression_dxt3 and GL_CHROMIUM_texture_compression_dxt5 exist.
If you are using textures in vertex shaders make sure glGetIntegerv(GL_MAX_VERTEX_TEXTURE_IMAGE_UNITS, …) returns a value greater than 0.
If you are using more than 8 textures in a single shader make sure glGetIntegerv(GL_MAX_TEXTURE_IMAGE_UNITS, …) returns a value greater than or equal to the number of simulatious textures you need.