Google’s latest Chrome Beta 94 announcement pointed out that Google is implementing some new web standards to make browser-based gaming experiences better. Google will release some WebCodecs soon which could help make cloud gaming easier and faster, while the experimental WebGPU would help developers.
WebCodecs is an API designed to give developers better access to the video encoding and decoding codecs that are already bundled with your browser. As of now, there are already methods of getting video to play in Chrome but they were not designed for the purpose of cloud gaming. WebCodecs avoids overhead, making it easier to get the incoming video stream onto your screen as fast as possible.
On the other hand, the new WebGPU gives web developers better access to your computer’s graphics horsepower. According to Google, it is meant to be a next-generation version of WebGL.
Note that both these technologies are also used outside the gaming universe too. Back in July 2020, Google said Zoom was interested in using WebCodecs for videoconferencing. Google also said WebGPU could be used to render 3D models in the browser or to accelerate machine learning models. WebCodecs is going t be released soon and WebGPU is currently in its experimental trial phase, which Google expects to end in early 2022.
