8 ms·

Vulkan in Open Source [pdf]

74 points by 1ace 11y ago

stonogo 11y ago
More garbage from the same trash factory. Get back to me when you have an API that doesn't incentivize drivers to behave differently based on the name of the video game engine.
- kleiba 11y ago
  While some might find your wording a bit strong, I was also surprised by the lack of content in that slide deck.
  - creshal 11y ago
    Vulkan was originally supposed to start shipping in Q4 2015, and there's still not more publicly available than 12 months ago. The frustration is a bit understandable.
    - joeld42 11y ago
      Its a free and open API developed in secret by committee. What could go wrong? Still, it will be an improvement over openGL.
      - zanny 11y ago
        Seriously Khronos, take a fucking page out of C++. They went two decades with awful broken language syntax until sometime between 2004 and 2008 they got together and decided to fix it. Today, https://isocpp.org/ https://isocpp.org/ is a gold mine of how to do an open standard correctly. Everything is public, future features are discussed with the community, and all the working groups are on github. That is how you take a legacy standardization body and modernize it for the open source world, not make presentations at every event for over a year going "Hey guys its gonna be great! Just wait until you see it! Ooooonnnnnneeeee day! We just know you'll love it!"
  - icebraining 11y ago
    The Q&A was probably the most interesting part. Hopefully the session has been recorded (some were having issues with the cameras).
- amaranth 11y ago
  No one has such an API, as far as I can tell. You think drivers aren't activating special code paths and replacing shader code for games that use Direct3D? I suspect we'll have a short time period where drivers don't do this for Vulkan and D3D12 before we go right back to it because in the end, whoever runs the game and runs it faster wins, no matter how broken the game is.
  - jsheard 11y ago
    > No one has such an API, as far as I can tell. I think he's referring to GR_APPLICATION_INFO, which in Mantle was a struct passed during initialization containing the string names of the game and engine plus their version numbers. The intention probably is to make app specific driver paths easier to implement but as you say, driver developers would do that regardless using the name/path/checksum of the EXE if they had to. https://www.amd.com/Documents/Mantle-Programming-Guide-and-API-Reference.pdf https://www.amd.com/Documents/Mantle-Programming-Guide-and-A... (pg. 308) https://www.khronos.org/assets/uploads/developers/library/2015-gdc/Khronos-Vulkan-GDC_Mar15.pdf https://www.khronos.org/assets/uploads/developers/library/20... (pg. 13)
fitzwatermellow 11y ago
Expecting to hear more Vulkan details from Khronos at the Game Developer's Conference 2016 in March: https://www.khronos.org/news/events/gdc-2016-khronos-sessions https://www.khronos.org/news/events/gdc-2016-khronos-session...
pjmlp 11y ago
More Vulkan slides how everything is going to be great without real content[0], whereas Metal and DX 12 are already here. Not only as drivers, but also documents, books, tools and graphical debuggers. I hope this doesn't turn out into another Longs Peak. [0] Yes, I know it is Mantle inspired and I have those PDFs.
- ginko 11y ago
  Proprietary APIs can't be a replacement to an open industry standard.
  - pjmlp 11y ago
    Well OpenGL regardless of urban myths has been mostly ignored by the games industry, except on iOS, Android and indies before the rise of middleware due to lack of proper tooling. So lets see how Vulkan will improve it.
  - angersock 11y ago
    I'm pretty sure that DirectX is a living, breathing counterexample to that claim.
    - Joky 11y ago
      I'm pretty sure you missed the point...
    - shmerl 11y ago
      And how exactly can you use it on Linux or any other non MS system? It's an example of the disgusting practice of using development tools for lock-in.
      - ntakasaki 11y ago
        Or it can be a very nice object based API instead of a state based API that made sense in 1992 as the slide deck said and certainly didn't make any sense in 2008 when the industry group Khronos sided with the commercial CAD industry to screw over Linux consumer gaming because there was no money in it. How was that DirectX's fault again? I am guess you're not a game developer and your post is yet another case of [1]. I am a game dev and here are some links that show to non game devs why DirectX is more popular: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/60544/why-do-game-developers-prefer-windows/88055#88055 http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/60544/why-do-... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2711231 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2711231 http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/opengl-directx,2019.html http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/opengl-directx,2019.html [1] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/07/linus-torvalds-microsoft-hatred-is-a-disease/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/07/linus-...
