Vulkan 1.3 Released With Dynamic Rendering In Core, New Roadmap Guidance For Modern GPUs

[linuxgeex]

But the OpenGL ES 3.1 version benchmark ran okay and completed with a score output. Meanwhile the Vulkan benchmark couldn't show me a frame and dropped the ball in the middle of loading progress bar.

Yeah that sounds more like a software failure than a hardware failure. And being Android, there's no point reporting the failure this late in the product lifecycle as they won't be pushing fixes, even for a Pixel.

[billyswong]

It's also possible that your battery voltage is sagging under high load and making the phone unstable. It's a common problem with some phones 2+ years old. Try googling your model along with "battery" and "crash" to see whether it's a known issue. For example this was a well known problem with iphone 6plus and 7plus. Apple put out a patch to throttle the processors down and had a class action lawsuit when geekbench revealed the throttling, which ultimately led to them adding the "battery health" feature in settings, and starting a cost-subsidised battery replacement program.

But the OpenGL ES 3.1 version benchmark ran okay and completed with a score output. Meanwhile the Vulkan benchmark couldn't show me a frame and dropped the ball in the middle of loading progress bar.

[smitty3268]

flameshot-22-01-28-07-30-36.png
Gotta love the borken SAPM flitre on phoronix .

I've noticed the same thing a few times lately.

[linuxgeex]

Speaking of poor hardware

flameshot-22-01-28-07-30-36.png
Gotta love the borken SAPM flitre on phoronix .

[linuxgeex]

Speaking of poor hardware, today I got interested in the Vulkan conformance stuff and give my 5 years old phone a test of Vulkan. Capability viewer said it does support Vulkan, with "apiVersion 1.0.49". But if I test run 3DMark in Vulkan mode, the phone somewhat crashed, give me a black screen, and reboot if I press power button. Looks like either the phone got some serious conformance issue in the Vulkan driver, or 3DMark doesn't implement feature query and fallback well.

It's also possible that your battery voltage is sagging under high load and making the phone unstable. It's a common problem with some phones 2+ years old. Try googling your model along with "battery" and "crash" to see whether it's a known issue. For example this was a well known problem with iphone 6plus and 7plus. Apple put out a patch to throttle the processors down and had a class action lawsuit when geekbench revealed the throttling, which ultimately led to them adding the "battery health" feature in settings, and starting a cost-subsidised battery replacement program.

[Ladis]

Apple support their phones for a longer period but their phone models also keep producing and selling for a longer time. And they don't have native Vulkan so probably out of discussion here.

Updated Metal driver gives more possibilities to the MoltenVK wrapper. So unlike Android phones, Vulkan does get updated on iPhones.

[billyswong]

Interestingly they say they are making profiles mandatory for Vulkan 1.3 compliance. I say it's interesting because it's unclear whether profiles are based on capability and conformance (predictable performance), or conformance alone (software won't crash but performance isn't predictable.)

I get that profiles will be handy for creative developers. I'm just a bit confused where the line is drawn for system developers and marketers. I'm concerned how that ends up impacting end users and creators. Mostly because they keep claiming that they are fitting core into GLES3.1-class hardware, and there's some pretty poor GLES3.1-class hardware. Various Intel Atoms with PowerVR spring to mind.

Speaking of poor hardware, today I got interested in the Vulkan conformance stuff and give my 5 years old phone a test of Vulkan. Capability viewer said it does support Vulkan, with "apiVersion 1.0.49". But if I test run 3DMark in Vulkan mode, the phone somewhat crashed, give me a black screen, and reboot if I press power button. Looks like either the phone got some serious conformance issue in the Vulkan driver, or 3DMark doesn't implement feature query and fallback well.

For mobile ecosystem, It doesn't matter if they can fit the new spec into oldie-class hardware. Our old phones aren't receiving driver upgrade anyway. Phone makers are uninterested in supporting software upgrade perpetually for products they have already sold.

EDIT: Apple support their phones for a longer period but their phone models also keep producing and selling for a longer time. And they don't have native Vulkan so probably out of discussion here.

[boboviz]

Integration with OpenCl (or others gpgpu layer)? No news??

[linuxgeex]

The story they seem to paint is that it's being slowed in part because developers have trouble knowing which extensions they can safely count on. Profiles are designed to simplify this, greatly.

Extensions basically let them as a standards body say "Ok, you folks do what you want over on the side here and we'll let you call X implementation Vulkan so long as it passes this suite of tests. You can extend it and we won't have to promise that your extensions will be supported here or elsewhere in future."

So then for example, Wayland support can exist as an unsupported extension while developers A and B are coming up with a de-facto API based on their experiences trying to use it. A & B then contribute their work to Kronos for adoption, who then round-table the API with stakeholders. If they're lucky Kronos hires A or B to create a reference implementation and test suite for conformance and performance testing. That goes back to Kronos for evaluation and they schedule it for inclusion in their next stable API release.

I can't find any reference to their policy around stable release timing, but from their history, they seem to be doing a stable release in January every second year.

So I don't think there's any need to artificially slow the process down, lol.

Interestingly they say they are making profiles mandatory for Vulkan 1.3 compliance. I say it's interesting because it's unclear whether profiles are based on capability and conformance (predictable performance), or conformance alone (software won't crash but performance isn't predictable.)

I get that profiles will be handy for creative developers. I'm just a bit confused where the line is drawn for system developers and marketers. I'm concerned how that ends up impacting end users and creators. Mostly because they keep claiming that they are fitting core into GLES3.1-class hardware, and there's some pretty poor GLES3.1-class hardware. Various Intel Atoms with PowerVR spring to mind.

[billyswong]

That's what the profiles exist to solve. Google defined the Android profile, because most devices support common extensions beyond Vulkan 1.0, even though too many of them are still below 1.1-compliance.

So Vulkan Android profile is something like 1.05?