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Why come up with a new API for this? Why not use the one supported by Google, and MS, Vulkan? We dont need another (a fourth!) API for the same thing. Introd

by sydd 10y ago

Why come up with a new API for this? Why not use the one supported by Google, and MS, Vulkan? We dont need another (a fourth!) API for the same thing. Introduce a web variant like Khronos with with WebGL (its almost like OpenGL ES, which is almost like OpenGL).

acqq 10y ago
> Why not use the one supported by Google, and MS, Vulkan? https://www.lunarg.com/faqs/microsoft-support-vulkan/ https://www.lunarg.com/faqs/microsoft-support-vulkan/ "Microsoft has not expressed intent to support Vulkan."
- goldfire 10y ago
  They don't need to support it, because the GPU vendors have done so in their drivers, so it works fine on Windows without Microsoft's assistance.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    Not on UWP applications, which are the future.
    - douche 10y ago
      They've been saying that for a few years, but nobody seems to be buying it. The store is still a wasteland of mobile-style shovelware, and none of the real Windows applications have made the jump, far as I have seen.
      - pjmlp 10y ago
        Many of the Windows 10 applications like the file explorer and Edge are UWP. Also the majority of all the new OS APIs are UWP only.
        sydd 10y ago
        I dontknow, what are you trying to prove? Its a fact that from the new, low-level APIs (Vulkan, Metal, DX 12) Vulkan has the most widespread support: Vulkan: Its on most Windows PCs, most Linux PCs, on newer Android devices, and on the Nintendo Switch. Also there are rumours of the next PS going with Vulkan too. DX12: most Windows PCs, XBox One. Metal: iOS/OSX only. So its clearly the future on the desktop market. Obviously it will take a few years for it to spread, since AAA game companies go for the proven solutions. On mobile, we will see, I cant imagine Google adopting Metal or DX12, and Apple sadly seems to be sticking to their proprietary API.
        pjmlp 10y ago
        > Vulkan: Its on most Windows PCs, most Linux PCs, on newer Android devices, and on the Nintendo Switch. Also there are rumours of the next PS going with Vulkan too. The most Windows PCs have Intel cards, which only have a beta driver available. The majority of AMD and NVidia owners with Vulkan support, are on Windows 10, which supports DX12 anyway. Newer Android devices, means Android 7, which thanks to how update process works, a whooping 0.7% market share, composed of Google Pixel, Smasung S7 and LG v20. Nintendo has added Vulkan support to Switch, but they are only testing waters, the actual API that allows to make full use of the available hardware is called NVN. Sony, I really doubt it. The PS4 APIs, the successor of LibCGM is actually quite close to DX 12 and the PS 3 experience with OpenGL ES wasn't that great. http://sandstormgames.ca/blog/tag/libgcm/ http://sandstormgames.ca/blog/tag/libgcm/ Vulkan is still catching up with DX12 for stuff like multi-GPU processing. Linux PCs are just 2% on Steam, and drivers are kind of working, hardly a value proposition to make to most professional game studios. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynyO3O3zd3E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynyO3O3zd3E
- sydd 10y ago
  and the next sentence goes "However, there are well defined mechanisms by which IHVs can ship a Vulkan driver on any version of Windows. But it will be as it is the case now with OpenGL. That is, it is up to the application to negotiate with the implementation to install an appropriate Vulkan driver for the hardware that is on the machine." Also "Vulkan is available on all versions of Windows that are on DirectX 12, so there is potentially some value to the developer community to having a single API that spans multiple Windows versions." Vulkan is fully supported on Windows with semi-recent GPUs (e.g. its supported by Nvidia with Geforce 6xx - released in 2012!) by all vendors. The article is only saying that MS defers what API is supported to GPU manufacturers. Its not supported by Xbox and Windows Phones, but Xbox is a very different market and no one cares about Windows Phone.
  - acqq 10y ago
    > by all vendors NVIDIA and ATI are hardly "all" vendors I care about. I'm personally not interested in the big desktop PCs. YMMV of course. But I'm personally very against "winner takes it all" and I'd really like some more universal web API, especially one that consumes less power on the iOS devices. Edit: the answer to the question below by sydd: I'm honestly and pragmatically interested in iOS and Apple devices, not Microsoft, and not the Google-controlled ones. All these comments are about Apple's proposal for a standard for Web. I'm with the ones having the smaller market share here. I'm still sad Opera Presto is no more. I consider such "smaller" players extremely important for the web.
    - sydd 10y ago
      Then which vendors do you care about from the Microsoft ecosystem (which this thread is about)? Vulkan is supported by Nvidia, AMD and Intel, I think this covers >99% of the Windows landscape. Windows phone? or Xbox? Hololens?
      - kalleboo 10y ago
        Intel does not support Vulkan. They had some beta drivers for devs to test on, but no further plans

by sydd 10y ago

acqq 10y ago

> Why not use the one supported by Google, and MS, Vulkan? https://www.lunarg.com/faqs/microsoft-support-vulkan/ https://www.lunarg.com/faqs/microsoft-support-vulkan/ "Microsoft has not expressed intent to support Vulkan."