dman 11y ago
The lack of information about Vulkan is a bit concerning. For something that is about to be announced anyday now there is very little concrete information available about basic details like - what hardware that is currently shipping will support vulkan and how long after announcement will vendors have drivers out (weeks/months/years?).
- anon4 11y ago
  Drivers will be available on release day and all currently sold hardware will support it.
  - dman 11y ago
    Thanks - is reading the Mantle docs a good way to hit the ground running with Vulkan or have things diverged significantly?
- Mikeb85 11y ago
  > what hardware that is currently shipping will support vulkan Any hardware that supports OpenGLES 3.1. The Khronos guys have said this in various interviews, it's easy enough to google.
- SXX 11y ago
  > what hardware that is currently shipping will support vulkan AMD will support it for all GCN GPUs (7000 series). Nvidia will support Vulkan for Fermi (GeForce 400) and newer. I don't really believe them here, but they even talked about Windows XP support. Announced on SIGGRAPH 2015. Intel is Haswell and newer. It's possible that Ivy Bridge may get it on Linux, but Windows driver looks unlikely as they don't even support OpenGL 4.3 in Windows. > how long after announcement will vendors have drivers out Valve demonstrated Vulkan driver developed by LunarG for Intel hardware back in March of 2015. It's will be released with source code once specification released. Nvidia driver with Vulkan (358.66) leaked in November. AMD employees confirmed they already have Vulkan working on top of new Linux AMDGPU driver. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xBuAdnIrJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xBuAdnIrJQ * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Hth4u65zfc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Hth4u65zfc
monocasa 11y ago
I really think one of the important aspects is that it should be much easier to reverse engineer proprietary drivers now given how explicit the API is supposed to be.
dang 11y ago
Url changed from https://fosdem.org/2016/schedule/event/vulkan_graphics/ https://fosdem.org/2016/schedule/event/vulkan_graphics/, which points to this.
bsder 11y ago
At this point, my advice to the Vulkan folks is: Ship it, or shut up. I don't need another slide deck promising the universe. I need an API that I can build on even if it's primitive. And, if it's too primitive to build on, my advice would change to: Shut up and code.
- jsheard 11y ago
  Apparently it's been finalized for a while, they're just waiting for the green light from legal: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/khronos-group-vulkan-delay,news-52002.html http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/khronos-group-vulkan-delay,new... But I agree these shallow slide decks aren't contributing anything. Anyone who needs to know Vulkan exists knows at this point.
- ntakasaki 11y ago
  Also, Vulkan is going to support extensions like OpenGL did which fragmented the hell out of OpenGL. Nvidia is already beginning the lock in and fragmentation process by making Vulkan extensions. https://developer.nvidia.com/engaging-voyage-vulkan https://developer.nvidia.com/engaging-voyage-vulkan >NVIDIA will therefore provide a few Vulkan extensions from day zero, so that you as developer can enjoy less obstacles on your path to Vulkan. We will support consuming GLSL shader strings directly next to Vulkan's mandatory SPIR-V input
  - gnarbarian 11y ago
    Nefarious intent aside. This will make it much easier to port large projects over piece by piece so its not an all or nothing proposal that requires a complete rewrite from day 1.
tormeh 11y ago
Newest thing I've heard is that there will be games using Vulkan at launch. So, the specification, the drivers and some game ports will all go public the same day. Anything might be holding it up (most likely the ports), but GDC in March seems like a reasonable deadline considering the amount of talks about Vulkan.
shmerl 11y ago
I hope Vulkan will catch up. And MS deserves strong disrespect for not joining the effort which can move the industry forward.

