Okay, so we're not quite at the point where you're going to be playing the next Crysis sequel in your browser, but still -- the arrival of WebGL in Chrome's beta channel is kind of a big deal. Apart from being able to play around with cool demos like the ones offered up by Google in its official announcement, WebGL is another important step in bringing more desktop-like functionality to the Web.

In addition to cloud-y 3D support, hardware acceleration support is due to arrive at some point -- presumably before Chrome 9 gets pushed to the stable channel. Whether or not that will happen remains to be seen, but we'll know soon enough thanks to the six-week release cycle.

Check your Chrome wrench icon for the update notification, or hit About Google Chrome to force a check.

Anyone else up for some WebGL Quake action?

WebGL has arrived in Google Chrome Beta; get your gaming hardware ready! originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 11:00:00 EST.