Unreal Engine 3 HTML 5 tech demo released

"The Unreal Engine running in a browser without any plugins, purely on HTML 5, WebGL and JavaScript? Pull the other one, lass, it's got bells on," says someone or other. "I bet you believe everything The Man tells you." No, curious character! It's real and everything! Why, you can see for yourself, as Epic has released a browser version of its UE3 tech demo Epic Citadel for us all to marvel at.

Alice O'Connor

May 3, 2013 7:30 AM

"The Unreal Engine running in a browser without any plugins, purely on HTML 5, WebGL and JavaScript? Pull the other one, lass, it's got bells on," says someone or other. "I bet you believe everything The Man tells you." No, curious character! It's real and everything! Why, you can see for yourself, as Epic has released a browser version of its old UE3 tech demo Epic Citadel for us all to marvel at.

Epic and Firefox maker Mozilla revealed this wonder in March, and now you can see the demo right now in your very own browser--if you have the correct browser that is.

Eventually it should work in any standards-compliant browser, but for now Epic recommends using one of Firefox version 23's nightly builds. Some have suffered crashes in Chrome, so you may want to hold off on trying with that.

Epic's shiny new Unreal Engine 4 will also be able to output HTML games.

If you don't have the right browser or enough hardware muscle, here's a recording of it all:

Alice O'Connor

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Shacknews

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May 3, 2013 7:30 AM

Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Unreal Engine 3 HTML 5 tech demo released.

"The Unreal Engine running in a browser without any plugins, purely on HTML 5, WebGL and JavaScript? Pull the other one, lass, it's got bells on," says someone or other. "I bet you believe everything The Man tells you." No, curious character! It's real and everything! Why, you can see for yourself, as Epic has released a browser version of its UE3 tech demo Epic Citadel for us all to marvel at.
- valcan_s
  
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  May 3, 2013 7:43 AM
  
  Huh that is crazy if it is real.
  - dumb.
    
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    May 3, 2013 7:44 AM
    
    Pretty sure it's not. Article specifically states it's unreal.
    - valcan_s
      
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      May 3, 2013 8:04 AM
      
      LOL :) I thought this ^^ after I posted, good one.
    - SlamDunk
      
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      May 3, 2013 8:04 AM
      
      If I had LOL I'd LOL.
      - squigiliwams
        
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        May 3, 2013 9:07 AM
        
        loled for you
    - DewFuel
      
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      May 3, 2013 5:23 PM
      
      GROAN
  - bigimp
    
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    May 3, 2013 1:16 PM
    
    Runs on my browser... No enemies/AI etc... not sure if lights are dyamic, guessing shadows aren't.
- rtricoche
  
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  May 3, 2013 7:58 AM
  
  Nice...To bad I like playing shooters and I hate playing on my phone. Console all the way baby!
- EvilDolemite
  
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  May 3, 2013 8:01 AM
  
  UT '99 in a browser a la Quake Live? Yes, yes indeed.
  - [deleted] 1737240303
    
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    May 3, 2013 8:12 AM
    
    [deleted]
    - Don Soleone
      
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      May 3, 2013 11:30 AM
      
      quake live is big cheat because the install and depend on their own browser plugin.
      
      this on the other hand runs on any modern browser without having to install any 3rd party plugins or flash
      - [deleted] 1737240303
        
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        May 3, 2013 11:43 AM
        
        [deleted]
        
        derelict515
        
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        May 3, 2013 1:05 PM
        
        didn't Carmack say Quake Live barely justified itself financially if at all?
        
        [deleted] 1737240303
        
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        May 3, 2013 2:08 PM
        
        [deleted]
    - TiTaN10k
      
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      May 3, 2013 10:19 PM
      
      Because nobody cares. QuakeLive never takes off, Epic would know better to follow Id steps.
- jcupitt
  
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  May 3, 2013 8:39 AM
  
  Wow, it works really well. I get 15 - 30 fps at 1920 x 1080 on my laptop.
  - frib
    
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    May 3, 2013 8:43 AM
    
    sweet as bro, now all you gotta do is halve the resolution and you have a modern console game!
    - jcupitt
      
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      May 3, 2013 11:58 AM
      
      this is a flash competitor and a shitty $500 laptop, so I think 15 - 30 fps is impressive!
  - aethyr
    
