User Manual

Troubleshooting Performance

Here are some tips to help you uncover common performance problems

PlayCanvas and other WebGL applications run very slowly in IE 11

On some computer hardware Internet Explorer 11 is not able to use the GPU (graphics processors) to do graphics acceleration. In these cases it will fall back to using a software renderer to render WebGL content. This will be significantly slower than using the GPU. Unfortunately, there are no workarounds to this as it is a hardware issue. The only solution is to update graphics drivers or hardware on the problem machine.

To confirm if you are running using the software renderer, visit WebGL Report. If IE 11 is using the software renderer you will see the row for Major Performance Caveat is set to Yes.

PlayCanvas and other WebGL applications run very slowly in Google Chrome

Chrome contains a blacklist of GPUs (graphics processors) and graphics card drivers which it will block from running WebGL content. In these cases Chrome will revert to using a software renderer to render WebGL content. This will be significantly slower than using the GPU. It is possible that upgrading graphics card drivers will improve performance.

You can view the blacklisted cards here.

To confirm if you are running using the software renderer, visit WebGL Report. If Chrome is using the software renderer you will see the row for Unmasked Renderer reports SwiftShader.

PlayCanvas and other WebGL applications do not load in Firefox

Firefox contains a blacklist of GPUs (graphics processors) and graphics card drivers which it will block from running WebGL content. In these cases Firefox not allow the application to create a WebGL context and the PlayCanvas application cannot start. It is possible that upgrading your graphics card drivers will enable the application to run.

You can view the blacklisted cards here.

PlayCanvas and other WebGL applications does not perform as well as expected on Windows with Nvidia graphics cards

Many Windows PCs contain two graphics cards, an "Integrated" graphics card which is a lower powered GPU built onto the motherboard of the computer and an additional graphics card. Nvidia cards come with a control panel installed that lets the PC owner choose which graphics card is used to run which application. By default many PCs are set up to use the lower powered integrated graphics card to run web browsers like Google Chrome. In order to get the best performance out of WebGL applications it is important to ensure that the web browser is accelerated using the more powerful graphics card.