Khronos has given an official update on Vulkan, there's good news, and there's bad news. The year-end target release date for Vulkan will not be met. However, they are in the home stretch and the release of Vulkan 1.0 is imminent!
QuoteVulkan Working Group Update - December 18th 2015
We have some good news and some bad news. The year-end target release date for Vulkan will not be met. However, we are in the home stretch and the release of Vulkan 1.0 is imminent!
Here is a more detailed update...
The Vulkan specification is complete and undergoing legal review and final polishing. The Vulkan conformance tests are being finalized and multiple member companies are preparing drivers for release. Implementation feedback is the vital final stage of making any Khronos specification ready for primetime, and the Vulkan 1.0 specification will be published when the first conformant implementations are confirmed.
Work is also progressing to complete Vulkan SDKs for Windows, Android and Linux. Google has upgraded to Promoter membership and is now on the Khronos Board to help steer Vulkan strategy for Android and the wider industry.
There is considerable energy driving the work to bring you Vulkan. We are planning Vulkan sessions and demos at key industry events throughout the year. We are excited about the emerging Vulkan ecosystem that will create new business opportunities for the graphics and compute industry.
Vulkan will set the foundation for graphics and compute APIs for years to come and so Khronos is taking the time needed to do this right – and the Vulkan 1.0 release is near!
The Khronos Vulkan Working Group
I am really excited about Vulkan, I just hope all the work put into it will truly be worth it for us. We need Vulkan, as OpenGL just isn't competing for various reasons.
I am glad they are taking their time and not rushing it, as it's my honest belief that our future for gaming is in their hands as much as it is with Valve for SteamOS. Without SteamOS and Vulkan together, I wouldn't see Linux gaming going much further than it has now.
I still think Dota 2 will be the first game on Linux to use Vulkan, considering Valve already had a demo of it months ago too. We know Nvidia was working on Vulkan in their driver already, so we could see driver releases in January along side it. AMD could certainly do this too, since Vulkan is heavily based on their own Mantle and they should be ready. If they somehow aren't, I will be laughing, a lot.
I wish AMD, Intel and Nvidia all the best on this though. It's a fresh chance for them all (mainly AMD vs Nvidia) to compete on a much more level playing field, and might make me think again on my next upgrade.
Sounds like Vulkan is genuinely close now, so I expect to see it in January. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Quoting: MadeanaccounttocommentQuoting: LiamSounds like Vulkan is genuinely close now, so I expect to see it in January.Poor deluded Liam. My bets are late February at the earliest.
my bets are on middle march on gdc.
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Quoting: lucinosQuoting: MadeanaccounttocommentQuoting: LiamSounds like Vulkan is genuinely close now, so I expect to see it in January.Poor deluded Liam. My bets are late February at the earliest.
my bets are on middle march on gdc.
Alright I will join the sad train, June :P
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Quoting: gabsd84Also, I don't really understand the massive hostility towards AMD. It's like watching someone trying to do the right thing and getting kicked by a mob constantly. I understand their drivers where pretty bad in the past but they have open source drivers that are officially supported and improving constantly. Can anyone point me to Nvidia's official Open Source drivers? Is there out of the box support for the latest Nvidia cards in an open source driver? No. Is Nvidia open sourcing Gameworks? No. People should really think hard about what their money is supporting.
If open source does not matter to the Linux gaming community anymore, what's the point of Linux? Windows currently provides better gaming performance and has all the proprietary code you could ask for.
End rant
Of course open source matters, but I've used AMD and I know how terrible it was when I used it. Their open source driver is nice and improving, but it won't run all the latest ports (neither will their closed driver). So, they still aren't the best choice right now.
I would rather be on an open source system, and have 1-2 things closed source (Steam, Nvidia drivers) to play the games I want rather than an entirely closed system. I think it's going a bit fucking overreacting to suddenly say things like "what's the point of Linux" just because some of us choose to allow ourselves a couple closed bits of kit.
Last edited by Liam Dawe on 19 December 2015 at 10:02 am UTC
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LinuxGamesTV Dec 19, 2015
Liam, all your Steamgames are closed source. ^^
@ gabsd84:
You buy games on Steam? Stop it.
You want a open source only system, stop use steam, gog , etc and delete steam, gog games, etc.
You use a printer, thats don't have opensource driver? Burn your printer.
And for me: AMD GPU's are at this time NOT a option. Never ever.
If the AMD GPU driver better then the from Nvidia, i will buy an AMD Card, but not now.
Last edited by LinuxGamesTV on 19 December 2015 at 10:18 am UTC
@ gabsd84:
You buy games on Steam? Stop it.
You want a open source only system, stop use steam, gog , etc and delete steam, gog games, etc.
You use a printer, thats don't have opensource driver? Burn your printer.
