Khronos Debuts OpenGL ES 3.2 & New GL Extensions, But No Vulkan This Week

[johnc]

I rather wonder if there will be feature sets and capability levels (like with DirectX) for Vulkan 1.0. Or if my 580 will be able to take advantage of Vulkan just as much as a 980 Ti.
They have to introduce something like this, since the API is supposed to span from mobile devices to powerful desktops and an ARM GPU really is something different from a Titan X.

The AnandTech article indicates that there will be feature sets but they'll be defined at the platform level. Either way there is definitely hardware features on Maxwell that aren't on Fermi so some things won't be available on older hardware.

[Ancurio]

Well, Direct3D12 is out already. We fucking lost.

[duby229]

Well, Direct3D12 is out already. We fucking lost.

That's just not true. Any game engine that implemen ts Vulkan is a win. Seems like almost all will..... So, huge win in fact. This is the best position that gaming on linux has ever been in.

[dungeon]

Well, Direct3D12 is out already. We fucking lost.

Who are we? Anandtech article mentioned everybody to define their feature set... that sounds to me like Ancurio's Vulkan or Dungeon's Vulkan, etc...

[duby229]

Who are we? Anandtech article mentioned everybody to define their feature set... that sounds to me like Ancurio's Vulkan or Dungeon's Vulkan, etc...

No that isn't it at all. Vulkan is very low level. It looks an aweful like a modern GPU's front end. Vulkan will be the same everywhere. Game engines will implement functionality. GPU companies will implement capacity.

EDIT: That's kinda the whole point is to move away from designing capability and towards designing capacity. Which is totally logical. It's what has been happening anyways. In the old days capability was designed in hardware, now capability is designed in drivers. Vulkan moves capability out of drivers and into the game engines. And that capability can be anything game engine designers can conceive of and no longer limited to what driver API designers conceive of.

[zagoti]

One unified API for desktop, mobile, console, and embedded

Is it now sure that Vulkan will come to the PS4? Or are they talking about the Steam Machines?

[johnc]

Engines will implement Vulkan like they do OpenGL now. That in itself won't mean much. Developers would still have to build their games around that, and, as of right now, very few probably will. Most of the interest from game developers is in DX12. I think Vulkan games will be a lot like we see OpenGL games today... sort of after-thought ported versions.

It really comes down to the target platform. The only target platform of interest for OpenGL / Vulkan right now is Android. And the future of Android gaming is sort of... unknown.

[dungeon]

No that isn't it at all. Vulkan is very low level. It looks an aweful like a modern GPU's front end. Vulkan will be the same everywhere. Game engines will implement functionality. GPU companies will implement capacity.

EDIT: That's kinda the whole point is to move away from designing capability and towards designing capacity. Which is totally logical. It's what has been happening anyways. In the old days capability was designed in hardware, now capability is designed in drivers. Vulkan moves capability out of drivers and into the game engines. And that capability can be anything game engine designers can conceive of and no longer limited to what driver API designers conceive of.

Anandtech article mentioned Google to define feature set for Android, Valve will define it for SteamOS and who will do it for Linux?

Microsoft does not care, so probably GPU vendors will define theirs... probably will be the same for Linux

[kaprikawn]

I wonder whether it's worth it adding tessellation to Android. I remember when they were announcing DX10/D3D 10, it was being sold as a method of creating geometry almost for free, or at least with using a disproportionally small amount of resources compared to rendering using polygons and other <= DX9 methods.

But as far as I can tell that sales pitch has not been realised. Look at the clusterfunk that was the DX10 patch for Crysis 2, performance took a HUGE hit in implementing tessellation. And while I appreciate that may have been an extreme case, I can't see other implementations being good. I'm pretty sure Arkham Knight uses tessellation quite a lot, another mess on PC.

I'd like to know how phones, which are roughly between Xbox and 360 power right now for flagship handsets, are expected to take advantage of a feature that, so far, is bringing modern GFX cards to their knees. Correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe they're just laying the groundwork for the future, we all know how long it takes for ES versions to be utilised, most things are still using ES 2 as far as I know.

With regards to Vulkan, my big wish is for an open-source radeon driver asap, would be cool to see. Hopefully we'll start to see uptake in Vulkan useage at a far accelerated rate to OpenGL / DirectX etc. It seems like an investment in the future to use Vulkan.

[duby229]

Engines will implement Vulkan like they do OpenGL now. That in itself won't mean much. Developers would still have to build their games around that, and, as of right now, very few probably will. Most of the interest from game developers is in DX12. I think Vulkan games will be a lot like we see OpenGL games today... sort of after-thought ported versions.

It really comes down to the target platform. The only target platform of interest for OpenGL / Vulkan right now is Android. And the future of Android gaming is sort of... unknown.

Lets take an example of c compilers, they can compile binaries for x86 or arm, or whatever.... A similar condition will exist for dx12, vulkan, metal or whatever else comes out. They are all similarly low level.