5 ms·

How does Vulkan make life better for developers today? Isn't that more on hardware devs?

shmerl 11y ago
> How does Vulkan make life better for developers today? Assuming Vulkan drivers are ironed out (now they are still fresh), it makes life easier by removing the need to implement different APIs for each platform. By sabotaging such option, MS taxes developers which want to target their Xbox for instance requiring them to use DX12 instead.
- cptskippy 11y ago
  How has Microsoft sabotaged Vulkan? They haven't, Windows is one of the very few places that Vulkan will actually run. They offered a competing technology, DX12, that works today... and 6 months ago. Vulkan might work in 6 months... or not.
  - shmerl 11y ago
    > How has Microsoft sabotaged Vulkan? By not supporting it on Xbox which is a walled garden. Since Xbox has a significant market share, they essentially force developers not to use Vulkan (and use DX12) if they want to target Xbox. Compare it to browser wars of the past. MS did the same thing exactly, and the only reason they magically started supporting shared Web standards is because they lost those wars. Today it's a real wonder - they even decided to support free video codecs in the browser (while Apple still refuses).
    - Delmania 11y ago
      I'm failing to see how that sabotages Vulkan. As far as I know, Vulkan has only recently reached 1.0, and nVidia JUST started supporting it. Until recently, there was nothing to support. Your entire complaint is that developers have to do more work if they want to support multiple platforms, which has always been the case. I don't recall the original Final Fantasy getting released on the Sega Genesis. There's never going to be a magical catch-all graphics API because technologies like Metal and DirectX take advantage of known hardware specs and OS features to make the games look good and run fast.
      - shmerl 11y ago
        > I'm failing to see how that sabotages Vulkan. In order for cross platform solution to offer value of avoiding duplicate work, it should be really cross platform. MS prevents prevents it by not supporting it on Xbox. > which has always been the case Exactly because of such lock-in. > technologies like Metal and DirectX take advantage of known hardware specs and OS features Let's not try pretending that MS and Apple do it for any technical reasons. There are none.
        coldtea 11y ago
        I think you just blindly champion Vulkan, an unproven and not read for primetime technology. The two largest platforms, MS and Apple have their own stacks, Metal and DX12. And they have been maintaining those from years, especially DX12 which comes from decades of DX development. They should throw all this away (and lose any competitive advantage for their platform in the process) just because there's finally a competent new stack (that's not even ready yet)? >Let's not try pretending that MS and Apple do it for any technical reasons. There are none. Would wanting to offer the best possible experience for your platform, to control how and when any new feature is implemented according to your long term plans, and to not mess with lower-common-denominator cross-platform design-by-committee APIs counts as a "technical reason"? Let's not pretend you ask for this for any technical reason. It's all about developer convenience at best.
        shmerl 11y ago
        > I think you just blindly champion Vulkan, an unproven and not read for primetime technology. It's the only cross platform solution. So yes, it should be pushed forward to make it work. It's not a "blind" push - it's the only reasonable thing out there. Neither Metal nor DX12 plan to do anything comparable. Petty greed of Apple and MS prevents them.
        KirinDave 11y ago
        What you are asking for may become a reality, but Vulkan is not something that any reasonable primetime product should have even considered trying to support until what, like... was it 2 months ago now or not yet? The XBox is not a tech test platform. Neither are the mobile handsets. Claiming this reality amounts to "sabotage" is somewhat absurd.

> How does Vulkan make life better for developers today? Assuming Vulkan drivers are ironed out (now they are still fresh), it makes life easier by removing the need to implement different APIs for each platform. By sabotaging such option, MS taxes developers which want to target their Xbox for instance requiring them to use DX12 instead.

cptskippy 11y ago
How has Microsoft sabotaged Vulkan? They haven't, Windows is one of the very few places that Vulkan will actually run. They offered a competing technology, DX12, that works today... and 6 months ago. Vulkan might work in 6 months... or not.
- shmerl 11y ago
  > How has Microsoft sabotaged Vulkan? By not supporting it on Xbox which is a walled garden. Since Xbox has a significant market share, they essentially force developers not to use Vulkan (and use DX12) if they want to target Xbox. Compare it to browser wars of the past. MS did the same thing exactly, and the only reason they magically started supporting shared Web standards is because they lost those wars. Today it's a real wonder - they even decided to support free video codecs in the browser (while Apple still refuses).
  - Delmania 11y ago
    I'm failing to see how that sabotages Vulkan. As far as I know, Vulkan has only recently reached 1.0, and nVidia JUST started supporting it. Until recently, there was nothing to support. Your entire complaint is that developers have to do more work if they want to support multiple platforms, which has always been the case. I don't recall the original Final Fantasy getting released on the Sega Genesis. There's never going to be a magical catch-all graphics API because technologies like Metal and DirectX take advantage of known hardware specs and OS features to make the games look good and run fast.
    - shmerl 11y ago
      > I'm failing to see how that sabotages Vulkan. In order for cross platform solution to offer value of avoiding duplicate work, it should be really cross platform. MS prevents prevents it by not supporting it on Xbox. > which has always been the case Exactly because of such lock-in. > technologies like Metal and DirectX take advantage of known hardware specs and OS features Let's not try pretending that MS and Apple do it for any technical reasons. There are none.
      - coldtea 11y ago
        I think you just blindly champion Vulkan, an unproven and not read for primetime technology. The two largest platforms, MS and Apple have their own stacks, Metal and DX12. And they have been maintaining those from years, especially DX12 which comes from decades of DX development. They should throw all this away (and lose any competitive advantage for their platform in the process) just because there's finally a competent new stack (that's not even ready yet)? >Let's not try pretending that MS and Apple do it for any technical reasons. There are none. Would wanting to offer the best possible experience for your platform, to control how and when any new feature is implemented according to your long term plans, and to not mess with lower-common-denominator cross-platform design-by-committee APIs counts as a "technical reason"? Let's not pretend you ask for this for any technical reason. It's all about developer convenience at best.
        shmerl 11y ago
        > I think you just blindly champion Vulkan, an unproven and not read for primetime technology. It's the only cross platform solution. So yes, it should be pushed forward to make it work. It's not a "blind" push - it's the only reasonable thing out there. Neither Metal nor DX12 plan to do anything comparable. Petty greed of Apple and MS prevents them.
        KirinDave 11y ago
        What you are asking for may become a reality, but Vulkan is not something that any reasonable primetime product should have even considered trying to support until what, like... was it 2 months ago now or not yet? The XBox is not a tech test platform. Neither are the mobile handsets. Claiming this reality amounts to "sabotage" is somewhat absurd.