74 points by 1ace 11y ago

More garbage from the same trash factory. Get back to me when you have an API that doesn't incentivize drivers to behave differently based on the name of the video game engine.

kleiba 11y ago
While some might find your wording a bit strong, I was also surprised by the lack of content in that slide deck.
- creshal 11y ago
  Vulkan was originally supposed to start shipping in Q4 2015, and there's still not more publicly available than 12 months ago. The frustration is a bit understandable.
  - joeld42 11y ago
    Its a free and open API developed in secret by committee. What could go wrong? Still, it will be an improvement over openGL.
    - zanny 11y ago
      Seriously Khronos, take a fucking page out of C++. They went two decades with awful broken language syntax until sometime between 2004 and 2008 they got together and decided to fix it. Today, https://isocpp.org/ https://isocpp.org/ is a gold mine of how to do an open standard correctly. Everything is public, future features are discussed with the community, and all the working groups are on github. That is how you take a legacy standardization body and modernize it for the open source world, not make presentations at every event for over a year going "Hey guys its gonna be great! Just wait until you see it! Ooooonnnnnneeeee day! We just know you'll love it!"
- icebraining 11y ago
  The Q&A was probably the most interesting part. Hopefully the session has been recorded (some were having issues with the cameras).
amaranth 11y ago
No one has such an API, as far as I can tell. You think drivers aren't activating special code paths and replacing shader code for games that use Direct3D? I suspect we'll have a short time period where drivers don't do this for Vulkan and D3D12 before we go right back to it because in the end, whoever runs the game and runs it faster wins, no matter how broken the game is.
- jsheard 11y ago
  > No one has such an API, as far as I can tell. I think he's referring to GR_APPLICATION_INFO, which in Mantle was a struct passed during initialization containing the string names of the game and engine plus their version numbers. The intention probably is to make app specific driver paths easier to implement but as you say, driver developers would do that regardless using the name/path/checksum of the EXE if they had to. https://www.amd.com/Documents/Mantle-Programming-Guide-and-API-Reference.pdf https://www.amd.com/Documents/Mantle-Programming-Guide-and-A... (pg. 308) https://www.khronos.org/assets/uploads/developers/library/2015-gdc/Khronos-Vulkan-GDC_Mar15.pdf https://www.khronos.org/assets/uploads/developers/library/20... (pg. 13)

fitzwatermellow 11y ago

Expecting to hear more Vulkan details from Khronos at the Game Developer's Conference 2016 in March: https://www.khronos.org/news/events/gdc-2016-khronos-sessions https://www.khronos.org/news/events/gdc-2016-khronos-session...

pjmlp 11y ago

More Vulkan slides how everything is going to be great without real content[0], whereas Metal and DX 12 are already here. Not only as drivers, but also documents, books, tools and graphical debuggers. I hope this doesn't turn out into another Longs Peak. [0] Yes, I know it is Mantle inspired and I have those PDFs.

ginko 11y ago
Proprietary APIs can't be a replacement to an open industry standard.
- pjmlp 11y ago
  Well OpenGL regardless of urban myths has been mostly ignored by the games industry, except on iOS, Android and indies before the rise of middleware due to lack of proper tooling. So lets see how Vulkan will improve it.
- angersock 11y ago
  I'm pretty sure that DirectX is a living, breathing counterexample to that claim.
  - Joky 11y ago
    I'm pretty sure you missed the point...
  - shmerl 11y ago
    And how exactly can you use it on Linux or any other non MS system? It's an example of the disgusting practice of using development tools for lock-in.
    - ntakasaki 11y ago
      Or it can be a very nice object based API instead of a state based API that made sense in 1992 as the slide deck said and certainly didn't make any sense in 2008 when the industry group Khronos sided with the commercial CAD industry to screw over Linux consumer gaming because there was no money in it. How was that DirectX's fault again? I am guess you're not a game developer and your post is yet another case of [1]. I am a game dev and here are some links that show to non game devs why DirectX is more popular: http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/60544/why-do-game-developers-prefer-windows/88055#88055 http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/60544/why-do-... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2711231 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2711231 http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/opengl-directx,2019.html http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/opengl-directx,2019.html [1] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/07/linus-torvalds-microsoft-hatred-is-a-disease/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/07/linus-...

