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[gofreak]

https://www.khronos.org/vulkan

Vulkan is the new generation, open standard API for high-efficiency access to graphics and compute on modern GPUs. This ground-up design, previously referred to as the Next Generation OpenGL Initiative, provides applications direct control over GPU acceleration for maximized performance and predictability.

“Industry standard APIs like Vulkan are a critical part of enabling developers to bring the best possible experience to customers on multiple platforms. Valve and the other Khronos members are working hard to ensure that this high-performance graphics interface is made available as widely as possible and we view it as a critical component of SteamOS and future Valve games.”
Gabe Newell - Valve

Overview: https://www.khronos.org/assets/uploads/developers/library/overview/2015_vulkan_v1_Overview.pdf


Valve will be hosting a Vulkan session at GDC:

Vulkan: The Future of High Performance Graphics – hosted by Valve
Thursday, March 5 at 10-11AM
Venue: Room 2006 in the West Hall of the GDC Conference
A technical preview of the Vulkan API, with advanced techniques and live demos of real-world applications running on Vulkan drivers and hardware

edit - oh, the session was previously known about - same one with Oxide, Frostbite etc.

 

[Man]

"Graphics and compute belong together". Damn straight.

 

[Blizzard]

Almost as if it's in honor of Leonard Nimoy. Maybe this standard will live long and prosper. It's a cool name at any rate.

Here's another article:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=khronos-vulcan-spirv&num=1

Apparently SPIR-V is some sort of bridge language between computing (OpenCL) and traditional graphics tasks (GLSL)?

 

[ashecitism]

edit - oh, the session was previously known about - same one with Oxide, Frostbite etc.

http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/glnext-the-future-of-high-performance-graphics-presented-by-valve

 

[andrerobot]

Holy crap! AMD, nVidia, Intel, Apple, Imagination and Qualcomm are in.

I really hope this standard succeeds.

 

[Durante]

Open source
conformance test source
components for
community engagement

I'm so happy.

Apparently SPIR-V is some sort of bridge language between computing (OpenCL) and traditional graphics tasks (GLSL)?

SPIR is a parallel intermediate representation. It can serve as a target for open compilers of high-level languages and a source for the final binary compilers provided by HW manufacturers, thus fixing the issue of needing to provide a high-level compilation stack (which might differ slightly in its interpretations or error reporting) with each driver.

 

[Dreamgazer]

The inevitable and pointless Console API war is approaching.

 

[ashecitism]

Khronos sessions at GDC

https://www.khronos.org/news/events/gdc-2015

 

[Man]

The inevitable and pointless Console API war is approaching.

More like: Everyone & everything will be Vulkan (in 2020) outside of Microsoft.

 

[maximrace]

Any idea how good this is versus DX12?

 

[Visualante2]

In an ideal world Nintendo would be a partner in this, given that they will probably end up using it for their next system.

edit. Well saying that....

 

[chadskin]

Some more details:

"Vulkan is nice and new and shiny, but of course it's just at the beginning of its development cycle. OpenGL, they're in their prime. They're enabling access to billions of devices. There's going to be business imperatives that we not just maintain those APIs—we evolve those APIs. For years, probably, to come. We're not abandoning OpenGL.”

"Porting between Vulkan and DirectX 12 we suspect won't be too hard," says Trevett.

"Porting from DirectX 12 to Vulkan will be easier than porting from DirectX 12 to OpenGL," he continues. "DirectX 12 and Vulkan and Mantle are going to be similar in the next generation. We're all solving the same problem in a similar kind of way."

And good news for basically everyone: You probably won't need new hardware to take advantage of Vulkan. Just like DirectX 12, Khronos is hoping to extend compatibility back a few hardware generations, which means you'll potentially notice a performance increase even on your old hardware once the API is officially released and introduced in new games.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2891...tic-gaming-tech-taking-aim-at-directx-12.html

 

[Koobion]

Very exciting to have Valve behind this initiative to potentially provide an exit to the Microsoft stranglehold at some point.

And from a console perspective, the focus on compute is especially beneficial to PS4.

