An Overview Of The Vulkan API

[johnc]

according to Tim Sweeney, Vulkan in Unreal is in full swing. and Unity talk often gets confused as the fact they won't support it, where only thing that was said is "not yet until it is developed". just those 2 cover insane range of games

That's fine that engines are going to support it, I'm just saying that the actual game devs and especially AAA studios aren't really talking about it. They are talking about DX12 though. I think that will be their preferred target API.

Don't forget that developers pick certain technologies for all sorts of reasons, some of them bad. Look at C# and Java. When C# was platform-locked to Windows it was still the preferred language (of the two) for people targeting primarily Windows. For some developers these kinds of things are almost like a religion, and they want to stay with that which with they are comfortable.

[humbug]

If I was at Valve and if I was a real rat bastard (and one of those two is true), what I would do is take their top still-played games (like Dota2, TF2, CS:GO, maybe L4D2) and give them Vulkan ports and brag about the improved performance, and then make those Vulkan versions of the game SteamOS / Linux only.

That's exactly what Valve is doing. They have already released the beta known as Dota 2 reborn which is the same game with a feature update and moved to a new engine which supports Vulkan. It's out on Linux / OSX / Windows.

http://www.dota2.com/reborn/part3

At the moment the public beta is on openGL / directX but they did show the Vulkan build at GDC. Once the spec is finalized and drivers are out they will release it.

However they won't make it Linux exclusive.

[johnc]

However they won't make it Linux exclusive.

Then that's not "exactly" what they're doing. The epitome of my rat bastardness would be that the Vulkan version would be Linux only, to give people a nudge to come on over. And I think they're just doing Dota2? They don't have plans to do the other games, do they?

[justmy2cents]

That's fine that engines are going to support it, I'm just saying that the actual game devs and especially AAA studios aren't really talking about it. They are talking about DX12 though. I think that will be their preferred target API.

Don't forget that developers pick certain technologies for all sorts of reasons, some of them bad. Look at C# and Java. When C# was platform-locked to Windows it was still the preferred language (of the two) for people targeting primarily Windows. For some developers these kinds of things are almost like a religion, and they want to stay with that which with they are comfortable.

nope. not much talk on it. mainly because the era of every developer making his own engine is over. it simply does not pay anymore and it is too expensive. unlike previously, engine does not cost both kidneys, one eye, one arm and one leg. more or less all studios are abandoning this way of doing

C# and java are not even comparable beside the fact that until recently java was working like a hog with memory. just look how even users turn away when they hear some software is done on java. all good and dandy now cannot cover the stink it has from the past.

even i picked C# for needs over java and i ONLY ever do crossplatform for its use. every venture with java i had ended with abolishing it for year or two. most of the time C, vala are good solution, but sometimes C# serves better

Then that's not "exactly" what they're doing. The epitome of my rat bastardness would be that the Vulkan version would be Linux only, to give people a nudge to come on over. And I think they're just doing Dota2? They don't have plans to do the other games, do they?

no plans? i'm guessing you mean they haven't said anything yet.

how would even make sense to do that before they finish Vulkan and Dota 2. from development sense, it would be bad decision bordering on insanity if they worked on more than one game since as far as we know Vulkan could still change until release. it is not like they were annoucing they'll do Dota 2 either. if there was no GDC presentation on Vulkan and Dota 2 as example, we wouldn't even know they are porting it

[smitty3268]

That's fine that engines are going to support it, I'm just saying that the actual game devs and especially AAA studios aren't really talking about it. They are talking about DX12 though. I think that will be their preferred target API.

Don't forget that developers pick certain technologies for all sorts of reasons, some of them bad. Look at C# and Java. When C# was platform-locked to Windows it was still the preferred language (of the two) for people targeting primarily Windows. For some developers these kinds of things are almost like a religion, and they want to stay with that which with they are comfortable.

I'd say with a fair amount of certainty that the first generation of new API games will all come out with DX12 support. That's because:

1. All these developers are mostly familiar with DX11, and going to DX12 will provide a bit more familiarity to them.
2. OpenGL has SUCKED on Windows in the past, and Windows is the platform they really care about.

They're also mainly talking about DX12 because that's the one that gotten the press in the mainstream. Pretty much any gamer has heard of DX12. If they talk about Vulkan they might need to explain what they're talking about, so it can be an easy shorthand for next-gen API as much as anything.

The real question is whether the 2nd generation of games in a couple years are still based mainly in DX12 or if they'll move to Vulkan.

If the Vulkan drivers hold up as AAA quality on Windows in a couple of years (unlike OpenGL) then developers may well decide to move on to using it more - since it will bring in backwards compatibility with Windows 7 users, for example, without requiring a different path - such as a DX11 path + a DX12 path.

Either way, I do think it seems like all the major engines will support Vulkan. So any future porting of games should be much simpler than the current status quo, where all the OpenGL support is being tacked on to games that never had any kind of support for it baked in to them.

[profoundWHALE]

Market support isn't going to much of an issue. They have all of Android which is a very good chunk, and, they have a good amount of AAA developers on board as well as the most popular game engines out there which covers PC well.

[johnc]

C# and java are not even comparable beside the fact that until recently java was working like a hog with memory. just look how even users turn away when they hear some software is done on java. all good and dandy now cannot cover the stink it has from the past.

even i picked C# for needs over java and i ONLY ever do crossplatform for its use. every venture with java i had ended with abolishing it for year or two. most of the time C, vala are good solution, but sometimes C# serves better

That sounds like something a DX developer would say.

[justmy2cents]

That sounds like something a DX developer would say.

yeah, but sad thing is that i don't own any Windows installation for 20 years or so. i'm either coding Linux exclusive or cross platform. even if i wanted i couldn't be DX developer and I REALLY DON'T WANT THAT TO EVEN COME TO MY MIND. sheesh, i cannot even write that without caps

just this should tell you something, my Windows usage in last 3 years would clock at about 3-4 hours and even that was not my choice

[johnc]

yeah, but sad thing is that i don't own any Windows installation for 20 years or so. i'm either coding Linux exclusive or cross platform. even if i wanted i couldn't be DX developer and I REALLY DON'T WANT THAT TO EVEN COME TO MY MIND. sheesh, i cannot even write that without caps

just this should tell you something, my Windows usage in last 3 years would clock at about 3-4 hours and even that was not my choice

Yeah, developing on Windows is like trying to hammer in a nail with a screwdriver.

I usually last about 15-20 minutes and then I'm ready to push my displays right off the desk.

[Luke_Wolf]

C# and java are not even comparable beside the fact that until recently java was working like a hog with memory. just look how even users turn away when they hear some software is done on java. all good and dandy now cannot cover the stink it has from the past.

even i picked C# for needs over java and i ONLY ever do crossplatform for its use. every venture with java i had ended with abolishing it for year or two. most of the time C, vala are good solution, but sometimes C# serves better

Java and JVM programs are still a memory hog, Let's just consider intellij for an example given that people here hold it up so much.

Intellij IDEA on a one file Java project after a clean open and allowing it to settle: 335MB
Monodevelop clean Xamarin XForms Project: 75MB
QtCreator Clean QtQuick Components Project: 82MB

All IDEs were closed and reopened after creating the project and opened to a source file. Wanna guess which one of these has the most features? The answer is Monodevelop.

The simple reality is that .NET will consume about as much memory as C++ does in real world applications while JVM wants to eat as much memory as possible, and that's not even getting into the fact that they tend to look totally alien and anything user facing tends to suffer from performance issues. Personally I don't really see any reason to go with JVM over .NET, particularly now that Microsoft has open sourced it.