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It’s been some 18 months since Khronos announced
the next-generation of OpenGL, and the final version of the spec,
Vulkan, is finally ready for deployment. As of today, everything related
to Vulkan — drivers, SDKs, and early software support is ready for
launch. This is a change from Khronos’ usual practice, which is to
announce a new version of the OpenGL API with vendor support following
at a later time.
Vulkan is a direct descendent of AMD’s Mantle and it shares the same underlying philosophy as both its predecessor and DirectX 12. What sets Vulkan apart from DirectX 12 is that it supports a much wider range of operating systems, from Windows 7 and 8.1 up through Windows 10, Linux, SteamOS, Android, and Tizen. That’s a significant theoretical advantage for the new API, though Microsoft is doing everything it can to push Windows 7 or 8.1 gamers to adopt Windows 10.
Like DX12, Vulkan is designed to minimize driver overhead, scale across multiple CPUs, and offer developers greater control over how workloads are executed across the GPU. Mobile GPU companies like Qualcomm and Imagination Technologies have both pledged support for the API and intend to support it in their own development tools. In theory, this broad industry base could make it more likely that PC games will cross over to Android devices, Steam Machines, and Linux as a whole. Even Vivante has pledged to support the API, though its products are typically used in lower-end mobile hardware.
The Khronos announcement contains quotes from game developers, device manufacturers, GPU companies, and Intel. There’s one company that’s made conspicuous by its absence, however: Apple.
Last year, we theorized that Apple’s embrace of Metal as its low-overhead API in both OS X and iOS meant that the company wouldn’t be supporting Vulkan. That now seems to be the case. Apple could, of course, add Vulkan support at a later date. AMD, Intel, Nvidia, and Imagination Technologies have all announced support for Vulkan, which means it’s up to Apple whether or not to include the option. For now, however, Apple seems to be content with Metal, which means developers will still need at least two APIs to target the entire computing market.
Google has pledged to treat Vulkan as a first-class API, and the new project will implement a “feature set” concept similar to the feature levels that DirectX currently uses. Vulkan won’t be split by an embedded versus desktop distinction the way OpenGL ES split from OpenGL. Instead, Khronos will define feature sets for Linux and Windows, while Google will define them for Android. These feature sets will be based on developer feedback and have not yet been determined.
At least one game, The Talos Principle, is definitely being ported to Vulkan, and we expect the Source 2 engine to support the new API broadly as well. If Valve throws significant weight behind it, Vulkan could become the preferred option for games written for that engine, which would give its chances of competing head-to-head with DirectX 12 a significant lift.
Vulkan is a direct descendent of AMD’s Mantle and it shares the same underlying philosophy as both its predecessor and DirectX 12. What sets Vulkan apart from DirectX 12 is that it supports a much wider range of operating systems, from Windows 7 and 8.1 up through Windows 10, Linux, SteamOS, Android, and Tizen. That’s a significant theoretical advantage for the new API, though Microsoft is doing everything it can to push Windows 7 or 8.1 gamers to adopt Windows 10.
Like DX12, Vulkan is designed to minimize driver overhead, scale across multiple CPUs, and offer developers greater control over how workloads are executed across the GPU. Mobile GPU companies like Qualcomm and Imagination Technologies have both pledged support for the API and intend to support it in their own development tools. In theory, this broad industry base could make it more likely that PC games will cross over to Android devices, Steam Machines, and Linux as a whole. Even Vivante has pledged to support the API, though its products are typically used in lower-end mobile hardware.
The Khronos announcement contains quotes from game developers, device manufacturers, GPU companies, and Intel. There’s one company that’s made conspicuous by its absence, however: Apple.
Last year, we theorized that Apple’s embrace of Metal as its low-overhead API in both OS X and iOS meant that the company wouldn’t be supporting Vulkan. That now seems to be the case. Apple could, of course, add Vulkan support at a later date. AMD, Intel, Nvidia, and Imagination Technologies have all announced support for Vulkan, which means it’s up to Apple whether or not to include the option. For now, however, Apple seems to be content with Metal, which means developers will still need at least two APIs to target the entire computing market.
Google has pledged to treat Vulkan as a first-class API, and the new project will implement a “feature set” concept similar to the feature levels that DirectX currently uses. Vulkan won’t be split by an embedded versus desktop distinction the way OpenGL ES split from OpenGL. Instead, Khronos will define feature sets for Linux and Windows, while Google will define them for Android. These feature sets will be based on developer feedback and have not yet been determined.
At least one game, The Talos Principle, is definitely being ported to Vulkan, and we expect the Source 2 engine to support the new API broadly as well. If Valve throws significant weight behind it, Vulkan could become the preferred option for games written for that engine, which would give its chances of competing head-to-head with DirectX 12 a significant lift.
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