Getting a WebGL Implementation

WebGL is currently under development, and is supported in the latest builds of several browsers. Here are instructions on how to obtain a copy of a browser supporting the provisional WebGL specification. As the specification nears completion, expect that browsers will have this functionality built in to their latest releases, and not require any manual steps to enable it.

Firefox

WebGL is supported in Firefox/4.0b1 http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html and in the nightly builds of Firefox. Visit http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/ for builds on Linux (32- and 64-bit), Mac OS X and Windows.

After downloading the browser, enable WebGL: type about:config into the address bar, search for "webgl", and double-click "webgl.enabled_for_all_sites" to set it to true.

The implementation requires working OpenGL 2.1 drivers and the availability of PBuffers.

If OpenGL is not available, or for testing/debugging purposes, software rendering can be used through OSMesa (off-screen Mesa), by setting the "webgl.osmesalib" variable to point to the OSMesa shared library (typically /usr/lib/libOSMesa.so). Note that the OSMesa library is required to use "gl" prefixes, not "mgl".

Safari

WebGL is supported on Mac OS X 10.6 in the WebKit nightly builds available at http://nightly.webkit.org/ .

After downloading and installing the browser, open the Terminal and type the following:

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitWebGLEnabled -bool YES

This command only needs to be run once. All future invocations of the browser will run with WebGL enabled.

Chrome/Chromium

Chromium is the Open Source project behind the Google Chrome browser, and its continuous builds are currently the best way to get WebGL support in a Chrome-style browser under Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. The most recent builds are available here:

• Linux 32-bit: http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/continuous/linux/LATEST/
• Linux 64-bit: http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/chromium-rel-linux-64/
• Mac OS X: http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/continuous/mac/LATEST/
• Windows: http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/continuous/win/LATEST/

Linux/32, Mac and Windows point to the folder containing chrome-linux.zip, chrome-mac.zip, or chrome-win32.zip. For Linux/64, choose the highest numbered folder. Unpack the zip archive and cd into the resulting directory.

Chromium must be launched from the command line in order to enable WebGL.

• Linux: ./chrome --enable-webgl
• Mac OS X: ./Chromium.app/Contents/MacOS/Chromium --enable-webgl
• Windows: chrome.exe --enable-webgl