4 ms·

"Every big vendor and platform for 3D games and software, has their own graphics API which work better and faster than [..] Vulkan." [citation needed] Not tha

"Every big vendor and platform for 3D games and software, has their own graphics API which work better and faster than [..] Vulkan." [citation needed] Not that they have their own API, but that it's at all better or faster than Vulkan. Remember Vulkan primarily came from AMD's Mantle. It's not the creation of a committee catering to the lowest common denominator. And no, it's not only CAD still stuck on OpenGL. Games use it, too. Most of mobile is also on OpenGL ES. Increasingly more of them use it than they used to, even, as increasingly games are using off-the-shelf engines that are already cross-platform and have an OpenGL back-end. The single largest consumer OS in the world (Android) only supports OpenGL ES & Vulkan, even, with no proprietary graphics API of any kind.

LeoNatan25 9y ago
Actually, most iOS games in recent years have been using Metal, as are most “off the shelf” engines internally.
- kllrnohj 9y ago
  iOS is not the largest mobile OS, so 100% of iOS could be doing something and it still wouldn't be "most of mobile" ;)
  - AlphaSite 9y ago
    Most mobile users who matter (revenue).
    - kllrnohj 9y ago
      Revenue per graphics API would be fascinating, albeit very different, investigation. It would likely also put OpenGL on desktop in a very different light given the professional products still using it.
  - dingo_bat 9y ago
    iOS is definitely the most used mobile OS.
    - Intermernet 9y ago
      Do you have a link for that stat? Last time I looked android was quite a way in front in global market share[1] . Happy to be proven wrong. [1]: https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/os https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/os
      - dingo_bat 9y ago
        I don't consider "Android" to be an OS. It is like Linux, there are a hundred different OSes all running on top of the same kernel and framework. For example, the OS Samsung runs on their phones is so different from the OS Xiaomi runs on theirs that a casual user might think it's a completely different system. So lumping together all of these variants and calling them "most used OS" is not useful in any sense. They are very different for users, and very different for devs. This is specially relevant when you want to develop a game against a graphics API. Samsung has Vulkan on their flagships for a couple years now, but not the mid/low-end devices. Pixel supports Vulkan, but the units sold are so low that they are a rounding error. No other major manufacturer significantly supports Vulkan either. In this and similar scenarios, the framework used by ios may well be the "most used" mobile framework.
        Intermernet 9y ago
        > I don't consider "Android" to be an OS. Then you're correct by your definition, but not by most people's definition.
- drawkbox 9y ago
  > Actually, most iOS games in recent years have been using Metal, as are most “off the shelf” engines internally. Largely due to support in Unity/Unreal. They would be using OpenGL ES still if they had their own engines except maybe the biggest game studios that always have custom game engines/rendering integration.
pjmlp 9y ago
Vulkan support on Android is basically constrained to a few Nougat and Oreo devices. And even then, it is only required on those that support VR. Metal is supported on across all iOS devices still getting updates.
- kllrnohj 9y ago
  Android only requires GLES 2 yet 63.6% of devices support GLES 3+ anyway. Since nearly everyone's GLES 3 hardware both supports vulkan & has vulkan drivers already there's no particular reason to believe that an OEM will decide to just not ship vulkan support. It's more work for them to remove Vulkan from the SoC's base image than it is to just not touch it. The low-end GLES 2 hardware is the only problem, which is a market iOS simply doesn't exist in at all. So if you're cool with ignoring that market, go for it.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    Well Godot engine developers don't have good experience regarding GLES 3 support, at all. https://godotengine.org/article/abandoning-gles3-vulkan-and-gles2 https://godotengine.org/article/abandoning-gles3-vulkan-and-... Lets see if they have better luck with Vulkan.

LeoNatan25 9y ago

Actually, most iOS games in recent years have been using Metal, as are most “off the shelf” engines internally.

kllrnohj 9y ago
iOS is not the largest mobile OS, so 100% of iOS could be doing something and it still wouldn't be "most of mobile" ;)
- AlphaSite 9y ago
  Most mobile users who matter (revenue).
  - kllrnohj 9y ago
    Revenue per graphics API would be fascinating, albeit very different, investigation. It would likely also put OpenGL on desktop in a very different light given the professional products still using it.
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  iOS is definitely the most used mobile OS.
  - Intermernet 9y ago
    Do you have a link for that stat? Last time I looked android was quite a way in front in global market share[1] . Happy to be proven wrong. [1]: https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/os https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/os
    - dingo_bat 9y ago
      I don't consider "Android" to be an OS. It is like Linux, there are a hundred different OSes all running on top of the same kernel and framework. For example, the OS Samsung runs on their phones is so different from the OS Xiaomi runs on theirs that a casual user might think it's a completely different system. So lumping together all of these variants and calling them "most used OS" is not useful in any sense. They are very different for users, and very different for devs. This is specially relevant when you want to develop a game against a graphics API. Samsung has Vulkan on their flagships for a couple years now, but not the mid/low-end devices. Pixel supports Vulkan, but the units sold are so low that they are a rounding error. No other major manufacturer significantly supports Vulkan either. In this and similar scenarios, the framework used by ios may well be the "most used" mobile framework.
      - Intermernet 9y ago
        > I don't consider "Android" to be an OS. Then you're correct by your definition, but not by most people's definition.
drawkbox 9y ago
> Actually, most iOS games in recent years have been using Metal, as are most “off the shelf” engines internally. Largely due to support in Unity/Unreal. They would be using OpenGL ES still if they had their own engines except maybe the biggest game studios that always have custom game engines/rendering integration.

pjmlp 9y ago

Vulkan support on Android is basically constrained to a few Nougat and Oreo devices. And even then, it is only required on those that support VR. Metal is supported on across all iOS devices still getting updates.

kllrnohj 9y ago
Android only requires GLES 2 yet 63.6% of devices support GLES 3+ anyway. Since nearly everyone's GLES 3 hardware both supports vulkan & has vulkan drivers already there's no particular reason to believe that an OEM will decide to just not ship vulkan support. It's more work for them to remove Vulkan from the SoC's base image than it is to just not touch it. The low-end GLES 2 hardware is the only problem, which is a market iOS simply doesn't exist in at all. So if you're cool with ignoring that market, go for it.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  Well Godot engine developers don't have good experience regarding GLES 3 support, at all. https://godotengine.org/article/abandoning-gles3-vulkan-and-gles2 https://godotengine.org/article/abandoning-gles3-vulkan-and-... Lets see if they have better luck with Vulkan.