Confirmed: Vulkan Is The Next-Gen Graphics API

[blackout23]

Anyway, there simply isn't a chance that my current GPU will ever have Vulkan support, but I am incredibly excited about it-- this might be the year I put together a new computer.

I wonder how they will accommodate for the fact that graphics architectures are different between vendors and hardware features might be added and dropped in future GPUs. What if my game wants feature B that isn't available anymore on a modern card in 4 years?

I'm hoping I can get some more life out of my GTX 580. With the reduced overhead of the new APIs my i7 2600K @ 4,5 Ghz should still be pretty future proof.

[log0]

The only thing bugging me now is, how long the open source drivers will take to get Vulkan supported.

[smitty3268]

LOL at everyone here who seems to think that OpenGL is some easy to use high level API.

Vulkan is going to be just as "high level" as GL, it will just have some additional low-level methods you can optionally choose to use (plus, hopefully getting rid of all the cruft).

[Prescience500]

People keep talking about how Vulkan is meant to replace OpenGL and OpenGL ES, but didn't anyone notice the following quote? "OpenGL and OpenGL ES will continue to evolve." That makes it sound like they at least plan continue new OpenGL versions alongside Vulkan.

[xeekei]

Didn't Mantle use HLSL shaders? Will Vulkan adopt GLSL or something new? Or maybe there isn't a legal reason to not use HLSL?

[smitty3268]

People keep talking about how Vulkan is meant to replace OpenGL and OpenGL ES, but didn't anyone notice the following quote? "OpenGL and OpenGL ES will continue to evolve." That makes it sound like they at least plan continue new OpenGL versions alongside Vulkan.

I noticed that. I guess we'll need to wait to see what happens. It was inevitable that they were going to say something like that, because OpenGL and GLES were going to stick around for backwards compatibility no matter what, and they don't want to make it seem like they've just abandoned those APIs. I hope that's largely the extent of their continuing "evolution", however, and that all the new stuff is really focused around Vulkan.

[lowflyer]

Lol

... even though phoronix is the leading source for linux opengl/graphics information ...

rotfl

[GreatEmerald]

LOL at everyone here who seems to think that OpenGL is some easy to use high level API.

Vulkan is going to be just as "high level" as GL, it will just have some additional low-level methods you can optionally choose to use (plus, hopefully getting rid of all the cruft).

Oh? Do you mean the static pipeline will still be available, and we still won't need to bother with all this shader stuff for simple tasks?

[mdias]

LOL at everyone here who seems to think that OpenGL is some easy to use high level API.

Vulkan is going to be just as "high level" as GL, it will just have some additional low-level methods you can optionally choose to use (plus, hopefully getting rid of all the cruft).

Well, it will be lower level... We don't even need to see the specs to get to that conclusion, all the other "next gen" APIs are too.
We will most likely need to manage memory, descriptors, command buffers and so on. All of these are currently managed by the driver/opengl implementation.

Oh? Do you mean the static pipeline will still be available, and we still won't need to bother with all this shader stuff for simple tasks?

Oh, I highly doubt that.

[GreatEmerald]

Oh, I highly doubt that.

Exactly. Therefore a high-level wrapper will be needed. Something more complex than what SDL offers itself (which is very limited pixel manipulation) and something less complex than having to write shaders just to get a point sprite or a gradient.