 

[Nzyme32]

Good stuff! Hopefully they have some fully featured game and applications demonstrating its ability, and hopefully being extremely competitive with the other APIs

 

[Durante]

I wonder if we could actually see "real" "AAA" Windows games written with Vulkan rather than DirectX. That woud be fantastic, and it seems like it could make a lot of sense. Most likely very similar performance and feature sets, but you can reach everyone rather than just those on Windows 10.

But maybe I'm just dreaming. I'd be so ready for the glorious one open API future.

 

[ashecitism]

oh, I see Dota 2 in that Vulkan debugger pic

 

[Objectively Bad Opinion]

They've only worked on it since June 2014? That's crazy fast.

And there are already a driver (or multiple drivers) for it. That's also crazy fast.

 

[Mabase]

Looks very promising. Let's hope this will be successful. Open standards yay!

 

[UnrealEck]

I'm guessing Valve will want to promote the shit out of this because of their Linux-based Steam OS.
Hopefully it takes off.

(Probably a stupid) Question - Does Microsoft prevent any other operating systems from using DirectX? In other words, is DX generally Windows exclusive?

 

[MrCunningham]

Vulkan? Is the name paying tribute to the death of Leonard Nimoy? If so, that would be pretty cool.

 

[ashecitism]

It was trademarked before that, so no.

 

[MrCunningham]

It was trademarked before that, so no.

Interesting coincidence then.

Can't wait to see what they have prepared for the 5th.

 

[mugwhump]

Vulkan? Is the name paying tribute to the death of Leonard Nimoy? If so, that would be pretty cool.

That would be pretty darn last-minute.

Unless... they knew somehow...

 

[agiantenemycrab]

SPIR-V whitepaper for those interested...

 

[Nzyme32]

That would be pretty darn last-minute.

Unless... they knew somehow...

Vulkan (not Vulcan) in various languages means Volcano, which is likely a shout out to mantle or indication of its following

 

[stryke]

A general comment on APIs and the future of Mantle from AMD -

http://community.amd.com/community/...g/2015/03/02/on-apis-and-the-future-of-mantle

 

[Durante]

A general comment on APIs and the future of Mantle from AMD -

http://community.amd.com/community/...g/2015/03/02/on-apis-and-the-future-of-mantle

You can read that either as "Mantle is dead" or "Mantle has been superseded by Vulkan and DX12" depending on how charitable you want to be. The result is the same though.

 

[MrCunningham]

Vulkan (not Vulcan) in various languages means Volcano, which is likely a shout out to mantle or indication of its following

Ah, makes sense.

 

[CTLance]

I am a pessimist at heart, but I dearly wish for this to succeed.

Best of luck to the young standard.

Now, I hope this will have been correctly specced, down to the last fucking bit. That open source compliance suite sounds like a great first step on the long arduous path to true cross-system compatibility.

 

[Turin Turambar]

Well, they are already reusing some parts of Mantle

Like this graphic

(I checked, it's exactly the same as Amd's mantle)

 

[Durante]

Erm, have you looked at the slide they are using that on? It's about other APIs (namely Mantle, DirectX and Metal) and why they suck.

 

[ashecitism]

Regarding the name, Khronos have set up a survey for that in the beginning of this year.

 

[dampflokfreund]

Since OpenGL is slower than DX11 and the fact that I will use Windows 10 makes me look more forward to DX12

But good for Mac/Linux users I guess

 

[Nzyme32]

Since OpenGL is slower than DX11 and the fact that I will use Windows 10 makes me look more forward to DX12

But good for Mac/Linux users I guess

It works for Windows too, and we have no idea of it's performance yet. It could have many advantages.

 

[martino]

 

[Turin Turambar]

Erm, have you looked at the slide they are using that on? It's about other APIs (namely Mantle, DirectX and Metal) and why they suck.

Oh, you are right, on my defense is early here andI still haven't eaten breakfast...



