Feral Won't Say Yet If Their Newest Linux Game Will Support Vulkan

[oooverclocker]

Metal was a natural choice for macOS because OpenGL is locked at 4.1 there and the game may need extensions only found in newer GL specs. I think MoltenVK (Vulkan on Metal) would be the better choice so that Mac and Linux could share a Vulkan code path and simplify the porting process.

Yeah. For all game projects out there it's the cheapest to use the Vulkan API initially. For older Hardware you can also add OpenGL support - exactly like id Project did with DOOM, they just started with OpenGL instead. Further training might increase your expenses on a short term but on the long term you will save lots of money cause you just have to use Vulkan when most of the GPUs support it.
But the best, cost-effective, performant solutions haven't always been the most popular ones. And DOOM shows that being able to release a game on nearly every platform with no real barriers doesn't even mean that these chances are taken.

[eydee]

Translation: We're going to start working on the port 2 days before release. We have no idea how it'll turn out yet.

[johnc]

A port to Vulkan would be a waste of man hours that would probably be better off spent on porting another game.

[L_A_G]

A port to Vulkan would be a waste of man hours that would probably be better off spent on porting another game.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that. A well done implementation could improve performance (not just because of the API itself, but also because the Vulkan drivers on Linux, unlike OpenGL drivers, are pretty much on par with the Windows equivalents) and the experience gained from that would obviously be useful when they port over other games using the API.

Still, I wouldn't get my hopes up as it would seem like the DX12 implementation is still a beta you have to enable separately and offering worse performance than the non-beta DX11 implementation

[eydee]

A port to Vulkan would be a waste of man hours that would probably be better off spent on porting another game.

Porting the DX12 code path to Vulkan should be less work than DX11 to OpenGL. Especially if it's just an internal wrapper, not an engine that "thinks" with DX12/Vulkan in mind. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be Vulkan-only, no OpenGL at all. Pretty much all GPUs that have a chance to run the game do support Vulkan at this point.

[smitty3268]

is it just me, or had they opted for vulkan on windows, that would save them a lot of work?
also isn't there some project to make vulkan work on the mac?
or maybe the industry just chooses to ignore metal and force Apple to embrace Vulkan or GTFO...

Feral didn't write any of the Windows code. They don't get a say in how the game was originally designed, they're just getting a cut of sales from porting it.

[rabcor]

I hope they will... in fact I hope they just make their own lives easier and use this: https://moltengl.com/moltenvk/

[c117152]

Possible interpretations in order of likelihood:
1. I don't know. No one cares about what API we're using to even bother mentioning it. I'm just a talking head I look it up but the devs are mean to me and make fun of me so I'm not going to push for it.
2. Licensing issues prohibit us from saying it's Vulkan until we sign a trademark deal with the Khronos group.
3. We're targeting SDL but haven't gotten around the low level bits yet.
4. It's outsourced to someone I don't know and can't get their number to ask. See point 1.
5. We licensed the engine from a 3rd party and are NDAed about it.
6. Linux port? We haven't even finished the game let alone the mac port. Besides, we don't have a single person in the engine team that has a clue how to walk gdb and no one is in a rush to learn. Give it 6 months of patches and maybe someone will be bothered to look it up.

[theghost]

I don't think they will use Vulkan but that is no problem. I can understand if they wouldn't target it.
As a porting company I wouldn't target Vulkan now. Drivers are too immature. You can only reach a fraction of a user base that is already pretty small.
Especially if you have a DirectX - OpenGl wrapper, you would just extend it. Everything else would cost too much. And you know what, it's ok. Everyone can live with it.
Who cares if a handful people would like to see a port to Vulkan just to run some benchmarks.

It would be another thing if the original game would be written in Vulkan but that's not the case here. So what...

[tmpdir]

don't see how you can only reach a fraction of a user base using vulkan compared to only using opengl on linux, I trully don't know anyone that uses linux and is not aware how to upgrade their drivers.

Having said this, I don't think they go the vulkan path. They would have announced it for marketing purposes already.