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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Quoting: rkfgThe safety and memory management questions were answered here: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/the-talk-about-vulkan-at-fosdem-by-jason-ekstrand-from-intel-now-has-a-video-up.6639Quoting: minjThe error checking is a different layer in Vulkan that can be enabled in dev and disabled in production. This should theoretically take care of all the major problems before they hit users. Then again AAA titles should be obvious bug-free on launch and we all now how take works...My concern exactly. For now a buggy shader may prevent rendering some parts of the scene like skin in Assassin's Creed. Looks awfully but at least you can exit the game. If the entire desktop hangs up instead (together with unsaved documents and what else), gamers would be not just upset but furious.
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I want to believe that is still too early to judge Vulkan API.
Vulkan API has to be superior or at least on par with DirectX otherwise cant see the point of a new API :(
10 FPS More than OpenGL is disappointing. Oh well lets hope things will be better...
Vulkan API has to be superior or at least on par with DirectX otherwise cant see the point of a new API :(
10 FPS More than OpenGL is disappointing. Oh well lets hope things will be better...
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BabaoWhisky Feb 16, 2016
I really hope to have more AAA games on Linux thanks to Vulkan but i'm pessimistic.
Example, EA/Bioware will use Vulkan/Dx12 for their Engine but the Vulkan version will be only for Windows < 10 ...
Example, EA/Bioware will use Vulkan/Dx12 for their Engine but the Vulkan version will be only for Windows < 10 ...
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Quoting: wolfyrionI want to believe that is still too early to judge Vulkan API.
Vulkan API has to be superior or at least on par with DirectX otherwise cant see the point of a new API :(
10 FPS More than OpenGL is disappointing. Oh well lets hope things will be better...
The important thing is that, going by that graph, Vulkan could put Linux performance almost on par with DX11, solving what is currently the one biggest weakness for the platform in comparison to Windows.
That's impressive for a brand new release. I expect we'll see even more improvements as the API matures.
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Mountain Man Feb 16, 2016
Quoting: GuestFrom the sound of the GDC talks there will be a few Vulkan titles released by this time next month, so I'm excited to see what they are.The question is, does Vulkan support automatically mean Linux support?
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Mountain Man Feb 16, 2016
Quoting: GuestI just hope Blizzard implement this in WoW because it really is the one and only game/application that annoyingly keeps me dual booting.I thought WoW ran perfectly in Wine.
One can dream.
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Quoting: turolFrom the specification section 2.5:Thanks, that's a strong point!
"... implementations must ensure that incorrect usage by an application does not affect the integrity of
the operating system, the Vulkan implementation, or other Vulkan client applications in the system, and does not allow
one application to access data belonging to another application. Applications can request stronger robustness guarantees
..."
So a misbehaving application should only be able to crash itself assuming there are no OS/driver bugs.
Quoting: STiATVulkan does not let you just access the hardware, just because it's closer to it, it's not a direct access. It basically just gives you more control about command queues and buffers, within a few other things. But you still have to get a command buffer by the driver (you request a buffer of a kind and size and the driver supplies you with that), that didn't change :p.And this perfectly complements it. I'm relieved now.
Vulkan applications still have their OWN LOCAL buffers, which the driver better does not get mixed up with other buffers reserved on the GPU. Getting Vulkan to be displayed on X11 and/or keeping different applications not getting in each others way is the responsibility of the driver (still).
But ye, you for sure can kill the driver with Vulkan, as much as you could with OpenGL (locking up the GPU).
BTW, what if Wine/eON implements their D3D translation in Vulkan? Could it give any significant boost or reduce hitching?
Last edited by rkfg on 16 February 2016 at 7:32 pm UTC
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Quoting: wolfyrionI want to believe that is still too early to judge Vulkan API.
Vulkan API has to be superior or at least on par with DirectX otherwise cant see the point of a new API :(
10 FPS More than OpenGL is disappointing. Oh well lets hope things will be better...
Chill man, it is too early.
Drivers just arrived, prolly they're all in beta right now (even though only AMD labbled as beta).
Also we don't know how good was Talos principle's implementation of Vulkan. We only know they were the first!
Bottom line: there're too many open variables to draw any conclusion.
Last edited by amonobeax on 16 February 2016 at 7:41 pm UTC
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silverphil Feb 16, 2016
Does the nvidia driver support notebook gpus? (i have a GT 650M [kepler])
If so, does anyone know if it works with PRIME/bumblebee somehow? Has anyone tried it?!
If so, does anyone know if it works with PRIME/bumblebee somehow? Has anyone tried it?!
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