# Introducing Skia Graphite: Chrome's rasterization backend for the future

DevFeed: [Introducing Skia Graphite: Chrome's rasterization backend for the future](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/introducing-skia-graphite-chrome-s-rasterization-backend-for-the-future-4195.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://blog.chromium.org/2025/07/introducing-skia-graphite-chromes.html>)

Author: Chromium Blog (noreply@blogger.com)

Published: 2025-07-08T17:46:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Chromium Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/chromium-blog.md>)

Topics: [Chrome](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/chrome.md>), [GPU](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/gpu.md>), [Interaction to Next Paint](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/interaction-to-next-paint.md>), [browser](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/browser.md>), [OpenGL](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/opengl.md>), [shaders](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/shaders.md>), [Web](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/web.md>), [glsl](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/glsl.md>)

Tags: [chrome](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/chrome.md>), [gpu](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/gpu.md>), [graphics](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/graphics.md>), [graphics-apis](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/graphics-apis.md>), [interaction-to-next-paint](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/interaction-to-next-paint.md>), [multithreading](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/multithreading.md>), [none](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/none.md>), [performance](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/performance.md>), [render](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/render.md>), [screen](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/screen.md>), [shaders](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/shaders.md>), [the-fast-and-the-curious](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/the-fast-and-the-curious.md>), [vulkan](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/vulkan.md>), [web](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/web.md>)

## AI overview

The article introduces Skia Graphite, a new GPU rasterization backend for Chrome on Apple Silicon Macs. Graphite uses fewer code paths, supports modern graphics APIs such as Metal, Vulkan, and D3D12, and is multithreaded by default. It improved Motionmark 1.3 scores by almost 15% on a MacBook Pro M3 and improved several real-world performance metrics.

## Source excerpt

Today's The Fast and the Curious post covers the launch of Skia's new rasterization backend, Graphite, in Chrome on Apple Silicon Macs. Graphite is instrumental in helping Chrome achieve exceptional scores on Motionmark 1.3 and is key to unlocking a ton of future improvements in Chrome Graphics. A brief history of Skia in Chrome In Chrome, Skia is used to render paint commands from Blink and the browser UI into pixels on your screen, a process called rasterization. Skia has powered Chrome Graphics since the very beginning. Skia eventually ran into performance issues as the web evolved and became more complex, which led Chrome and Skia to invest in a GPU accelerated rasterization backend called Ganesh. Over the years, Ganesh matured into a solid highly performant rasterization backend and GPU rasterization launched on all platforms in Chrome on top of GL (via ANGLE on Windows D3D9/11). However, Ganesh always had a GL-centric design with too many specialized code paths and the team was hitting a wall when trying to implement optimizations that took advantage of modern graphics APIs in a principled manner. This set the stage for the team to rethink GPU rasterization from the ground up in the form of a new rasterization backend, Graphite. Graphite was developed from the start to be principled by having fewer and more comprehensible code paths. This forward looking design helps take advantage of modern graphics APIs like Metal, Vulkan and D3D12 and paradigms like compute based path rasterization, and is multithreaded by default. Results With Graphite in Chrome, we increased our Motionmark 1.3 scores by almost 15% on a Macbook Pro M3. At the same time, we improved real world metrics like INP (interaction to next paint time), LCP (time to largest contentful paint), graphics smoothness (percent dropped frames), GPU process malloc memory usage, and others. This all means substantially smoother interactions, less stutter when scrolling, and less time waiting for sites to show