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    May 3, 2013 10:44 AM
    
    They say it's supposed to be faster with Firefox nightlies.
  - caspy7
    
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    May 3, 2013 12:58 PM
    
    Are you using a recent nightly build? Other versions don't have the asm.js tech baked in for the real speed goodness.
    - jcupitt
      
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      May 3, 2013 1:20 PM
      
      no, just regular current ff. You're right, I should try a nightly.
- vortex6930
  
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  May 3, 2013 10:38 AM
  
  LOL unreal 3 engine with unreal 2 graphics.
  - Endymion_
    
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    May 3, 2013 1:57 PM
    
    Are you using a Mac?
- SockMonkeh
  
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  May 3, 2013 10:48 AM
  
  Doesn't work in Chrome.
  - zehh
    
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    May 3, 2013 10:56 AM
    
    An engine like this it's probably more than what Chrome can chew at the moment. It'll be easier if they add asmjs support in the future.
    
    http://ejohn.org/blog/asmjs-javascript-compile-target/
- [deleted] 92559685
  
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  May 3, 2013 10:59 AM
  
  [deleted]
- pullmyfinger
  
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  May 3, 2013 11:06 AM
  
  works fine in firefox 21... 50 fps @ 1920x1200 w/ a Quadro 3000M
- nomaad
  
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  May 3, 2013 11:07 AM
  
  goddamn that's impressive. 36fps on my shitty laptop! It's running in javascript! holy shit!
- [deleted] 1737240303
  
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  May 3, 2013 11:50 AM
  
  [deleted]
- daggot
  
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  May 3, 2013 12:46 PM
  
  Wow. Work laptop managed 25.8 fps on High Performance (1440x900).
  - daggot
    
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    May 3, 2013 12:46 PM
    
    Then again, the demo is for mobile graphics chips, right?
    - caspy7
      
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      May 3, 2013 1:03 PM
      
      This demo is meant to show off asm.js allowing high performance JS in the browser.
    - zehh
      
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      May 3, 2013 2:12 PM
      
      The demo is for whatever that supports WebGL (OpenGL ES 2.0) so in a way, yes.
- x-eyd|mary
  
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  May 3, 2013 12:49 PM
  
  Fucking incredible. I'm absolutely bown away. Kudo's to Epic.
  - caspy7
    
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    May 3, 2013 1:02 PM
    
    And to Mozilla who made the tech that enables this performance (and will do so for other browsers).
- [deleted] 133702941
  
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  May 3, 2013 12:56 PM
  
  [deleted]
- okellyc
  
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  May 3, 2013 1:39 PM
  
  59.8 1920x1080
  
  i love the music...with the dog bark
- [deleted] 1243182645
  
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  May 3, 2013 1:49 PM
  
  [deleted]
- Endymion_
  
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  May 3, 2013 1:54 PM
  
  My office PC with a crappy old-ass Q6600, clocked at 3.6GHz with two 8800 GT cards gets 41.6fps at 1920x1440. Yes, that's a 4:3 res for a CRT.
- Vividvoid
  
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  May 3, 2013 2:11 PM
  
  Funny, I get better FPS on my Nexus 10 than on my desktop (i7 3770k, gtx670).
  - Vividvoid
    
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    May 3, 2013 2:12 PM
    
    60FPS vs 42FPS
    - [deleted] 1243182645
      
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      May 3, 2013 3:09 PM
      
      [deleted]
      - GreatGooglyMoogly
        
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        May 3, 2013 5:13 PM
        
        The Nexus 10 is 2560x1600 (and that's what the Epic Citadel demo is rendering at per default), this HTML5 thing seems to be rendering at 1080p on most machines.
  - GreatGooglyMoogly
    
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    May 3, 2013 5:12 PM
    
    The Nexus 10 is running native code (C++), not JavaScript.
  - Zips
    
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    May 3, 2013 10:41 PM
    
    Also, you should get the Firefox nightly build to really compare things.
- ninjase
  
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  May 3, 2013 2:56 PM
  
  im stuck on the 2nd quest
- Conan
  
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  May 3, 2013 11:12 PM
  
  It has great performance at 5760x1080 on FF nightly, but it calculates FOV badly so it's really zoomed in.