And for me: AMD GPU's are at this time NOT a option. Never ever.
If the AMD GPU driver better then the from Nvidia, i will buy an AMD Card, but not now.
Last edited by LinuxGamesTV on 19 December 2015 at 10:18 am UTC
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Quoting: GuestIt was supposedly near complete many months ago, and its foundation was on a complete API (Mantle). I don't believe this new announcement.I'm not in the least bit surprised. This is simply what happens when multiple large companies try to get something done together. Nothing happens quickly. And besides, I'd rather there's a nigh-perfect set of tools for validation and testing at launch to ensure a smooth start for the API. A month or two won't mean a thing in the end.
Edit:
Quoting: GuestI do hope that when it's ready, whenever that may be, FOSS drivers won't be far behind. An open standard isn't too open if FOSS drivers don't get a seat at the table during development.A proof-of-concept open source Intel driver has already been demoed months ago. And if AMD doesn't come up with an implementation in their FOSS drivers, you've really got to doubt their supposed priorities. NVIDIA? Heh.
Last edited by tuubi on 19 December 2015 at 11:06 am UTC
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about the open source thing, My personal answer is that I have priorities. Open standards are often way more important than Linux. Linux (as an open source kernel) is more important than open source drivers. Open source drivers are way more important than open source game engines. And open source game engine is more important than open source games. Although everything open source we should support, I do not see any point to fight against closed source games or game engines, and although we should be a bit more against closed source drivers, it is still less vital than other things.
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Well, we're seeing a more and more shift to open source, even in drivers and game engines for the reason that they started to adopt different business models (share of the revenue of a game instead of a fixed license cost, and very low monthly payment as the $10 for UE4).
As long as we don't see a working business model for Games, we won't see them open source any time soon, because creating them is not cheap.
I understand that people want to make a living out of their work. In Linux, RedHat shows how that works. A lot of kernel developers come by hardware producing companies as well. Of course, we've a good share of volunteers, but there is a good amount of people making a living of this.
I personally see no business model you could run for opensource games which reliably works (yet), but maybe some smart person will come up with something. The kickstarter / early access thing is one way to go, but you still have the risk what you could do when you need more cash? Today, the game developers are bridging that with funds from investors to finish their product, and get the money in of the extra-sales after release.
For me, it's not so important if something is OpenSource or not. Yes, I develop OpenSource out of ideology. For me is important that those products use open standards for my data, so I can easily replace them once some better product comes along.
Last edited by STiAT on 19 December 2015 at 2:15 pm UTC
As long as we don't see a working business model for Games, we won't see them open source any time soon, because creating them is not cheap.
I understand that people want to make a living out of their work. In Linux, RedHat shows how that works. A lot of kernel developers come by hardware producing companies as well. Of course, we've a good share of volunteers, but there is a good amount of people making a living of this.
I personally see no business model you could run for opensource games which reliably works (yet), but maybe some smart person will come up with something. The kickstarter / early access thing is one way to go, but you still have the risk what you could do when you need more cash? Today, the game developers are bridging that with funds from investors to finish their product, and get the money in of the extra-sales after release.
For me, it's not so important if something is OpenSource or not. Yes, I develop OpenSource out of ideology. For me is important that those products use open standards for my data, so I can easily replace them once some better product comes along.
Last edited by STiAT on 19 December 2015 at 2:15 pm UTC
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For the Vulkan-Release. I certainly don't see it happening in January - at least not very likely, but my bet still lies in Q1/2016.
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"(share of the revenue of a game instead of a fixed license cost, and very low monthly payment as the $10 for UE4)."
There is no monthly fee on UE4 any more. But it was $19.
Edit:
CryEngine's fee is $9.99/month though. But with no royalties and no source code access.
Last edited by Kristian on 19 December 2015 at 4:35 pm UTC
There is no monthly fee on UE4 any more. But it was $19.
Edit:
CryEngine's fee is $9.99/month though. But with no royalties and no source code access.
Last edited by Kristian on 19 December 2015 at 4:35 pm UTC
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This is not particularly a surprise. Khronos actually has a decent record of getting things right since they took over OpenGL. I think they are aware that they need to have existing implementations available at release with no inconsistencies between them. Whether it is available now or some time q1 2016 does not really matter until game back-ends are recoded to use Vulkan.
I am more interested to see what Apple, Sony and Microsoft try to do. It is important long term that Android support Vulkan as it is the largest open platform, but the vendors more inclined to lock their platforms could cause problems by preventing Vulkan implementations or providing only bad implementations on their platforms.
I am more interested to see what Apple, Sony and Microsoft try to do. It is important long term that Android support Vulkan as it is the largest open platform, but the vendors more inclined to lock their platforms could cause problems by preventing Vulkan implementations or providing only bad implementations on their platforms.
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