goldfire 10y ago
They don't need to support it, because the GPU vendors have done so in their drivers, so it works fine on Windows without Microsoft's assistance.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Not on UWP applications, which are the future.
  - douche 10y ago
    They've been saying that for a few years, but nobody seems to be buying it. The store is still a wasteland of mobile-style shovelware, and none of the real Windows applications have made the jump, far as I have seen.
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      Many of the Windows 10 applications like the file explorer and Edge are UWP. Also the majority of all the new OS APIs are UWP only.
      - sydd 10y ago
        I dontknow, what are you trying to prove? Its a fact that from the new, low-level APIs (Vulkan, Metal, DX 12) Vulkan has the most widespread support: Vulkan: Its on most Windows PCs, most Linux PCs, on newer Android devices, and on the Nintendo Switch. Also there are rumours of the next PS going with Vulkan too. DX12: most Windows PCs, XBox One. Metal: iOS/OSX only. So its clearly the future on the desktop market. Obviously it will take a few years for it to spread, since AAA game companies go for the proven solutions. On mobile, we will see, I cant imagine Google adopting Metal or DX12, and Apple sadly seems to be sticking to their proprietary API.
        pjmlp 10y ago
        > Vulkan: Its on most Windows PCs, most Linux PCs, on newer Android devices, and on the Nintendo Switch. Also there are rumours of the next PS going with Vulkan too. The most Windows PCs have Intel cards, which only have a beta driver available. The majority of AMD and NVidia owners with Vulkan support, are on Windows 10, which supports DX12 anyway. Newer Android devices, means Android 7, which thanks to how update process works, a whooping 0.7% market share, composed of Google Pixel, Smasung S7 and LG v20. Nintendo has added Vulkan support to Switch, but they are only testing waters, the actual API that allows to make full use of the available hardware is called NVN. Sony, I really doubt it. The PS4 APIs, the successor of LibCGM is actually quite close to DX 12 and the PS 3 experience with OpenGL ES wasn't that great. http://sandstormgames.ca/blog/tag/libgcm/ http://sandstormgames.ca/blog/tag/libgcm/ Vulkan is still catching up with DX12 for stuff like multi-GPU processing. Linux PCs are just 2% on Steam, and drivers are kind of working, hardly a value proposition to make to most professional game studios. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynyO3O3zd3E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynyO3O3zd3E
sydd 10y ago
and the next sentence goes "However, there are well defined mechanisms by which IHVs can ship a Vulkan driver on any version of Windows. But it will be as it is the case now with OpenGL. That is, it is up to the application to negotiate with the implementation to install an appropriate Vulkan driver for the hardware that is on the machine." Also "Vulkan is available on all versions of Windows that are on DirectX 12, so there is potentially some value to the developer community to having a single API that spans multiple Windows versions." Vulkan is fully supported on Windows with semi-recent GPUs (e.g. its supported by Nvidia with Geforce 6xx - released in 2012!) by all vendors. The article is only saying that MS defers what API is supported to GPU manufacturers. Its not supported by Xbox and Windows Phones, but Xbox is a very different market and no one cares about Windows Phone.
- acqq 10y ago
  > by all vendors NVIDIA and ATI are hardly "all" vendors I care about. I'm personally not interested in the big desktop PCs. YMMV of course. But I'm personally very against "winner takes it all" and I'd really like some more universal web API, especially one that consumes less power on the iOS devices. Edit: the answer to the question below by sydd: I'm honestly and pragmatically interested in iOS and Apple devices, not Microsoft, and not the Google-controlled ones. All these comments are about Apple's proposal for a standard for Web. I'm with the ones having the smaller market share here. I'm still sad Opera Presto is no more. I consider such "smaller" players extremely important for the web.
  - sydd 10y ago
    Then which vendors do you care about from the Microsoft ecosystem (which this thread is about)? Vulkan is supported by Nvidia, AMD and Intel, I think this covers >99% of the Windows landscape. Windows phone? or Xbox? Hololens?
    - kalleboo 10y ago
      Intel does not support Vulkan. They had some beta drivers for devs to test on, but no further plans