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Author Topic: Unity won't work on Chrome!?  (Read 5361 times)

sebaslive

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Unity won't work on Chrome!?
« on: April 07, 2015, 10:39:51 AM »
I got this email from Kongregate and I wanted to share it here.

Quote
Unity Webplayer will no longer function in Chrome
As a Unity3D game developer on Kongregate, we wanted to let you know about a significant change that is happening for browser game technology. As you may know, Google has begun its efforts to remove the Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface (NPAPI) from Chrome, in an effort to improve Chrome's security, speed, and stability, as well as reduce complexity in the code base. Unfortunately, Unity's web player is a NPAPI plugin, and will soon no longer be supported by Chrome. 60% of Kongregate users use Chrome to visit the site, so this will render games using the Unity web player unplayable for those users.

Some time in the current month of April, Chrome will be removing NPAPI support by default, and unpublishing any NPAPI extensions from the Chrome Web Store. There will be an override for advanced users to re-enable Unity, but it will be too complicated for us to expect all of our users to go through these steps. Then in September, NPAPI support will be entirely removed, and Unity will no longer load in Chrome. Other browsers plan on removing NPAPI support as well, but haven't given any specific timelines for the removal.

Migrate to WebGL to reach a larger audience
Fortunately, there is a solution. Unity 5 was recently released, with support for exporting to WebGL built in. This will allow your games to run in a browser without having to rely on any plugins. We urge you to start migrating your games to Unity 5 and WebGL immediately to ensure that when Chrome removes support, your game remains playable for all users.

For developers whose games are currently directly uploaded to Kongregate, we have support for uploading both the .unity3d file and the new HTML5 file for the same game.

Does WebGl even work yet? It's already complicated enough hitting the the window on the top right but this is going to change things for the 60% of people that use chrome and want to play unity enabled games.
All my VR games use Steam VR Playmaker Toolkit: http://u3d.as/u20
And Oculus Touch Playmaker Toolkit: http://u3d.as/QT5


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Lane

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Re: Unity won't work on Chrome!?
« Reply #1 on: April 07, 2015, 11:46:07 AM »
The title of that email is a bit dramatic.

It's been known since at least last year that basically all browsers are removing Plugin support for security reasons. Unity's Web Player is a plugin, ergo it won't work.

WebGL is the new solution, using browser's built-in asm.js and some magic with IL2CPP you can deploy directly to WebGL and it is natively supported in modern browsers.

WebGL currently is a bit clunky, but it is getting better. I've done some builds for clients and it is a bit hit-and-miss depending on your settings, their internet speed, scene complexity, build size, browser type and version. Eventually this will all catch up and stabilize. You need to use the NACL version of Playmaker (included in the download as a separate .unitypackage) which strips networking for it to work on WebGL.

IMO, Kongregate and similar websites should have jumped on this a long time ago.
Products by Cleverous
|| Vault Core : Database
|| Vault Inventory : Multiplayer Inventory
|| Vault Attributes : Character Stats
|| That Hurt! : Dmg Floaties
|| Quinn : 3D

sebaslive

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Re: Unity won't work on Chrome!?
« Reply #2 on: April 07, 2015, 01:57:11 PM »
That is great to read, WebGL has been working well for you. I would rather have a system with no plugin working but the lack of network on these things make no sense.

(I think I have played a browser game from the asset store that had online play?)
All my VR games use Steam VR Playmaker Toolkit: http://u3d.as/u20
And Oculus Touch Playmaker Toolkit: http://u3d.as/QT5


Follow me @sebasRez

Lane

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Re: Unity won't work on Chrome!?
« Reply #3 on: April 07, 2015, 02:04:07 PM »
Yes Networking can work fine on WebGL but there are some conflicts - i forget the specifics - that come up when compiling Playmaker for WebGL that don't happen on the NACL version. There might be some threads floating around here, or on the beta forum about it.

Heck, Dead Trigger 2 was working in WebGL over a year ago.

Theres actually tons of threads talking about WebGL, IL2CPP, asm.js and Chrome in general on the Unity forums. It's been a big topic over the last year or so. Unity has a few informative blog posts about it as well, which stirred up most of the discussions on the forum.
Products by Cleverous
|| Vault Core : Database
|| Vault Inventory : Multiplayer Inventory
|| Vault Attributes : Character Stats
|| That Hurt! : Dmg Floaties
|| Quinn : 3D