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The graphics API isn't that big a deal anymore. It's often a pretty small part of the engine codebase. Many games, especially those built on the popular engines

The graphics API isn't that big a deal anymore. It's often a pretty small part of the engine codebase. Many games, especially those built on the popular engines like Unity, support both DirectX and Vulkan (and Sony's API too).

shmerl 7y ago
It is a lot bigger deal than you think, including for those very engine developers who work on Unity and etc. Having to deal with all extra lock-in APIs doesn't come for free. It takes time, resources and slows down releasing features to their users.
- unsigner 7y ago
  Vulkan _is_ a lock-in API, locking you into Google platforms; the one commercially viable platform using it is [recent versions of] Google's Android with another one on the horizon - Google Stadia. It's not necessary on Windows, not available on two of the three consoles, and not available without a wrapper on iOS and OSX. (Technically, it is also available on Nintendo Switch, but there's also an arguably better alternative there.)
  - shmerl 7y ago
    What? Vulkan is cross platform, not limited to Google or anyone else. You want Vulkan on your hardware and your OS? No one is stopping you from making a driver for it, it's an open API. For example, radv was made as Vulkan driver for AMD on Linux without AMD directly involved even (with big contributions from Valve). If MS and Sony wanted, they could have Vulkan driver for Xbox and PlayStation tomorrow, since they are all using AMD GPUs. And no one stopped Apple from supporting Vulkan on their systems either. They don't, since they are also lock-in jerks, which is exactly the point I was making above.
  - skohan 7y ago
    That's just plain incorrect. There are already mainstream AAA titles targeting Vulkan published for Windows and macOS (via MoltenVK). Doom Eternal will only target Vulkan on PC : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Tech_7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Tech_7
chronogram 7y ago
And OpenGL and Metal, and even the web! With a sweeping generalisation I'm going to say that a games company is either too small to care about the graphics API, or too big to care.
- skohan 7y ago
  Tell that to graphics programmers. Imagine how much better performance you could expect from games if they could spend their time optimizing for one API, and not making compromises to target a half dozen.
  - la_barba 7y ago
    > Imagine how much better performance you could expect from games if they could spend their time optimizing for one API, and not making compromises to target a half dozen. That is not really an accurate statement. Graphics performance is heavily dependent on the actual hardware design of the underlying platform. You can't wave a magic API-wand and have your executable or shader be magically fast on every hardware platform.
    - savethefuture 7y ago
      Why couldn't it, you dont think software updates can improve performance across the board? But his point was developers could focus on a single api rather than having to deal with quirks in directx, opengl, vulkan, webgl, etc.
      - la_barba 7y ago
        >But his point was developers could focus on a single api rather than having to deal with quirks in directx, opengl, vulkan, webgl, etc. That is really an imagined scenario. An extremely tiny minority of games are targeted for such a wide variety of platforms. Real-time high-performance code is always tightly coupled with the hardware - if you want to squeeze performance out of hardware, you want to minimize abstractions to such a level as they don't hurt your productivity. If you're targeting consoles, you can maybe target the PC platform. But there is no way you're targeting the nintendo DS or a smartphone with the same codebase without major modifications to the graphics code.

shmerl 7y ago

It is a lot bigger deal than you think, including for those very engine developers who work on Unity and etc. Having to deal with all extra lock-in APIs doesn't come for free. It takes time, resources and slows down releasing features to their users.

unsigner 7y ago
Vulkan _is_ a lock-in API, locking you into Google platforms; the one commercially viable platform using it is [recent versions of] Google's Android with another one on the horizon - Google Stadia. It's not necessary on Windows, not available on two of the three consoles, and not available without a wrapper on iOS and OSX. (Technically, it is also available on Nintendo Switch, but there's also an arguably better alternative there.)
- shmerl 7y ago
  What? Vulkan is cross platform, not limited to Google or anyone else. You want Vulkan on your hardware and your OS? No one is stopping you from making a driver for it, it's an open API. For example, radv was made as Vulkan driver for AMD on Linux without AMD directly involved even (with big contributions from Valve). If MS and Sony wanted, they could have Vulkan driver for Xbox and PlayStation tomorrow, since they are all using AMD GPUs. And no one stopped Apple from supporting Vulkan on their systems either. They don't, since they are also lock-in jerks, which is exactly the point I was making above.
- skohan 7y ago
  That's just plain incorrect. There are already mainstream AAA titles targeting Vulkan published for Windows and macOS (via MoltenVK). Doom Eternal will only target Vulkan on PC : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Tech_7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Tech_7

chronogram 7y ago

And OpenGL and Metal, and even the web! With a sweeping generalisation I'm going to say that a games company is either too small to care about the graphics API, or too big to care.

skohan 7y ago
Tell that to graphics programmers. Imagine how much better performance you could expect from games if they could spend their time optimizing for one API, and not making compromises to target a half dozen.
- la_barba 7y ago
  > Imagine how much better performance you could expect from games if they could spend their time optimizing for one API, and not making compromises to target a half dozen. That is not really an accurate statement. Graphics performance is heavily dependent on the actual hardware design of the underlying platform. You can't wave a magic API-wand and have your executable or shader be magically fast on every hardware platform.
  - savethefuture 7y ago
    Why couldn't it, you dont think software updates can improve performance across the board? But his point was developers could focus on a single api rather than having to deal with quirks in directx, opengl, vulkan, webgl, etc.
    - la_barba 7y ago
      >But his point was developers could focus on a single api rather than having to deal with quirks in directx, opengl, vulkan, webgl, etc. That is really an imagined scenario. An extremely tiny minority of games are targeted for such a wide variety of platforms. Real-time high-performance code is always tightly coupled with the hardware - if you want to squeeze performance out of hardware, you want to minimize abstractions to such a level as they don't hurt your productivity. If you're targeting consoles, you can maybe target the PC platform. But there is no way you're targeting the nintendo DS or a smartphone with the same codebase without major modifications to the graphics code.