GRVK 0.2 Continues Advancing This AMD Mantle To Vulkan Translation Layer

[phoronix]

Phoronix: GRVK 0.2 Continues Advancing This AMD Mantle To Vulkan Translation Layer

While there aren't too many Windows games out there still popular and supporting AMD's Mantle graphics API that was the precursor to Vulkan, open-source developer Clément Guérin continues work on his "GRVK" initiative for mapping Mantle on top of Vulkan as a learning exercise and for allowing those still relevant Mantle-supported games to in turn run on Vulkan...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GRVK-0.2-Mantle-To-Vulkan

[GruenSein]

Before people start criticizing how useless they find this project, I just want to say that I find it impressive how some people are able to reverse engineer such complex software and I hope he learns a ton while doing so!

[WolfpackN64]

Before people start criticizing how useless they find this project, I just want to say that I find it impressive how some people are able to reverse engineer such complex software and I hope he learns a ton while doing so!

There will always be edge cases where a game or piece of software uses an older graphics API, mapping these older API's over a single API probably removes a lot of headache from these edgecases or older programs, so it certainly isn't useless. I wonder if there is a similar project for Glide games?

[schmidtbag]

There will always be edge cases where a game or piece of software uses an older graphics API, mapping these older API's over a single API probably removes a lot of headache from these edgecases or older programs, so it certainly isn't useless. I wonder if there is a similar project for Glide games?

Well... could be the case if there was something [worth playing] that was Mantle-only. I'm not sure such a thing exists.

[RavFX]

There will always be edge cases where a game or piece of software uses an older graphics API, mapping these older API's over a single API probably removes a lot of headache from these edgecases or older programs, so it certainly isn't useless. I wonder if there is a similar project for Glide games?

Yes, many Glide wrapper existed in the past, I think most of these projects are dead but I did repackage radeon drivers to include one of these back in the good old days. Not sure if a glide2vk one will ever append. Don't forget that most if not all these games where made in the pre-ASLR era and won't work with modern Linux distribution without disabling some of these safety features.

[skeevy420]

Well... could be the case if there was something [worth playing] that was Mantle-only. I'm not sure such a thing exists.

IIRC, most Mantle games are also DX11 games because it doesn't make fiscal sense to make an AMD-only game. Battlefield 4 is one of the more prominent and promoted Mantle titles that's also still being played online today and works on Linux in its current form with DXVK and Wine. I prefer it more than the Battlefield games that came afterwards.

I looked it up so here's a shameless copy of Mantle games from Wikipedia.:

• Battlefield 4^[30]
• Battlefield Hardline
• Thief
• Star Citizen^[31][32]
• Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare
• Civilization: Beyond Earth^[33]
• Dragon Age: Inquisition
• Sniper Elite III^[34]

[boxie]

Yes, many Glide wrapper existed in the past, I think most of these projects are dead but I did repackage radeon drivers to include one of these back in the good old days. Not sure if a glide2vk one will ever append. Don't forget that most if not all these games where made in the pre-ASLR era and won't work with modern Linux distribution without disabling some of these safety features.

I just found this https://www.zeus-software.com/downloads/nglide - which looks like it has a vulkan backend

[RavFX]

I just found this https://www.zeus-software.com/downloads/nglide - which looks like it has a vulkan backend

Nice to know, thanks!

It's for Windows, that explain why it work! (Windows have ASLR optional / per application) and so old non ASLR softwares still work fine without needing to turn it off system wide.