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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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kellerkindt 19 Mar 2017
Ridiculous shot to the knee by M$ to support DX12 only on Win 10 - but I cannot complain about that :D
18 Likes, Who?
Kimyrielle 19 Mar 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 Mar 2017 at 4:50 pm UTC
Last edited by Kimyrielle on 19 Mar 2017 at 4:50 pm UTC
27 Likes, Who?
hardpenguin 19 Mar 2017
Ridiculous 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 ;)
6 Likes, Who?
Well, as Star Citizen is most likely the next Duke Nukem Forever I cannot be happy with this...
1 Likes, Who?
Mountain Man 19 Mar 2017
I fully expect Star Citizen to be one of the most expensive bombs in video game history.
0 Likes
Kimyrielle 19 Mar 2017
Ridiculous 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
9 Likes, Who?
Well, 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.
3 Likes, Who?
Ridiculous 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 . . .
3 Likes, Who?
5 Likes, Who?
Well, 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 Mar 2017 at 2:10 pm UTC
6 Likes, Who?
This is good even if its just from a PR sense. Hopefully other developers have been taking notice of what ID was able to so with Doom, Bethesda's Vulkan announcement and now Star Citizen. These are big wins for Vulkan and us Linux gamers win by default.
2 Likes, Who?
Great news, would be really good if the price of StarCitizen is going a litle bit lower...
1 Likes, Who?
Not sure there's anything to celebrate: as far as i can tell they might switch to directx 13 or 14 in the future, judging by how fast (slow) they are progressing ;-)
0 Likes
This is a major blow to MS lock-in domination. The more high profile developers will adopt Vulkan, the more normal it will be seen in the industry. Don't forget, Vulkan job market now is also not as big as DX one. It needs to grow.
Last edited by Shmerl on 19 Mar 2017 at 6:45 pm UTC
Last edited by Shmerl on 19 Mar 2017 at 6:45 pm UTC
8 Likes, Who?
slaapliedje 19 Mar 2017
This is awesome. I had wondered what they were going to do for their Linux promise. But it really does make far more sense to use an API that is multi-platform. Honestly I think the main reason there has been so much stagnation is because OpenGL kind of sucked for various reasons.
It is a good point about DX12 adoption, I can't even think of any games or engines that utilize it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_DirectX_12_support
Apparently the list is really small.
6 that are DX12 exclusive...
Last edited by slaapliedje on 19 Mar 2017 at 7:00 pm UTC
It is a good point about DX12 adoption, I can't even think of any games or engines that utilize it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_DirectX_12_support
Apparently the list is really small.
6 that are DX12 exclusive...
Last edited by slaapliedje on 19 Mar 2017 at 7:00 pm UTC
3 Likes, Who?
Avehicle7887 19 Mar 2017
So glad to see more people are adopting Vulkan. Croteam (Serious Sam) have made great performance leaps on Linux and the new Doom has shown us that Vulkan is amazing even with Wine.
If a game such as Star Citizen were to pull off a 1:1 Windows-Linux performance release with Vulkan, I expect it will send a few nudges to other developers.
If a game such as Star Citizen were to pull off a 1:1 Windows-Linux performance release with Vulkan, I expect it will send a few nudges to other developers.
3 Likes, Who?
Kimyrielle 19 Mar 2017
6 that are DX12 exclusive...
Using DX12 exclusively would be financial suicide for a publisher at this point, given that they'd lock themselves out of 75% of the Windows market NOT running Win 10.
Really nice of MS, pushing Vulkan for us like this. :D
6 Likes, Who?
Ok so now I have regained hope for Star Citizen to also come to Linux. I have never given up hope about it becoming awesome, though. I think it will be stellar. But boy does it take it sweet time in getting done.
1 Likes, Who?
Really nice of MS, pushing Vulkan for us like this. :D
While MS aren't new to shooting themselves in the foot, this opportunity is really time limited. MS are aggressively pushing their new Windows junk on people.
3 Likes, Who?
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