4 ms·

MS doesn't support Vulkan! Why are many people bashing Apple as the sole company not supporting it??? MS has abandoned OpenGL in support of D3D. Why have people

by msie 10y ago

MS doesn't support Vulkan! Why are many people bashing Apple as the sole company not supporting it??? MS has abandoned OpenGL in support of D3D. Why have people forgotten this???

jsheard 10y ago
Microsoft doesn't need to support Vulkan, because Windows is flexible enough that GPU vendors can expose other APIs like OpenGL or Vulkan without Microsoft's permission. It's a very different situation to macOS, where Apple are the sole gatekeepers of the graphics stack and nothing can ever happen without their direct support.
- vlozko 10y ago
  Not every GPU vendor or all the cards of a vendor support Vulkan. Even new ones being sold today. The adoption is broad but not complete for Windows. I guess the argument can be made that vendors ought to support it but that would vastly expand the scope of any web API Vulkanization efforts.
  - jsheard 10y ago
    Support for Vulkan on Windows is pretty extensive - AMD and Nvidia are retroactively supporting their hardware back to 2012, and Intel back to 2015, all of them on Windows 7 and up. Considering the lengthy turn-around time for these APIs (WebGL 2.0 took four years to get from a draft spec to enabled in some browsers by default), any Windows machine that couldn't run WebVulkan would be rather long in the tooth by the time the standard sees any real world use.
- msie 10y ago
  Ok, thanks. Although I'm curious about the exact details preventing it.
21 10y ago
MS might have abandoned OpenGL, but you can use the latest OpenGL version on Windows if you have an NVIDIA/AMD/Intel GPU and driver, unlike on macOS (4.1 on macOS vs 4.5 on Windows)
dman 10y ago
Because unlike OSX it is possible for end users to upgrade the supported graphics API without the OS vendor having a say. Its the exact reason why games on Windows have such a vibrant ecosystem.
- msie 10y ago
  Ok, thanks.
surfmike 10y ago
NVIDIA and Intel both ship Vulkan drivers for Windows.
- mrpippy 10y ago
  Intel ships beta/test drivers, and states they will not be supporting/distributing them as production-quality: The current Plan Of Record is that Intel® is not supporting Vulkan on Windows drivers. The drivers that were made available on Developer.com are intended for Vulkan developers. So, it is expected that some Vulkan drivers may not work for end users. https://communities.intel.com/thread/104380?start=30&tstart=0 https://communities.intel.com/thread/104380?start=30&tstart=...
  - monocasa 10y ago
    They just don't want to commit to a timeline, but they plan on supporting Vulkan for end users (hence why they care enough to even put out a beta driver). https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/developing-games-and-graphics-on-intel/topic/696380 https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/developing-games-and...

by msie 10y ago

MS doesn't support Vulkan! Why are many people bashing Apple as the sole company not supporting it??? MS has abandoned OpenGL in support of D3D. Why have people forgotten this???

jsheard 10y ago

Microsoft doesn't need to support Vulkan, because Windows is flexible enough that GPU vendors can expose other APIs like OpenGL or Vulkan without Microsoft's permission. It's a very different situation to macOS, where Apple are the sole gatekeepers of the graphics stack and nothing can ever happen without their direct support.

vlozko 10y ago
Not every GPU vendor or all the cards of a vendor support Vulkan. Even new ones being sold today. The adoption is broad but not complete for Windows. I guess the argument can be made that vendors ought to support it but that would vastly expand the scope of any web API Vulkanization efforts.
- jsheard 10y ago
  Support for Vulkan on Windows is pretty extensive - AMD and Nvidia are retroactively supporting their hardware back to 2012, and Intel back to 2015, all of them on Windows 7 and up. Considering the lengthy turn-around time for these APIs (WebGL 2.0 took four years to get from a draft spec to enabled in some browsers by default), any Windows machine that couldn't run WebVulkan would be rather long in the tooth by the time the standard sees any real world use.
msie 10y ago
Ok, thanks. Although I'm curious about the exact details preventing it.

21 10y ago

MS might have abandoned OpenGL, but you can use the latest OpenGL version on Windows if you have an NVIDIA/AMD/Intel GPU and driver, unlike on macOS (4.1 on macOS vs 4.5 on Windows)

dman 10y ago

Because unlike OSX it is possible for end users to upgrade the supported graphics API without the OS vendor having a say. Its the exact reason why games on Windows have such a vibrant ecosystem.

msie 10y ago
Ok, thanks.

surfmike 10y ago

NVIDIA and Intel both ship Vulkan drivers for Windows.

mrpippy 10y ago
Intel ships beta/test drivers, and states they will not be supporting/distributing them as production-quality: The current Plan Of Record is that Intel® is not supporting Vulkan on Windows drivers. The drivers that were made available on Developer.com are intended for Vulkan developers. So, it is expected that some Vulkan drivers may not work for end users. https://communities.intel.com/thread/104380?start=30&tstart=0 https://communities.intel.com/thread/104380?start=30&tstart=...
- monocasa 10y ago
  They just don't want to commit to a timeline, but they plan on supporting Vulkan for end users (hence why they care enough to even put out a beta driver). https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/developing-games-and-graphics-on-intel/topic/696380 https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/developing-games-and...