The Google Web Toolkit (GWT) team has developed something that truly shows off what this engine is capable of doing. They have ported Quake2, the popular shoot-them-up game of the 90s, to GWT using use WebGL and HTML5 goodies like the Canvas tag which demonstrate the possibilities of pure web applications in modern browsers such as Safari and Chrome.
The game runs at various speeds depending on the machines. A Linux notebook managed 60fps, a Mac Pro got 45fps, and a Macbook Pro got 25fps. WebKit was able to perform the best of the browsers right now because it doesn’t have the multi-process per tab tax that means a lot of OpenGL buffer copying.
You can download the GWT Quake II Port and build it yourself. Instructions for doing it on Mac and Linux platforms are provided.
[via Ajaxian]
Cool showoff, but why quake, is it something to do with the age of the demo creators?
I have no idea why Quake is chosen for such demo. Perhaps the quake engine has all features of a modern 3D gaming engine and yet easy to port and program for.