Competition for DirectX 12 and Metal
The Khronos Group has now officially released Vulkan 1.0 API, with all specifications, conformance tests, SDKs and other resources, making it ready for developers and providing some competition to the upcoming Microsoft DirectX 12 API.
In terms of design, Vulkan API is quite similar to the DirectX 12, as it is partially based on AMD's Mantle API. Both APIs, including Vulkan, are low-level, low overhead APIs, which means it will make better use of the GPU, giving developers more direct control, as well as work better on multi-core CPUs.
While it is compatible with OpenGL ES 3.1 or 4.x GPUs and has some improvements over OpenGL, the Khronos Group was quite keen to note that Vulkan API will not replace OpenGL but rather complement it. Unlike Microsoft's DirectX 12, which will be exclusive to Windows 10 OS, and in some part Xbox One, Vulkan API is a multi-platform API, supported on Windows XP or newer as well as plenty of Linux variations like Ubuntu, Red Hat, Tizen, SteamOS and Android.
There are a lot of big names behind Vulkan API, including hardware manufacturers like Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Samsung, Qualcomm as well as game developers like Valve, Croteam and others.
We already wrote that both AMD and Nvidia have GPU drivers ready for Vulkan API and Intel, Qualcomm and Imaginations technologies have those as well. There are already quite a few demos and open source samples ready for Vulkan including some from ARM, Imagination Technologies, MetalVK, Nvidia, Lunar G and more.
It is obvious that this is just a start and it is nice to see that DirectX 12 will get some competition which will only make games better as it will give developers a choice to pick the API that suits their game better. Currently, the only benchmark available is Croteam's The Talos Principle game but it is obvious that it needs a lot of tweaking as it does not perform as well as DirectX 11.
In any case, we are looking forward to see more implementation of the Vulkan API and check out some of the first games with support for both Vulkan API and DirectX 12 in order to get a clearer picture on the performance side.
Source: Khronos.org.
In terms of design, Vulkan API is quite similar to the DirectX 12, as it is partially based on AMD's Mantle API. Both APIs, including Vulkan, are low-level, low overhead APIs, which means it will make better use of the GPU, giving developers more direct control, as well as work better on multi-core CPUs.
While it is compatible with OpenGL ES 3.1 or 4.x GPUs and has some improvements over OpenGL, the Khronos Group was quite keen to note that Vulkan API will not replace OpenGL but rather complement it. Unlike Microsoft's DirectX 12, which will be exclusive to Windows 10 OS, and in some part Xbox One, Vulkan API is a multi-platform API, supported on Windows XP or newer as well as plenty of Linux variations like Ubuntu, Red Hat, Tizen, SteamOS and Android.
There are a lot of big names behind Vulkan API, including hardware manufacturers like Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Samsung, Qualcomm as well as game developers like Valve, Croteam and others.
We already wrote that both AMD and Nvidia have GPU drivers ready for Vulkan API and Intel, Qualcomm and Imaginations technologies have those as well. There are already quite a few demos and open source samples ready for Vulkan including some from ARM, Imagination Technologies, MetalVK, Nvidia, Lunar G and more.
It is obvious that this is just a start and it is nice to see that DirectX 12 will get some competition which will only make games better as it will give developers a choice to pick the API that suits their game better. Currently, the only benchmark available is Croteam's The Talos Principle game but it is obvious that it needs a lot of tweaking as it does not perform as well as DirectX 11.
In any case, we are looking forward to see more implementation of the Vulkan API and check out some of the first games with support for both Vulkan API and DirectX 12 in order to get a clearer picture on the performance side.
Source: Khronos.org.
News by Luca Rocchi and Marc Büchel - German Translation by Paul Görnhardt - Italian Translation by Francesco Daghini
Previous article - Next article
comments powered by Disqus
comments powered by Disqus