A few more concrete details here

http://blog.imgtec.com/powervr/trying-out-the-new-vulkan-graphics-api-on-powervr-gpus

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9038/next-generation-opengl-becomes-vulkan-additional-details-released

 

[Swifty]

it's starting to look like all of Mantle's functions are going to be present in Vulkan, just with vk prefixed instead of gr.

 

[BrokenIcarus]

Awesome!
Any platform that supports OpenGl ES 3.1 is basically every phone with lollipop!
Can't wait to get my hands on this!

 

[c0de]

I hope the manage to build everything from scratch and to finally unify the api.
For further reading why OpenGL sucks (at the moment):http://www.yosoygames.com.ar/wp/2013/09/what-i-hate-from-opengl-api/

 

[jmga]

Since OpenGL is slower than DX11 and the fact that I will use Windows 10 makes me look more forward to DX12

But good for Mac/Linux users I guess

OpenGL 4.X is faster than DX11. But also a lot less used or bad implemented in AAA games.

 

[Boombox On]

Erm, have you looked at the slide they are using that on? It's about other APIs (namely Mantle, DirectX and Metal) and why they suck.

Well, Vulkan using elements from Mantle is actually true.

 

[John Bender]

Vulkan (not Vulcan) in various languages means Volcano, which is likely a shout out to mantle or indication of its following

In germany, for example.
Vulkan = Volcano

 

[Diffense]

I was wondering about the strangest little thing when I heard the name a view days ago (the trademark filing leaked). What will the api prefix be if not gl? I knew they they'd be picking a few letters from vulkan. Well, curiosity satisified, it seems to be vk. I'd have picked those too.
Some functions are:

vkGetObjectInfo
vkCreateBufferDevice
vkCreateFence
vkBeginCommandBuffer
vkEndCommandBuffer
vkCmdPipelineBarrier
vkQueueSubmit

It's from a screen shot of a debugger on page 8 of this pdf.
https://www.khronos.org/assets/uploads/developers/library/overview/2015_vulkan_v1_Overview.pdf
That already gives some insight into how it's going to work.

Anyway, this is exciting! Vulkan will be supported on gl 3.1 (Edit: ES 3.1) + devices so it will be quite widely available once the drivers are released.

 

[Faustek]

Open source
conformance test source
components for
community engagement

I'm so happy.

We all are ( ^-^)ノ∠※。.:*:・'°☆

Wonder if we will see any big games, outside if Valve's games, written to Vulkan.

The inevitable and pointless Console API war is approaching.

.....???

 

[Durante]

Well, Vulkan using elements from Mantle is actually true.

Sure, it looks like that, I just wanted to point out the context of the use of the logo in that slide.

 

[Objectively Bad Opinion]

it's starting to look like all of Mantle's functions are going to be present in Vulkan, just with vk prefixed instead of gr.

Wow, nice catch. Here's the screenshot of valve's debugger:

The exact same names. Very cool, I guess AMD wasn't just blowing hot air when they said they wanted Mantle to be an industry standard, and that they let Khronos (this includes Nvidia!) have full access to Mantle.

Props to AMD for putting their money where their mouth is.

 

[Durante]

A few more concrete details here

http://blog.imgtec.com/powervr/trying-out-the-new-vulkan-graphics-api-on-powervr-gpus

Thanks for that link, best thing I've read about it yet.

 

[LAA]

Just curious...can this API be used for PS4?
I believe that used OpenGL, so just wondering if it is compatible with Vulcan?

 

[Dodecagon]

Wow, I'd really like to stop writting cuda and give this a shot. The debugger looks just like nvvp.

 

[MrCunningham]

Well, Vulkan using elements from Mantle is actually true.

If this is true, than it could potentially give AMD a much needed gain in OpenGL and Linux driver performance.

Wow, nice catch. Here's the screenshot of valve's debugger:

The exact same names. Very cool, I guess AMD wasn't just blowing hot air when they said they wanted Mantle to be an industry standard, and that they let Khronos (this includes Nvidia!) have full access to Mantle.

Props to AMD for putting their money where their mouth is.

Woah... AMD could really capitalize on this then....