gridcraft/docs/hardware-parity.md

Hardware parity

Last reviewed: 2026-10-10 · Last updated: 2026-10-11 · Change: trivial (Windows DirectX 12 shaders with FXC, #339) · Target: Microsoft Excel (Microsoft 365), Excel for Mac 16.113.4

The hardware Excel uses, per platform, against GridCraft. Part of target-app-parity.md. Hardware: ~40% ready, 25–40 h (estimated).

Hardware feature	Excel	GridCraft (macOS · Windows · Linux · BSD · web)	Gap and estimate
Multi-core recalculation	Multi-threaded recalculation on all cores (Windows and Mac), configurable thread count	Single-threaded everywhere (no threading in crates/calc)	Parallel recalc of independent dependency chains on native builds; WASM stays single-threaded or uses workers later: 12–18 h
GPU rendering of the grid and charts	DirectX / Metal accelerated drawing	wgpu: Metal · DirectX 12 (default since 10-08; OpenGL when DirectX 12 has no GPU driver or fails to start; Vulkan only on request, so the Intel UHD igvk64.dll crash (#120) can't happen; shaders compiled with FXC, so no DXC runtime is needed, #339) · Vulkan/GL · Vulkan/GL · WebGPU or WebGL2	At parity in kind. Driver problems: screen flashing on Windows 11 (#76): 2–4 h
Pen and touch (Draw tab)	Pen pressure and tilt, eraser end, touch mode, Ink to Shape, ink replay	Pen, highlighter, eraser, Ink to Shape with mouse/pen input; no pressure or tilt, no touch mode	Pressure-sensitive strokes where winit reports force; touch-friendly ribbon spacing: 4–6 h
Trackpad and mouse	Smooth scrolling, pinch zoom, horizontal scroll, Magic Mouse	Smooth scrolling and zoom via egui	Verify pinch zoom on each platform: 1–2 h
Multiple windows and monitors	One window per workbook, New Window for the same workbook, per-monitor DPI	One window; multiple workbooks switch inside it (#162; PR #171)	Native window per workbook, New Window, Arrange All across monitors: 6–8 h
High-DPI and display scaling	yes	yes (display scale matched to desktop density; View › Interface size 75–200 % on top, #230)	—
Accessibility hardware (screen readers, braille displays, switch control)	Narrator, JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver	AccessKit enabled in eframe; grid cells and ribbon not yet exposed as an accessible tree	Counted under UI (ui-parity.md)
Printers	System print with driver options	Desktop prints through the system dialog via PDF; web exports only	Counted under print

Revision history

Date	Change	Summary
2026-10-11	trivial	Windows: DirectX 12 shaders compiled with FXC, no DXC runtime needed (#339, #354)
2026-10-11	trivial	Windows: OpenGL fallback when DirectX 12 has no GPU or fails to start; Vulkan never by default (#120)
2026-10-10	major	Created: single-threaded calc, wgpu rendering, no pen pressure, single window