The specification for the long awaited Vulkan graphics API has now been released by Khronos. An SDK by LunarG has also been released which contains validation and debugging tools for Vulkan applications.
Quite a lot of people have been waiting excitedly for the Vulkan spec to come out and there has been a lot of hype surrounding the new API. Vulkan has been designed to be a high-performance low-level API which can take advantage of modern multicore processors far better than OpenGL. We will have to see how much this new approach affects real life performance once we have drivers with Vulkan support and games that utilize this new API, hopefully we'll get that soon.
AMD have also released a video explaining how Vulkan works in a nutshell.
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You can read the full Vulkan specification announcement from Khronos here and find some docs and samples of Vulkan in the Khronos GitHub. Correction: The Vulkan samples page is currently empty. The LunarG Vulkan SDK will be available on their Vulkan page but currently the download page might show you a 404 error.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Hah, the "Multiple operating systems" slide in the video shows several specific Linux distros, plus a generic tux icon. :)
hmmm, android, linux and windows7-10 already cover big fucking majority
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Extra note: according to Phoronix the AMD driver (Windows driver) did not pass the Vulkan conformance test:
"The conformant drivers as of writing this article are: Imagination Technologies on Linux, Intel on Linux, NVIDIA on Android / Linux / Windows, and Qualcomm for Android 6.0. Yep, no mention at all of AMD, which was quite the jaw-dropper when I was sent over this material last week..."
So maybe AMD is justified for not having Linux driver if they have delays even on Windows
"The conformant drivers as of writing this article are: Imagination Technologies on Linux, Intel on Linux, NVIDIA on Android / Linux / Windows, and Qualcomm for Android 6.0. Yep, no mention at all of AMD, which was quite the jaw-dropper when I was sent over this material last week..."
So maybe AMD is justified for not having Linux driver if they have delays even on Windows
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https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2016-February/100773.html
Finally NVidia providing signed firmware blobs for GM200 and GM204 (GM206 to
follow soon), and providing patches to Nouveau to load the signed firmware too...
Mesa needs to be patched as well though.
Finally NVidia providing signed firmware blobs for GM200 and GM204 (GM206 to
follow soon), and providing patches to Nouveau to load the signed firmware too...
Mesa needs to be patched as well though.
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Vulkan powered Witcher 3 for Linux in 3...2..1.....
Maybe one day.
Yep. I'm waiting for the same :)
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I've become curious about one thing: if Vulkan provides such a low level access to hardware, what will happen if an app (a game usually) starts to misbehave? I read Vulkan has very little validation in favor of speed. Does that mean that a buggy game could crash the entire Xorg or freeze the driver? A user-space segfault usually leads to crashing the program but not the entire system (and Xorg/desktop for many people is the system), but if invalid data goes into the kernel space or the Xorg driver and crashes there because of that... I suppose it would be bad. Kernel panic for the module and Xorg crash in case of the Xorg driver.
Is it any better with OpenGL? It's direct access too. A misbehaving game/driver can easily freeze a system. You can sometimes switch to a console to kill the game, but often it is not possible. You could still ssh into the box if you have another system available, but how many users can do it?
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[quote=rkfg]I've become curious about one thing: if Vulkan provides such a low level access to hardware, what will happen if an app (a game usually) starts to misbehave? I read Vulkan has very little validation in favor of speed. Does that mean that a buggy game could crash the entire Xorg or freeze the driver? A user-space segfault usually leads to crashing the program but not the entire system (and Xorg/desktop for many people is the system), but if invalid data goes into the kernel space or the Xorg driver and crashes there because of that... I suppose it would be bad. Kernel panic for the module and Xorg crash in case of the Xorg driver.[/quote]
[s]A buggy OpenGL game can freeze your system...
Added this comment way too late in the thread. Doesn't seem like I can delete a comment I made, or am I wrong?
Last edited by rune on 16 Feb 2016 at 4:02 pm UTC
[s]A buggy OpenGL game can freeze your system...
Added this comment way too late in the thread. Doesn't seem like I can delete a comment I made, or am I wrong?
Last edited by rune on 16 Feb 2016 at 4:02 pm UTC
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linux_gamer 16 Feb 2016
WTF!!!
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I wonder how long it will take for some distros to implement Vulkan API... :|
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I wonder how long it will take for some distros to implement Vulkan API... :|They don't need to. They just have to ship drivers with Vulkan support built into them.
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I wonder how long it will take for some distros to implement Vulkan API... :|
Expect all major distros to support all kinds for Vulkan API in autumn releases. I would even expect some Vulkan support to land in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, if all goes well.
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And I'm pretty sure SteamOS will get a Vulkan driver very very soon :-).
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So let's recap:
* AMD - no supported drivers, Windows beta, Linux driver later due of AMDGPU restruct...as far as we know it will be blob at the beginning, and open sourced later. No info will it ship separately from Catalyst/fglrx;
* Nvidia - official blob supporting lot of cards released, can be used as we speak. Nouveau - considering amount of work required for OpenGL, don't expect any time soon. However it will be easier to implement for sure;
* Intel - open source driver, based on Mesa, released as we speak;
* Lots of mobile chips support Vulkan API trough Android (how about other Linux based distros? Are those drivers platform neutral)?
So not bad start imho. I hope AMD gets their Windows driver finished and certified soon, and AMDGPU case is cleared up till autumn. Other than that, looks really promising start. Wayland supported, Blender supported, Gstreamer supported...and that's just a start.
* AMD - no supported drivers, Windows beta, Linux driver later due of AMDGPU restruct...as far as we know it will be blob at the beginning, and open sourced later. No info will it ship separately from Catalyst/fglrx;
* Nvidia - official blob supporting lot of cards released, can be used as we speak. Nouveau - considering amount of work required for OpenGL, don't expect any time soon. However it will be easier to implement for sure;
* Intel - open source driver, based on Mesa, released as we speak;
* Lots of mobile chips support Vulkan API trough Android (how about other Linux based distros? Are those drivers platform neutral)?
So not bad start imho. I hope AMD gets their Windows driver finished and certified soon, and AMDGPU case is cleared up till autumn. Other than that, looks really promising start. Wayland supported, Blender supported, Gstreamer supported...and that's just a start.
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I just hope Blizzard implement this in WoW because it really is the one and only game/application that annoyingly keeps me dual booting.
One can dream.
How would that magically make it a Linux port?
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I just hope Blizzard implement this in WoW because it really is the one and only game/application that annoyingly keeps me dual booting.
One can dream.
Don't dream about it.
They already have OpenGL renderer in this game, and they had Linux internal port. They decide not to release it. So no, don't hope.
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* Lots of mobile chips support Vulkan API trough Android (how about other Linux based distros? Are those drivers platform neutral)?
well.. the kernel couldn't care less, though, the compositor above will ;-). So in a driver-sense, android drivers stay android drivers, support for other display servers would require the driver to support them (e.g. X11, Wayland, Mir).
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I can't wait to see ARK using vulkan :O
please please i don't wait for long time!
please please i don't wait for long time!
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