The Vulkan & SPIR-V Presentations From NVIDIA GTC 2015

[johnc]

The Vulkan announcement spoke of support for consoles. I think we can all agree that Xbox is highly unlikely to support Vulkan. That leaves either PlayStation or Steam Machines if that latter even count as consoles rather than PCs.

They're probably referring to Steam Machines and Android crap.

[smitty3268]

They're probably referring to Steam Machines and Android crap.

Valve was deeply involved in both the creation and announcement of Vulkan. It was almost certainly referring to their Steam machines.

[Marc Driftmeyer]

According to xylef here, it's version support is now at OpenCL 1.2. So, it looks like it's moving. What exactly do you use OpenCL for in Linux? (just curious)

I wonder though, why does there seem to be a lack of news regarding AMD and Vulkan? The first Vulkan driver we have is an Intel one. I thought AMD had the upper hand here since Vulkan is based off AMD's Mantle. Does anyone have AMD specific news regarding their Vulkan efforts? The only thing I've seen so far is from Graham Sellers explaining Vulkan on Khronos's Youtube channel.

Bullet Physics, LuxRender, Blender Cycles, COMSOL 5, GIMP + Gegl Trunk, etc.

[Luke_Wolf]

What does Vulkan have to do with the PS4?

Maybe in that a certain company by the name of Sony who just happens to also produce the PS4 had it's name stamped in large on the Vulkan Presentation, I don't know that might be a clue. Or maybe they just decided to be involved and stamp their name on there for shits and giggles. That totally makes sense.

[johnc]

Maybe in that a certain company by the name of Sony who just happens to also produce the PS4 had it's name stamped in large on the Vulkan Presentation, I don't know that might be a clue. Or maybe they just decided to be involved and stamp their name on there for shits and giggles. That totally makes sense.

Yeah. Know who else was stamped on that presentation slide? Lucasfilm, Pixar and Continental Tire. Do they make PlayStations too?

[smitty3268]

Maybe in that a certain company by the name of Sony who just happens to also produce the PS4 had it's name stamped in large on the Vulkan Presentation, I don't know that might be a clue. Or maybe they just decided to be involved and stamp their name on there for shits and giggles. That totally makes sense.

Their involvement is almost certainly based on their Android phone/tablet division, not PS4.

[Luke_Wolf]

Yeah. Know who else was stamped on that presentation slide? Lucasfilm, Pixar and Continental Tire. Do they make PlayStations too?

Are you really just that stupid?

LucasFilm and Pixar are big Film studios and their names being on their is effectively an endorsement that they're going to be using Vulkan in their software, Contintental Tires I would imagine has skin in the game related to running simulations in their development of new and better tires.

If Sony isn't doing this for their gaming division pray tell what exactly are they doing it for? Their Vaio Division? Nope, they've got no interest in computer gaming. Their handset division? don't make me laugh. The only thing that makes any sense for Sony to do it for is their Gaming, which is to say their Playstation divsion, which happens to have a system that is using an APU that you know just happens to be perfectly suited for Vulkan. I mean after all let's think about those goals for Vulkan again: Low CPU overhead, and easy multithreading... hm... an 8 core netbook CPU hooked up to a 2 TFLOP GPU. Do I need to paint a picture for you or can you connect the dots yourself?

[Luke_Wolf]

Their involvement is almost certainly based on their Android phone/tablet division, not PS4.

Quite frankly bullshit. Sony doesn't care that much about the Android ecosystem. Sony does however care a lot about games and their game platform which is to say PS4 division.

[Luke_Wolf]

In case people didn't quite get it

http://www.knowyourmobile.com/sony/sony-xperia-z3/22879/sony-cut-xperia-line-order-focus-ps4-camera-division-profits

Sony cares so much about their android division that they're planning on cutting it down significantly, in order to focus on the PS4, and Cameras.

[johnc]

Are you really just that stupid?

LucasFilm and Pixar are big Film studios and their names being on their is effectively an endorsement that they're going to be using Vulkan in their software, Contintental Tires I would imagine has skin in the game related to running simulations in their development of new and better tires.

If Sony isn't doing this for their gaming division pray tell what exactly are they doing it for? Their Vaio Division? Nope, they've got no interest in computer gaming. Their handset division? don't make me laugh. The only thing that makes any sense for Sony to do it for is their Gaming, which is to say their Playstation divsion, which happens to have a system that is using an APU that you know just happens to be perfectly suited for Vulkan. I mean after all let's think about those goals for Vulkan again: Low CPU overhead, and easy multithreading... hm... an 8 core netbook CPU hooked up to a 2 TFLOP GPU. Do I need to paint a picture for you or can you connect the dots yourself?

lol

PS4 already has a "low-level" API, which AMD claims was the trigger for Mantle.

Could Vulkan end up there? Sure. But the claim that it was a slam-dunk against DX12 because the PS4 is getting Vulkan is ridiculous. There has been no such announcement.

The same reasons LucasFilm and Pixar are backing Khronos could be applied to Sony as well. Sony is a gigantic company; it's not like all they make are PlayStations. They have a huge media / entertainment business, they are in the mobile device industry, and they have a VR headset, amongst a whole bunch of other tech crap.