Godot 4 Is Focusing On Vulkan + OpenGL ES 3.0, OpenGL Likely For Godot 4.1

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Godot 4 Is Focusing On Vulkan + OpenGL ES 3.0, OpenGL Likely For Godot 4.1

With the alpha release of the Godot 4.0 open-source game engine approaching, a blog post today detailed the current graphics API support plans around this major game engine update...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Godot-4-GLES3-Vulkan-Focus

[Lanz]

At least Godot has a plan to support older APIs, rather than just deprecate them like Apple would. These older APIs are becoming less relevant though.

[furtadopires]

At least Godot has a plan to support older APIs, rather than just deprecate them like Apple would. These older APIs are becoming less relevant though.

What's the advantage of supporting older APIs in this case? Hypothetically if I'm using Godot to create a new game right now, wouldn't be better to use the most recent ones?

[rmfx]

They should just focus on Vulkan and GLES3 period. If some users’ hardware is 15yo, it’s their self inflicted problem.

The problem with Apple is not necessarily they have no shame depreciating old tech, it’s more that they depreciate and replace them with always more proprietary tech. If they dropped GL for Vulkan, nobody would have criticized (because it would have been the right thing to do).

[chocolate]

OpenGL ES 2.0 made sense because it was targeted at Vulkan-uncapable hardware and the renderer had just enough features to be useful on mobile. I don't see OpenGL ES 3.0 offering any value on mobile or otherwise. They do mention WebGL 2.0, but... come on. I'm sure a lot of us are thinking that an exclusive focus on Vulkan might be the best way forward.

What's the overlap between OpenGL ES 3.0-capable hardware and Vulkan-uncapable hardware? They say OpenGL ES 2.0-only hardware would be insufficient to run Godot 4.x, but they don't tackle whether (GLES3 ∩ (not Vulkan)) hardware can still justify the existence of an OpenGL renderer.

[skeevy420]

What's the advantage of supporting older APIs in this case? Hypothetically if I'm using Godot to create a new game right now, wouldn't be better to use the most recent ones?

It allows them to support a wider variety of hardware and software, older and newer operating systems, as well as it doesn't lock them into any one solution so there's more flexibility should a new API or API version or fork or something like that appear.

If you're creating a game now it depends on your target platform to determine what you'd want to use to create a game right now. Not all Android devices support Vulkan so OpenGL is useful if you want to support a wider array of Android versions. If you're only targeting desktops, you'd probably want Vulkan.

[ElectricPrism]

The Vulkan support is ready to go for Godot 4.0 but it means the desktop OpenGL support took a back seat. The Godot developers are now confirming that desktop OpenGL rendering support will likely not be supported for Godot 4.0. They will be bringing OpenGL support though when it's ready - likely a few months after Godot 4.0 in a Godot 4.1 follow-up release.

I prefer Vulkan when available. 100% agree with their approach -- focusing on one target at a time is better than focusing on two targets and missing both.

I'm not sure what % of our user-base is Vulkan incapable, and I do see the value in trying to maintain availability for older hardware as in the gaming space, teenage kids usually get hand-me-downs that have more humble specs -- and the teenage market can quickly blow up into multi-billion dollars as was the case with Minecraft & Fortnight.

I'm really looking foreward to seeing how things go as they trek foreward with Vulkan -- 4.0 is very exciting.

[dos1]

If some users’ hardware is 15yo, it’s their self inflicted problem.

There's plenty of platforms (mostly mobile) where free GPU drivers handle only GLES 2.0 at the moment.

[jayrulez]

There's plenty of platforms (mostly mobile) where free GPU drivers handle only GLES 2.0 at the moment.

What percentage of people are gaming on those?

[oiaohm]

They should just focus on Vulkan and GLES3 period. If some users’ hardware is 15yo, it’s their self inflicted problem.

This is too simple and has the wrong idea of time frames. Opengl ES 2.0 was release 2007 and Opengl ES 3.0 is 2012. So Opengl ES new hardware only appeared 8 years go. But Opengl ES 2.0 and 3.0 has been made to work on older hardware than when it was created this is the important bit.

What's the overlap between OpenGL ES 3.0-capable hardware and Vulkan-uncapable hardware? They say OpenGL ES 2.0-only hardware would be insufficient to run Godot 4.x, but they don't tackle whether (GLES3 ∩ (not Vulkan)) hardware can still justify the existence of an OpenGL renderer.

Wrong question.

There's plenty of platforms (mostly mobile) where free GPU drivers handle only GLES 2.0 at the moment.

Wrong question idea again.

On Desktop, hardware that does not support GLES3 (or GLES3 via Angle, which is what Chrome uses to display WebGL) is extremely old. Mid 2000s

Read this line carefully. Do notice the or "GLES3 via Angle".

https://github.com/google/angle

The translator targets Desktop GLSL, Vulkan GLSL, Direct3D HLSL, and even ESSL for native GLES2 platforms.

That right angle currently allows a OpenGL ES 3.1/3.2 program on a OpenGL ES 2.0 capable hardware with only Opengl ES 2.0 drivers. Question is do you have enough CPU to support the overhead of angle.

So free GPU drivers handle only OpenGL ES 2.0 is not end of story. Do note that angle is include with Android this is partly why OpengL ES 3.2 count on Android is so high if the gpu is opengl ES 2.0 driver and the cpu has enough performance to use angle Android provides opengl 3.1-2 to application. The 10% of the android market without Opengl ES 3.0 or higher are also quite weak in CPU.

The main reason for direct Opengl ES 2.0 is less overhead on platforms that are using angle to Opengl ES 2.0 drivers next would be to pick up the 10% of the mobile market not covered by angle and is also really short on CPU power.

So this is not black and white kind of problem. Its really simple to miss you can run Opengl ES 3.x on Opengl ES 2.0 only hardware by paying in CPU time to allow this to work. Yes to pay in CPU you have to have the CPU time to pay that.

Yes having a weak cpu there is a possibility that you game logic will be more CPU resource requiring than the CPU has even before adding angle to deal with the GPU issue so there is a line in the sand where it comes pointless to be before because you don't have enough cpu to run the game logic fast enough to give a good experence.