Open-Source Project Trying To Map Vulkan Onto Direct3D 12 & Metal

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Open-Source Project Trying To Map Vulkan Onto Direct3D 12 & Metal

While we are seeing exciting projects at the moment about mapping Direct3D 11 over Vulkan (as well as D3D9 and D3D12 over Vulkan projects too), there are new open-source projects for mapping Vulkan over Direct3D 12 and Metal...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Vulkan-Over-D3D12-Metal

[Mthw]

Why cant everyone just use Vulkan?

[SpyroRyder]

So i get the Vulkan to Metal one, much as I am for a freesoftware boycot of Apple this will make running certain thing on their devices easier. But why is there a Vulkan to DX12 translator? Everything that supports it can ALSO run Vulkan.

[shmerl]

although I believe all Windows 10 drivers that have Direct3D 12 support also have Vulkan drivers available. So the effectiveness there may be less, but an interesting technical exercise nevertheless.

Xbox is the key target for this. It has DX12, but no Vulkan support.

[davidbepo]

the only point for this will be broadwell and fermi users (both have dx12 but no vulkan on windows), and for fermi vulkan/dx12 is a huge perf loss so this is nigh-pointless

[dragon321]

I believe Vulkan to DX12 is for Xbox which has DX12 but not Vulkan. On PC it's pointless, because Windows support Vulkan as well. You can write game with Vulkan and easily port it to Xbox. Good idea.

[GreenByte]

D3D11 on Vulkan on D3D12 on Vulkan on Metal
The future is now.

[doublez13]

D3D11 on Vulkan on D3D12 on Vulkan on Metal
The future is now.

All running on WINE in a VM.

[sunweb]

All running on WINE in a VM.

And ofcourse, VM is running in a browser.

[yzsolt]

I believe Vulkan to DX12 is for Xbox which has DX12 but not Vulkan. On PC it's pointless, because Windows support Vulkan as well. You can write game with Vulkan and easily port it to Xbox. Good idea.

It's not entirely pointless on desktop Windows, since the UWP is DirectX 12 only there too. So if you want your game in the Windows Store for whatever reasons (and you want to have a single Vulkan renderer backend), a translation layer like this can definitely help.