It's Looking Like Vulkan Might Not Be Released This Year

[phoronix]

Phoronix: It's Looking Like Vulkan Might Not Be Released This Year

For months now we've been hearing that the initial Vulkan release would happen in 2015, but the number of days left this year are limited...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Vulkan-Possible-Post-2015

[kaprikawn]

Disappointing, sure, but you've got to put these things into perspective. It's probably going to be years before Vulkan is able to make an appreciable difference. APIs like this take a very long time to get a footing. Look how long it took to get off the likes of DX9 and OpenGL ES 2. Vulkan may have the advantage that most of the hardware out there is probably compatible already. But however quickly they release the spec, we're going to still be waiting a long time for anything other than a few indie devs trying to sell their games by being one of the first to use Vulkan. Wake me back up when there's a major AAA game using Vulkan developed using Unreal 4 or something along those lines.

[rabcor]

Yeah these were my thoughts exactly, I would like to get an official answer from Khronos though, if they are still sticking to 2015, then I'll bite, but if they're not sure if they can make it in 2015, I'd like it if they'd just give us a new release date.

[eydee]

When games using it start shipping in 2025-2030, we won't even remember that the specification was delayed a few weeks. We're going to be worried about DX18 providing better performance.

[schmidtbag]

I'm not really surprised, and for now I don't really care. I want mesa to catch up with the openGL and openCL spec first. If Vulkan were released too soon, too much attention would be divided and slow down development too much. As has already been pointed out, it will be a while until Vulkan is adopted anyway.

Don't get me wrong - I want Vulkan to be adopted ASAP, but I also understand the mesa devs already have too many hands full.

[rabcor]

I'm not really surprised, and for now I don't really care. I want mesa to catch up with the openGL and openCL spec first. If Vulkan were released too soon, too much attention would be divided and slow down development too much. As has already been pointed out, it will be a while until Vulkan is adopted anyway.

Don't get me wrong - I want Vulkan to be adopted ASAP, but I also understand the mesa devs already have too many hands full.

As if that wasn't enough, there's also going to be wait for Wayland and X to support it so that any software on Linux can actually run on Vulkan to begin with. (And we're still waiting for Nvidia's DRM support so it can run Wayland... to begin with...) it may take Nvidia some time to add Vulkan support to their drivers (although I have no doubts that AMD will be swift about it, and Intel already has valve doing it for them)

But it might take al ittle less time if the specifications get released on schedule instead of behind schedule.

[log0]

Well, what did you expect? It is Khronos after all.

[ElectricPrism]

Since it's already behind the launch window they might as well not throw it out half baked just to satisfy hype.

Khronos will obviously time warp to release at Steam Machine launch once ready thereby altering this timeline and the time we all spent on this post. Obviously.

[pal666]

Look how long it took to get off the likes of DX9 and OpenGL ES 2.

how long majority of users had no newer apis. applies to dx12, but not to vulkan.

Vulkan may have the advantage that most of the hardware out there is probably compatible already. But however quickly they release the spec, we're going to still be waiting a long time for anything other than a few indie devs trying to sell their games by being one of the first to use Vulkan. Wake me back up when there's a major AAA game using Vulkan developed using Unreal 4 or something along those lines.

you mean like dota 2 which uses source 2 which supports vulkan lol?

[blackout23]

As if that wasn't enough, there's also going to be wait for Wayland and X to support it so that any software on Linux can actually run on Vulkan to begin with. (And we're still waiting for Nvidia's DRM support so it can run Wayland... to begin with...) it may take Nvidia some time to add Vulkan support to their drivers (although I have no doubts that AMD will be swift about it, and Intel already has valve doing it for them)

But it might take al ittle less time if the specifications get released on schedule instead of behind schedule.

I'm pretty sure Wayland and X don't care one bit about Vulkan. The game fills a buffer and hands it off to Wayland/X. Why should X or Wayland even care who filled the buffer? It's a client problem. That's why the windowing system integration is in the driver, not the compositor. See how Mantle does it on page 13:
https://www.amd.com/Documents/Mantle...-Reference.pdf

If X would care about Vulkan Valve could not have demoed Source 2 with Vulkan on Linux at GDC.

I'm a bit surprised they might slip the 2015 launch considering they said that they are in a freeze since June.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faYDPjI2zhU&feature=youtu.be&t=1h15m19s