A developer of Star Citizen [Official Site] has commented on their forum to state that the game will go with Vulkan and eventually drop DirectX.
Here's what the developer said (source):
This is pretty great for both Vulkan adoption and future Linux support of the MMO. Considering right now it relies heavily on DX11, if they actually do drop that for Vulkan it really does mean they will only be using Vulkan.
Star Citizen itself has been the topic of a lot of controversy, since a great many people think it will never actually end up as a game. I have no real thoughts on that, since big games do take a long time and a lot of money to make, and these guys are doing it in the public eye. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Here's what the developer said (source):
QuoteYears ago we stated our intention to support DX12, but since the introduction of Vulkan which has the same feature set and performance advantages this seemed a much more logical rendering API to use as it doesn't force our users to upgrade to Windows 10 and opens the door for a single graphics API that could be used on all Windows 7, 8, 10 & Linux. As a result our current intention is to only support Vulkan and eventually drop support for DX11 as this shouldn't effect any of our backers. DX12 would only be considered if we found it gave us a specific and substantial advantage over Vulkan. The API's really aren't that different though, 95% of the work for these APIs is to change the paradigm of the rendering pipeline, which is the same for both APIs.
This is pretty great for both Vulkan adoption and future Linux support of the MMO. Considering right now it relies heavily on DX11, if they actually do drop that for Vulkan it really does mean they will only be using Vulkan.
Star Citizen itself has been the topic of a lot of controversy, since a great many people think it will never actually end up as a game. I have no real thoughts on that, since big games do take a long time and a lot of money to make, and these guys are doing it in the public eye. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
kellerkindt Mar 19, 2017
Ridiculous shot to the knee by M$ to support DX12 only on Win 10 - but I cannot complain about that :D
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Kimyrielle Mar 19, 2017
I don't ride the Star Citizen hype train, but the news that major developers are dumping DX12 in favour of Vulkan is nothing short of awesome! :D
Last edited by Kimyrielle on 19 March 2017 at 4:50 pm UTC
Last edited by Kimyrielle on 19 March 2017 at 4:50 pm UTC
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hardpenguin Mar 19, 2017
Quoting: kellerkindtRidiculous shot to the knee by M$ to support DX12 only on Win 10 - but I cannot complain about that :DWell, that's exactly what they did with DX10 and DX11 (available only for Windows Vista and newer). And as most of you probably noticed, they really want everyone to use the latest version of their system ;)
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Well, as Star Citizen is most likely the next Duke Nukem Forever I cannot be happy with this...
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Mountain Man Mar 19, 2017
I fully expect Star Citizen to be one of the most expensive bombs in video game history.
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Kimyrielle Mar 19, 2017
Quoting: hardpenguinQuoting: kellerkindtRidiculous shot to the knee by M$ to support DX12 only on Win 10 - but I cannot complain about that :DWell, that's exactly what they did with DX10 and DX11 (available only for Windows Vista and newer). And as most of you probably noticed, they really want everyone to use the latest version of their system ;)
Yes, the shot in the knee part is when they expected Win 10 to be successful, and people didn't even want it for free, making DX12 stuck with a market share that will force developers to offer DX11 legacy support for years to come... Or just use Vulkan and get rid of the problem entirely. :D
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Quoting: hardpenguinWell, that's exactly what they did with DX10 and DX11 (available only for Windows Vista and newer).
That also didn't work out quite as well as they wanted. Developers responded by maintaining two renderers, one for DX9 and one for DX11. This was standard practice for years, even for a while after the release of Windows 8. Game developers are all too aware that graphics APIs do sweet FA for end user OS adoption, and even then, supporting only the latest and greatest shuts them out of a pretty significant chunk of the market.
Because adoption of 10 has been relatively stunted, DX12 is so different from what came before, and current graphics code still works on 10, people are loathe to implement it at all.
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Quoting: KimyrielleQuoting: hardpenguinQuoting: kellerkindtRidiculous shot to the knee by M$ to support DX12 only on Win 10 - but I cannot complain about that :DWell, that's exactly what they did with DX10 and DX11 (available only for Windows Vista and newer). And as most of you probably noticed, they really want everyone to use the latest version of their system ;)
Yes, the shot in the knee part is when they expected Win 10 to be successful, and people didn't even want it for free, making DX12 stuck with a market share that will force developers to offer DX11 legacy support for years to come... Or just use Vulkan and get rid of the problem entirely. :D
It is a huge advantage for Vulkan, and one which as far as I remember hadn't even come up in previous discussions on the subject around here. We'd been talking about the different platforms Vulkan supports (and contrariwise about DX12 running on Xbox), but it had never occurred to me that Vulkan, unlike DX12, supports Windows(pre 10). That's massive.
It could be good for Linux in another way too. Consider, people resisting the Win10 (or higher) upgrade over the next couple-few years will increasingly find themselves buying Vulkan games. If pre-Win10 Windows gradually becomes less viable and they think about moving, well, Vulkan games will presumably almost all run on Linux, so smooth upgrade path there. OTOH, Vulkan games may not all run on Mac because that would require porting to Metal . . .
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Quoting: gojulWell, as Star Citizen is most likely the next Duke Nukem Forever I cannot be happy with this...
As Windows users can already play parts of it, it's quite different from Duke Nukem Forever.
This news is great in both ways, Vulkan only usage and Linux support. I thought they would have quietly given up on Linux years ago.
Last edited by Eike on 20 March 2017 at 2:10 pm UTC
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