Google Deprecating RenderScript In Favor Of Vulkan Compute

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Google Deprecating RenderScript In Favor Of Vulkan Compute

Google announced today that with Android 12.0 they will be deprecating their RenderScript APIs. Moving forward Android developers should primarily target the Vulkan API for high performance compute needs...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=RenderScript-To-Vulkan

[Azrael5]

A good progress.

[schmidtbag]

One of the few times where Google abandons a project and it isn't a major problem.

[Jumbotron]

Whoah !! Well, well. Vulkan is truly a "standard" now and the torch has truly been passed from OpenGL to Vulkan. It was going to anyway as Vulkan's main modus operandi was to eventually supplant OpenGL. But with Google's announcement today that reality is fully grounded.

I wonder if one could imply, not too wrongly, that Vulkan will become the Graphics and Compute API across all of Google's assets and initiatives such as CV both on board and off board device, Stadia game rendering before steaming out to devices with additional Vulkan hooks and enhancements with Vulkan capable devices locally, OpenCL compute via Vulkan, Vulkan enhanced AR and VR ??

Exciting news. So it's now Apple's Metal, Microsoft's DirectX and Vulkan's "Festivus for the Rest Of Us".

[bug77]

A good progress.

Yes, considering by this time next year Android 12 will be crossing the 5% market share, this is truly earth shattering

Fwiw, I just fired up Android Studio. Care to guess which version do I need to target if I want to write something that will work on two thirds of the devices in the wild?
Spoiler alert: it's 7.1. Do the math if you want to see when 12 will become relevant.

[jntesteves]

Yes, considering by this time next year Android 12 will be crossing the 5% market share, this is truly earth shattering

Fwiw, I just fired up Android Studio. Care to guess which version do I need to target if I want to write something that will work on two thirds of the devices in the wild?
Spoiler alert: it's 7.1. Do the math if you want to see when 12 will become relevant.

I don't get what you're bitching about. Are you really complaining that Google still haven't found a way to fast-forward time? Because that's what it seems like.

[stiiixy]

They (Google) theoretically could patch new features in to older Android versions, but that's never been their thing. Disposable (or, 'moving forward' in their opinion) is their approach.

[bug77]

I don't get what you're bitching about. Are you really complaining that Google still haven't found a way to fast-forward time? Because that's what it seems like.

I'm "bitching" about people praising today something most people won't see for at least another 3 years.
The move itself is sound, but Google still haven't solved the problem of pushing their OS onto existing devices. In fact, they stopped trying and decided it's easier to just hide adoption numbers from the web instead.

[microcode]

Would've been nice if their transitional library was a RenderScript implementation on Vulkán compute...

[ehansin]

Exciting news. So it's now Apple's Metal, Microsoft's DirectX and Vulkan's "Festivus for the Rest Of Us".

Curious thought, and I really don't have the answer, but in yesterday's posting here on the M1 GPU ("More Progress Is Made Understanding Apple's M1 GPU, Working Towards An Open Driver") their was speculation that the M1 GPU was simpler in design that fit catering to the Metal API, which the commenter claimed to be even more low-level that DX12 or Vulcan. Further speculating that more complex hardware elements may be required to fit into a DX12 and/or Vulcan world, in fact that complexity in hardware may have been necessitated to cater to these.

Again, I don't know the answer to this, but wonder in the future if that "simpler" ends up being better. Obviously an open standard (i.e. Vulcan) is what you really want, and everything I read here makes it sound like a great thing. I am not an expert in these things, only something that came to mind. Regardless, I'll take the "Festivus for the Rest Of Us", thank you very much!