Performance of WebGL and OpenGL

Question

For the past month I've been messing with WebGL, and found that if I create and draw a large vertex buffer it causes low FPS. Does anyone know if it be the same if I used OpenGL with C++?

Is that a bottleneck with the language used (JavaScript in the case of WebGL) or the GPU?

WebGL examples like this show that you can draw 150,000 cubes using one buffer with good performance but anything more than this, I get FPS drops. Would that be the same with OpenGL, or would it be able to handle a larger buffer?

Basically, I've got to make a decision to continue using WebGL and try to optimise by code or - if you tell me OpenGL would perform better and it's a language speed bottleneck, switch to C++ and use OpenGL.

Answer 1

If you only have a single drawArrays call, there should not be much of a difference between OpenGL and WebGL for the call itself. However, setting up the data in Javascript might be a lot slower, so it really depends on your problem. If the bulk of your data is static (landscape, rooms), WebGL might work well for you. Otherwise, setting up the data in JS might be too slow for your purpose. It really depends on your problem.

p.s. If you include more details of what you are trying to do, you'll probably get more detailed / specific answers.