The Khronos Group announces "Vulkan": the successor to OpenGL

General Discussions
#1

Vulkan is the real name for these things:

  • glNext
  • OpenGL Next
  • OpenGL NG
  • Next Generation OpenGL Initiative

Key points:

  • Vulkan will be multicore friendly
  • Uses precompiled shaders based on the SPIR platform. This means in theory HLSL or CG could be compiled for Vulkan. Also means IP is protected.
  • Works on all things capable of OpenGL ES 3.1
  • Nearly zero driver overhead, cut out things like error management
  • Works uniformly on mobile and desktop platforms
  • Considered a derivative of AMD’s Mantle

More details will come in the following days as GDC is currently running and Valve is scheduled to be doing a presentation to show off Vulkan’s capabilities on Thursday.

OpenGL/ES will continue to be developed as Vulkan is extremely low level and therefore requires a lot more work.

#2

I just hope that AMD/Nvidia release their Linux/Mac drivers at the same time as everything else. It would be a bit embarassing if the next generation of cross-platform graphics only worked on Windows.

Lower-level will be a good thing. Current OpenGL requires lots of boilerplate to work around awkward API decisions. Having the control available to let third parties sort out the API will be a great step forward (and allow those who are interested to better understand how graphics cards work).

Precompiled shaders will definitely be an awesome addition. The more errors that can be detected at compile-time the better.

Also, is there any word on what range of existing graphics cards will support this?

(Sorry about the layout of this post. My thoughts are a little bit all over the place)

#3

This is exciting. A low level API working on multiple platforms will be incredible. That’s all I have to say.

#4

If a more concise API leads to simpler drivers leads to more consistent behaviour across cards/vendors, then I’m all for this. Hunting obscure driver quirks is a nightmare.

#5

[quote=“HeroesGraveDev,post:2,topic:53625”]

@Riven please fix this 90% quote thing, it’s not solving any potent problem …

#6

From a quick skim…it looks alot like mantle. No real surprises here. It’s about damn time they did this.

#7

Well done, AMD.

#8

Fundamental requirement for adoption and success: ability to ship drivers with client code.

Cas :slight_smile:

#9

This is stupid idea. Do you realize how many manufacturers and how many drivers there are?

#10

Cas :slight_smile:

#11

isn’t it 3.5 ? … wouldn’t call intels opengl-driver a real driver.

#12

Wouldn’t it be 2.5 then? :persecutioncomplex:

* Riven heads for the hills.

#13

Exposition:

There are exactly 3 consumer-level hardware vendors of any note: Intel, Nvidia, and AMD. They are all capable of or already have a unified driver model which is essentially the same set of binaries for most of their modern hardware.

The way I envisage this working is in a very similar way to DirectX: the game ships the driver installer with the game, just like you see whenever you install a DirectX based game (they always install DX first as part of the installation).

Of course we can always hope and pray that customers have this new Vulkan thing pre-installed and all will be well but there is a reason why DX titles ship with the installer.

Cas :slight_smile:

#14

Only 3? What about Imagination, ARM… This thing is supposed to run on all platforms, isn’t it?

#15

For ARM platforms it doesn’t matter as basically that means “phones”, and the systems are pretty much shipped complete. Nothing else is really relevant. Playstation and Xbox obviously but they do their own weirdy things anyway.

Cas :slight_smile:

#16

They are still going to develop opengl independently of this, this will be similar to directx 12 / AMD Mantel / Apples Metal and opengl will be like directx 11 (both still being actively developed).

Bye Bye AMD Mantel, you inspired a new generation of API but the big boys are now going to swallow you up :slight_smile:

#17

AMD had a pretty big input on the API of Vulkan. Whatever is left they are probably keeping to themselves intentionally.

#18

Mantle was never meant to be an API that replaced the already existing APIs, it was an API that was created to kickstart the, quite frankly, stagnant API market. Since DX11 (which came out 6 years ago, in 2009), there has been little to no development of APIs. Richard Huddy, Chief Gaming Scientist at AMD, said that before they started work on Mantle, Microsoft had no plans to develop a DX12 at all, as they were too enveloped in trying to penetrate the mobile marketplace. It was only the creation of Mantle that kicked off this generation of “zero driver overhead” APIs.

Honestly AMD are really great at propelling technological advancements, au contraire to Nvidia.

#19

Mantle was designed to heat things up and punch through the glacially stagnant as Zero said market of API crust in an eruption of innovation an… yeah I’m done.

Really it is good news and I’m excited to see how it goes.

#20

In case you didn’t notice, Alexander Overvoorde, the author of Open.GL tutorials, has bought another website for the tutorial of Vulcan, here at vulkan-tutorial.com. That website is now incomplete, since there are no implemented drivers that are ready for the public.

Here is a demonstration video of Vulcan made by PowerVR graphics.

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This video is cool, mainly around the fact that such shading is not really possible on android, at such good FPS. I’m excited to see more of Vulcan.