ANGLE (software)

ANGLE (Almost Native Graphics Layer Engine) is an

The API is mainly designed to bring up a high-performance OpenGL compatibility to MS Windows and to web browsers such as Chromium by translating OpenGL calls to Direct3D, which has much better driver support on Windows systems.^[3][4][5] On Windows, there are two backend renderers for ANGLE: the oldest one uses Direct3D 9.0c, while the newer one uses Direct3D 11.^[8]

ANGLE is currently used by

ANGLE is distributed under a BSD-license.

History

The project started as a way for

The current production version (2.1.x) implements OpenGL ES 2.0, 3.0, 3.1 and EGL 1.5, claiming to pass the conformance tests for both. Work was started on then future OpenGL ES 3.0 version,^[8] for the newer Direct3D 11 backend.^[14]

The capability to use ANGLE in a

• HTML5 canvas and for the graphics layer of the Google Native Client (which is OpenGL ES 2.0 compatible).^[8]
• Safari web browser uses ANGLE as basis for its WebGL implementation.^[12]
• Firefox uses ANGLE as the default WebGL backend on Windows.^[9]
• Qt 5 uses ANGLE as the default renderer for its OpenGL ES 2.0 API wrapper and other Qt elements which use it on Windows.^[10]
• Godot uses ANGLE as an option for compatibility renderer for Windows and MacOS platforms starting with Godot 4.2^[16][17]
• Candy Crush Saga uses ANGLE as the default renderer in its Windows Store version of the application.^[11]
• Windows Store.^[11]
• ANGLE for Windows Store[18] provides Windows developers precompiled ANGLE binaries via a NuGet package.
• Windows: the default version uses OpenGL, the alternative version uses ANGLE as the renderer.^[19]
• Shovel Knight uses ANGLE as rendering engine, as seen in final credits.^[20]
• RuneScape NXT client uses ANGLE to provide a DirectX 9 compatibility mode for older graphics cards.^[21]
• Krita started using ANGLE as the rendering engine on Windows starting on version 3.3.0.^[22]
• Microsoft Edge has ANGLE as a rendering option in the "Standards Preview" page in Windows Insider build 17025.
• Grand Theft Auto V included ANGLE in the installation, normally at Systemdrive.
• OpenRA uses ANGLE for rendering on Windows^[23]
• SolveSpace uses ANGLE on Windows.
• GameMaker: Studio
  uses ANGLE at compile-time to convert GLSL ES shaders to HLSL9 for the old Windows 32-bit export module.

References