browser without gpu support

Question

Google has an Easter egg that draws 3D graph but when I tried it out on chrome it complained about no WebGL support. I've also tested it on Firefox whose WebGL support was enabled but ended up with the same problem. Thus, I suspect it's an issue of my GPU. Some googling led me to chrome://gpu and here's what I got

Graphics Feature Status

• Canvas: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable
• HTML Rendering: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable
• 3D CSS: Unavailable. Hardware acceleration unavailable
• WebGL: Unavailable. Hardware acceleration unavailable
• WebGL multisampling: Unavailable. Hardware acceleration unavailable

Problems Detected

• GPU process was unable to boot. Access to GPU disallowed.
• GL driver is software rendered. Accelerated compositing is disabled.: 59302
• Mesa drivers in linux older than 7.11 are assumed to be buggy.
• Accelerated 2d canvas is unstable in Linux at the moment.

Version Information

• Data exported Tue Apr 10 2012 18:35:57 GMT+0800 (CST)
• Chrome version 18.0.1025.151 (Official Build 130497)
• Operating system Linux 3.0.0-0300-generic
• Software rendering list version 1.27
• ANGLE revision 988
• 2D graphics backend Skia

I wonder what each of the problem implies and How I may properly deal with it? I'm using Ubuntu 11.04

Solution 1

Its because your GPU (or the driver being )is not supported for WebGL. Its browser blacklisted.

However you can force enable your GPU for WebGL.

Warning: Do this at your own risk. It can harm your hardware. There are usually good reasons (like some critical driver bug) why features are blocked.

To launch chrome ignoring the black list, run following after pressing Alt + F2 OR in terminal

google-chrome --enable-webgl --ignore-gpu-blacklist

Configuring firefox:

• To force-enable WebGL, go to about:config and set webgl.force-enabled=true.

• To force-enable WebGL anti-aliasing, go to about:config and set webgl.msaa-force=true.

• To force-enable Layers Acceleration, go to about:config and set layers.acceleration.force-enabled=true.

More reads on firefox blacklisting.

Solution 2

It's because your GPU (or the driver being used)is not supported for WebGL. It's browser blacklisted. However, you can force enable your GPU for WebGL.

In Google's Chrome:

chrome://flags/

Enable. Override software rendering list.

This can have unstable results. As "Accelerated 2d canvas is unstable in Linux at the moment and Stage3D is not supported on Linux." I found it best to leave it disabled and just update your graphic driver. With the "preferred" v.280 NVIDIA driver, Chrome says it can't support 3D, but it worked fine being forced. Updating to the version current-updates (v.295.2 as of today. v.304.51 is the official release), enables everything that works.

Good luck.