dman 11y ago

The lack of information about Vulkan is a bit concerning. For something that is about to be announced anyday now there is very little concrete information available about basic details like - what hardware that is currently shipping will support vulkan and how long after announcement will vendors have drivers out (weeks/months/years?).

anon4 11y ago
Drivers will be available on release day and all currently sold hardware will support it.
- dman 11y ago
  Thanks - is reading the Mantle docs a good way to hit the ground running with Vulkan or have things diverged significantly?
Mikeb85 11y ago
> what hardware that is currently shipping will support vulkan Any hardware that supports OpenGLES 3.1. The Khronos guys have said this in various interviews, it's easy enough to google.
SXX 11y ago
> what hardware that is currently shipping will support vulkan AMD will support it for all GCN GPUs (7000 series). Nvidia will support Vulkan for Fermi (GeForce 400) and newer. I don't really believe them here, but they even talked about Windows XP support. Announced on SIGGRAPH 2015. Intel is Haswell and newer. It's possible that Ivy Bridge may get it on Linux, but Windows driver looks unlikely as they don't even support OpenGL 4.3 in Windows. > how long after announcement will vendors have drivers out Valve demonstrated Vulkan driver developed by LunarG for Intel hardware back in March of 2015. It's will be released with source code once specification released. Nvidia driver with Vulkan (358.66) leaked in November. AMD employees confirmed they already have Vulkan working on top of new Linux AMDGPU driver. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xBuAdnIrJQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xBuAdnIrJQ * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Hth4u65zfc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Hth4u65zfc

monocasa 11y ago

I really think one of the important aspects is that it should be much easier to reverse engineer proprietary drivers now given how explicit the API is supposed to be.

dang 11y ago

Url changed from https://fosdem.org/2016/schedule/event/vulkan_graphics/ https://fosdem.org/2016/schedule/event/vulkan_graphics/, which points to this.

bsder 11y ago

At this point, my advice to the Vulkan folks is: Ship it, or shut up. I don't need another slide deck promising the universe. I need an API that I can build on even if it's primitive. And, if it's too primitive to build on, my advice would change to: Shut up and code.

jsheard 11y ago
Apparently it's been finalized for a while, they're just waiting for the green light from legal: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/khronos-group-vulkan-delay,news-52002.html http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/khronos-group-vulkan-delay,new... But I agree these shallow slide decks aren't contributing anything. Anyone who needs to know Vulkan exists knows at this point.
ntakasaki 11y ago
Also, Vulkan is going to support extensions like OpenGL did which fragmented the hell out of OpenGL. Nvidia is already beginning the lock in and fragmentation process by making Vulkan extensions. https://developer.nvidia.com/engaging-voyage-vulkan https://developer.nvidia.com/engaging-voyage-vulkan >NVIDIA will therefore provide a few Vulkan extensions from day zero, so that you as developer can enjoy less obstacles on your path to Vulkan. We will support consuming GLSL shader strings directly next to Vulkan's mandatory SPIR-V input
- gnarbarian 11y ago
  Nefarious intent aside. This will make it much easier to port large projects over piece by piece so its not an all or nothing proposal that requires a complete rewrite from day 1.

tormeh 11y ago

Newest thing I've heard is that there will be games using Vulkan at launch. So, the specification, the drivers and some game ports will all go public the same day. Anything might be holding it up (most likely the ports), but GDC in March seems like a reasonable deadline considering the amount of talks about Vulkan.

shmerl 11y ago

I hope Vulkan will catch up. And MS deserves strong disrespect for not joining the effort which can move the industry forward.