A Prototype Of The Vulkan Portability Initiative: Low-Level 3D To Vulkan / D3D12 / Metal

[phoronix]

Phoronix: A Prototype Of The Vulkan Portability Initiative: Low-Level 3D To Vulkan / D3D12 / Metal

A Mozilla engineer has put out a prototype library in working on the Vulkan Portability Initiative for allowing low-level 3D graphics support that's backed by Vulkan / Direct3D 12 / Metal...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Proto-Library-Vulkan-Portable

[My8th]

Would this lower the need for Angle?

[microcode]

Would this lower the need for Angle?

No, this is not an implementation of OpenGL, it's an implementation of a Vulkan subset. This could help ANGLE be more portable though (ANGLE on the Vulkan Portability Layer on top of Metal).

[sarmad]

There is no point in this. Apple can simply change their Metal API in a way that breaks compatibility with this layer and we'll be back to square 0. Besides, Vulkan is already available on the two most popular platforms, Windows and Android. If developers simply stick to Vulkan Apple will be forced to play nicely.

But what I don't understand is can't some third party implement Vulkan on Mac just as it's implemented on Windows? How can Apple prevent that anyway?

[GunpowaderGuy]

vulkan is now closer to metal after version 2.0 , right ? thats the one that should be targeted

[ssokolow]

There is no point in this. Apple can simply change their Metal API in a way that breaks compatibility with this layer and we'll be back to square 0. Besides, Vulkan is already available on the two most popular platforms, Windows and Android. If developers simply stick to Vulkan Apple will be forced to play nicely.

Changing an API breaks everything compiled against it, including the native Metal apps. Kind of hard to do that without pissing off your users and annoying your developer base.

...and, if you do break your API, you're at a disadvantage because developers coding against the portability layer just need to download the update and recompile, rather than actually changing their code.

(That's why I emulate all of my console games and make sure I also keep a Windows copy of every Linux game I buy on GOG or Humble. Open-source emulators and Wine serve to insulate games from changes to the underlying platform APIs, and, in the long term, changes to the underlying hardware. Hell, Wine is now more compatible with classic Windows 3.1 games like Lode Runner: The Legend Returns than real Windows is.)

[kvark]

Hello Phoronix!

Today I came across the kvark/portability repository that is offering

Please note that the "portability" repository is mostly about C-bindings (implementing "vulkan.h") to gfx-rs hardware abstraction layer (gfx-hal), which lives in gfx-rs/gfx repo. This is where all the meat of the work is done, and it is truly a community effort (not a Mozilla's project, yet).

pushing advancements to WebGL and a new low-level 3D graphics API for the multi-platform web

We are also experimenting with lifting Vulkan (-ic) API to the Web in our WebGPU prototype.

[shmerl]

All this to work around sick lock-in of MS and Apple.

[shmerl]

Please note that the "portability" repository is mostly about C-bindings (implementing "vulkan.h") to gfx-rs hardware abstraction layer (gfx-hal), which lives in gfx-rs/gfx repo[/URL].

What is the benefit of gfx-rs in comparison with something like vulkano? Is it significantly higher level?

[geearf]

But what I don't understand is can't some third party implement Vulkan on Mac just as it's implemented on Windows? How can Apple prevent that anyway?

GPU drivers for Mac OS (and maybe iOS too) are done by Apple, not the GPU companies, so Apple gets to decide. They probably don't start from scratch though. I have no idea if FOSS drivers are possible or not there.

There is MoltenVK though.