W3C Workshop on Web Games

Breakout session on WebAssembly

This breakout session was part of the Workshop on Web games. Notes taken by Mathias Westerdahl.

• Suggestion to create new APIs with wasm in mind
  • be mindful with object creation
  • suggest more C style functions like "generateData(view)" and it creates into that preallocated buffer
• Discussed memory mapping in WASM
  • nothing going on in this area just yet
• Discussion about deobfuscation and protecting assets
  • WASM doesn't add any protection here
  • We talked about WebCrypto to protect assets, which might be something for game developers
  • Also loading some "runtime key" to avoid "simple ripping off a game"
• Are there any resources for "regular" web developers to start using WASM?
  • going from "C" to WASM is easier
  • coming from JS to WASM is harder to understand
  • Rust -> WASM is an example of one way to go, perhaps interesting for JS too
  • Luke mentioned AssemblyScript for writing WASM close code
• Exception handling coming in WASM
• Discussion about SharedArrayBuffer and atomics
  • is there feature detection for this?
  • there is some, will likely change in the future
• Loading time/efficiency discussion
  • Where is WASM currently in regards to loading shared libraries?
  • Recent changes pave the way for load time dynamic linking (ES6 module imports)
  • How to do cross origin sharing?
  • Can save loading time on game portals
• Discussion about caching
  • Luke mentioned a new suggested function "cache tput"
  • Talked about caching into subdomain buckets
• Is there a difference in cost going from JS <-> WASM?
• Luke mentions a blog post with some performance numbers