React Native WebGPU

React Native implementation of WebGPU using Dawn. This is currently a technical preview for early adopters.

React Native WebGPU requires React Native 0.81 or newer and doesn't run on legacy architecture.

Installation

Please note that the package name is react-native-wgpu.

npm install react-native-wgpu

Note that if you use pnpm, you MUST use a node-linker = hoisted so that the external reference to the Dawn webgpu library can successfully link it.

Below are some examples from the example app.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/116a41b2-2cf8-49f1-9f16-a5c83637c198

Starting from r168, Three.js runs out of the box with React Native WebGPU. You need to have a slight modification of the metro config to resolve Three.js to the WebGPU build. We also support react-three-fiber; to make it work, patch node_modules/@react-three/fiber/package.json (for instance via patch-package) so that it resolves to the WebGPU entry point instead of the React Native bundle:

diff --git a/node_modules/@react-three/fiber/package.json b/node_modules/@react-three/fiber/package.json
@@
-  "react-native": "native/dist/react-three-fiber-native.cjs.js",
+  "react-native": "dist/react-three-fiber.cjs.js",

For model loading, we also need the following polyfill.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/5b49ef63-0a3c-4679-aeb5-e4b4dddfcc1d

We also provide prebuilt binaries for visionOS and macOS.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/2d5c618e-5b15-4cef-8558-d4ddf8c70667

Diagnostics

Two diagnostic screens were added to the example app so you can reproduce the issues highlighted in the code review:

• Async Runner Starvation (apps/example/src/Diagnostics/AsyncStarvation.tsx) shows that a zero-delay setTimeout never fires before device.createRenderPipelineAsync() resolves because the event loop is kept busy. Launch the example app and open the screen from the home list to observe the stalled timer.
• Device Lost Promise Hang (apps/example/src/Diagnostics/DeviceLostHang.tsx) forces a synthetic device loss by calling the native forceLossForTesting() helper. On the current build the device.lost promise remains pending indefinitely, confirming that the loss callback is never delivered once pumping stops.

Usage

Usage is identical to Web.

import React from "react";
import { StyleSheet, View, PixelRatio } from "react-native";
import { Canvas, CanvasRef } from "react-native-wgpu";

import { redFragWGSL, triangleVertWGSL } from "./triangle";

export function HelloTriangle() {
  const ref = useRef<CanvasRef>(null);
  useEffect(() => {
    const helloTriangle = async () => {
      const adapter = await navigator.gpu.requestAdapter();
      if (!adapter) {
        throw new Error("No adapter");
      }
      const device = await adapter.requestDevice();
      const presentationFormat = navigator.gpu.getPreferredCanvasFormat();

      const context = ref.current!.getContext("webgpu")!;
      const canvas = context.canvas as HTMLCanvasElement;
      canvas.width = canvas.clientWidth * PixelRatio.get();
      canvas.height = canvas.clientHeight * PixelRatio.get();

      if (!context) {
        throw new Error("No context");
      }

      context.configure({
        device,
        format: presentationFormat,
        alphaMode: "opaque",
      });

      const pipeline = device.createRenderPipeline({
        layout: "auto",
        vertex: {
          module: device.createShaderModule({
            code: triangleVertWGSL,
          }),
          entryPoint: "main",
        },
        fragment: {
          module: device.createShaderModule({
            code: redFragWGSL,
          }),
          entryPoint: "main",
          targets: [
            {
              format: presentationFormat,
            },
          ],
        },
        primitive: {
          topology: "triangle-list",
        },
      });

      const commandEncoder = device.createCommandEncoder();

      const textureView = context.getCurrentTexture().createView();

      const renderPassDescriptor: GPURenderPassDescriptor = {
        colorAttachments: [
          {
            view: textureView,
            clearValue: [0, 0, 0, 1],
            loadOp: "clear",
            storeOp: "store",
          },
        ],
      };

      const passEncoder = commandEncoder.beginRenderPass(renderPassDescriptor);
      passEncoder.setPipeline(pipeline);
      passEncoder.draw(3);
      passEncoder.end();

      device.queue.submit([commandEncoder.finish()]);

      context.present();
    };
    helloTriangle();
  }, [ref]);

  return (
    <View style={style.container}>
      <Canvas ref={ref} style={style.webgpu} />
    </View>
  );
}

const style = StyleSheet.create({
  container: {
    flex: 1,
  },
  webgpu: {
    flex: 1,
  },
});

Example App

To run the example app you first need to install Dawn.

From there you will be able to run the example app properly.

Similarities and Differences with the Web

The API has been designed to be completely symmetric with the Web. For instance, you can access the WebGPU context synchronously, as well as the canvas size. Pixel density and canvas resizing are handled exactly like on the Web as well.

// The default canvas size is not scaled to the device pixel ratio
// When resizing the canvas, the clientWidth and clientHeight are updated automatically
// This behaviour is symmetric to the Web
const ctx = canvas.current.getContext("webgpu")!;
ctx.canvas.width = ctx.canvas.clientWidth * PixelRatio.get();
ctx.canvas.height = ctx.canvas.clientHeight * PixelRatio.get();

Frame Scheduling

In React Native, we want to keep frame presentation as a manual operation as we plan to provide more advanced rendering options that are React Native specific. This means that when you are ready to present a frame, you need to call present on the context.

// draw
// submit to the queue
device.queue.submit([commandEncoder.finish()]);
// This method is React Native only
context.present();

External Textures

This module provides a createImageBitmap function that you can use in copyExternalImageToTexture.

const url = Image.resolveAssetSource(require("./assets/image.png")).uri;
const response = await fetch(url);
const imageBitmap = await createImageBitmap(await response.blob());

const texture = device.createTexture({
  size: [imageBitmap.width, imageBitmap.height, 1],
  format: "rgba8unorm",
  usage:
    GPUTextureUsage.TEXTURE_BINDING |
    GPUTextureUsage.COPY_DST |
    GPUTextureUsage.RENDER_ATTACHMENT,
});
device.queue.copyExternalImageToTexture(
  { source: imageBitmap },
  { texture },
  [imageBitmap.width, imageBitmap.height],
);

Troubleshooting

iOS

To run the React Native WebGPU project on the iOS simulator, you need to disable the Metal validation API.
In "Edit Scheme," uncheck "Metal Validation". Learn more here.

Library Development

Make sure to check out the submodules:

git submodule update --init

Make sure you have all the tools required for building the Skia libraries (Android Studio, XCode, Ninja, CMake, Android NDK/build tools).

Installing Dawn

There is an alternative way which is to install the prebuilt binaries from GitHub.

$ yarn
$ cd packages/webgpu
$ yarn install-dawn

Building Dawn

Alternatively, you can build Dawn locally.

yarn
cd packages/webgpu
yarn build-dawn

Upgrading

1. git submodule update --remote
2. yarn clean-dawn
3. yarn build-dawn

Codegen

• cd packages/webgpu && yarn codegen

Testing

In the package folder, to run the test against Chrome for reference:

yarn test:ref

To run the e2e test, open the example app on the e2e screen.
By default, it will try to connect to a localhost test server.
If you want to run the test suite on a physical device, you can modify the address here.

yarn test