Vulkan 1.0.32 Released

[shaolin]

Why ? Just because Phoenix is pro open-source doesn't means he can't affirm that statement : Mantle games indeed ran equal if not slower than DirectX.



Concerning Vulkan, as of today, the only game truly making the most from Vulkan is the latest Doom.

Epic games affirms that Unreal Engine does support Vulkan, but, let face it , you don't really benefit from it as their implementation is not good enough at this moment.

Unity is on their way to do something similar.

The project is saw the best performance boost from using Vulkan is the emulator Dolphin.

For me the best was The Talos Principle:

i7 6700k - 32gb ram - GTX1080 - Ubuntu 16.10 - Gnome 3.22

Res: 1920x1080 -- All max settings

• benchmark results - Gfx API: Vulkan Duration: 184.1 seconds (29024 frames) Average: 157.6 FPS (165.0 w/o extremes) Extremes: 645.2 max, 11.4 min Sections: AI=9%, physics=3%, sound=1%, scene=66%, shadows=14%, misc=7% Highs: 451 in 1.7 seconds (263.9 FPS) Lows: 2540 in 24.7 seconds (103.0 FPS)
  60 FPS: 100%
• benchmark results - Gfx API: OpenGL Duration: 185.4 seconds (18174 frames) Average: 98.1 FPS (106.7 w/o extremes) Extremes: 660.5 max, 4.8 min Sections: AI=7%, physics=2%, sound=1%, scene=63%, shadows=23%, misc=5% Highs: 526 in 2.9 seconds (183.6 FPS) Lows: 1894 in 34.9 seconds (54.3 FPS) 30-60 FPS: 5%
  60 FPS: 95%

[AdamOne]

Vulkan isnt in any standard linux app, yet, but most importantly the software now _exists_ and has updated the standard of linux.

there are ppl who build there own game engines you wknow...

[Shevchen]

Most game studios need several years to update their engines to a newer state. Right now, there are some Vulkan/DX12 games out there, and I'll present you the pattern:

- Rise of the Tomb Raider (DX12), same performance or even lower on DX12 vs. DX11 on Nvidia cards. Max improvement ~5%. This is due to the implementation being an additional layer on top of the engine instead of being designed from the ground up.
- Deus Ex mankind divided (DX12) - same or even lower due to layer instead of core implementation
- Talos principle (Vulkan) - faster than Open GL but slower than DX11 due to layer instead of core implementation
- Ashes of singularity - same or lower due to layer instead of core implementation
- DOOM (Vulkan) - much faster (up to 70%) than Open GL due to core implementation, no DX11 reference available

So, what we see here is, that it is a waste of time to implement Vulkan/DX12 via layer on top of the engine. The only thing you get is some sort of compatibility, but no performance gains. You need to design your engine from the core in order to reap the benefits and there has only been one game out in the wild that did it.

The next game on the list that tries to get the full core implementation done is Star Citizen - but won't be out within the next year. It will still be a major event, but again: just one game. So all in all, we still have to wait for more games that do the core implementation and this could take another year or two for the mainstream games (aka the big publishers a la EA/Ubisoft/Square Enix/Bethesda) to catch up.

By then, we have 3 new generations of GPUs.

[efikkan]

People keep forgetting it always takes a few years before we get the "good" games with the new APIs. Just have a look at Crysis, the "top" Direct3D 10 game which worked better in Direct3D 9, and still remains a joke to this day. People should stop speculating about APIs and start looking at real world performance. The bleeding edge APIs matters for game developers, not the end user. By the time we get a wide selection of good Direct3D 12 / Vulkan games, people will be buying hardware based on speculations about the next iteration of APIs...

[aht0]

People keep forgetting it always takes a few years before we get the "good" games with the new APIs. Just have a look at Crysis, the "top" Direct3D 10 game which worked better in Direct3D 9, and still remains a joke to this day. People should stop speculating about APIs and start looking at real world performance. The bleeding edge APIs matters for game developers, not the end user. By the time we get a wide selection of good Direct3D 12 / Vulkan games, people will be buying hardware based on speculations about the next iteration of APIs...

It is also quite dependent on how good the game in question is. Many gamers are making hardware upgrades specifically having some game in mind. Be it GPU, CPU, RAM or storage.

Crysis, at least MP portion of it for PC was never that popular to begin with. It sold far less than it was being pirated. It shows the questionable content and quality of the game itself. Mere graphical perfection is not enough. Might sound illogical but for getting the idea behind it, look at Witcher 3. Sold very well although studio behind it intentionally did not bother with any anti-piracy protection systems. People pirated it, really liked what they saw, then many of the pirates actually decided to buy it as well.

[Azpegath]

Most game studios need several years to update their engines to a newer state. Right now, there are some Vulkan/DX12 games out there, and I'll present you the pattern:

- Rise of the Tomb Raider (DX12), same performance or even lower on DX12 vs. DX11 on Nvidia cards. Max improvement ~5%. This is due to the implementation being an additional layer on top of the engine instead of being designed from the ground up.
- Deus Ex mankind divided (DX12) - same or even lower due to layer instead of core implementation
- Talos principle (Vulkan) - faster than Open GL but slower than DX11 due to layer instead of core implementation
- Ashes of singularity - same or lower due to layer instead of core implementation
- DOOM (Vulkan) - much faster (up to 70%) than Open GL due to core implementation, no DX11 reference available

So, what we see here is, that it is a waste of time to implement Vulkan/DX12 via layer on top of the engine. The only thing you get is some sort of compatibility, but no performance gains. You need to design your engine from the core in order to reap the benefits and there has only been one game out in the wild that did it.

The next game on the list that tries to get the full core implementation done is Star Citizen - but won't be out within the next year. It will still be a major event, but again: just one game. So all in all, we still have to wait for more games that do the core implementation and this could take another year or two for the mainstream games (aka the big publishers a la EA/Ubisoft/Square Enix/Bethesda) to catch up.

By then, we have 3 new generations of GPUs.

What is your source on those claims? I saw Dan Baker's presentations on Modern Game Engine Design at GDC and my impression is that their engine is very much designed to be as adapted to the DX12/Vulkan design as possible.

[Azpegath]

It's strange that it still hasn't shown up. The latest release is still 1.0.30.0.

[Azpegath]

I figured it would show up as a download among their download links.

https://vulkan.lunarg.com/sdk/home