Chrome 146 ships WebGPU compatibility mode for older GPUs
Chrome 146 landed with a feature that significantly widens WebGPU's hardware reach: compatibility mode. Until now, WebGPU required a GPU that supports Vulkan, Metal, or Direct3D 12. Compatibility mode removes that requirement by running on OpenGL ES 3.1 and Direct3D 11 instead.
Chrome for Developers introduction to WebGPU, the API that compatibility mode now brings to older hardware
How it works
Developers opt in by requesting a compatibility-level adapter:
const adapter = await navigator.gpu.requestAdapter({
featureLevel: "compatibility"
});The returned adapter and device then run WebGPU through legacy graphics backends. Applications that already work with core WebGPU will work in compatibility mode without changes, though some advanced features have restrictions.
What this means in practice
A lot of laptops and mobile devices still ship with GPUs that only support OpenGL ES 3.1 or Direct3D 11. These devices were completely locked out of WebGPU before. Compatibility mode brings them in.
Google is starting with Android and exploring support on ChromeOS and Windows next. This matters for web games and 3D applications that need the widest possible device coverage.
Other WebGPU additions in Chrome 146
Transient attachments. The new TRANSIENT_ATTACHMENT texture usage flag tells the GPU that a render target only needs to exist during the render pass. On tile-based GPUs (common on mobile), this keeps data in fast tile memory and avoids expensive writes to main memory.
texture_and_sampler_let WGSL extension. This allows textures and samplers to be assigned to let variables in shader code. It's groundwork for bindless rendering patterns, where shaders can access textures without explicit bind group entries.
W3C Candidate Recommendation
Separately, the W3C published WebGPU as a Candidate Recommendation Draft on March 3, 2026. This is a standards milestone. The GPU for the Web Working Group expects to demonstrate implementation of each feature in at least two deployed browsers on top of modern GPU system APIs before moving to full Recommendation status.
WebGPU is now available in Chrome, Firefox (since version 141 on Windows), and Safari 26. With compatibility mode lowering the hardware floor and the W3C standardization advancing, WebGPU is on track to become the default graphics API for the web.