Mesa Vulkan Drivers Reach An Inflection Point: Idea Raised To Be More Like Gallium3D

[Daktyl198]

Only that D3D12 has a runtime too, which games even ship their own version of to make use of new D3D12 features on older versions of Windows 10 (D3D12Core.dll), and has tons of optional features, I think we are at version 19 of the D3D12_FEATURE_DATA_D3D12_OPTIONS struct now. The shader model also got a bunch of extensions and is at version 6.8 now. It's pretty much the same thing as vulkan extensions.

Updates to an API or shader model are expected, but DirectX is much more picky about the updates. Not only in how often they release updates, but the amount of added content in each update. Vulkan basically just pulls in every single extension ever proposed, and updates frequently. It's already much more trouble to sort through the documentation for Vulkan than it is for DX12, and as time goes on it's only going to get worse. Just like DX11 vs OpenGL.

OpenGL was every bit as good as DX11 for actually rendering things, but it was a fucking mess to use and implement. That's why bugs in OpenGL drivers are still being found to this day, like AMD's 20% performance uplift on their Windows drivers a year ago. That's why Apple dropped out of using Vulkan as their graphics API for modern macOS versions, they were scarred from choosing to use OpenGL and saw the writing on the wall with Vulkan.

[Yndoendo]

That's why Apple dropped out of using Vulkan as their graphics API for modern macOS versions, they were scarred from choosing to use OpenGL and saw the writing on the wall with Vulkan.

Time lines are a little skew. AMD created Mantle which gave way to Apple creating Metai. Vulkan came two years latter.

Apple wants full control from hardware to driver. This is Metal. Asahi mentioned that it's the whole reason Mesa shared is different and takes more time.

Microsoft also does not really want to give up DirectX control either. Does Xbox have any customized DX extensions that are not present in Windows?

[qarium]

I have a really stupid question isn't this Galium3D-style-Vulkan not int he end something we get with WebGPU ==?????

i mean wasn't it not the reason why apple rejected vulkan and is all in for a WebGPU solution ?

why is MESA not implement a WebGPU driver ?

[lucrus]

I have a really stupid question isn't this Galium3D-style-Vulkan not int he end something we get with WebGPU ==?????

i mean wasn't it not the reason why apple rejected vulkan and is all in for a WebGPU solution ?

why is MESA not implement a WebGPU driver ?

Please don't get me wrong, but I really don't understand whether you are trolling or asking for real. WebGPU is not a replacement for Vulkan: they serve entirely different purposes. And Mesa has nothing to do with a "WebGPU driver", even assuming a "WebGPU driver" were actually a thing...

[schmidtbag]

While I think this makes sense in principle, isn't one of the things that makes Vulkan more efficient that it's much more hardware-specific? I don't know if it makes sense to make a Gallium3D-equivalent if it either sacrifices efficiency or hardware-specific code will be needed anyway.

I think it's probably still not the right time to go consolidating more of the Vulkan drivers. They are progressing quickly enough as it is in my view.

Wouldn't that actually be a compelling reason to do it now? Think butterfly effect - if they grow too quickly and independently, they might become so different as they won't be compatible anymore.

[user1]

like AMD's 20% performance uplift on their Windows drivers a year ago.

Except that wasn't a mere performance uplift. It's an entirely new OpenGL driver built on AMD's more modern PAL architecture for user space drivers. The reason it was created is because their old OpenGL driver sucked so bad, that it was probably easier to just create a new driver than fix the old one.

That's why Apple dropped out of using Vulkan as their graphics API for modern macOS versions, they were scarred from choosing to use OpenGL and saw the writing on the wall with Vulkan.

Where did you get this wrong info? Apple has never implemented Vulkan api in MacOS. Also, they're own Metal API was released at least a year before Vulkan.

[shmerl]

Updates to an API or shader model are expected, but DirectX is much more picky about the updates. Not only in how often they release updates, but the amount of added content in each update. Vulkan basically just pulls in every single extension ever proposed, and updates frequently. It's already much more trouble to sort through the documentation for Vulkan than it is for DX12, and as time goes on it's only going to get worse. Just like DX11 vs OpenGL.

OpenGL was every bit as good as DX11 for actually rendering things, but it was a fucking mess to use and implement. That's why bugs in OpenGL drivers are still being found to this day, like AMD's 20% performance uplift on their Windows drivers a year ago. That's why Apple dropped out of using Vulkan as their graphics API for modern macOS versions, they were scarred from choosing to use OpenGL and saw the writing on the wall with Vulkan.

Nope, Apple are just lock-in jerks. Their API decisions have nothing to do with the above.

[microcode]

Wouldn't that actually be a compelling reason to do it now? Think butterfly effect - if they grow too quickly and independently, they might become so different as they won't be compatible anymore.

That was in principle much of the reason for Vulkan to exist in the first place; for most of the driver to be device-/architecture-specific.

[mdedetrich]

I suppose it will be called Vanadium.

How about Valium3D, kinda rolls of the tongue

[mdedetrich]

Vulkan is already ruined, and is only going to get worse with time. There's a reason developers preferred DX11 to OpenGL, and it's the same reason they prefer DX12 to Vulkan. Extensions ruin the entire point of a stable, developer-friendly API. It's so bad that apparently, Vulkan is now considered high-level enough to have a RUNTIME beneath it. Like wtf? The whole point of Vulkan was that it was at or below the Gallium runtime level.

I don't think you properly understand the context of high level vs low level that this article is talking about. Vulkan is not a high level API in the same way OpenGL/DX<=11 is. Also the reason why DirectX beat OpenGL is not because one is high level and the other is low level, its because OpenGL was basically a mess for a lot of its life where as Microsoft went out of its way to make DirectX a pleasant API to code against (and this is what John Carmack alluded to when he the famous DirectX is better than OpenGL statement in the past)