Zink Is Ending 2021 In Fantastic Shape For OpenGL Over Vulkan

[wertigon]

Really by the mesamatrix progress on dx12 opengl backend it does not look like microsoft is putting the serous funding it. Please note we are not talking massive serous funding here. Zink is one valve paid full time developer at core. Either Collabora is pocketing a lot of Microsoft cash or Microsoft is simply not paying to have a decent open-gl implementation on top of DX12.

Not quite so simple - Zink utilizes gallium3D to do a *lot* of the heavy lifting. Since the Windows driver model does not have anything similar, it takes a lot of time to reimplement that from scratch.

But yes, they could easily have gotten farther than they actually have IMO...

[AdamOne]

Okay, so we have now a second API thats kindof as quick as OpenGL, but still will never be faster than it.

So whats the point of Zink then?

[oiaohm]

Okay, so we have now a second API thats kindof as quick as OpenGL, but still will never be faster than it.

So whats the point of Zink then?

One Zink is Opengl. Just it opengl that using a vulkan backend instead of going straight to native drivers.

Zink vs AMD Radeon Gallium3D is a up hill battle for Zink to win because Zink is also Gallium3D based so any improvement in Gallium3D both sides get and AMD open source drivers have a lot larger team to optimise stuff. Same is going to apply to Intel mostly.

There is a catch when you get outside Amd and Intel in open source drivers you don't have large numbers of developers. Yes Zink has a full time developer and this is more than most. Most open source graphics drivers have a part time developer yes this is your Qualcomm , Vivante, Broadcom and Arm GPU drivers. Yes your Qualcomm and Broadcom driver developers have to split their time between the Vulkan part of their driver and the opengl part. This is the real world picture.

Now zink is way faster than using software emulation of opengl. It is very possible for Qualcomm and Broadcom vulkan to allow Zink to provide more opengl features than the native opengl driver for those GPU support and this is a direct effect of only so many developers hours to go round.

Next native open source Nvidia drivers unless some cooperation comes from Nvidia are never going to be fast.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Zink-NVIDIA-Faster-Than-GL

Without Nvidia deciding to invest more money into their closed source opengl drivers there is a real possibility that all Nvidia opengl options will be slower than Zink using the Vulkan part of their driver set. Yes closed source nvidia opengl drivers don't gain from the cooperative development. Yes this is the same for fairly much all the closed source opengl drivers in existence.

The reality will be if your hardware support Vulkan and you are doing closed source drivers long term is it going to come pointless to provide a closed source opengl as well for the simple reason you will not have enough developer hours to maintain a closed source opengl driver at a better quality and performance level than Zink. Yes the open source drivers based around Gallium3D will have decent chance competitive against zink because of the shared development.

Closed source drivers for opengl are in fact a nightmare to Valve as well. Valve has a huge collection of legacy games they are legally allowed to sell. Large numbers use opengl. Valve does not want the case that they cannot sell X game to a user because some closed source opengl driver has implemented something differently so the game does not work.

Think about this as well if all the opengl drivers Valve has to deal with end up being Galluim3d based this would result in less testing costs.

AdamOne there is a lot of points to why Zink. Yes this benchmark here is the most adverse conditions for zink. Yes less adverse is benchmarking against Nvidia opengl.

[Guest]

I can play Runescape (the main game) at 60 FPS with Zink on a RX 580 seemingly without any corruption or issue. It doesn't seem any better than just using OpenGL, but still pretty cool