VIDEO: Team Fortress 2 Running in Web Browser
A developer from Motorola Mobility has ported the 2Fort map from Team Fortress 2 over to WebGL.
Motorola Mobility software developer Brandon Jones has ported the 2Fort map from Team Fortress 2 over to WebGL, which runs without plug-ins in a compatible browser.
In the video demonstration posted below, Jones clearly points out that the conversion isn't perfect: it's missing normal mapping on brush surfaces, water, accurate lighting, surface displacement, and a 3D skybox. It's also not playable, but at this point, he's just happy to successfully port Valve's Source Engine over to WebGL.
According to Jones, the map is running a smooth 60fps in most cases, and even jumps up into 100fps -- it just may not look like 60fps in the video due to his capture software. Still, don't expect to play Team Fortress 2 via WebGL anytime soon, as this map alone uses 200 MB of assets that must be downloaded to the browser. No web server will want to host something of that size to be downloaded thousands of times a day, especially since it's just a test and not something profitable (yet).
Of course, because the content is owned by Valve Software, Jones will not be making a live demo of the map even if he did have the allotted bandwidth. As it stands now, he's providing the code on GitHub. That said, perhaps if an entire team could be put together to get Valve's Source completely up and running in WebGL, the studio might green light porting Team Fortress 2 over to the browser. What better why to reach out to a wider audience with your free-to-play shooter?
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Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
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Haserath I get 300 fps in many part of the game, and never drop below 150fps at max settings. Yeah, this is definitely a "complex" game compared to Crysis 2 or BF3 that can go down to 20fps on max settings.Reply
It's just not good enough yet to run the more intense games.
I still don't really want to run games in my browser; I would rather use Steam. -
Mark Heath I don't think they'd do a simple port of it, that wouldn't synergise well with steam. As it stands, TF2 is a great way to bring more customers to their platform, so if they instead put the whole thing into a browser based format, it would be counter productive.Reply -
bennaye Why bring a game into a browser? Rather than get frustrated with the lack of compatibility and bugs which are concomitant with A PORT TO A *WEB* *BROWSER*, I'd rather double click on the little picture with the TF2 logo, wait 15 seconds, then start playing with no issues, no lag, no FPS issues, and definitely no graphics issues.Reply
I don't want a web browser that is a "jack of all trades, master of none". I don't care if I have to run more than 1 program. That's what RAM is for. I'll open a window for gaming, and I'll use my web browser for browsing. Period. Just concentrate on giving us the best web browsing experience, and your market share will rise.
A web browser is just that: a web browser. Don't do this. TF2 deserves better. -
DSpider bennaye, bennaye, bennaye... Try double clicking on the "little picture with the TF2 logo" ON LINUX. Or on iOS, Android. Just because you use Windows now (like the rest ~90% or so) doesn't mean that in 5 years+ everyone will run Windows 8 on quad-core tablets, smartphones. It's actually not a bad idea to have a standard for games that is entirely cross-platform. Developers could create ONE version instead of having to port it over to other systems (especially since there's a big risk that the port will get less attention and that it could SUCK big time).Reply -
NuclearShadow I think it's neat to see how far we can push gaming within a browser.Reply
I don't think TF2 itself should be made into one, I would much prefer if a spinoff Team Fortress was made uniquely for it. I believe this would bring the best experience to the players in the end. -
jkflipflop98 dspiderbennaye, bennaye, bennaye... Try double clicking on the "little picture with the TF2 logo" ON LINUX. Or on iOS, Android. Just because you use Windows now (like the rest ~90% or so) doesn't mean that in 5 years+ everyone will run Windows 8 on quad-core tablets, smartphones. It's actually not a bad idea to have a standard for games that is entirely cross-platform. Developers could create ONE version instead of having to port it over to other systems (especially since there's a big risk that the port will get less attention and that it could SUCK big time).Reply
Yeah, it's called Java. We see how well that worked out.